I began my journey at birth, of course. Up until my 30th birthday, I thought success and happiness were conditional upon the approval of others, academic achievement, and financial success. I had built my entire life upon the belief that those things were true based on the reality of my experiences. 

 

On the night of my 30th birthday, after everyone left our Super Bowl party, my then wife and I mutually decided our marriage was over. The next year of my life was the hardest year I have ever been through. It challenged me mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, academically, psychically, and socially, because it forced me to examine the aspects of a paradigm that were no longer serving me, and replace it with something absolutely new and unfamiliar. To make this shift it would require me to have complete faith in a universal power to direct me, since I had no idea what this new paradigm would even look like or how I would see and view the world, the people in it, or the way I viewed my new experiences, in my new reality. This blog was created to publish my voice as I discover my new paradigm. You are seeing it exactly how I am feeling it. And, I promise to be raw here, because in my new paradigm I am raw and it is acceptable to be that way.

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I should add that I do struggle with mental wellness (not illness) and I have been clean and sober since July 8th, 2010. I'm an open book when it comes to transparency and I'm continuously looking for the most appropriate ways to talk about my past, but this blog looks toward the future. My father has said to me many times that I have lived more than 10 lifetimes in the 33 years I've been alive. It is true, I have lived through every one of those experiences and I am grateful for each of them, because they make me who I am.