Last Friday, I was shopping at the Life is Good store down on Main Street in Ann Arbor.  As the town does every year, Ann Arbor was hosting their winter Midnight Madness event, which attracts the greater part of metro-suburbia and student body, alike, into the downtown area to ultimately incentivize a little bit of shameless consumerism.  And, in spirit of this year’s holiday, I decided to support the local economy by doing some Christmas shopping here in the town that I have come to know and love over the last two years.  Nothing particularly out of character about this, I’d say.

 

            I was shopping for a new ball cap.  I had worn my deep blue University of Michigan hat into a sun-bleached, maroon piece of cloth this past summer at camp and it was really just time for an upgrade.  I found the perfect hat and along with it I purchased a shirt that said “half full” and pictures a generously filled champagne glass on the front.  Like I said, it was in the spirit of the holidays. 

 

            I found one last item on my trip into the Life is Good store.  The final purchase of mine was, in fact, a novel.  Not to anybody’s surprise, the book was titled “Life is Good”.  The book stamp reads “How to Live with Purpose & Enjoy the Ride”.  Never in my life had I seen this book before.  Never in my life had I heard, smelled, tasted or touched it, either.  But as I stood there in that store looking down at this book, all in one moment, I was finally able to put a label onto everything that I had been trying to write over the term of the last two years.

 

            So I started to flip through the book in the store with the idea that I could maybe learn a few things from it and then set it right back down before I went to check out.  I soon came to an understanding, though, that I was about to have a lot of trouble with trying to get myself to leave this store and get to the next if I didn’t just go ahead and buy the book already.  And so I did.  I bought it because I, in a way, felt like I was reading some of my own writing within the book which was indeed, comforting in its own.  But the fact that the writing wasn’t actually mine had allowed me to take the stories for what I thought that they were worth and as an inspiration and model source for how I hope to be able to share my own stories in the future.

 

            To give you a better understanding, the “Life is Good” book is a life story shared by John and Bert Jacobs.  Through sharing this story of theirs, the brothers are able celebrate the power and potential of optimism.  The Jacobs’ grew up in a shady suburb of Boston but managed to turn their rags into their riches by taking a leap of faith with their profitable start-up business that we all have come to know as the Life is Good Company.  Through emphasizing openness, courage, simplicity, humor, gratitude, fun, compassion, creativity, authenticity, and love, John and Bert have found a way to document their coming to be; something I have worked tirelessly to capture as well in the past few months while working with my writings.

 

            You see, I write because I feel that I have a story to share.  And not just one story, but many, many stories that are all, in one way or another, a part of me.  And I disclose this series of stories with hopes that one day, I will make anything more than a little bit of an impact on anyone more than just a couple of people. 

 

            Through sharing my story, I am able to practice storage of memory.  (Find yourself HERE to see an example of this type of my writing).  Every night I go to bed amazed by the opportunities that I had the chance to take hold of that day, but I also go to bed amazed by how quickly that given day can go by.  And after many of these days accumulate, it gets harder and harder to remember the events of days past.  My problem is that I live in fear of forgetting.  And this fear is the driving force behind a lot of aspects of the way I am living, and therefore, behind the life stories that I often find myself exploring through writing.

 

            As well, through sharing my story I am able to practice expression of discovery.  And sometimes this discovery is in the form of self-discovery.  When this is the case, I am often writing with hopes to heal or to learn more about an event of my life as it applies to my current state of being.  (In fact, you can see an example of this style of my writing HERE).  But, as accords to my student status, I am often writing to explore my discoveries in the form of new creation of thought.  I am writing to learn.  I am writing to better understand complex issues that have room for advanced analysis and space for the insertion of my own voice.  And by using my writing to document my developed understandings, I am able to share my created works with others in hopes to help them come to learn the things that I have realized, too.  (This type of my writing is best displayed HERE).

 

            However, through all of this writing, I had never actually noticed a theme, that is, until now.  The “Life is Good” book that I found on the shelf in downtown Ann Arbor last Friday has not only inspired me through leading by example, but it has inspired me to look at my writing, including that of the past, present and future, through a new lens.  I, in a way, feel that the motivations of John and Bert Jacobs to share their stories run parallel with the reasons that I have for documenting mine.

 

            I’ve realized that I need to have purpose for sharing my story.  My story is merely just a story if it has no inner exigence.  And I, as the writer of my work, wasn’t aware of my exigence in the past.  Though, when I was writing all of these earlier works, I was subconsciously putting them through a filter.  The filter tried to help my writing make others realize that, no matter how ugly or harsh the world might seem at times; we really do live in a beautiful place filled with so much potential.  And through telling my story, whether I knew it or not, I was really trying to show people how much they have to appreciate within this world of ours.  Tell me if I’ve been led astray, but this exact effort is what seems to be the attempt of the Jacobs brothers, too.

 

            I think that I finally get it, then.  I know what I was trying to say.  This is funny, though, because I didn’t actually know that I was trying to say anything at all in the first place.  My words are representative of not only my storage of memory and my development of understanding, but of the world as a place that’s filled with beauty and of life as a time frame that’s filled with opportunity.  Life is truly good and, just like the Jacobs brothers are out to do; I’m here to spread the word.