Читать книгу Living Big - Пэм Гроут - Страница 9

EVERY DAY, YOU ARE SIGNALED AND SUMMONED TO EMBARK ON A JOURNEY BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF ALL YOU HAVE EVER KNOWN. YOU NEED ONLY RELINQUISH YOUR FEARS, OPEN YOUR HEART AND BEGIN.

—Bob Savino, As the Spirit Moves

The average human being squanders his imagination, hoards her love, and has no clue about the depths that exist within his own soul.

Or, as the great poet Ranier Maria Rilke put it, “Most people come to know only one corner of their room, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth.”

Living Big is about discovering the rest of your room.

We all know the pitiful statistic about our brainpower: that we use a scant 10 percent of what's available. What's worse is we use even less of our love, acknowledge only a fraction of our feelings, and cower in the face of our highest dreams.

If you ask me, the reason five out of ten people in this country hate their jobs and 17 million are clinically depressed is that they're leading lives that are “way beneath them.” They're exhausting themselves on meaningless things.

Scientists estimate the average human being has 60,000 thoughts a day. A pretty impressive statistic until you hear this one: All but 2 percent of those 60,000 thoughts are the same ones you had yesterday.

Just think what we could do if we used that other 98 percent to think up new ideas, to dive into life's mysteries, to solve the problems that face our world? Mist of us waste our 60,000 thoughts on trivial, insignificant, thoroughly meaningless things. Look at the cover of a typical woman's magazine:

“Lose 5 Pounds by Christmas”

“101 Ways to Regain Your Energy”

“Drive Your Lover Wild in Bed”

Don't we have anything better to read about? If the 7 million readers of Ladies' Home Journal would all wonder instead, “What can I do to improve my own soul?” or, “How could I make our schools more loving?” the big problems we're so afraid of would be solved in a year. Seven million people focusing on issues like that would be an unstoppable force.

But instead we focus on absurd trivialities. We live at half-throttle. We suit up for hopscotch when we could be performing miracles. We're completely oblivious to our own majesty, to the fact that the very heartbeat of the Divine thrums through our veins. Instead of greeting each day with our holy gifts, we pound on the snooze button, desperate for fifteen more minutes. Therein lies the source of all our problems.

Living Big is a book about hooking into the other 90 percent of our brains, loving with every ounce of our souls, stepping up to claim our wildest dreams.

I used to think a big life meant getting on The Late Show with David Letterman. I used to worry I'd never find anything to inspire producers to call directory assistance for my number. I knew good and well I'd never be an actor, the odds of me making the Olympics were about 285 million to 1, and my pets, despite my insistent coaching, could never seem to master any stupid pet tricks.

And then I realized that many of the people on the talk show circuit, while certainly glamorous, are probably not any bigger than the Great and Terrible Oz once you actually peek behind the curtain. Yes, some of the TV actors we idolize are living big lives, but many of them are just as small and scared as the rest of us. And on the same token, there are hundreds of people whose names you've never heard of who are living giant, Titanic-sized lives.

So among other things, Living Big is a book of stories. It's about ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things. It's about visionaries, dreamers, people who discarded the cushy and glamorous for a more meaningful vision. People who are on a crusade.

Some of the people in this book are out to save the world—to clean up polluted oceans, to preserve ancient cultures, to administer CPR to antiquated political systems. Others long to introduce adventure and spirit to a society that has practically forgotten how to smile. Still others just want to have peace. But no matter what the mission, no matter what the vision, the people in this book all know that life is to be cherished, that “No” is never the right answer, and that one person can make a difference. Or at least an awfully big dent.

And while Living Big may appear to be a book about heroes, about other people, it's also a book about you. About what's possible within you.

The people in this book haven't done anything you can't do. It's important to remember that. These people who live big simply took their gifts and put them to use. It is my hope that their inspiration will be the foundation for your own Big Life. That their passion will inspire you to find your own purpose, your own mission in life.

All of us have one.

The first step to Living Big is simple awareness, realizing it is possible, acknowledging that time and time again, human beings have risen above their limitations to achieve extraordinary things.