Robbie MacKay

Stop. Start.
Pulled one way then the other.
Just when you decide, you realise you were wrong all along.
Everything is transient.
Everything is serious. Nothing matters.
Life starts now.

Life starts now.
But it already started.
You’re going nowhere.
Yet you’ve come so far already.

Do you recognise this life? Do you know how you got here?
You got you here.

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/prompts

Kill every distraction. Everything in the way. What is there to communicate?

I love you all. What else can be said?

Do not miss me. Do not mourn me. But celebrate the glorious life you all helped me to have.. I only hope someone will continue to fight for the things I fought for. Selfish? maybe.. but what better time to than now, if I really had 15mins to live. What better time for generosity and thanks too?

Fight for the planet, fight for life, fight for all those who are trodden on and ignored.

I will love you always.. more than I’ve ever said or shown. I’ve told some of you many times, and some of you never at all.
But I love you. I will miss you. I only wish for one more hug. One more chance to show you who  I am.. to beg forgiveness for every pain I’ve caused you, and to thank you for all you’ve given me. For being there for me, for loving me, for things said, advice given, good times had, bad times shared. For being angry at me when I was unkind, when I needed reminding who I was. Thank you for being you.

Thanks Mum and Dad for bringing me life, and showing me how to live it. I may not have always done things you expected, followed paths you choose, but I followed lessons you taught, one way or another. I took life and made what I would of it.. Thanks to you. I’ve made it this far, and I’m proud of what I’ve done, what I’ve attempted, and what I’ve failed at. Thanks to you.. the best guides I know in this life. You have my love and my admiration always..

I wrote this over a year ago, after watching the morning news covering a terrorist attack in Mumbai

I don’t get it

Whatever their cause, whatever their goals…
How does killing or injuring other people become an appropriate or acceptable action?!

How do they justify that?

I can only think these people must be disconnected from reality. How do you not recognise that there is another person you’re hurting…

There is supposed to be a development stage for people as we grow up – at some point we develop empathy, we realise that when we do something it actually has affects on other people, or more to the point: we realise thats there IS actually another person over there. That like us they can feel things.

The world becomes less about us as we realise we are not the only one who can feel.

How do some people miss this? or forget it? and end up treating a whole section of the world population as people and another section as thought they’re not people?

It seems like this is tied to an illusion of seperation that we all have (to varying degrees): different countries, cities, families, businesses, teams, etc.

We talk about growing the economy of a country and think about the factors in those decisions based on what’s best for the country (or insert some other group / decision here).

We forget to account for the effects on other countries.

The borders are all artificial anyway – we’re all one people.
It is one planet.

Even seperating humans from animals and nature… life is life.. we should be looking after all of it.

I’m not saying anyone should give up everything for another person… that serves neither person. But sometimes we could give up something for the good of another. Not because we have some self interest, not as a compromise, but just because it helps someone else, because it pains us to see someone else suffer.

(and in the end, that other is us)

First up.. you should check out Johnny B. Truant on Making your own luck.

So here’s my grand plan of awesomeness… are you ready?

1. Don’t stop
2. Be there. Waiting for the opportunity
(3. Own it)

It’s not mind blowing, it’s not complicated, and it’s definately been said before in various forms.

Don’t stop
When you’re out to get something. Don’t stop and don’t give up. Even when it seems like you’re not getting anywhere. (Check out Seth Godin’s The Dip)

Be there. Waiting for the opportunity
This is really a continuation of the previous point. If you’re out to get something, make sure you’re there waiting for an opportunity. The moments of coincidence that get you where you want to go, that seem like good luck, really only happen when you get yourself in the right place and put yourself out there.

Own it
I’m not sure this is necessary. You might get results anyway. But you’ll enjoy life a lot more if you own it. And take responsibility for the things that work and the things that don’t.

Simple, but this works for me.

Well I’m finally off. As I write this I’m on Flight MH130.. about 2 1/2 hrs from Kuala Lumpur in the first stage of my trip to the UK (stopping over in Penang, Malaysia on the way).
I’ve had a lot of thoughts and ideas going on in the last 2 weeks, lets hope I can tie them together into something coherent.

Letting Go
The preparation for this trip has been an experience. An exercise in something, many things in fact: patience, planning, growth and most of all letting go.

Letting go of people, of places, of comfort, letting go of all the things I ‘needed’ to do before I left. And putting some faith in the universe, in things working out. In love and friendship being enough to keep a connection to people half a world away.

Knowing that while I hate to leave people behind, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t go chasing these adventures. As Chris says: If being a part of something something meaningful comes with sadness, pain, and loneliness, so be it. It may come with all of those, but it also comes with love, amazing experiences, a closeness to others that’s hard to match and a feeling of peace at doing great work.

Its been a great experience working at Greenpeace, and I think the time limit on my stay there allowed me to really throw myself into the job.. nothing held back, making as much difference as I could.
It certainly paid off – both in having done some great things while there, having got into every bit of the organisation, and having made connections with some amazing people in a short time.

But at this end of things, leaving was painful.

————

Communicating love

A slight aside: I found that one of the hard bits was not having a way to express the love I felt for people, realising how deep the emotion for some of them went.. and that the normal ways to show that: a hug or a kiss on the cheek, didn’t quite cut it.
I wonder, is this just me? Do other people find this or not? How many things do we do, things we say.. that are an attempt to communicate ‘I love you’. We have expressions for love with partners/lovers, a simple passionate kiss. But for most cultures that’s off limits for anyone else. How do we show love? and do people recognise it when we try to express love?

————

I have at points in this process wondered whether we’d be better off if we couldn’t travel. Being able to see the world so easily is amazing… but it also means people do move more often. Whether you personally move or not, you will end up with friends spread around the globe.

And what if you didn’t travel? How do you shift your perspective? How do you know if all you hear about other places is true? how do you find that feeling of discovery and exploration?

What if you had just 1 flight left?
In time we may end up having less travel anyway, and people returning to more fixed close communities, gathering with the people closest to them. But trying to force it? I’m not sure. I do hope that as my closest friends settle down (IF they settle down) we mostly end up in NZ, close enough to see each other often.

But this all led me to a question: What would you do if you only had one flight left?
Just one long journey? and if everybody had the same?
Who would you see? where might you return too?
Who would you try to collect back in one place… what village would you build?

Note: It’s taken me over a month to finally publish this. It was originally written on June 24th while on a flight. I’ve now been in the UK a month. I’ll update more soon.

Another repost of my blog comments:

Thank you so much for this.
I’m about to move to the UK from New Zealand, I have 1 week of work left… working what has been my dream job for Greenpeace NZ. And part of me really doesn’t want to go.

I’m excited about the trip and work in the UK is looking promising… but I don’t want to lose the community I’ve got here

Except if I stayed I’d probably be restless still.

So I’m leaving the office, with people I’d consider family… and I’ll hold on as long as I can… but eventually it will be time to go…

Change is great.. and change sucks sometimes too.

And a quote from the original post by Chris Guillebeau:

I say: hold on to the moment as long as you can. Fight for it if you have to. Get up early and stay up late. Be brave. Choose the raw emotion, even the awkwardness if necessary. If we must go on to something else, let’s at least think about what was and what could have been.

The more intense the feeling, the better. If synchronicity and the feeling of being part of something meaningful comes with sadness, loneliness, and disappointment, so be it. I just know that I don’t want the alternative—mediocrity, routine, the safe and the comfortable.

First up, Welcome to any new readers who’ve come over from Ben Young’s blog. As Ben said I try to provide people with insights and inspiration, and encourage people to live awesome lives and change the world. I don’t post to a schedule, but I have a bit of a redesign in the works after which I’ll post more regularly.

If you like what you find here you can subscribe to this blog.

If you haven’t checked out bwagy (or his book) you should. It should be required reading.

I’m slowly tweaking my blog, what I write and how I write it. So here’s an update about what I’m up to at the moment. I’ll keep writing these updates infrequently when theres something interesting to update.

Moving

The most major change at the moment, and the one thats occupying a lot of my attention: I’m leaving my amazing job at Greenpeace NZ and moving to the UK in June. Complete with a side trip to Penang, Malaysia.

One awesome thing (of many): I’ve been amazed how easy it was to save money.

I thought it would take ages, but when I got serious about it it was easy. I put all my money in once place… discovered I already had $2000 (who knew?). I’ve cut back expenses by staying with friends and my savings are now on track. I’ve bought plane tickets and I’ve got a bit to keep me going till I have work in the UK.

This is a good example of how just starting is often the hardest part. Once you’ve created momentum its easy.

Updates

If for some odd reason you’re actually interested in my daily life and awesomeness: you should follow me on twitter here or just subscribe to this blog.

Bring your enthusiasm to life

Don’t settle for being a cog in the machine.

It’s really not the job your in that matters

But what you bring to it

I know I can bring real enthusiasm and passion to life
And I know from the people around me who do bring their passion too that it makes a huge difference to those they interact with

Let go

Share yourself

and see just how much richer life can be…

Trying something else: This isn’t a great ideas post, or strategy post or anything where I’ve got it all sorted (..I never really do anyway).

Its been an interesting week. I keep finding myself in familiar but quite old spaces… that is – I haven’t been there for a while. This odd feeling of peace and calm, waiting to start an adventure, wanting to just ditch all caution and planning and take off.

It’s a feeling I used to get quite often. And it can be a bit frustrating when I can’t find an outlet for it.

The interesting thing to notice was how much of a different person I am now… similar old space but different me..

And this time theres some outlets for that feeling… not just yet and with a bit of control… but a direction all the same