The Work That Transforms

I spent most of my life going fucking nowhere.

If anywhere, I was heading straight to rock bottom.

And I ain't never going back there.

The Years of Being Told You're Wrong

I spent the greater part of my life being told I was strange. Weird. Not good enough. That can't be possible. You can't do that.

Every single person trying to put me in my place.

It drove me to the point of black hole depression and despair. To feel so alien and isolated and completely alone—while at the same time knowing what I saw and what I felt inside was authentic and true.

That's the real suffering. Not the external judgment. The internal war between what you know to be true and what the world keeps insisting you accept.

The Breaking Point

I don't talk about this often, but I was lucky to survive those years. Travel, drug abuse, depression—the holy trinity of running from yourself.

And then one night, everything changed.

The Japanese call it satori—a sudden flash of enlightenment. I still recall that exact day. Everything before it belongs to a different person. Everything after has been building on that beautiful act of self-realization.

"I never expected any of this. I never forced it to be so. And there's a large part of me that still doesn't fully understand it. All I know is that it's happening."

What I Have Now

Here's what I know with absolute certainty:

I have the thing that every human being on this planet is actually seeking.

Whether they know it or not.

This isn't a belief. This isn't fanciful thinking. It's the motherfucking gospel. I have lived through it and I am living it now.

I am deeply grateful for all of those experiences and all the people that did their part—because it actually forged me into something that I authentically wouldn't trade places with anybody on this planet.

I don't think many people can actually say that.

There's no place I would rather be. There's no person I would rather trade places with.

The Work

When I say do the work, it's because I know that it's the work that transmutes us:

• From disconnected and immature, impulsive, self-indulgent, and self-centered...
• Into mindful, present, upright, wise human beings.

The Urgency

I have this overwhelming sense of urgency. Like I have to do whatever I can, because what's coming is going to be so unsettling and so disruptive that this world at large is going to need all the help it can get.

It's almost as if my entire life experience was leading up to this very crossroads moment.

I only wanted to build beautiful things and to figure things out. To be around other people that were likewise—because it's fun and exciting and invigorating to do so.

The Call

And I'm telling you, all my fair weather friends...

You'll never be able to get to where you're going by paying attention to all the wrong factors in the equation.

You have to begin paying attention to what has actually been here all along.

You've been skimming the surface. Spinning your wheels. Escaping. Pursuing pleasure and avoiding the work.