Learning How To Surf Life's Waves

I was reading the following story about the oldest woman alive to Grandma Bette just now, waking her up because the time change is still throwing me off. She's OK with me waking her up, telling me she looks forward to my calls.

Only a few years ago she was telling me she didn't know why she was still around. Now she happily retells how others tell her she is so blessed to have her children and grandchildren calling her all the time.

*The attention has given her reason to live.

The love I have for her is my motivation for creating the wealth to own a helicopter so I can visit her more often. She and I have named it, "The Bette". A pursuit of any goal, created from a place of great love, allows for great confidence in its manifestation.

The simple goal of wanting to stay alive is entirely possible, if given enough attention.

Jeanne Louise Calment, who died at 122 years and 164 days of age, lived to be the oldest person on record. Though her parents and siblings also lived to an advanced age, she outlived them all. An active woman, Calment continued to ride a bicycle until she was 100 years old and lived independently until she was nearly 110. At 114, she became the world's oldest actress, appearing as herself in the family film Vincent and Me.

Jeanne Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85, she took up fencing. At 100, she was still riding a bicycle. Jeanne lived on her own until shortly before her 110th birthday, when her cooking caused an accidental fire in her apartment and it was decided that she needed to be moved to a nursing home. However, Jeanne was still in good shape, and was able to walk until a fall at age 114 years and 11 months.

Jeanne survived a hip operation in January 1990 to become the oldest verified surgery patient. Although she needed to use a wheelchair afterward, Jeanne remained talkative and received frequent visitors until her 122nd birthday, at which time it was finally decided that her health status had declined and warranted privacy.

Indeed, it was said by Jean-Marie Robine that this "allowed her to die", because the attention had kept her going.

Jeanne Calment died five months later. She reportedly attributed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance (for her age) to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed into her skin.[1]

She was the last recognized surviving person of the 1870s.

She was quoted as saying, "Ha, I was over the hill a hundred years ago".

Last night at a Hollywood party the stars I met were so down to earth, even playing ping pong with me in the basement of Tony's home, that I woke up more confident than ever that all of our limitations are entirely self-imposed.....And it being so terribly and tragically obvious how we limit ourselves so much every day.

**The attention we give to our thoughts and dreams keeps our hopes alive.

Before talking to Grandma I had spent an hour texting a student from last year who is going through a very rough time and literally ready to give it all up.

*I'm hoping and believing that this positive attention will give him a reason to live, and live large! Live all the way! I learned to surf yesterday, the day after a shark killed a triathlete nearby.

The more I face my fears, the more I do in life, and the more I become full of life....perhaps even full enough to give to others and encourage them to keep on living......and living large!

I'm not going to wait around for death to find me, nor am I going to sit around while others are living a walking death or experiencing a hell on earth like the Bra Boys, who raise more hell because of it.

Went to see the movie this afternoon with my best buddy Bri with his girl Tempani, who is from Australia and lived in Maroubra where the movie takes place.



The tattoo Koby has across his upper chest, "My Brother's Keeper", came right through the screen and into me. We are all our brother's keeper. And when we don't take the time to pay attention to this, we all suffer from the effects sooner or later.

Be they young or old, family or aquaintance, friend or even enemy.......and above all with ourselves; we have to keep each other alive, our hopes and dreams, higher standards for thinking and being.

In doing this for ourselves and each other, we keep the hopes and dreams of the world alive, and change the reality of the world.

Among the many incredible people I have met in the last few days (some pictured above like Tate Donovan, Steve Eckhodlt, Tony Horton) ...Scott Fifer has proven once again how powerful a dream in action is. After creating the Tunahaki project to help children in Africa who cannot yet help themselves, he is now working with Ewan McGregor on another project.

Don't tell me why things can't be changed for the better, I'm too busy throwing myself in an ocean of people who ARE busy changing things for the better. People who have the exact same number of hours in the day as we have, who live in the same ocean of possibilities we do, and who have exactly the same opportunities to give up and get off their boards.....but don't. Not even when life breaks their board with a devastating wave....they simply get a new one and head back out into the surf.....unafraid to learn from their mistakes and continue their learning of how to surf life's waves.

Are you seeing how simple it is to become successful, to achieve your dreams and make the world a better place? I do.....And I say let's do it together. Forget anybody who tells you you can't. Listen to those who tell you the truth, and that is you can.

Are you brave enough to believe it?

A QUICK THANK YOU

Just a quick note to thank that special core of readers, both public commenters and private messengers, for what I've come to learn is honest appreciation and praise for who I am and what I'm trying to accomplish. Many times your positive comments come in the midst of negative ones.....and as I've been more successful in focusing on creating a world of solutions that could be, versus the problems of the world of what is......my world is changing before my very eyes.

It is very exciting, and you are a part of that changing world....as new people enter my life, and some old ones disappear.

Thank you. Together we are making a real difference in the real world; giving our hearts to what could be in one hand, and the finger to our fears, self-doubts and limitations with the other. I may sound a little more like Malcolm X v. Martin Luther King right now, but there are many times when it would be so easy to give up. I'm a fighter and a lover. This is what I know. This is who I am. (and this is my grandma, whom I talk to every night, and the last words we say to each other are, "I love you".)

A sincere thank you to all who accept and appreciate me as I am. Even if I'm unable to tell you every time, it has given me the strength to go on more than you know.

According to Grandma

I'm too young to drink coffee. She's proud of the man I've become, but can't help sometimes still seeing me as her little grandson, and wondering why a child is drinking coffee.

The time to have a garage sale is when you can't remember what's in those boxes in the garage. If you can't remember what you have you won't miss it anyway.

I remember my younger brother using this as to why he should be able to keep my cool t-shirts when I was a senior in high school and he was just a puny 7th-grader. He said if it took me two weeks to realize he had taken them, it meant I didn't realize miss them.

Yeah, I know that kinda looks like Brad Pitt, but I swear I looked just like him in high school. I don't know what happened....

Dustin, I don't care if your wife is the reigning Mrs. North Carolina, I want them back. I miss them and they'll make my muscles look big, almost as I was wearing my little brother's shirts.........

Ooops, I guess they're yours now.

I shouldn't stop Sofia from soliciting my neighbors to come in and eat at "her restaurant".

Grandma thinks it's cute. I tried to argue that my five-year-old entrepreneur is only charging a penny per item.

According to Grandma, money comes and goes. Children grow up and go. Let her have her restaurant.

Yes ma'am.


Sleeping when it's raining is the best. It's wonderful to fall asleep to, wake up during, and roll over and go back to sleep. I agree. I've been doing a lot of that this week.

While we're talking "It Happened One Night" (1934) is on TCM. According to Grandma, Claudette Colbert was a pretty girl and a good actress. Clark Gable, however, was and still is, quote-unquote, "Fabulous"!

Grandma!!

Neither of us care too much for Orson Wells as an actor (also in "It Happened One Night"). He was much better as a director, although Grandma likes movies with happy endings...

Don't we all Grandma, don't we all.

In Your Presence

"The time we spend together
is very special to me

The time of these last four days
has been in laughter and worry-free..."


This was a poem I was writing to my children after they left. I wanted them to know how much I........how much I truly enjoyed our time together. How much I truly enjoyed them; the love I feel inside when they're around.

I am in zen, present with life in all its abundance when in their presence, and fully connected to the only real time that we have, the NOW.

I wanted them to know I am truly wealthy in their presence. I have the riches of the richest king. I have true love. And real love is more real, and wonderful, and long-lasting than anything else; money, possessions, titles, and professions.

They have real love for me; a real love that sees the best in me, and treats me with respect even when they're angry or upset or sad.

This is the test of love. How someone who says they love you treats you when they're upset, stressed-out, tired, afraid, confused, etc.







"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.





Love never fails."
-1 Corinthians 13

This real love is the greatest treasure of all. And I am fortunate to have it for and from my children. With them life is very good.

But I had to leave for an appointment before I could finish their poem telling them this. I told myself I would finish the poem later. That later, this later, almost never came. On my way back home I nearly lost my life by a driver looking down at what they were eating instead of the crossing traffic.

My life didn't flash before my eyes, how to save it did. Just before I was about to get run over, I dropped my bike and turned it sideways with my body, stopping just short from the front wheels of the SUV.

I didn't break any bones this time, but have spent the last two days stiff as a board, disinfecting my cuts with alcohol, throwing up, and sleeping a lot. I feel better now, and grateful to have been given one more day to walk again along the imaginary longitude and latitude lines of our planet.

None of us know how much time we have left.

According to a study done in 2000, someone in the world dies every 1.84 seconds.

110 people die every minute

6,611 people die every hour

159 thousand people die every day

58 million people die every year

And in each of our lifetimes (on average 70 years), 4.05 billion people will have died before us.

...About 110 just did.

Maybe it's people like me who shorten the average. I talk to my grandmother on the phone almost every night and she's 88 and in good health. So between the two of us it just might average out. And I know I can just as easily die in a car crash or crossing the street as I can riding a motorcycle. I also know that every time I wake up I have been given at least one more day to live, and that day needs to be appreciated for what it is: THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!

I've faced death many times in many different ways (slipping over the edge of the Grand Canyon, trapped by a mountain lion, scaling down sheer cliffs, attempted muggings and street gangs, etc). I don't know if death is teasing me or if I'm teasing death. But I have learned not to be afraid of it. And I have been able to live more fully because of it.

These intense experiences have forced me into a deeper appreciation of the now. Instead of being afraid of failing I use the now to succeed. Instead of being afraid of what people might think of me I use the now to think about what I think about myself.

I run my own show. As Frank Sinatra said in his 1957 film, "Pal Joey", "Nobody owns Joey but Joey".

We are all here to run our own show, to control our minds instead of letting our minds control us. Only in this way can we fully overcome our fears and allow the magnificent life inside of us to create the magnificent life outside of us.

What fears are still really holding you back? And what is it holding you back from? Mine is losing those I love. I've "lost" the everyday experience with my children through divorce. The great amount of pain I feel from that makes it hard for me to allow new love in my life, for fear of losing that too.

This fear takes me out of the present, the now, the only moment I have any real power to change my thinking, and change my life. I am working on it, just as I hope you are working on becoming more conscious of your own fears that are causing you to have limited thinking and a limited life.

There are very few fully conscious people in this world. But the fact that I am writing about it and working on it and that you are reading it is a sign that this number is growing. We are all together in this molecular dance of life. We are all one.

So in this moment of "now", I want to finish telling my children just how much they mean to me. I want them to know how much I feel one with them. I want them to be able to see it and have it for all time. Now is the only time I have to do this. The now is the only time we really have.

In Your Presence

"The time we spend together,

is very special to me.

The time of these last four days,

has been in laughter and worry-free.

I am myself with you,

and the goodness in me you always see.

I am myself with you,

and I am happy and wonderfully free.


No shouting or long-lasting arguments,

even when we disagree.

No angry accusations and hateful words are spoken,

real love allows for patience, trust and imperfections to be overseen.


No fears force us into a worrisome future,

instead we learn about the bee and flea and deep blue sea.

No pain or troubles keep us locked in the past,

instead we dance and play and sing off-key.


We are fully in the present moment,

writing about the great things in us we see.

We are fully in the present together,

reading about how much more we can be.


I treasure the time we have together,

like making us tomato soup and toasted cheese.

Our time together is my greatest treasure,

because it can be taken away so easily.


I want you all to know that in your presence,

I am fully present, my best self, my best me.

I want you to know that in your presence,

I AM ME.





**Ironically, Michael Stribling's "Seven Faces of Home" from the "Out of The Darkness Into the Light" album is playing on the SOUNDSCAPE TV channel. "The signs, the signs are everywhere." (great line from the movie "Fools Rush In")




Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart