a serendipitous approach to life.

everything is perfect through it's inability to be... perfect.

a few months back i met two people on a plane. on this day, i will say without shame, i was feeling particularly down and sorry for myself. you see, the problem with being so observant in my own head is, i know when i am feeling sorry for myself and sometimes i let myself be aware of the emotion instead of changing it. so... on this day, while feeling sorry for myself, i was anxious to get to los angeles where my brother was waiting for me. little did i know that it would take me two more planes, a bus, one hellishly long customer service line, a tiff with a fat man (i'm sorry but that is just my way of getting back at him for being mean to me in the wee hours of the morning) and a short cap nap in a lonely hotel room in san francisco to actually get to him- just in time to "make it to the church on time" for a dear friend's wedding. if i would not have met these two people, i would have thought this was the worst journey ever (this is what happens when people start the terrible habit of feeling sorry for themselves, which always snowballs into, "my life sucks"). although i was tired and running out of patience, i had so much to contemplate. where did these two people come from and why were they sitting next me? it was awesome!

....However, in my extreme efforts to sit by the window and be as antisocial as humanly possible, i forgot one thing- my inability to be antisocial... so without cause, i (or they, i don't really remember) strike up a conversation thus turning into one inspiring hour long wait on the tarmack and two hour flight to SFO. bill and sarah, as it turns out, were having some issues with happiness in their day-to-day lives. bill working too much and hating his job, sarah loving hers but could leave it any moment for something more inspiring and upset with bill's dislike for his work, which was turning into his dislike for a lot of things. six hours prior to our meeting, sarah was fed up and said, "fine, if you could go anywhere you wanted, right now, go to the airport and get on a plane, where would you go?" bill's reply, "new zealand" .......Ahhhhhhh, and there my friends is the connection, the serendipity i find in this first meeting with two very inspiring souls (he tells me later he doesn't even really know why he said it but has always wanted to go to NZ and australia). "New Zealand?" I say... "crazy, i lived there for nearly a year, and before that australia" (insert 'holy shit' moment here'). so we start talking about life and passion and truth and wander. this turns in to conversations about true happiness and meaning, a service bigger than the self. we talk the entire plane ride and as i am leaving the plane (to find out the obvious; i've missed my connecting flight because of the delay) they are wishing me well with all my life's adventures and giving me their contact information, telling me that i have inspired them to get out there and follow their dreams, to make a difference by making a difference in their own lives!

i leave feeling refreshed. inspired. i leave with a profound sense of meaning. that i am doing the right thing. these two people have no idea who i am but they have encouraged me to follow my dream as i am trying to do. they have instilled in me a sense that i am doing it right. i am living my life the way i believe. the way i want to live it.

we will all do this differently. this living thing. but we must all do it WELL. and we must not judge the way others decide to do it, we can only hope that everyone is doing it the way they want to be doing it. living it truthfully. listening to the way their own heart speaks to them. it cannot be done any other way.

good discoveries always seem to happen by accident. it was a crazy random meeting with two people who i had seemingly no connection to. two people who end up being more like-minded to me than some of my friends. they were there as a reassurance that everything was and is happening for a reason, on a true path, just when it is supposed to be happening.
i am doing my own 'right way.' no matter how imperfect it may seem to others.