THOUGHTS OF HOW TO DO MY BEST AND STILL KEEP MYSELF "RIGHT SIZED"

What is really dumb, in my estimation, is that "doing my best" is a scary thought for me. Because it means that when I strive to be better, to stand tall, to be a leader, I feel the fear of failure standing right behind me, breathing down the back of my neck. Fearing failure is what is scary. But if I turn around and face the demon, I see he’s not there. There is nobody judging me—there is nobody who really cares except me!

I realize there is nothing to fear because I don’t have very far to fall. I’m 6’1" but even at that height, it’s not all that far to the ground. Recently I was forced to consider that distance, which has helped me to feel "right sized" as they say.

The day I left the hospital following my last heart procedure, I nearly fainted. It was a simple thing caused by one of the medications I was taking, the one for lowering blood pressure. It slows the blood flow to the brain so that when you get up quickly, it takes longer than usual for the blood to be pumped up to the head. As a result you can get light headed or dizzy or, if you really jump up quickly and out-race your blood like I did, you start to faint.

I found myself leaning against the open door to my room struggling to stand. My legs went weak, my vision was—well I hardly remember being able to see anything out of my eyes. My fingers clawed unsuccessfully to find a hold on the smooth surface of the door and I started to keel over. Luckily, a nurse was witnessing this whole thing "from the outside" and ran down the hall and caught me in her arms before I hit the floor.

Her instruction for handling such a situation on my own was simple: drop to the floor. In other words, move towards the floor yourself before gravity does it for you and you keel over and land on your head. Makes perfect sense but is something I never would’ve thought of on my own.

So in a very simplistic way, I know the way back down is simple so what is there to fear about standing tall? Not much. If I start to fall, even with no nurses around, I know the way back down.

My heart operations have been a wake up call. As a result of all this medical stuff happening to an otherwise fit and healthy human specimen, I now have gained a kind of urgency in my life. I feel like I’ve been given this body to use only for a limited time—kind of free rental car agreement—so I’d better get on with whatever I have to accomplish with this gift.

Necessarily, what seems to come first, is for me to figure out exactly what it is I want to do with it. The picture I am painting for myself is this: to become someone whose life is used for the good of all—someone who will help others to succeed knowing that the only thing I keeps is what I give away. In the end I want to strive to make the world a better place than it is when I arrived.

This might seem like a lofty ideal. But for now, in order accomplish it and not be afraid of standing tall, I think I should picture the goal as being only about six feet and one inch tall.