What Color Will You Paint Your Future With? | Ep. 14

What you fear to lose is only loss.

So today is my birthday; I’m still processing what that means. It’s supposed to be a day of celebration, a sort of pat on the back for surviving this long, and a day for the people who are in the journey together with you to reach out and say, “Congratulations, brother, you’re still stuck in this shitty world together with us. Isn’t it great?“

Maybe I’m feeling pessimistic about the whole thing today. And what better day to rethink your view of the world than your day of birth? This is truly the best day possible to let go of things that no longer serve you. It becomes easy to look for validation in all the well wishes, congratulations, the happy thoughts, but where will these be tomorrow?

This morning the first thing I did after brewing coffee was I took out an old painting I no longer enjoyed looking at… It represented an older, darker, more angst-filled view of my creative process. I then grabbed bright yellow and white paint and slowly began covering the old dark canvas with this glistening, wet yellow paint.

The black still seeped through the first coat, and as I watched the entire picture become covered, It became something new, no longer recognizable. The texture of the old painting was still there, but this new color made it beautiful. Wonderful. Full of a direction that is more closely aligned to my truth in my vision for the future.

So today is like that first coat of bright yellow paint. We are taking an existing canvas; all the crap on that old picture can service texture for a new masterpiece.

I want to pause and think about the things that happened this last year in my life. I started last year like a kite in the wind. Panicked from being stuck inside the house during Covid, I had a lot of things internally I was escaping from.

Perhaps it was the allure of freedom; maybe it was the sensation of being stuck inside whatever it was. I packed up, sold everything, and traveled through Latin America for several months. It didn’t help me find peace; in fact, it probably agitated my growing sense of aimlessness.

I came back to LA, and the relationship I was in crash-landed. It was foundationally flawed, and that we both wanted it to work out, it was unraveling at the seams, so that happened.

It was around this time I pushed myself very hard, and I published my book, I built a coaching business, I started a new podcast, I’ll begin painting and started my next collection, I took stock on my direction in life and cut out the shiny distractions that continuously left me feeling empty. I looked hard at the choices in my life - and I finally found the courage to stop chasing fantasies that evaporate in the winds of time. I replaced much of the fear of loss with a determination to create.

And although it has been a lonely process, I remind myself that long-term happiness comes with letting go of short-term pleasures. 

I discovered acro yoga, started playing tennis more, ultimately it’s been one of the most consequential years of my life.

It hasn’t been a roller coaster but a solo trek through a wintery mountain trail. The snow stings my face as I walk, my toes have long since lost their feeling… but the thrill of the trek is filling me with a deep, profound joy like a blazing fire burning in my heart.

And now I get to choose the color but this coming year will be painted with.

So I choose long-term happiness. I choose bright red—the color of passion, blood, and fire.

I move to this year with clarity, with determination, and with a steady pace in one direction; that direction is to help my aspiring superhero friends out there break free of their old narratives, the ones that say they weren’t good enough, and to tap into the truth that they can achieve the impossible.