JohnA Passaro's Blog, page 37
September 7, 2017
Life is a Marathon
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This is the 6th chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for 40 days.
Click Here to read the full book from the first chapter
Chapter 6
Life is a Marathon
There is a comfort in the strength of love,
Twill make a thing endurable
Which else would
Overset the brain
Or break the heart.
William Wadsworth
There is a sector of Japanese Monks called the Marathon Monks of Heim, who pledge to walk a marathon a day for 1,000 days.
They do this to be enlightened about the universe.
The first 100 days of their quest is a trial.
At the 100-day mark, the Marathon Monks of Heim need to either commit to this challenge or give up.
There is no penalty if they quit before the 100-day mark.
Although, if, after the 100-day mark they quit, they must kill themselves.
There are many graves in the Heim mountains from previous Monks who could not keep their pledge.
The reward for the Monks who complete a marathon a day for 1,000 days is to then go nine days without food, water or sleep.
The idea is to bring oneself as close to death as possible to more fully appreciate life.
They test themselves this way on purpose.
They believe it is only after being faced with the ultimate test, death, that their senses become acuter, they recognize and appreciate the world, and they long to live.
I believe becoming a ‘Life-changing Event Club’ member is very similar.
There are times life tests us, makes us go all in on multiple occasions and then brings us to near death or destruction.
Somehow we make it through.
We plow through the pain.
We get as close to giving up as possible.
Then we more fully understand and appreciate life.
Life is a marathon and uses chaos and adversity to help us become enlightened about the universe.
In the process, we develop a resilient perspective on life that is impenetrable.
And after we develop this impenetrable perspective we are to then share it with others, so they too can be internally enlightened about the universe.
There are always two journeys happening at the same time, yours and others.
Sometimes you are the lead role in an event for yourself and sometimes you believe you are in the lead role just to find out you were playing a supporting role in the event of someone else.
It is difficult to know which, is happening, when.
Both roles are extremely important.
You are where you are for a reason.
Chapter 7 – I Would Have Missed… To be released 9/8/2017
Synchronicity is the 4th book in the “Every Breath is Gold” Memoir series.
#1 – 6 Minutes Wrestling with Life
FREE eBOOK
Click to Download
#2 – AGAIN
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#3 – Your Soul Knows
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September 6, 2017
Perseverance is Priceless
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This is the 5th chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for 40 days.
Click Here to read the full book from the first chapter
Chapter 5
Persistence is Priceless
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
But he is brave five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
People are happy when they see progress.
When they feel that tomorrow will be better than today.
The unfortunate part about plateaus is they are so often misinterpreted as the end of growth.
The deterioration of tomorrows.
A lesser version of today.
The start of the end of happiness.
And they are where dreams so often die.
True belief is not believing when times are good;
true belief is having faith in the midst of despair.
The reward is in the struggle.
When asked why he was able to solve problems so adeptly, Albert Einstein replied,
“I just stay with problems longer than anyone.”
I’m sure Einstein faced many plateaus in his work, but what made Einstein, Einstein, was his ability to believe and persevere through the plateaus when others would have quit.
Perseverance is priceless.
It rewards those loyal to belief.
I have come to learn that one must use plateaus as a time to rededicate, re-commit and re-strategize.
One is best served to use the temporary stoppage of growth as a pause; a time to get some fresh oxygen into your brain.
A performance plateau should be viewed as the end of the first act, not the end of the line.
A time to reignite belief, confidence and enthusiasm in order to start again with new data, a second time; a third time, or however many times it is necessary.
H.L.I.T. – However long it takes.
That is the only answer.
Chapter 6 – Life is a Marathon
Synchronicity is the 4th book in the “Every Breath is Gold” Memoir series.
#1 – 6 Minutes Wrestling with Life
FREE eBOOK
Click to Download
#2 – AGAIN
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BUY NOW
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
#3 – Your Soul Knows
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eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
All of JohnA Passaro’s books are available at these fine online stores:
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September 5, 2017
Jumping Into an Icy River
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This is the 4th chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for 40 days.
Click Here to read the full book from the first chapter
Chapter 4
Jumping Into An Icy River
This is too harmonious,
Grand and overwhelming a universe
To believe it is all an accident.
Morrie Schwartz
Tuesday’s with Morrie
When you search your soul for an answer to a problem and the answer arrives camouflaged in a simultaneous event in your life, it is far too easy to dismiss it as a coincidence.
It is not.
I believe the Divine orchestrates synchronistic events in your life; designed as clues to magnetically guide you to your right path on which you need to continue your journey in life.
Have you ever wondered why certain events happen in your life, at the exact time that they do?
It is the Divine knowing that you face a fork in the road and sending out a clue as which road to take.
What made me send that text when I did?
What made me jump in the car and travel forty-five minutes at 10 p.m. to stop a young wrestler from quitting?
What made me say, “If I can convince you of only one thing, let it be this – you need to trust in the process.”
What made the answer I gave to a young wrestler who was discouraged with his performance plateau be the exact prescription I needed for myself?
The answer may be in a quote by Ann Patchett,
“There are in life a few miraculous moments when the right person is there to tell you what you need to hear and you are still open enough, impressionable enough, to take it in.”
There is something about giving advice to someone and then while hearing your own voice realizing it is the exact advice you have been seeking yourself.
Synchronistic events are so cunningly crafted and orchestrated, they leave me in awe.
They happen at the precise moment when, after a massive struggle, we are about to abandon our soul, to lose faith, to not listen to know what is the right thing to do.
Comedian Steve Harvey said,
“Everybody has a turn back moment in their life;
a moment in their life where they just want to turn around and go back.
They say to themselves –
It’s too far.
It’s too hard.
It’s too steep.
It’s taking too long.
I’m exhausted.
I’ve lost patience.
My faith is weak.
I’m going to just go back to where I was, where I was safe. Where I didn’t feel all these things.
But don’t.
God shows up.”
Most call these events coincidence, not I.
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It wasn’t a coincidence which made George Bailey jump into an icy river to save a man from drowning, in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” just as he was about to give up on life himself.
It was a Divinely orchestrated synchronistic event.
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When I am extremely tuned into my soul, I often recognize my life provides me with these divinely orchestrated events usually disguised as chaos or adversity, which are designed to provide me with the answers I am seeking without it seeming to have come from the Divine.
Sometimes, chaos is needed to disrupt our current path and realign us onto the right path; a reshuffling of the deck of sorts.
In what we too often dismiss as a problem, lies the solution.
For somewhere within the chaos lies the order we desire.
We just need to fight for it.
It is important for us to recognize chaos as originating from the divine, and to cherish its presence; to dissect its content, to learn its lessons, and to implement its value in our lives.
When chaos occurs in life, we must pay attention; as there is something important the Divine is sending to us in order to prepare us, to strengthen us, to teach us.
Synchronistic Divinely orchestrated events are too easy to dismiss as coincidence.
Do not.
Why?
Because as Morrie Schwartz so elegantly said,
“This is too harmonious, grand and overwhelming a universe to believe it is all an accident.”
Chapter 5 – Life is a Marathon to be released 9/6/17
Synchronicity is the 4th book in the “Every Breath is Gold” Memoir series.
#1 – 6 Minutes Wrestling with Life
#2 – AGAIN
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
#3 – Your Soul Knows
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
All of JohnA Passaro’s books are available at these fine online stores:
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September 4, 2017
Trust The Process
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This is the 3rd chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for 40 days.
Click Here to read the full book from the first chapter
Chapter 3
Trust in the Process
The highest reward for a person’s toil
Is not what they get for it,
But what they become by it.
John Ruskin
[image error]Forty-five minutes later I arrive at his house.
He is waiting for me at the door.
As I enter, he thanks me once again and then disappears to leave me alone with his son, who is sitting at the kitchen table.
“Talk to me,” I start out.
After some time, the young wrestler confides in me that he feels like he has worked all of his life and that he hasn’t seen any reward for his efforts. He has mistakenly determined that wrestling is just not worth it anymore.
“Let me tell you a little story, I start out.
I won’t make believe that I was this great wrestler,
I wasn’t.
But I do know a little something about dedicating your life to something and feeling unrewarded.
When I was your age I gave six years of my life to this sport, and I never got to stand on the top step of the podium in the tournament I set out to do so in.
I walked away feeling like I didn’t achieve what I set out to do in the sport I loved.
I hated the sport for not reciprocating the love I had for it.
I left the sport feeling that my six years wasn’t worth it.
That it was a total waste of time and effort.
It took me many years to realize that even though I never accomplished my goals in wrestling, wrestling accomplished its goals in me.
They call wrestling the greatest sport on earth for a reason.
It just took me twenty-six years to realize why.
You see, you are on a journey.
Right now you think the journey is about winning wrestling matches.
One day, many years from now, you will realize it’s about so much more.
Silently this sport is building within you everything you will need to be successful in your life.
But only if you allow it to.
Now, you only see plateaus and loss and unfulfilled dreams.
It all seems like chaos.
But the lessons within the chaos are important.
More important than winning.
One day you will understand that.
If I can convince you of only one thing, let it be this – you need to trust in the process.
You have to trust the work you are completely immersing yourself in, is either going to produce your desired result or equip you with the tools needed to conquer a more important future endeavor, one you neither understand or are currently aware of right now.
I believe the lucky ones in this sport, which I consider myself to be one of, get something of far greater value than standing on top of a podium for a few seconds.
They get a way to live life.
And that lasts their whole life, not just the length of an awards ceremony.
I hear you have hit a plateau.
Plateaus provide one with time to think.
To doubt.
To wonder.
To agonize.
To lose belief.
Plateaus are a time to quit or re-commit.
So many people give up on their dreams during plateaus.
Don’t.
Plateaus are a filtering system to greatness.
Whether you wrestle this year or not, is up to you.
But understand this, there will be a time in your life when you will be in the fight of your life, facing an opponent much bigger than you, and you will be called upon to win something much more important than a wrestling match.
Not only for yourself, but for your family.
One day your family may be faced with a death, a divorce or a diagnosis.
The one thing I know for sure in life is your family will be much better prepared to win that fight, having wrestled.
Wrestling is about learning how to fight, to be able to beat what life is going to throw at you.
You are doing a great job.
Forget about plateaus, and getting to the next level.
Just trust in the process
And I can assure you,
You will be rewarded in the end.
That is why you should wrestle.”
I made it back home after midnight and I spent the next few hours marveling how the Divine sneakily used a synchronistic event in my life to get me to hear in my own words what I should do.
To trust in the process.
Chapter 4 – Jumping Into an Icy River to be released 9/5/17
Synchronicity is the 4th book in the “Every Breath is Gold” Memoir series.
#1 – 6 Minutes Wrestling with Life
#2 – AGAIN
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
#3 – Your Soul Knows
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
All of JohnA Passaro’s books are available at these fine online stores:
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Sneaky Synchronicity
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This is the 2nd chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for the next 40 days.
Click Here to read the full book from the first chapter
Chapter 2
Sneaky Synchronicity
People and events are rarely
Who and what we think they are.
They are more meaningful,
More worth our attention.
Part of some finely choreographed, eternal dance
That we would be wise to bow down before
In gratitude and humility.
Elizabeth Lesser
Broken Open
The beginning of the high school wrestling season is a great time of the year.
It is the time of year when all wrestlers anxiously await the magic of having their hard work transformed into success.
Even though my two sons have graduated, I still follow the Long Island high school wrestling scene very closely.
It is great to see the young wrestlers whom I witnessed work hard for so many years develop and become successful.
It is the night before the start of the 2015-2016 High School season.
I send a text to a father of an up and coming young wrestler; a wrestler who is about to get rewarded for his years of hard work and effort.
His junior season starts tomorrow.
“Your son ready for the season?” I text.
A text immediately comes back,
“He’s decided not to wrestle this year.”
Obviously, this is a joke meant to stir up the “imagine” gene in me.
“No, really – who is his first match against?” I ask.
“No, really. He says it’s not worth it anymore. He says that he has plateaued and hasn’t been able to get to the next level. That all the work he is putting in is not bearing fruit, so he is going to quit,” he responds.
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“What is your address?” I ask. “I’m coming over.”
A return text appears with his address and the question, “Are you sure?”
It is then I realize it’s after 10 pm and he lives forty-five minutes away.
“I’m sure – see you in 45 minutes,” I send back.
“Thank you,” he replies.
Chapter 3 – Trust in the Process
Synchronicity is the 4th book in the “Every Breath is Gold” Memoir series.
#1 – 6 Minutes Wrestling with Life
#2 – AGAIN
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
#3 – Your Soul Knows
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Purchase
eBook
Paperback
Audiobook
All of JohnA Passaro’s books are available at these fine online stores:
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September 3, 2017
Perfect Game Plateau
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This is the first chapter of
“Synchronicity: A Divinely Orchestrated Journey”
I will be releasing 1 chapter online a day for the next 40 days.
Chapter 1
Perfect Game Plateau
There are plateaus,
But you must not stay there
You must go beyond them.
Bruce Lee
The 3rd of December, 2015
Ever since speaking a single word to her friends ten months ago, Jessica’s development has plateaued.
She has spoken no new words, she has had no new limb movement and she has seen no new development in any part of her body.
Except in her eyes.
Most of the time.
At times I can see a vast improvement in clarity in Jessica’s eyes as she looks at me, and a sense of
“Thank you” is communicated to me.
It is as if she is saying,
“Thank you for your unconditional love.
Thank you for taking care of me.
Thank you for being there for me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
And at other times I look into her eyes and I see an endless suffering in solitude.
Tonight, unfortunately, I see the endless suffering in solitude.
As I pass Jess on my way to the kitchen, I notice a tear welling up in her eye as she stares blankly in the air.
The tear is not a public tear which runs down her cheek for all to see, it is a private tear which she holds back hidden in the corner of her eye meant only for Jess to know of its existence.
The tear stabs me in the heart as it makes me wonder if my persistence in trying to cure Jess has added to her suffering.
A quote from the scene of the movie:
“Where Dreams May Come,” when Robin Williams’s character enters into hell in an attempt to save his wife echoes in my mind,
“So this is the guy who won’t give up.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you that too much persistence can look kind of stupid?”
Plateaus remind me of a story I heard David Cone tell about when Robert De Niro was told that David Wells was on set.
He asked, “Who is David Wells?”
Someone answered, “David Wells is the pitcher for the New York Yankees who just pitched a perfect game.”
To which he asked, “What is a perfect game?”
“A perfect game is when a pitcher doesn’t allow anyone to get on base. No hits, no walks, no errors.”
To which he replied, “Sounds pretty boring like nothing happened to me.”
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So much has happened in my life over the last ten months yet the results metaphorically show that no one has gotten on base.
No hits, no walks, no errors, and certainly, no runs have been scored.
It seems as if no advancement has been made, of any kind.
Yet, success in my life, like a perfect game with “nothing happening” has been one of the most difficult feats to achieve and has been anything but boring.
I can encapsulate the last ten months in three words, Perfect Game Plateau.
Every day I remind myself and say to the nothing plateau that you are not going to beat me, that in the nothing there’s extraordinary meaning and in my quest to conquer the difficulty of perfecting the nothing plateau lay the hidden gems of life.
JohnA’s Quest.
To beat nothing.
Three words.
Perfect Game Plateau
I guess this is how I attempt to minimize the nothingness – to give it just three words.
Within these three words is an entire story, an entire life.
The dichotomy of these three words, Perfect Game Plateau, have all but consumed my life.
Perfect – As good as it can possibly be.
Game – A competition, played according to rules and decided by skill, strength or luck.
Plateau – A state of little or no change following a period of activity or progress.
Over the last ten months, I have given everything I’ve had to beat nothing.
What bothers me though, is, I know the truth.
And the truth is, I am nearly out of bullets.
I feel like I have done all I know how to do,
I have gone as far as I know how to go.
I hate to wonder if this perfect game plateau is the peak of Jessie’s recovery; as, if it is, she will continue to suffer in perpetuity.
Knowing my persistence may be adding to Jess’s suffering, is, at times, unbearable.
It has created an internal tug of war between my will and my tolerance to pain.
The realization that I may be dedicating my life to a cause that may not produce my intended result weighs on me.
Not for me, but for Jess.
I no longer know what to do, or which way to go.
I question if I have correctly heard the answer to my prayers as what it is I should be doing for Jess.
So I become still and once again ask the Universe for guidance.
The wise words of Wendell Berry arise from my soul,
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work.
And when we no longer know which way to go,
We have begun our real journey.”
I guess my real journey and my real work have just begun.
Perfect, I’m ready to win this game and beat this plateau of nothing.
Chapter 2 – Sneaky Synchronicity to be released 9/4/2017
Read the first book in the “Every Breath is Gold” memoir series:
FREE eBook
Apple/iBook
Google Play
NooK
Kindle
All of JohnA Passaro’s books are available at these fine online stores:
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August 31, 2017
Priorities
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It is widely acknowledged that setting priorities is the key to success.
It is not,
Locking in your priorities is the key to success.
Setting them is the easy part,
Carrying them out is where success resides.
All of JohnA Passaro’s published works are available at these fine online stores:
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August 29, 2017
Band of Brothers
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For he today, that sheds his blood with me, shall always be my brother.
Shakespeare
Henry V
August 27, 2017
Someone
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Slow down.
It’s always going to feel like your behind.
There is always going to be someone doing better than you.
There is always going to be someone doing worse.
Your probably better off turning towards the one doing worse and saying,
“What can I do to help that person?”
Then you are constantly keeping your eye on the one doing better and saying,
“How do I get to where he is?”
Mitch Albom
Author of Tuesday’s with Morrie
Seeds of the Soul
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Every moment, and every event, of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul.
For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds,
So each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.
Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost,
Because men are not prepared to receive them:
For such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.
Thomas Merton
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