One life.

It is all you have.

Okay I am about to get vulnerable. It has taken me decades to start opening up like this. I hope it inspires you to do the same with yourself.

If you have been following my path for awhile now, you know my 30th birthday is approaching. You also know that I have been on a journey the past couple months with my various running/workouts/health/business routines.

Prior to this message I have told you that I have wanted to get into my "best human shape" possible as I head into a new decade.

That was only half truth.

While I you will see me super positive person, there is a depressive side that many don't see. The only people who have seen it are my wife and my closest family members.

The main reason I wake up stoked for the day, motivated and ready to inspire others to make the world a better place with us, rather than without us, is because I have been battling digestive illnesses for the majority of my life. And from a young age I could grasp that every day we wake up and get the chance to LIVE, it is a blessing, not a curse.

My parents are getting their house ready to sell right now, and my mom just mailed me blood work she found from when I was 13. It made me giggle because the blood work showed that I had been unknowingly struggling with an infection for a couple months.

Why giggle?

Because it is the f*cking story of my life. Every day dealing with some unknown variable causing me to run to the bathroom, have a stomach that rumbles and looks pregnant after eating anything, or the worst part...being an asshole to the people I love because I am in pain and irritable. I can deal with pain, but I cannot stand when I reflect and realize I was mean because of that pain and the fact that I didn't communicate it properly.

Why am I telling you this?

My aunt died at 40 of colon cancer...and I am about to turn 30. She left 2 young kids (my cousins) behind. And I am over here struggling with similar issues, the same issues that she and other relatives had struggled with for years...which ultimately altered the lives of several people in my family.

The past few months, mortality has been on my mind more than ever. Even more so because of the current global circumstances. I cannot fathom only having 10 more years. I cannot imagine leaving behind the life I so very much love to live.

So I don't fathom it. I don't imagine it.

I control my controllables.

I MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE.

I MAKE IT ALL COUNT.

IDGAF about what the average person GAF about. (I don't give a fuck about what the average person gives a fuck about).

And I am asking you to wake up and do the same. Life is too short to be average!!!

Don't like your job? Find a new one.

Don't like the people you are around? Great! There are 7+ billion more people for you to go hang around.

Don't like where you live? Cool, it has never been easier to try a new place (Airbnb)

Don't like yourself? (This was me) Change all 3 of the above and START DOING YOU. Stop giving a fuck because the sad truth is, one day you will meet your maker, and the world will go on as if you were never here.

The moment I realized this, is the moment my life got better. And believe it or not, my health has been on an upward climb ever since. I not only plan on being in the best physical/mental/spiritual shape of my life at 30, I plan to do the same for every single decade in the future that I am blessed to be alive.

>>>>>> I wrote this not to get you down, but to lift you up. It is impossible to convey tonality through written word, but I am fired up right now and I want you to be the same. I do not feel sorry for myself. I don't want sympathy. I want you to step outside of your house, go out into the world, and take each step with the realization the next one is not guaranteed. When you do this, you will choose your steps, and all the rest of your life choices... more wisely. <<<<<<

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Sunday, and you step into this week knowing you have a choice to make your life count.

#thriveon

CJ

p.s. today I am grateful for all the experiences in my life that lead me to this very moment. Life does not happen "to" us, it happens "for" us. We can choose how we respond in every moment to what life has in store FOR us.