Your Destiny is Being Who You Are

My father teaches a series of principles to live by in a quality-of-life context. These principles, including Vision, Identity, Personal Foundation, Service, Relationships, Action, Community and Destiny, serve as the guide to leading a holistic purposeful life. By living these principles, you have the necessary insights into your own life such that you find yourself on the path to your destiny no matter who you are or what you are doing. In essence, living life to the fullest (i.e. balling out of control) is your destiny by virtue of the fact that you are at peace with your personal vision, identity, and foundation; while providing service to yourself and others, building better relationships, and feeling that your actions are purposeful in the community at large. Thus, you have discovered that you are your destiny because your destiny is being who you are.

I have believed that if you create the background, the foreground will create itself. You must create a clearly defined vision with the understanding of your destiny in order to manifest the personal identity and service to others that you truly desire. Once you formulate this vision, simply the act of putting these intentions out into the world, whether mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, will begin to redefine who you are. The interconnected world around you will manifest these intentions in your life. For someone without self confidence, it appears that the cosmos have created these results, when, in reality, it is simply his/her more purposeful existence that has generated the same results. By cultivating the proper personal foundation and by building relationships with the right people, the foreground has created itself.

For me, this vision is teaching other people how to build relationships, how to show compassion for others, and ultimately, how to use compassionate relationships to create a better world. This is a daunting vision. And it is daunting because this vision stems to all facets of my life. I constantly feel the need to interact with others, whether at work, at home, or in public, in order to learn more about human interaction and building relationships. And by virtue of this fact, I have learned that compassion, genuineness, sincerity, and love, create positive symbiotic relationships in society. These are not new principles or ideas, but manifesting them constantly is a challenge! And it is my destiny to bring this vision to the world.

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I have always known that it is my destiny to bring my vision to the world because it was how I was brought into this world. My birth mother, Diane, discovered that she had terminal cancer during her pregnancy. She knew that she would not be alive to raise the child that she was carrying. She knew that it was her destiny to bring this baby into the world so that he could live out her dreams and aspirations. I was born on May 14, 1981, three weeks before Diane passed away from the cancer.

During her pregnancy, her personal vision was transformed into making sure that I was born. And she was determined to not only make sure that this was happen, but also make sure that everyone else around her had this same vision. Her charisma and zest for life was palpable to those who interacted with her. She was not a women dying of cancer, but she was a woman living to bear a child that would be able to complete her destiny and vision.

By virtue of this birth story, I am honored with shouldering this vision for my own life. I have the dreams and aspirations of my mother to bring to this world. Her charisma and zest for life are in my genes and a part of who I am. There is no conscious understanding of this birth story, simply a molecular subconscious understanding that we have this inextricable connection. And I am thankful every day that her vision encompassed my destiny to simply be who I am. She wanted me to be born and to live my life. And that is what I must teach others by showing them the power of compassionate relationships.

After I was born, I remained in intensive care in Brigham and Women’s Hospital for over a month. During that time, I was under constant supervision in the neo-natal unit 24 hours a day. There were nurses and doctors making sure that this 3lb 3oz baby was able to mature and grow despite being born 7 weeks before his due date. The love and compassion of everyone involved in this process in the intensive care unit, not to mention my entire family concurrently mourning the loss of my birth mother, will forever lead me to be who I am. I will forever be trying to give back that same love and strength that so many have given to me.

Do I feel lucky? It has never really been about luck, but truly about being who you are. We all have doubts at some point in our lives. We all have dilemmas and interactions that we cannot explain. And we all wonder if it has anything to do with luck. But the fact of the matter is that we are who we are and we will be who we will be. Do we have control over our destiny and vision? Absolutely! Can we change our personal foundation and our relationships to better fit our needs? Definitely! None of these changes have anything to do with luck! We are not lucky we are living life to the fullest. We are manifesting who we are destined to be—and you know what, it feels pretty good.

For a more in depth look at the Principles of Quality of Life go to: http://www.qlconsult.com/7principles/wheel/index.htm

Summit Ave Seeks Baller

Three ballers seeking a fourth roommate. We are three men living in the luxurious haven of 300 Summit Ave #3 in Brighton, MA. Our spacious living room, eat-in kitchen and cold-tiled bathroom provide ample living conditions for a like minded individual looking to live the good life. We are laid back roommates, interesting personalities, and sarcastic humorists. Our DVR is chock full of quality programming and our fridge is laden with frozen dinners, though cooking is never out of the question. Our interests, include but are certainly not limited to, Ultimate Frisbee, financial analysis, hypothetical conjecture, and general balling. There’s no parking for you, but we do have two spots, and we’re a short walk from the B and C lines. And get this. Imagine living that life with the financial happiness and liquidity of $575 heat included. Good people, Good space, Good price. If I were a pop icon, I would say, “Let the good times roll,” but that would neither be funny nor poetic; simply awful. So let ballers be ballers with the understanding that this may be the best decision of a lifetime. When you’re ready to take the leap, drop me a line at summitaveballers@gmail.com. You’ll know if this ad is for you. Just read it again.

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/roo/278045770.html

If you, or any ballers you know, would like to join us at Summit Ave...come on down and let the good times roll!

Pink Eye: Nice Belated Valentine’s Day Gift, Nice Loss!

Yes, this is my eye!

Yesterday was one of the biggest Valentine’s Days in many years: Tim O’Leary, one of my best friends, got engaged to Ashley Cogswell; the Boston Celtics snapped an 18 game losing streak by beating the Milwaukee Bucks; and the first snowstorm of the year descended upon our fair city. Romance and victory were afoot in this winter wonderland! Flowers, chocolates, and cards were given to all and smiles, tears, and kisses were shared citywide. Life was good in the land of love! And amidst all these glorious Hallmark moments, what did the Big Baller get for Valentine’s Day? Pinkeye or as some like to call it Conjunctivitis!

Now, I don’t mean to rain on the parade of flowery love because I relish every romantic holiday just as much as the next single guy. No flowers, no chocolates, and no expectations! We can go sit court side at the Celtics game behind Tommy Heinsohn throwing down Bud Light like it’s going out of style. We can stare at other people’s girlfriends as they protectively cuddle; we can make jokes about the cheerleader’s short pink skirts as Red Aurebach rolls over in his grave; and we can relax without a care in the world as lovers’ unattainable expectations reign supreme. And at the end of the night, we can go home, drunk and alone, wondering what went wrong this year. And this year it was conjunctivitis!

So now, the day after Valentine’s Day, I am forced to stay at home from work with an extremely contagious infection that is nothing more than a slight irritation in my right eye. My body is healthy, my mind is lucid, and yet I am unable to leave the house for fear of the evil pinkeye spreading across the world. Perhaps I should go and share my communicable disease with the community under the guise that I am Saint Valentine reborn! Actually, if I were to engage in such activities, it would be akin to Lord Jeffery Amherst not Saint Valentine. In 1763, prior to having an institution of liberal arts grandeur named after him, Lord Jeffrey Amherst distributed small pox blankets killing 80% of the Native American population, while, in 1260, prior to having a ridiculous pagan tradition named after him, Saint Valentine restored sight and hearing to the jailer’s daughter prior to being killed as a martyr following Jesus Christ. Given the option between emulating these two historical figures, however, I would rather sit at home quarantined with my pink eyes and blurry vision ruminating on how I could do better!

So what were the key insights from Valentine’s Day this year:

1. Ashley and Tim are going to have a long wonderful life together!
2. The Boston Celtics have a bad coach, bad players, and need to keep losing to get Oden in the draft.
3. If you’re a hopeless romantic moved to tears watching Love Actually, then the positive aspects of being single of Valentine’s Day do not outweigh the negative aspects of being single.
   
4. And finally, despite high hopes that Saint Valentine would cure the woes of my right eye in my moment of martyrdom, it appears that Spite Valentine will do nothing of the sort. Instead I am left home alone to curl up under my purple small pox blankets hoping that next year will bring a wintry mix of love and romance!

He's Back!

Has it really been 16 months since my last posting? Have I really disappeared from the world of ridiculous shared information since then? Has nothing happened in the world of Big Baller Woolf? Clearly, the answer is that over the past 16 months I have been balling so far out of control that I have been encapsulated in the world of ridiculous unable to form words in to sentences!

Now, however, as the international blog scene has entered back onto my radar, my desire to contribute more of my own nonsense on a large scale has increased dramatically and I must share my thoughts with the world of wide web. I must let those who I know, who I love, and who I do not keep in contact with, what is going on in my life… I have kept my secret life of balling to myself for too long. Thankfully, that is all about to change…

Be patient and live in fear as more thoughts and musings on life to come.

Just remember this mantra to live by: Don’t hate the baller; hate the ball!