adrian varnam

As I look back over my life I see a lot of disappointment.  I see friends and family that I’ve let down.  I see dreams unfulfilled.  I see grandiose ideas that have never come to fruition despite telling people in my life that they were imminent.  Always about to happen.  Just wait until tomorrow.  Just wait until I get the right funding.  Just wait until I get the right system in place.  And they waited.  And they continued to wait.  Day after day.  Because those moments never happened and I continued to drift through life, paralyzed by fear, anxiety, and Resistance.  And yet, I never seemed to notice, even after friends stopped asking me about my projects, and family members learned to avoid personal questions about my life, and I lost the faith, trust, and support of a girl I loved.

Can you relate?  Have you ever felt overwhelmed and underachieved?  Do you ever look back and regret what you never finished, or tried, or shared?  What was it that held you back?  What kept you from giving the world your all and sharing your Art, your ideas, your gifts?

Or have you felt like John Mayer?  I know you’re thinking, “Please, Dear God, let me feel like John Mayer.”  Tough life, being a pop star.  But in “Stop This Train” he sings:

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t but honestly won’t someone stop this train

For me, I never even got on the train most days.  And when I did, I felt that I just wanted to hide in the baggage compartment.  It’s easier that way.

But no matter if you’re looking out the window of a speeding railcar or cowering in the depot too scared to hop on, there is hope.  And it’s never, ever, too late to make a change.

The answer to all of our frustrations, disappointments, and unfulfilled dreams comes to us in the title of hardcore troubadour Steve Earle’s 2004 album, The Revolution Starts Now.  For one, it’s the recognition that making changes in our lives, in the giving of ourselves, and in sharing our Art and achieving our dreams is a revolution.  It’s not a light switch; it’s a process.  And it takes time.

But more importantly, it’s the understanding that it happens NOW.  Now is the time to make a change.  Today, not tomorrow, not next week.  Right now.  And as Lao Tzu said, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

So where does that leave me?  Well, I know that I can’t change the past.  I can’t erase those disappointments, can’t magically restore the faith that others have lost in me, and may not win back the trust and love of certain people.  But I can immediately change the present and future by starting now.  I’m taking best-selling author Brendan Burchard’s challenge and making 2010 a year of creation and productivity.  Hence, this blog, hence this vulnerability that I’m sharing with you, hence the products that will spring from this site, and hence the public declaration to the world that I will no longer live this way.

No longer am I going to be hiding, no longer will I care what others think, and no longer do I wish to live as someone who is waiting for tomorrow.  The world needs to hear from me.  And from you.

Join me.  Let’s give everything we’ve got this year.  Make your Art, share your ideas, accomplish your dreams, and let’s make a difference in the lives of others.  Today is the day we’re gonna make a change.  Today is the day the ass-kicking begins.  Today is the day we take back our lives from mediocrity and disappointment.  Today.  The revolution starts now. 

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