Dear little P,

The following blog is one that I wrote last year on my other passion project, The Pride Active. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the right medium for this piece but it was all I had at the time and I felt like I was compelled to write it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and can take something from it. I just re-read it myself and realized that I haven’t been completely living up to my own advice so it has served as a little ass kicker to myself! Love Dad

 

 

By Anthony Dyson
I know the title may look like it but this isn’t a sad piece. I guess you could take the title that way but thats not the point. The point is to accept that it is inevitable and give your absolute best everyday until it comes!
1 month ago we had a terrifying experience. We were travelling on a highway in Brisbane in the early evening and were the fortunate or unfortunate vehicle, depending how you look at it, directly behind a head on crash at 100km/hr.
It is a moment that we will never forget and I can promise you that slow motion is a real thing in times like this. In a split second I somehow managed to maneuver our car between both cars, as one vehicle shot off directly in front of us and the other spinning viciously to our right, and get us safely to the side of the road.
Now I’m not going to go into complete details on here but from what we have learned it was a stolen car being driven down the wrong side of the highway in a high speed pursuit and picked out the innocent bloke in front of us to slam into. Thankfully he is okay.
5 years ago I may have laughed off a scenario like this as a younger man, bragging about my amazing reflexes, fast and the furious style driving and how I will probably live forever. Come on, we’ve all been there!
But I am not 22 anymore and I wasn’t by myself in the vehicle. I had some of the most important people in my life being my Wife, baby girl and Mother in Law in the vehicle with me and it could have ended a lot worse had the situation played out differently.
That’s what rocked me in all of this, not the crash itself, but all of the thoughts that swirl around in the days and weeks after. Every different scenario and outcome, endlessly replaying itself so vividly over and over again. I don’t need to recap them here but you get the gist.
Now I know this isn’t directly fitness related but I am also (As you may be aware from previous blogs and social media posts) extremely interested and passionate about stoicism and just generally being a good human being while I am around. The world that we currently live in is in desperate need of more people giving more than they take, as big or small as that may be, and I just want to do the best I can.
Anyway, that’s where the title of this piece comes from. Marcus Aurelius once wrote “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
A lot of people at some stage in their journey have their “MOMENT” that changes their life and sets their path differently. I don’t think this was my moment exactly but more of a gentle nudge. Hey, maybe it is. I’ll know in about 60 years if I’m lucky!
After the initial scenarios played out and the shock of it all subsided a bit I found myself asking “If it had been different, am I happy with what I have achieved so far?” Well kinda, but not really.
“If I had put in more effort in my life could I have achieved more?” Hell yes I could have.

“Have I been the best Husband, father, friend, brother, son that I could have been to this point?” Not even close.

“Have I hidden behind what is safe and easy, not striving to be better?” Ah yep!

So many of us have so many excuses for why we aren’t where we want to be or thought we would be at this time in our lives and I have been guilty of nearly every one of them.

“I’ll start it next year”
“As soon as I’m fit enough”
“After my children grow up”
“It might not work, what if I fail?”
“After I sort some more stuff out I’ll get straight into it”

We all hide behind these excuse because it’s easy and feels safer than putting ourselves out there.
DO IT NOW!!!!
There may not be a next year or even a tomorrow.

I’m not saying everyone should quit their jobs and chase their passion full-time right now, that would be lunacy. What I am saying is that you should find a way to START pursuing your passions right now. Pursue what fires up your soul, what gets you out of bed, Pursue the damn thing that you think of for most of your day!
If you haven’t found that fire yet then just keep on hustling and I promise that you will. I never knew that fitness, writing, or anything of this sort was going to be my passion 5 years ago. But I’m here now, I love it and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.
Start with as little as 10mins a day working on that thing.

Want to be a writer? Then WRITE

Learn a new language? Grab a book and start READING it tonight. 1 little phrase at time until you have mastered it.

Start a job in a new field? EMAIL someone in the field and ask them for a beginning point. If they don’t answer then try the next and the next and the next until you have the answer you’re looking for.

Compete in that competition that you’re a little scared to do? PRESS that registration button today and start training.

The list could go on forever….
Don’t wait on your dreams any longer.

There is no where near enough time to live a mediocre life, No where near enough time to give anything but your best. Go out there and do amazing things peeps!
I’m going to leave you with a short clip made about one of my mentors after he passed away.

Stoke your Fire! Enjoy!
Find the video here
Thanks for reading everyone. Sorry if it’s a bit heavy but I don’t want to squander my own passion with excuses and I damn sure don’t want to see anyone else waste their greatness. I hope I have in some small way helped you begin to achieve amazing things!

Dice