Do something amazing

Been thinking alot lately about the times in my life when I've performed some of my more amazing feats. The time I raised my math grade from an F to an A more than 2/3rds of the way into the school year. The year-long exercise regimen in preparation for Basic Training II, strength-training three days a week, cardio the days in-between (I stopped running in the winter, but the strength-training never let up--ever). Performing a controversial song at my high school during classes, getting requests to perform from students AND teachers, then getting banned by the administration due to content (I wear it like a badge!). Working 80 hours a week my first summer in Chicago in order to pay off school. Working 70 hours the very next summer (three jobs total). Passing every test of Basic II with a first-time Go (after failing nearly everything in Basic I). 700 songs, spanning a 14 year period, yet to be recorded (it's coming). Writing a novel to 466 pages. Writing another novel to 366 (and still in progress). Making a movie. Starting a business. Working on an album (and a hip-hop album at that!). Finishing the last two classes of my college career on my own a good five years after leaving campus (one of my proudest accomplishments, no doubt).

I'm proud of everything I've done, the bumps I took to make it all happen, and the maturation process inherent in the challenge. I smile as I reflect. Good times.

Now, before I go any further, I'm sure some who read this will accuse me of not being humble. Tacked onto the list of my accomplishments some misinformed Christian is bound to joke, "Yeah, and you're humble, too!" (giggle, chortle, giggle) Such Christian sub-culture pap! I want to clear the air with you, dear reader: Being humble translates into the unwavering belief that all humanity is equal. In expounding on my achievements I have never delineated nor espoused the view that they make me better than the next guy. I don't believe I'm a better person; I just believe I've done more amazing things. Hence, my humility remains intact. My modesty, on the other hand, can be challenged. ;)

What's the point, then? Why all the talk about amazing achievements? I've said all the above to say this: It has become my belief that everyone, regardless of circumstances, can do something amazing in their lives. More to the point (and this is what I'm most excited about), I believe everyone's capable of doing something amazing every single day of their lives!!!

"Wow," you say to yourself, "Chris has really gone off his rocker." The jury's still out on my mental stability, but suffice it to say I honestly believe we are capable of amazement every waking day. I'm not about to cookie-cutter such a maxim by claiming there's an Amazing Things To Do list from which we can all draw, thus guaranteeing daily amazement. No, no; this idea is relative to your unique situation. Only you can determine what amazing opportunities await you, whether they lay at home, work, on your commute, your Bible study, church, group of friends, family, etc., etc. I know you're capable of it, so you need to ask yourself, "Where's my amazement? Where's my incredible???"

Some out there, to be sure, will balk and tell me that some of my accomplishments aren't really that amazing; good, great, praiseworthy, they may say, but short of amazing. "Chris," they'd say, "lots of people pass Basic Training II with first-time Go's in every class." My response? They sure do, but rare is the man who's done it the way I had to do it. Failing nearly everything the first time around, getting deathly ill, coming home for Senior year of high school and working out 6 days a week every week until the next summer, then passing everything my first time around. And that's not special? I shake my head at them. They are the underwhelmed, and they're simply too blind to see the incredible in that situation. For me, it's pretty damn amazing, especially considering the type of person I was back then.

But the point they raise is the same one I confront now: How do we define amazing? What makes something incredible? My definition has always been simple, and it's the surest litmus test for fantasticality: How much of contemporary society do you surpass with what you are doing? In other words, Is everyone and their mom accomplishing the same thing, or are you in an elite group of doers?

I have a good friend of mine who just this weekend witnessed to a longtime friend of hers, a friendship stretching all the way back to high school. I don't know all the details yet, but I don't need to in order to know this is an amazing achievement. I've been a Christian for over 13 years and I know how very few Christians witness to their unsaved friends. Christendom feels safer testifying before strangers than they do someone as intimate as a friend, someone who knows them and their weaknesses. So, in the grand scheme of things, witnessing itself is pretty rare, and witnessing to close, unsaved friends is even rarer. But my friend did it, and I couldn't be prouder of her. How amazing!

Another friend recently adopted two kids from overseas. What was supposed to be a two month stay in foreign land turned into a five month trip from hell. A dwindling food supply, corrupt local officials, greedy attorneys, medical roadblocks and emergencies (including one scary near-death experience), and a fast flight out of Dodge on the last day of their visas made the entire trip a bittersweet mixture of pain and euphoria. My friends have reclaimed the swing of their normal lives, but, man, what an achievement! They endured all of the above and so much more for the love of the children they'd adopted. A lot of people (most people) would have given up and come home, waiting for the country to get its act together. But my friends didn't; they stayed with them, knowing the children (still infants at the time) needed to bond with their future parents, needed the attention that the corrupt government agencies and understaffed orphanages weren't going to give them. They stuck it out for the love of their new family. Wow! Truly an amazing feat.

Both stories show people engaged in activities that the vast majority of the populace would deign to accomplish. That stands as the true mark of amazement.

So it's time to ask yourself what opportunities lay ahead for you to perform something amazing. I'm certain you can find a longer term goal, something for which you need to put in work every day and measure your progress with benchmarks and milestones, each one more incredible than the last (this encapsulates my three months of self-study to finish school). Even so, there are daily, smaller-scale achievements you can reach so long as you muster the gumption and courage to try.

Perhaps it's witnessing to a co-worker (yikes!). Maybe it's starting a novel of your own. Or teaching yourself music (each lesson another amazing step). Starting your own business. Losing weight and keeping it off. Getting the girl. Hell, getting a lot of girls! (Trust me when I say that, as a man, if you even asked a girl out you'd be light years ahead of most of your male counterparts.) Maybe it's a decision to switch cities. Perhaps it's helping feed the homeless.

Each long-term goal has several incredible, fantastic steps to completion. Lots of amazement therein. The other short-term opportunities are done in a burst, and oftentimes come spontaneously or don't become visible to us until we're in the thick of our day. Being spontaneous in and of itself can be amazing, too. One night a few years ago, tired of the routine in which my circle of friends had ensconced themselves, I proposed one Saturday night that we take a road trip to Milwaukee and--get this--hit a party at the U of W-Milwaukee. If we couldn't find a party, I reasoned, then at least we could have fun in the city. It was 7:00 at night, and I was pumped. No one, absolutely no one, wanted to go. So, being the guy I am I hopped in my car and drove to Milwaukee my own self. Didn't find a party, but I did have as much fun as one guy can have on a solo road trip. I label such a night as--you guessed it--amazing simply because I broke the norm and tried something new, something head and shoulders above my peers.

What if tomorrow you got yourself out of bed at 5:00 am and studied Scripture for an hour? What if after that you wrote in your prayer journal for 30 minutes and told God everything? What if after that you left the house at 7:00 am, a good hour or so before work begins, and passed out sandwiches to the homeless in your area? Or volunteered the hour to the local soup kitchen? Or bought food to take to a food pantry? What if on the way you saw a stranded driver and pulled over to help him/her get the assistance they needed? What if you made a contest with yourself at work to get all your work done as quickly as possible, then tried to break the record the next day? What if on your lunch break you gained instant momentum by eating what you know you should eat instead of what you've always eaten? What if you wrote the first page of that book idea that's been festering in the back of your brain? Or what if you take a scenic drive with the windows down while belting your favorite tunes from the radio? What if you asked that cute guy/girl to dinner who you've been eyeballing for a month now? What if, after work, you signed up for dance classes? What if you took a road trip TONIGHT to a nearby city and dragged your stick-in-the-mud friends along, gas prices be damned? What if you stopped at a karaoke bar and totally rocked the casbah? Or brought them to tears with your rendition of Sheriff's "When I'm With You"? What if after all that you came home and worked out like you've always meant to, or hammered out another page of that novel, or read up on a topic of interest, or experimented with food and came up with your own concoction? THEN you go to bed. What an amazing day!!!

And to think, you could choose just one of these things and you'd have done something well above the majority. Who, on a given day, can say they've done even one of these things? Amazing, indeed.

I know you got it in you. I sure have it in me. And I make it my goal from this day forward to do something amazing each and every day, whether spontaneously or pre-planned. A journal will keep track of it all, and after 30 days I will share it with you all. I encourage you to do the same.

Here's to amazement each and every day!

-C