Green Fuzzies.

Every one of us has certain moments or feelings in our lives that we replay in our heads from time to time that make us grin and give us warm fuzzies. Our "happy place" perhaps.

I've written about some of mine on this website before, and luckily for me I was able to experience a few of them earlier this week during my St. Pat's celebrations. Allow me to foreshadow a bit...

My St. Patrick's Day festivities are very close and dear to my heart. I've grown up learning to treat St. Pat's as if it were able to kick Christmas' ass. March 17th is a day that you plan months ahead of time for...or at least the celebratory weekend preceding or following it is. At my house, there was enough delicious food to feed a fat army and our kitchen counter resembled a tavern.

You see, my dad graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla, aka the Missouri School of Mines (mines, not mimes). It is a college where future engineers go, which is what my dad has been since 1969 or so. UMR celebrates St. Pat's unlike anyone else in the state, or possibly the Midwest. The rationale behind the celebration is that St. Patrick was the patron saint of engineers...whatever the fuck that means. So greenness and debauchery ensued every month of March in Rolla. After I was born, I was quickly introduced to this holiday and when I was "old enough" to participate, my friends and I joined my parents and family in this delightful, green holiday.

This year I was unable to attend the traditional St. Patrick's Day festivities in Springfield due to a lack of funds caused by back-to-back trips to Missouri earlier in the year. The success of Dokken Day followed by my Granny's death forced me to fly into St. Louis on consecutive weekends. I wouldn't have missed either one of them for the world, though. That left my wife and I a little light in the wallet, so we decided to carry on the tradition in Denver the best that we knew how.

I won't get into all the details and descriptions of my St. Pat's Saturday in downtown Denver. But it did bring more than one moment that made me stop what I was doing for a second and smile. Surrounded by good people, no inhibitions, beautiful weather, a fantastic parade, competing against my wife at chugging Car Bombs, drinking green beer, dressed like green royalty...

There was definitely one instance while sitting at the bar, extremely hazy from the marathon of consumption, I (along with our good friend, Sig, who lasted the entire 11 hour duration) just lost my ass for the eighth consecutive time at a Car Bomb race to April, that I smiled to myself, satisfied that although we were unable to be with our friends and family in Springfield that we were representing all that was St. Pat's in a city where we know few. The attached picture proves that.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday; actual St. Patrick's Day. I happened to have the day off, but instead of repeating my downtown Denver drunkenness, I opted for the mountains. My squirrelly friend, Ted and I hiked into the Williams Fork Canyon for a little fly fishing.

Now, this feeling had nothing to do with St. Pat's or drinking or anything like that. It had to do with what makes me addicted to fly fishing. It's the type of feeling that you envision when you have cabin fever, or when you start reminiscing about particular fish you caught. Not because they were big fish, but because you caught them the right way. You figured out what bugs were flying around and landing on the water, and then getting slurped from underneath the surface by a hungry, brown predator below. The angle, the cast, the presentation, the drift, the mend, all perfect. Then you are rewarded by a spotted mouth breaking the clean, reflective surface and inhaling your dry fly. It's not over yet, because the angle of the set was perfect, the head pull from left to right, giving her some slack, and then bringing her in delicately after a valiant fight to a soft net. A couple quick snap shots, then I help her regain her breath by slowly pulling her back and forth in the water to get the oxygen flowing through her gills.

Directly after watching her swim away free and unharmed, I took a minute to smile, laugh, thank greater beings (ie: fish gods) and enjoy a brief, but extremely deep and defining moment.

All that...all that happened in the matter of three minutes. And I immediately knew--I actually said to myself out loud, "I'm gonna remember this one." Yea, she was good sized, but everything leading up to the landing was what sticks.

This year I missed out on hanging out with my friends and family from back home. But I was generously compensated by having one the best St. Pat's weeks of my life. Yes, change is good. But I'll still be back in Springfield next March.




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Vague Ramblings on Happiness.

I'm happy as shit. I've got a lot of things to be thankful for, and I do not take any of them for granted.

But I'm ready to take happiness to the next level. There are certain things in my life that do not make me happy, and I am currently striving to take those out of my life and replace them with more things that make me happy. Selfish? I don't know, maybe. I really don't care. If I can incorporate all the things in this world that make me happy, then why not give it a shot?

The things that I'm not completely satisfied with are simple. They are things that we, as a society, generally put up with because they're "just part of life". I completely understand that. But wouldn't it be relatively awesome to just eliminate those things altogether so you don't have to worry about them anymore?

Obviously, working at a job that does not make you feel alive inside is one of them. Now, I've got a cool job...for the most part. Compared to other jobs I've had and jobs that some of my peers have, it's really not bad. But in all honesty, I put up with it because it's "just part of life". Well, the way I see it, my job takes up over 2/3s of my time on this planet. I've done the math. That's not including getting ready for work, commuting back and forth, any overtime, time worrying about work, time medicating because of work, and so on. So basically any of my free time is spent trying to avoid work and doing things to take my mind off of work.

"Jeez, get another job." you might say. I've had other jobs...about 70 or so other jobs. They are all the same, to me at least. I am essentially forfeiting approximately 80% of my time on this planet and dedicating it to someone else's business, so in turn they can pay me what they think I'm worth (which apparently has never been much) so I can afford to buy a house that I don't spend near enough time at (because I'm at work), gas money to get to and from work, booze to help me forget about work, and a little left over to cram some funness into my week.

I'm not bitching. Honestly. It's not my current job, or any other job I've had. It's just the mentality that I, and most everyone else that I know have. Thinking about that does not make me happy. But it motivates me.

I am currently motivated to completely flip this part of life upside down. The time that I spend working needs to be for greater reasons. Reasons that will also make me happy.

My motivation is to work towards being 100% happy, not continuing to talk myself into being 80% content. There are things that I want to happen, and they aren't just going to happen on their own. So in order to make them happen, I've got to figure out a way to make a substantial chunk of money in order to produce freedom for me and the people involved. But that means of making money has got to be very enjoyable as well...hence being happy 100% of the time.

It's not necessarily money that is motivating me to make an entrepreneurial leap, it's the happiness. Sure, I'm very happy now. We've covered that. But this leap is to take the happiness factor to the next level. I'm attempting to see just how much happiness I can cram into my life.

Just to reiterate; I am a very happy person. Could I be happier, though? Sure. So I'm going to make myself--and the people around me--even happier. Everyone I know could stand to be a little happier, so that's what is going to happen.

In order to accomplish this feat, I am going to have to travel, possibly extensively. You see, I am very close to my friends and family, but I don't live close to them. I live 775 miles away from the majority of them. "Then why don't you move back?" you might ask. Because I love the mountains and rivers of Colorado and I don't want to move away from it, that's why. So in order to split my time between Colorado and Missouri, I've got to make enough money and create enough time to allow me to travel back and forth. That, or incorporate the traveling into a career. That is precisely what I am going to do. Living and playing in Colorado makes me happy. But staying close to my friends and family also makes me happy, so I've got to do both. This is going to require money, and with any job I've ever had this is not going to be feasible. So I figure that I'll kill two birds with one stone. I'll stop working these low paying, pointless, mundane jobs that kill my soul and start paving my own path as a business owner...and with this new career path, I will be able to incorporate travel and make substantial cash--both, which will allow me to see the people that I love more.

So, right there are two things that would definitely make me happier.

Other things that I can think of might include traveling to places I've never been and experiencing things I've never experienced. Kind of like vacations. Well, I'm banking on this new endeavor to allow me to do that, too. Lots, hopefully. It'd be kind of cool to get paid for taking vacations, huh? It sure would.

So, to review: Taking out mundane, low paying job; lack of time to spend with loved ones, inability to travel and experience...and replacing it with new, exciting career path that includes travel, the outdoors, and potential to earn a fine living thus allowing me and my wife to visit out-of-town loved ones, experience new places and cultures, and ensure that the people we care about most are taken care of.

Money doesn't buy happiness? That's bullshit. But you have to first appreciate the small things and love what you have. Then I think it's fine to want to take it to the next level. There's nothing wrong with being motivated by money; as long as you are using that money to pay for plane tickets to see your family, or creating more time to spend with your wife, or making sure your kids get a great education. You've got to have the right things in sight. Not solid gold houses and rocket cars. Me, I want all the people that I dig the most to share extreme happiness with me. Like I said, everyone I know is very happy, very appreciative, and somewhat content with how the world works. But if I can provide time together, less worries, a more meaningful and enjoyable way to provide for your family, and more time to create more experiences and long lasting memories, then why not?

I might as well try.


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