Short video ...
http://www.ducttapethenbeer.com/damn-that-was-awesome/
(found link through Alastair Humphrey's site)
The transcript:
After all these years, I refuse to believe joy costs something, or we have to get on a plane to find it, that it has to happen on our vacation, and that dreams can’t come true on a Tuesday.
I don’t know what I want to be, but I don’t think it involves spreadsheets and e-mails and big paychecks. I know what I’d give thanks to.
I love spicy food and tipping big and getting up when it’s still dark.
I give thanks to vehicles we call homes, living off other people’s leftovers, and for evolving as a person.
This is one is for getting soaked by rainstorms, for cereal and Saturday morning cartoons as a kid and three legged dogs that still play fetch.
Walking on rocky mountain ridgelines, stones that skip all the way to the deepest part of the lake and watching the golden light of the last hour of the day turn the desert into a soft, glowing place.
And when I reach that final minute, that final day, I won’t think about shitty bosses or what happened on Facebook. I’ll remember riding my bike through the city streets at night, gravel roads that stretch on forever and all the highs and lows of family.
Standing in the middle of icy rivers wondering what it’s like to be a fish. Making pretty girls laugh. And friends. Of course my friends.
I try to collect moments. I step back and watch the movie that is my life for just a second, because it’s easy to miss the good stuff, the magic, when it happens. But I try not to. I try really hard to realize it when it’s amazing, and even when it’s not.
I know something happens when you finally see a place you’ve seen on postcards and wall calendars your whole life, and I know sometimes a beautiful dress can make a beautiful girl, just like that.
The best way to feel the ocean is to dive right into the waves, the same way you do with the ocean of people on city sidewalks.
This one is for the idea that money spent living passionately is better than any piece of gear you can buy.
For people who rock out in the car and have the music turned up so loud everyone else waiting in traffic can hear it.
This one’s for trying hard. For wonder. And coffee. Thank god for coffee.
We think our heroes have to be good at throwing or catching balls, or have their name printed on a jersey, and then we sit down on a barstool and drink beer and watch them have the time of their lives on a TV screen. My heroes are my belay partners.
Blind people who cross the street by themselves, people who tirelessly refuse to make excuses and those who discover that inside, we are all capable of surprising ourselves.
We all have dreams, but they don’t mean much if we don’t act on them, if we put them in a drawer we label “Someday,” for when we think we’ll have more time. I try to get out there, to go to amazing places, to have incredible conversations with incredible people. I think it all adds up somewhere. And when it does, you’re not doing something. You’re being something. And what I want to be is happy, and excited, and inspired.
Today I’m 35. That last rope length — that’s for me. For the next 35.
Because I don’t want to say, “I wish.” I want to say, “Damn, that was awesome.”
