With all of the news lately about the Trump administration in the person of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos looming to defund Special Olympics I thought I’d share a personal story about how I came to know more about this great institution.

As a younger man (a MUCH younger man) I had known about the Special Olympics and had even taken part in local fundraisers to help them out. That is about where my affiliation began and ended though.  I was working for a man named Chuck Petersen who owned Chuck’s Deli. Chuck could be a hard man to work for but if he liked you, you were in.  I, was in. I didn’t even begin to complete with the Special Olympic kids though! Chuck loved them and showed time and time again that he would do anything for them.

It so happened that the State Summer Special Olympics was held in our city. Along with providing food and his time, Chuck said that I needed to be a “hugger” after the athletes crossed the finish line. I explained that I would donate time or money but I didn’t want to be a hugger. He then explained to me that he  would be fine with my position as long as I didn’t want to work for him. I hugged!

I think it probably took all of about two races for me to realize that this was one of the best things I had ever done. To see the sense of joy and accomplishment in their eyes and feel the unrestrained love in the hugs made me realize that they definitely had the name right, they were indeed very special!

That day changed me. I thought I was already a giving person, and I guess I was. That day I learned that I could always give more, one way or the other. That day I saw up close and personal, that a small thing like a hug isn’t a small thing at all! That day I learned that a hug can be remembered for decades to come. That day, I finished my day by giving Chuck Petersen a hug and telling him thank you.

Now’s not the time to defund The Special Olympics or even decrease its funding! Now is the time to understand what the organization does and how they do it. Now is the time to take a step back and realize we might not know everything, and learn some very important new lessons from the organization and the people they support.

Now is the time for all of us including Betsy DeVos and her boss to learn and then carry on the lessons that Chuck Peterson taught me. 

Peace,

       Gregg

What’s My Purpose In Life?

I am far from the old whitebearded man sitting atop a mountain as followers arduously climb it to find the meaning of life, but I will give this one a shot. There have probably been many times in our lives when we wondered what our purpose was or our purpose in life.  Phrase it however you want to, from “What’s my purpose in life?” to “What the Hell am I supposed to do now?” or even just “Why?” we’ve all wondered if we’re on the right track.

Whenever this comes up, we almost always look at it in the biggest sense. By that I mean we want to know our “Grande Purpose” in the giant gears of life. The trouble with that is, NOBODY KNOWS! Oh yea, we’d like to know the answers and some people pretend to, but they don’t. But instead of the huge view, we can have an understanding of our purpose on a smaller scale. We need to look at our daily life or the lives of our family or friends or even complete strangers we might be around. 

Think of it in these terms, isn’t our real purpose in life, to actually live each of the small purposes that present themselves during the day? We know our purpose in almost every instant of the day we live. We simply need to rise to it! Sometimes we ignore it and pretend we’re living up to it. 

Now is the time to be courageous and embrace our purposes. Be more aware of our small purposes through the day and rise to their challenges. The extensive collection that we build of all of those small purpose victories throughout our life, then answers the question of “What’s my Purpose?”

In other words…(and here is the answer to the big question…)

Q-   What’s My Purpose In Life?

A-   To Live Each Moments Purpose To The Utmost!

My wish for you is that you will  achieve all of your small purposes…..

Peace,

Gregg 

The other day somebody I was speaking with was devastated because someone they trusted went back on their word. I stopped them there and called it what it was…

“So they didn’t go back on their word, they lied! Isn’t that what really happened?” 

After squirming a bit, they agreed. The person lied. They learned quite a lesson courtesy of life.

This happens to us all the time, doesn’t it? In one way or another we’ve all been lied to, deceived, used, mislead or disappointed. Sometimes it’s not others that rock our lives, but life itself. Still, the result is them same. In other words…

Live and Learn

I had asked a couple of famous folks to write a guest blog. Both of them said without hesitation that they would. I offered to write about some upcoming events they had happening as a way to both introduce them to my readers and add an additional voice to their events, which I wholeheartedly supported and believed in. Both of them stiffed me! Yep! In other words…

Live and Learn.

I’ve taken that phrase to heart over the years. Some folks see it as a phrase meaning that we’re giving up, but let’s take a look at those important words.

Live and Learn

It’s not about giving up, it’s about 

TAKING WHAT LIFE HAS GIVEN TO YOU…..

LIVING YOUR WAY THROUGH THE CHALLENGES LIFE THROWS AT YOU…

AND THEN LEARNING ENOUGH SO THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU CAN TAKE A GOOD EXPERIENCE AND MAKE IT GREAT OR AVOID A BAD EXPERIENCE 

Live and Learn not only goes for how others treat us, but how we treat others too. Look, we all make mistakes. From time to time, we will all treat someone unfairly, be rude to them or disappoint them because of our behavior. However, we need to learn from what life is giving us and make sure we show them (as my Dad would say) The Best We  Have To Offer. In other words…

Live and Learn

Apply those three words and allow the lives of others to impact us. A friend or family members death can teach us so much if we just let it. How did they live? What were the forces that drove them to live? How did they die? What would they want us to be doing following their death, letting grief stop our lives or remembering them and truly living whatever life we have left? In other words…

Live and Learn.

Remind yourself at the end of each day just what life has taught you. Write it down in a journal and then review it from time to time.

Learn from your Life

So you can then

Live and Learn

Peace

Gregg