What can I say? I have always felt different. That is, about as different as everyone else believes they are.

The Crisis

It’s a sobering truth to learn that despite the “believe in yourself” messages and my highly inflated ego I will probably never transpire to greatness. Rather than fancy myself a poet, dreamer and world-changer, I am really just doomed to be…normal. Gross, I know, but nevertheless, my 27 year old mid-life crisis self feels it must swallow this cold, hard truth. Brimming with dreams and adventurous desires that only seem to manifest in a sort of phantom stomach knot called angst. I grab that burden and put it to death. I have put aside the “childish” passions of my millennial youth, in order, to take hold of the finer things in life. Such fine things are these passionless career paths, 401Ks and long hours away from my family for the sake of this “American Dream.”

And then like most cheesy stories, the strangest thing happened…

Now I have this son and at the age of 14 months he doesn’t have time for such quandaries as mine, well, as far as I know. Instead his days are filled with following his innermost passions: eating, pooping, veggie-tales and waking me up for no reason at the most ungodly hours.His strangest pursuit of all is his game of bringing me books to read, only to trot away a second later. I find myself alone stranded in the strange depths of childhood literature. It was a time just as this my son of all creatures thrust wisdom into my lap. Wisdom written by non other than the great Dr. Seuss.

The Call

What I found sitting in my lap was no mere book, but rather an invitation. I didn’t see it all at once, but as I read line by line, rhyme by rhyme the clearer it became. Clarity that I had stumbled on something divined just for me. With each turn of the page the birth pangs of passion slowly resurrected bringing waves of confusion and frustration to my newly “adult” self. Then as I continued to turn, my eyes scanning the words, as my brain slowly processed them. This activity resulted in shocks of electric truth zapping my very soul. I was thankful though, for such a shock as this. As I would never be the same.

You can get so confused

that you’ll start in a race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.

-Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)

The Waiting Place

I look around this world and I see people shackled by their routine and inability to escape it. A routine that tells them to work menial jobs to produce means that neither lead to fulfillment or true life. I see generations of people in bondage to apathy. They have no dream nor vision. They are just waiting. Waiting their turn in the line of life to live, work, and die. Content to live out an existence void of passion and the desire for impact. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to wait in such a place and I bet if you were honest with yourself. You wouldn’t want to either.

But Why?

The question I ask myself is, “why?” Why do we allow ourselves to stay in a place of cyclical waiting. Slowly wasting away under the pretense that for some reason this is what we have to do. Why do we become so comfortable with not living out our full potential.

“Oh, The Places You’ll Go” was actually a book my father used to read to me as a child. Remembering this I took it upon myself to see if my old man could shine any light as to why people remain in a cycle of waiting, never moving on. What my father told me was my “Eureka!” moment.

He said, “Son, the reason people don’t leave the waiting place, is because they are waiting for permission to leave. They need someone to tell them it’s ok too. They need someone to inspire them.”

Permission to Leave…and Pursue your Passion! 

This is the first of hopefully many posts on this blog. I have created this blog, not because I am a good writer or even enjoy writing, because I’m not and I don’t. Nor do I labor over this in order to ultimately be heralded for some great revelation. I simply want the chance to inspire. I want the opportunity to invite people into something greater, something they were made for. I believe in childhood passions, crazy dreams and mountainous visions. I believe that you posses them and though they may be quiet and have faded from sight. They are crying out to be found. Your heart wants you to uncover that something worth giving everything for.

My name is Hunter Floyd and I give you the permission to leave the waiting and pursue your passion.

---

 

I would love to know what you are passionate about. Please comment about what you have given yourself permission to pursue.