"I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great..."
- Anne Frank
Anne had a very different life and quite the opposite circumstances than mine. Yet I do relate. Her words show that as humans we have common needs that permeate our circumstances and individual nuances. We all - Anne, me, you - need to:
Express ourselves, be heard, and maybe even be understood
Matter, to know we have worth, to be important
Love and be loved
I have dedicated my life to helping humanize the world; to help fill these shared, human emotional needs in others. My objective, while admittedly not always successful, is to make everyone I meet feel like a million bucks. My colleague in London calls me, "The Million Dollar Man." I like that.
It has been an uncertain, often ambiguous journey trying to find a meaning, a purpose that leverages the best of what I feel I have to offer the world. And it's a journey that will never be complete. Yet like any journey, it started with one step and continues only as I follow that inertia one step at a time...never really knowing where it will lead. Only knowing that I don't really care where it will lead, so as long as the journey is fulfilling.
"Living life while it's here to live."
NJ bike tours is part of this journey. Inspired by Anne Frank, I hope that recording this journey will allow it to continue on in the lives of those who read or learn of my efforts to live purposefully.
I hope in sharing my story, it will discipline me to continue living with intent, and that others might find direction, hope, even inspiration as I often do when I learn of others' fights in the arena of life...
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-Theordore Roosevelt