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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.
SO WHAT DOES LIVING BIG MEAN ANYWAY?
Living Big isn't about making lots of money or having a Texas-sized house. It's about having an intoxicating vision, about daring to look at the miracle of life without shrinking back. Living Big means having the nerve to find your own drum beat, sing your own song.
Unfortunately, many of us still march to the same high school fight song we learned decades ago. Or we sing the same old jingle that Madison Avenue invented to keep us buying their products. In case you hadn't noticed, there are an awful lot of forces out there striving to keep us in line.
Living Big means getting out of line. It means dancing the jig while others are waltzing. It means saying you care when you're not sure how the other person feels. It means leaping out of the limited, soul-numbing boxes we've all been squeezed into.
Living Big is being brave enough to claim your own truth, being bold enough to read the poem that's stamped across your heart. Out loud so everybody can hear.
All of us have the responsibility to find that passion that makes us want to get up on the table and dance. Walt Whitman once said that every man's job was to write his own bible. My dream for Living Big is that each and every one of you will not only write your own bible, but your own autobiography and your own wish list of dreams.
Because, quite frankly, I want to know who you are.
Yes, you're wearing the same black leather jacket that everyone else is wearing this season, and you're riding the same scooter that everyone else is riding, but who are you underneath all that? What is the thing that makes you want to jump off the chair and scream with unmitigated joy?
I need to know. But more important, you need to tell. We all do. So the steps to Living Big are pretty simple:
1 Find your passion.
2 Follow it.
Instead of saying find your passion, I should probably say own your passion, embrace it, kiss it like a long-lost relative. So many of us think we have to find it, that it's out there somewhere, this thing that would make us happy. But engraved on your very soul is the already written script for your passion. It's not a matter of going anywhere to find it. Or reading some book that will tell you how to claim it. It's about taking off the layers and observing what has always been there.
You know you're getting close when you feel a little buzz, when the thought of it makes you really, really excited.
That's not to say you won't get scared. Or you won't feel like hiding under the bed when the time comes to act on your idea. Fear is practically a spiritual prerequisite. I remember telling a friend that for me to write a book about Living Big was akin to me writing a book about Newtonian physics. But then I thought to myself, “What do I want more than anything else in the world?”
To live big. To claim my destiny.
Yes, there's this insistent impostor who's always trying to convince me I'm insignificant, that my ideas will never matter. But there's also this other voice. And it knows better.
That's the other part of Living Big—making a difference. All my life I've made noises about wanting my life to serve a bigger purpose.
It is my highest hope that this book will make some kind of impact on the world's consciousness. If we stay in the restrictive ruts we're in now, we will never solve the world's problems. And there are a lot of problems that need solving, a lot of big things that need doing.
We have kids taking guns to school. We have mass destruction of our rain forests. We have neighbors so lonely that Jay Leno is their only friend.
So I have to ask, What are we going to do about it? No longer can we sit back, finger our remotes, and say, “Tut, tut, what a shame.” We must act. We must grow out of our wimpy, apathetic, small lives and take action. Any kind of action.
As long as there is prejudice, environmental destruction, people calling each other names, there is something big to do. We don't have the right or the luxury to be small.
The answer to your problems and the world's problems are one and the same.
And that answer is you. Us. Now.
CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE. CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
THE GREATEST DISCOVERY OF MY GENERATION IS THAT HUMAN BEINGS CAN ALTER THEIR LIVES BY ALTERING THEIR ATTITUDES OF MIND.
—William James
The size of our life, essentially, is the result of our attitudes. Our attitudes affect everything from our relationships to our health to our mindset while doing a crossword puzzle. If we're going to embrace our passion and live big, we must grow our attitudes.
Unfortunately, most of us live with attitudes that confine us. Attitudes that keep us