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ILLUSIONS MISTAKEN FOR TRUTH ARE THE PAVEMENT UNDER OUR FEET.

—Barbara Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible

In the chapters that follow, I'm going to present seven BIG attitudes that are second nature to People Who Live Big. The good news is, these are all attitudes you used to have. They're attitudes from your childhood, attitudes that are hard-wired into your very being.

Living Big makes the argument that these childhood attitudes are the big, important things in life—the attitudes we had before we learned it was wrong to jump on the bed.

Let's go back to our childhoods, when anything was possible. Back before we learned to “wipe that silly grin off” our face, before we were told to “watch out,” “be careful,” “avoid strangers.” Other than the bit about drinking eight glasses of water a day, most of what “they say” is wrong. Or at least irrelevant, unnecessary, and unproductive for growing a big life.

Marianne Williamson tells the story of a little girl who showed her teacher a picture she had painted of a purple tree. The teacher, said, “Sweetheart, I've never seen a purple tree, now have I?”

“That's too bad,” said the little girl. “That's really too bad.”

And while it's “too bad” that you, too, might have forgotten about purple trees and the unfathomable depths within you, it's “really good” that you're here now, ready to remember.

1. Thinking Big: The Attitude of Boldness, or why it's not necessary to “be careful.” By the time we start grade school, most of us have heard the phrase “Be careful” at least 10,000 times. It's practically a mother's moral imperative to utter that warning every time her kid jumps on a jungle gym, joins a soccer team, or pursues the boy she has a big crush on.

Instead, we should urge our kids to throw caution to the wind.

“Get out there.”

“Take risks.”

“Fall flat on your face.”

Being careful gets us nowhere. If Martin Luther King, Jr., had been careful, he'd have never had a dream that someday people would not be judged by the color of their skin. If Christopher Columbus had been careful, he'd have never made it to the New World. Hey, as far as his parents knew, the world was flat and he was at great risk for falling off the edge.

The first attitude of Living Big is Thinking Big, or the Attitude of Boldness. People Who Live Big are not careful. They don't settle. They do not feel obligated to do things just because their parents did. Or because the Joneses did. People Who Live Big don't care what anybody else thinks. They, as Nike likes to say, “just do it!”

2. Giving Big: The Attitude of Service, or why it's unnecessary to “always look out for number one.” “They say” it's important to watch our backs, to protect our own space. But ironically enough, the defining moment, the turning point for each of the Big People profiled in this book was the moment they finally decided to “get over themselves.” Andrea Campbell met twenty deformed kids from Russia while sitting in a doctor's office and realized, “Whoa, what do I have to worry about?” For Patch Adams, it was having empathy for a lonely guy who had no friends. James Twyman got over himself by working with homeless AIDS victims.

The second attitude of Living Big is Giving Big, or the Attitude of Service. It's being able to give everything you've got without the slightest thought of recompense. You don't have to have a big intellect or a great talent to be a giant. But you must rise above the mediocre thinking that insists it's only prudent to “look out for number one.”

3. Blessing Big: The Attitude of Kindness, or why you should “always speak to strangers.” From the time we're old enough to toddle away, we've been told we should avoid people we don't know. “They say” it's prudent to be cautious until we get a letter of recommendation.

After all, they say, “There are lots of crazies out there.”

But you know what? 99.9 percent of all the people in this world are really nice. For every loony bin that makes the news, there are 5,000 people who would gladly give you the coat off their back. By being suspicious, distrustful, unwilling to talk to strangers, we promote suspiciousness and distrust, plus we miss out on a huge group of wonderful friends.

So I say, “Speak to strangers.”

In fact, speak until there are no strangers.

The third attitude of Living Big is Blessing Big, or the Attitude of Kindness. It means connecting with other people. Spreading love and goodness. Each of us is assigned a plot in the big cosmic garden. We can either tend it kindly and joyously, or we can watch mindlessly while it grows weeds.

4. Making a Big Difference: The Attitude of Commitment, or why you should never “just sit there and watch TV.” This is probably the biggest deterrent to living a full, joyful life. Passivity.

We have become viewers instead of doers. Recent studies show that the average American is three to four times more likely to watch TV on any given evening than to talk with family and friends. The typical American father spends ten minutes a day talking to his children. Time in front of the TV? Four to six hours. That's more than a third of our waking lives. No offense, but it takes more skill to brush your teeth than it does to watch TV.

Slowly, over time, we have given up our inheritance. We have turned over our power to think for ourselves, to make things up, to imagine, to plan, and to dream. Inside each and every one of us is a master chef, an inventor, a writer, a leader. All these heroes, these immense giants that exist within our souls, are sick to death of watching “Days of Our Lives.”

Sure, we may know about every famine that hits Africa, the scores of every sporting event, and every nuance of the latest crime. But what do we do about it?

“Just sit there and watch TV.”

An Amish woman in southern Pennsylvania once told a pollster who asked about modern conveniences, “We don't want TV because it would keep us from visiting our neighbors. How can we care for each other if we do not know our neighbors?”

The fourth component of Living Big is Making a Big Difference, or the Attitude of Commitment. It means taking up a cause, leaving a legacy. It means standing up and taking action, believing in the power of one person to make a difference.

5. Imagining Big: The Attitude of Creativity, or why you should never “stay in line.” The only problem with this often-heard piece of advice is that nobody knows where the line is. And anybody who pretends to is, at best, showing you his or her own line. Which is fine for them. But it's not your line. Pretty much anything is possible, and you are free to adapt any guidelines you choose. But there is no line.

French naturalist John Henry Fabre did an interesting experiment with processionary caterpillars. Their name should pretty much give them away: They get in a line and blindly follow the procession. It doesn't matter if the leader is heading over a cliff or under a car tire. The good little caterpillars stay in line. Fabre filled a large flower pot with dirt. Around the rim, he placed fifteen processionary caterpillars. Sure enough, they followed each other, around and around the circle, until it was impossible to tell which was the leader and which were the followers.

In the center of the lower pot, he put a plentiful supply of pine needles, the caterpillar's main food source. Unfortunately, the caterpillars marched around and around for seven days and seven nights until they finally keeled over from starvation and exhaustion.

I think that's what we've done. We've lost track of who is the leader and who is the follower. I don't mean to point fingers, but maybe staying in line is leading us to a bland, exhausting, and spiritually starved march toward nothingness. We need to get out of our line and express who we really are.

The fifth attitude of Living Big is Imagining Big, or the Attitude of Creativity. On the day you were born, God presented you with a creative gift. It is a gift the world needs. Imagining Big means being open to the magic, the deep vistas that fill up your soul.

6. Playing Big: The Attitude of Happiness, or why you should never “wipe that silly grin off your face.” “They say” we should not allow ourselves to be sidetracked with goofiness. Our job is to “do our job” and to “contribute to the growth of our nation.”

Silliness, they say, is a waste of valuable time.

To that, I say, “Lo-to-to.” In fact, we need more silliness, more willingness to look like a crackpot.

The word silly was originally a Middle English word, sillig, that meant “blessing.” If all of us were willing to do three silly things a day, things like wear our coats backward or yodel on traffic-jammed freeways, we would unquestionably receive more blessings. We would be freer to break new paths, find new adventures. As People Who Live Big, we are not here to do what has already been done.

Maybe all of us should loosen up a bit and hitch our dreams to a sillier star.

The sixth attitude of Living Big is Playing Big, or what I call the Attitude of Happiness. It means seeing life as a grand adventure, viewing each day as an unusual and exciting experience.

7. Loving Big: The Attitude of Spirituality, or why it really doesn't matter if you “always wear clean underwear.” There's just one problem with this bit of well-meaning advice. Clean underwear focuses on material things. It insinuates that if you have the right underwear or the right furniture or the right car that somehow life will be smoother. Material things, in case you haven't figured out by now, do not make us happy.

In fact, I would hazard to say that our blind chase for the material is what makes us so unhappy and so stressed. It doesn't make a bit of difference what kind of underwear you're wearing. The only things that matters are what dreams are written on your heart and how much compassion and love can you spread to your fellow man.

The last attitude of Living Big is Loving Big, or the Attitude of Spirituality. You're not doing anyone any favors when you play small. Loving Big means recognizing who you are and why you're here.