Today, I spent the day taking care of work for clubs I’m in and doing laundry. I did, however, take a much appreciated break watching the Japanese drama, “1 Litre of Tears.” The show tells the real life inspired story of an unfortunate girl befallen with an incurable illness and her struggle to live with dignity. Put simply, I was moved. I watched several episodes and when I thought I had cried enough for one day I placed my computer on my desk and walked to my room’s window. To my surprise, I discovered a red glow cascading over the valley mountains behind my Hawaii home. I was shook by its beauty.

I walked out to the front of my house, took a seat at the top of my red cement steps, and took out my ipod. Listening to my music, I made it a point to capture this moment before it left. Far beyond in the distance, a canvas of colors filled the sky as if shaded in by a huge paintbrush. Pink clouds spotted across a powder blue horizon hovered over a Honolulu metropolis of jagged buildings pointing to heaven. A soft breeze blew through my hair and gently rustled the trees nearby. And I realized everything was perfect.

But not because everything was necessarily perfect. Everything was perfect because it was enough. It was enough.

I realized that circumstances may make a different world for each person, personal blessings or seemingly unfair burdens change the rules of the game for each player, but at the end of the day every man is measured not by what he is worth but by how able he is to see the things of worth around him. Every single day there is a sunrise and a sunset. And too often, we let these very simple moments of beauty escape us. Instead we clutter our lives with the worries of tomorrow and the chains of a what-could-have-be yesterday. And amid all the chaos, disorder, or anxiety of our lives, we lose sight of the only thing that really matters: The Present.

I don’t want to live a life where the best years of my life are always contained in memories of the past. I don’t want to live a life where I’m always just waiting for something better to come. I want to live a life filled with constant rebirth and unending epiphanies, joy in each blessing and peace in the downfall, but most importantly, I want to live with gratitude.

Someone very close to me once told me, “We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” The same can be applied to the world. The same can be applied to everything. If you’re looking for the perfect life by trying to find perfection itself you will always be disappointed in the end. We live in such a world that the happiest man is not he who has attained perfection but he who has learned to appreciate the imperfection instead. This is the power of gratitude: to see what is there over what is not and to live happily with what life has handed you.

The best feeling of all is being able to say thank you—and meaning it.

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I think many of us take love for granted. We don’t realize just how beautiful it is—to love and be loved—until something shakes our world. Whether it be heartbreak, the loss of a loved one, or just a bad day, we don’t fully appreciate the company of friends, a caring listener, or just a warm hug until we need it the most.

Our world is witness to the destruction of other, lesser emotions. Emotions such as greed, hatred, bitterness, loneliness, anger…all of these have changed the world into something none of us wants. Crying children and sobbing parents fill our news reports; financial collapses and families in peril scour our headlines; tragedy in nations abroad and back home grave marks into the tablets our history.

And yet, in the midst of everything, there is always a courageous story to be told; stories of justice, stories of peace, and most importantly, stories of love. These are the stories we want to hear and the ones we keep with us. You see, others’ lives are shaping ours as well. And as we carry those stories with us, we are creating our own and in turn shaping the lives of others.

I want to believe that despite all the faults etched in each of our pasts, we can always still hold onto the hope of a better us one day. Sometimes we are burdened by the chains of our pasts or discouraged by the thought of an impassable future laid out before us. Sometimes the world tries to make us believe that such emotions as love are for the weak—that true strength is to stand unwavering and unaffected amidst overwhelming circumstances. I believe that anyone can act strong alone. But only truly courageous people can say they need a little help. The one truth among all truths in any religion and every creed is this: life is difficult. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. But when we hold onto each other and choose to walk through life together, it can be a beautiful thing. Every stumbling block we step over, every snag we pull out of, every abyss we manage to crawl out of all become a testament to the power and beauty of love. No one is alone and no one should ever feel like they have to be.

One must ask, “Why does it feel so good to love? Why does it feel so good to be loved?” It’s because we were built for it. Humans are designed to be compassionate beings, lifting each other higher and higher upon one another’s shoulders. It’s the only human quality that can sustain itself and make the world a better place at the same time. The beauty of love is that when you choose to believe in another person you give them the power to believe in themself as well. The gift goes on, and it passes from person to person until someone stops it along the line.

So what’s the message? Don’t be afraid to pass it! Don’t be afraid to accept it! Don’t be afraid to start it!

Of course, as most things in life, this is easier said than done. We are a world away from a perfect world. We can only do so much. So where do we start? How do we start loving? Let’s start in our homes. Let’s start in the relationships that are closest to us. Let’s bring our love to the workplace. Let’s take our love to our schools. Then let’s take it farther. Let’s not be afraid to give a stranger a smile or a beggar a coin. Let’s not be afraid to help someone we don’t even know continents away. Most of all, let’s not forget to demonstrate our love for those whom we claim to love already. It’s easy to take those closest for granted.

This Christmas I want to challenge both everyone and myself to love once more. Maybe we’ve been disappointed before. Perhaps we don’t want to know the pain of loss once more. Or maybe you just feel embarassed. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my disappointments, it’s that fear is the enemy of love. I’ve learned what it’s like to hurt and now I can truly appreciate real, agape love for what it’s worth and give thanks. I know how important love is to me. Now I want to give this important thing to others. Here’s to a beautiful tomorrow and and the people we’ll share it with. Cheers.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy8hOOvM0t0

Dick and Rick Hoyt

Dick and Rick Hoyt are Father and son runners for many triathlons, running a combination of of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America. Remarkably, Rick, Dick’s son is in a vegetable state–he can’t walk or talk.  In fact, he uses a computer to communicate to his father.  Yet despite this, for more than 25 years, both Rick and his father have participated in many marathons and triathlons.  When his father runs, Rick is being pushed by a wheelchair.  When Dick is cycling, Rick is in a seat-pod, which is attached to the bike.  And when Dick is swimming, Rick is being pulled in boat.  Dick never thought it would be possible to run, bike, or swim with his son, until one day Rick typed to his father, ”Dad, I want To do that.” Although Dick thought it was impossible, he still did it.  That day changed Rick’s life when he typed, ”Dad, when we were running, It felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

One of my favorite authors and speakers, Kris Vallaton, says that, “Love germinates in the soil of sacrifice, sprouts in the garden of surrender, and matures in the matrimony of servant hood. Love isn’t love unless it cost you something to give it away.”  What really stood out to my about this story was the amount of sacrifice Rick’s father had to go through to do this for his son.  After running with his son for the first time, Dick was sore for about 2 weeks! “Anyone can give something expensive, but only those who understand sacrifice can give something valuable.”

Dick Hoyt is an inspiration to me, and I hope one day, when I have a son, that I can share the same pure unconditional love to him.

Another purpose of The Legacy Movement blog will also be to tell of the legacies that others have left behind. Many of these people are ordinary people coming from ordinary backgrounds, but what set them apart was the vision they saw to improve the world around them and their determination to let nothing stop them from making that vision become reality.

One such person is Dr. Paul Farmer. Many people living in the US grew up with more than Paul had in his childhood. He spent much of his childhood living in a bus with his six other siblings and mother and father. In spite of his upbringing (or perhaps because of it), Farmer dedicated his life to the fight against poverty. After working his way through Harvard Medical School, he founded Partners in Health and helped raise the money to build the Zanmi Lasante Clinic in Haiti. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and its people live in fear of crime and oppression. Farmer spent the next several years splitting his time between working in the States to pay his bills and building up the Zanmi Lasante Clinic from scratch. Since its inception in 1987, the Zanmi Lasante Clinic has reduced infant mortality and malnutrition dramatically, vaccinated all the children in its area, and built schools, houses, and water/sanitation systems in the neighborhood. The most amazing thing is that Partners in Health has brought tuberculosis infection to a standstill on the island.

Fmr. President Bill Clinton wrote about Dr. Farmer in his book Giving and asked him why he didn’t simply volunteer a couple weeks out of the year and spend the rest of his time working for his own benefit. Paul’s answer was that even while he grew up in hard conditions, his parents were always concerned about those who were even worse off than they were and showed as much generosity as they could afford. The families he met in Haiti lived in conditions that made his bus look like a palace. Paul wanted to empower the people he met in Haiti with the same medical conditions available in America, and his vision resulted in changing the way health care works in an entire country. That is the kind of legacy that one person with a vision can leave on the world.

Dr. Paul Farmer is now in Rwanda implementing his Partners in Health model and leaving a legacy there.