I watched a TED.com talk by Neil Pasricha last night and it started me thinking.  He talked about going through a very dark time in his life.  His marriage ended and a close friend took his own life after a long struggle with mental illness.  As part of the process of moving himself out of that dark place, he started a blog.  He called it 1000 Awesome Things.  It took off so well, that he was offered a book deal and he wrote the Book Of Awesome.  The initial message to this is pretty clear.  If we change our focus, we change our lives.  It’s not that we can prevent bad things from happening.  It is simply about remaining aware that other things, better things are happening.  Often at the very same time.

He also talks about the  “3 As of Awesome”.  They are Attitude, Awareness and Authenticity.  I’m just going to touch on them really briefly, then I’ll get to my point.  I promise.  Unless I get distracted.

First up, we have Attitude.  No, not the Attitude you break out because NO ONE can find their gas pedal if they’re in front of you, but can’t find anything else but the horn when they’re behind you.  This Attitude is more about how you chose to look at the world.  You can choose how you view the world.  You can focus on the negative and dark and miserable, or we can practice seeing the good along with the bad.

Awareness is the second “A”.  If Attitude is choosing how to live, Awareness is about implementing that choice.  It’s developing the habit of noticing the quality of the light before a storm instead of focusing on how far you still have to walk to avoid it.  Seeing the person who gave you a break and let you merge not just the ten who didn’t.  It’s about seeing the everyday “Awesome” in everything.  Even when you think you can’t.  Especially when you think you can’t.

Which brings us to Authenticity.  This is about not being afraid to be who you are.  It’s about celebrating the things that you find awesome without worrying about what others might think.  I love big summer blockbuster movies.  I think Michael Bay is a very talented director.  When I went to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon, it was awesome!  I take a lot of flak for it, but that’s what authenticity is.  Being true to yourself regardless.  Neil has a much better example in his talk which I strongly encourage you to watch here:   http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html

Now for the point I promised earlier.  See, I hardly got distracted at all.  After I had watched him and started thinking about how this applied to me, I started thinking about my own blog.  No, not in terms of a book deal, but what my choice of posts says about where i put my focus.  I realized I spend a lot of time on politics, and social ills, and losing my job, and idiots with stupid things written on their cars.  I write a lot of negative stuff, and I don’t have to.  Sure it sucks that I’m losing my job.  On the other hand, it’s Awesome that some of these people that I have been talking to every week for five years tear up when they say goodbye.  It’s awesome to have an eleven year old child shake my hand and thank me for being the only person in any store to treat her like a person.

i only saw the idiot with the stupid saying on his car because my Awesome wife drove over to pick me up from work.  My brother was rushed to hospital with a crack in his aorta.  this is something with a 10% survival rate.  I was terrified he was going to die.  How Awesome is it that on his last visit, his specialist told him he has NEVER seen anyone heal so fast or so well!?  My life is full of these things.  So Awesome, and yet so ordinary I don’t always notice them.  I think it’s time I paid more attention.  It’s time to change my Attitude a little, develop a little more Awareness, but I’m still going to write the other stuff too.  It would lack Authenticity if I didn’t.

Thank you Neil.  You’ve given me the gift of Awesome.

Cheers, Winston

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