[Repost from Diesel Newsletter]

While watching the benefit on TV for Superstorm Sandy, I saw Eddie Vedder cover Comfortably Numb with Roger Waters (Pink Floyd).

I love Vedder and thought he did an amazing job. The funny thing was I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics until a friend of mine sent me the video again in a text with the word “AMAZING” attached.

I listened to it again and it hit me.

This song is so powerful that I had to stop and write this note to you with the impending new year approaching.

Life causes us to hurt.

It causes us to hide.

You lash out at your friends, your family, and strangers because you’re SO angry all of the time..

You become scared to even reveal yourself.

You become ‘comfortably numb.’

In the song, Roger wrote, ‘This is not how I am.”

Wouldn’t you like to say that.

Scream it at the top of your lungs.

THIS IS NOT WHO I AM.

I am caring, loving, supportive, smart…I just can’t show you because I am scared.  People will judge me.  People will see it as a sign of weakness.

Life has made me this way.

My past made me this way.

This is not just you…it is me too.

As I write this article to you, I am writing it to myself.

There are many times when I want to fall back into my old habits and old feelings…and hide…and lash out.  I am not perfect, but I keep focusing on my goals and I keep moving forward.

You might see a lot of articles about how to be tougher or how to be a “warrior.”

They tell you to “get on MY level.”

I’m NOT telling you to get on my level. 

I’m saying let’s come together and go to another level….TOGETHER.  (Reference: Humanity)

Letting Go and Being Free

Please believe that you CAN reveal yourself.

You will be accepted for who you really are inside.

Just tell one person. Just show one person… and you will get stronger. And then show another until you are living freely and without hate and anger.

Your life is but a whisper in eternity. Don’t waste it by letting life change who you always wanted to be. Who you always knew you were.

“I Am Because We Are.”

The following article was floating around Facebook a while ago and it felt perfect for our article today.

“Today I read a story about an anthropologist who proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

* Ubuntu in the Xhosa culture means “I am because we are”.

Never forget that we are all connected.  Everyone is struggling.

There is no need to hide.

Reveal yourself and live openly and freely.

Rage!

Smitty

WATCH THE VIDEO (all the way through and listen):