Come visit me at http://tracywanders.com/  

I attended two MS society support group meetings back in 2009 and volunteered to help in the MS walk that year as well. After that I didn’t go back. Why? Because it scared the hell out of me. Just like that box of chocolates, MS is an unpredictable disease, you never know what you’re gonna get. Being surrounded by all those people with all those possible manifestations gripped me with fear. Wheelchairs, incontinence, chronic fatigue, blindness, and extreme pain these are just some of the issues that others are facing in their version of MS. My neuro assured me that usually the patient’s original symptom is what progresses as time goes on (if it should progress at all) and usually those other possibilities don’t just appear because someone else with MS has them. This didn’t make me feel any better. My first symptom was numbness of the left side of my face and I imagined that progressing to a point that my face looked like something out of a horror movie. Thanks Doc. So I cut myself off from others with this disease and hid it from most of my friends. I faked it, nothing wrong with me, never mind those needles in the bathroom.

So what has brought up this little trip down memory lane is that yesterday was my 4th MRI. Previous experiences have been mostly nerve racking. No I'm not claustrophobic but as the click and clank would echo around me a million thoughts would race through my mind. Are there new lesions? Have they moved to other parts of my brain? Have the old ones gotten bigger? My last MRI was in 2009 at the height of my worst symptoms to date so it is understandable that I was a little unhinged. But this time I’m happy to report that I TOTALLY ROCKED THIS VISIT! It was almost zen-like. And I totally stood my ground when I found out the test was calling for a “contrast injection”. Now I stopped my shots well over a year ago and since then have purged all chemicals and dyes from my home and diet. I told the technician “by contrast injection if you mean a dye then I don’t want that in my body.” He paused and showed me where the doctor called for it on the prescription. I said “I’ll be sure to discuss that with her on the follow up since she didn’t tell me about it.” He said ok and off we went to the big tube sans dye. Now this was a red letter day for me because I’ve been flexing my courage muscles lately and this has been my biggest victory thus far. Fear has overridden my best judgment in the past concerning all things medical and I have given into things that I really didn’t want to do because I was afraid of not doing them as much as I was of doing them. This time I said no and meant it. I climbed onto the platform and he beamed me in or at least I like to think of it in that way. During my second MRI I imagined I was in space camp. This time I just closed my eyes and talked to God, yes I said God. We talk. I felt my body completely relax and my mind just wandered into the world of the jazz music playing in my headphones. Miles Otis. I imagined myself in the 1940’s dancing with a smartly dressed man in a jazz club somewhere in NYC. BTW I love the fashion of this era, a time when men knew how to dress themselves – none of that pants on the ground business you see nowadays. The vibrations from the machine were like a massage and I drifted off into that savasana state (I did do yoga just before coming in after all) where you kind of forget your body and the world around it. The process took about an hour. When it was all over the technician commented on how well I did remaining perfectly still the entire time.

I emerged from the hospital to find a bright, 86 degree day waiting for me outside. I felt light and full of enthusiasm. When I returned home Facebook was still up on my laptop from last night and the first thing I saw was this quote by Kris Carr

“Fear can be more dangerous than any disease. It swipes our joy and tramples our hope. Days, weeks, even years can slip through your fingers. If left unchecked, fear will strangle every breath from our lives. How do you say no to fear?”

I answered out loud – by starting a Wellness Warrior meetup.

When someone receives a disease diagnosis they go through different stages of response: 1) Shock 2) Fear 3) Denial 4) Grief 5) Acceptance 6) Fight or Flight and by flight I mean giving up and not doing anything to educate yourself and make positive changes in your lifestyle. Diagnosis means change whether we like it or not. I choose to be one that fights back and accepts the responsibility that I am in part at fault for my current condition. I believe some of it is genetics, some of it is environment and some of it is lifestyle. I know my own story well enough to say that much of mine has been lifestyle. I’ve discovered the value of giving your body the nutrients it needs to function and repair itself. I read, I self-experiment, and I’m open to non-traditional protocol for treatment. I’m not always right but I’m flexible. When I discover I’ve been wrong in my current way of thinking I quickly reevaluate and make changes as needed. Sometimes there’s pouting involved but I get over it. No one likes being wrong.

Now I feel ready to connect back to the world of disease (and not just MS). I’m stronger now and not so afraid of the “what if’s”. The support groups are great for being heard and receiving empathy but I feel they lack action. Wellness is an aggressive pursuit. I want to share ideas as well as work out together. I want to cheer others on and share the things I’ve learned on my journey so far. Now I don’t expect everyone to become raw vegans but I do imagine that I can inspire others to add more raw fruits and veggies into their diets. I’m meeting with two friends this weekend to discuss the setup of our meetup. I can’t wait! I’m going to make them each a green juice to get the brain charged for the explosion of ideas that’s sure to follow! I’m building my tribe at home and abroad and if this feels right to you I’d love to hear how you are creating vibrant health in your own life. Together we can heal the world.  

This theme has been following me around for a couple of weeks now. It hides here and there and jumps out at me when I least expect it. I politely nod and then duck around the next corner. It continues to follow me, chasing me almost. Until finally I’ve consented to lending it my time and my ear and here is what I’ve heard. If I expect any changes in my life to come about I have to completely immerse myself in what-ever it is that I want to become. I have to stop half-assing it and totally commit to these dreams otherwise they will never come true. Only I have the power to bring them into reality and they aren’t just going to fall into my lap; I have to work for them. The first step is I have to get serious about answering these two questions:

Who would I be if I weren’t so damn afraid of failure?
What would I be doing each and every day?

I would be a world traveling, raw vegan, yogi who is rebuilding community in America by helping people find healing. To better describe what I would be doing each and every day I will have to share with you the epiphany I had at 3 am last Monday morning. It was unusual because I never wake up this way. I just opened my eyes and as the last traces of sleep slowly dissolved a plan for next year unfolded completely before me. I sat up in bed, grabbed my notebook, and this is what I wrote down:
“I've already paid for my #WDS ticket for next year. I'm going to make May my last month at work and in June I'm going to fly to Oregon, attended the summit, hike the following day, and the next day board a plane to either Asia or Australia (whichever is where I find my first workaway hostel assignment). I'm going to get my yoga teacher certification and continue on doing hostel work across Europe until I reach the UK. Then I’ll start planning the healing hostel back home.”
I lied there for a long while looking at those words and a flame inside slowly began to build. I want to spend my each and every day traveling the world studying various healing modalities, getting my yoga certification, exploring the world of hostelling and then taking all that I learn back with me to the states to start a Healing Hostel. The hostel idea I had already but in that moment something was telling me not to put it off any longer. That if I stay and keep working this job to “save up” it won’t happen. That was the epiphany and my true self just gave me a release date.    

A few days later I found myself doubting my plan. I went into panic mode. Leave work in May? Would I be able to save enough money between now and then? Shouldn’t I take the whole year and save up? I reviewed my budget and savings plan with absolutely no idea of how much enough was. I noticed that since starting this raw food diet my total food bill had doubled in the last two weeks. This is a lifestyle change that I have already decided that I’m going to continue far beyond the 30 day trial so this means an increase in funds allotted for food in my budget thus less going into savings. I got scared. Will I be able to afford to stay raw while I’m traveling? If it’s so expensive here how much more expensive will it be elsewhere? Ever notice how when something seems hard we start making excuses as to why we can’t do it? I was already making excuses as to why I couldn’t leave next June. To say I would be stepping outside my comfort zone is an extreme understatement. I started giving up on myself before I even began and after a few days of going back and forth on whether I could leave in June or not I felt that flame inside me start to die. I got really sad and then when I started thinking of greasy junk food I have not thought about since going raw 2 weeks ago I snapped. I can’t give up on this! The plan may have to change or it may stay exactly the same, why do I have to decide all of this right now? I don’t need all of the answers today I just need a direction to point my compass. Then I need to focus on building community around me right here and now in this place that I am. I need to focus on healing my body and mind and trust the other to follow. I need to find immersion right here in Maine even if I have to create it for myself.

Now when you make a decision like this you have to look deep inside yourself and at your lifestyle and identify what’s holding you back. What are the roadblocks in your present life? For me I first need to face my fears and find that group of people in this town who can help support me (and I them) on my new wellness path. Currently I have nothing close to resembling this. I have one friend who’s on the same page but she and I need our own small army, so I’m going to start a wellness warrior meetup. I want to introduce raw foods to others but I don’t want to make this group all about that. I want it to be a meeting of the minds set on wellness. For me my mind is set on raw. For someone else wellness may look like something completely different. The key here is to support one another in whatever path we choose and to have the freedom of open mind and heart to try new things. That way together we can jump over any hurdle that comes along.

Sometimes a roadblock can be a person and sometimes it can be a canine. It has been a tough decision but I know I need to find a new home for my puppy. He demands so much of my time and I can’t take him with me when I leave next year. Friends aren’t easy to part with and sometimes the human ones demand just as much from you. I find that if you have a friend that is unsupportive and requires more out of you than you can give them it’s best to end the relationship. It won’t get any easier the longer you wait. With my puppy he’s young enough that I’m sure he’ll easily take to another person with little trauma and he’s so darn cute I doubt I’ll have trouble finding him a good home. I have a 4 day weekend coming up next week and so I’m going to start looking for a new owner then. Yes there will be tears but I know in the end it is best for us both. I’ll just remind myself it’s all a part of the growing process.

After that I need to find a way to reduce my living expenses. For me this will mean renting a room from someone rather than having an apartment of my own. This step could prove the hardest but at the same time it will prepare me for communal hostel living. I can think of it as training for the journey ahead. Also it will give me a greater level of accountability. Telling someone you want to rent their spare room so that you can quit your job and travel the world creates an expectation that come June 2012 you have to go somewhere. I already have someone in mind so now’s the time to exercise my courage. If they say no, I’ll keep looking. Who knows maybe someone I’ll meet in a future meetup can help me find just the right place.

This is my plan to create an environment around myself that will help propel me onward to becoming that person I want to be. I'm confident that once I take that first step everything is going to fall into place. When something feels this right you have to go for it and see where the road takes you.  In the end the only failure would be failure to try.

 

I've been riding on the high of WDS for two weeks now and my aim is to keep that momentum going. I have been so addicted to reading everyone's recap of the event. Every time a new one shows up on twitter I have to read it. I'm in awe of the people I met in Portland and really feel like the world is a better place just knowing they exist. These new connections have encouraged me in many ways and some have been downright surreal in their relevance to where I am at on this journey of mine. To elaborate on that below is a very brief summary of some of the who and how. Maybe some of these connections might benefit you too! 

Karen Walrond suggested we should not compare our insides to someone else's outsides. This amazing lady is a photographer and writer whose also a former engineer. She was one of the speakers at WDS and she had something to say that I really needed to hear.

"Be comfortable in your difference."  

I've always been different and even more so now as an adult. I'm a vegan, I don't own a television, I don't like to drink, I don't have a sarcasm radar that tells me when someone is just poking fun and I don't like telling people this because then they feel they can't joke around with me (go ahead I need the practice), I don't do well with on the spot thinking (recently someone I had just met asked me what kind of music I liked and I honestly had to think hard on it), I choose not to own a car, I don't like to shop, and I don't use products with chemicals in them. This is just a small sampling of my not fitting in with the average American. I have tried not to draw attention to any of this and that has meant keeping to myself for the most part. I have gone through phases where I've attempted to enter a social group, trying hard to fit in but after a while I'd grow so weary of trying to please other people and not being myself that I say screw it and go back to being on my own. So why not just be myself? Funny you should ask. That's what my new friend Niall is helping me with.

Niall Doherty has put together a sweet little course called, what else, A Course in Courage. If you're anything like me (who in 7th grade ran and hid in a bathroom at the skating rink because someone told a boy that I liked him and said boy then wanted to talk to me thus sending me into a panic) then come join me and let's work on our issues together! I loved that it's an online community of people sharing their struggles and triumphs in the face of fear. I fully intend on putting myself through every challenge and getting the most I can from the course. I am so ready to be free to be me. Niall also runs a website called Disrupting the Rabblement in which he shares with great passion the differences that make him special. Following along on his journey (from Ireland to New Orleans to Spain) I find I'm going through a lot of the same A-ha moments and reading about someone else experiencing these same feelings (such as not being satisfied in your "nice" job) is really validating. I don't feel like such an alien anymore, although that feeling may come back if I decided to become a full on raw foodist.

My new friend Kerry Murray whom I met high up on Saddle Mountain has motivated me to finally give Raw a chance. I first heard about the raw food lifestyle on a blog called The Happy Foody. I read a post about the documentary Simply Raw and after watching the trailer I bought a copy. If you haven't seen this film - do it! If you're in Maine let me know and I'll bring it over for a viewing. It is about an experiment in reversing diabetes in 30 days just by going raw and it worked for those that stuck with it. Just watching the trailer gave me goose bumps. Having just experienced that crazy year of bad MS symptoms (see previous post) I was looking for anything to help me feel better. I read story after story of people saying how much clearer their thinking became after going raw and I said to myself if raw food can get me my memory back then I'll give it a go! Since then I've tried many times to just go raw for the weekend and as soon as I leave the house I cave. As soon as I walk into my mother's house I cave! I tried again and again for about 9 months. Then I met Kerry, my first real life, in the flesh raw foodist warrior! Here's a lady who participates in such an extreme sport as crossfit and does so on raw foods. Wow to say the least! I was inspired. I officially made the plan on my flight home. I read through Steve Pavlina's own experiment with raw and I liked the sound of the high fruit diet he used. So when I got home I went through my kitchen and threw out everything. Well I left a few condiments. But other than that the shelves were bare. Next I went to Axis and Hannaford and stocked up on the fruits - bananas, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, apples, oranges, and tangerines; nuts/seeds - almonds, walnuts, pepitas, and cashews; and a few veggies too - carrots, kale, collards, and celery - which I use to make my green juice.  

So now after 4 full days of nothing but these foods how do I feel? Actually I feel great! I can't believe it took me this long to try this. The mental clarity is the same as when I use to take Adderall (prescribed of course) but without the weird body shakes. On my second day I had a fruit smoothie way too close to bed and had to take some melatonin to get to sleep that night. I won't do that again! Strange thing though, since I've returned from Oregon I haven't been able to get back into my old sleep rhythm of bed by 8pm and waking at 5am. I've been staying up until sometimes midnight and the next day I find I am not tired! It's almost trippy just thinking about it because I have always needed at least 9 hours of sleep at night to function. If I stayed up past 10pm I was worthless to do anything the follow day. Another miracle is that I have not craved sugar! Yeah I'm eating lots of the natural version so maybe that's why??Before I daily craved sugar especially the chocolate variety (vegan Joker's candy bars) but in all honesty I haven't thought about it until just now. Holy mother of God - am I cured!? I'm not going to happy dance just yet. This is only day 4 and I've read that the first two weeks you experience detox. So far I've not gone through that yet. I'm sure it's coming.

So this is how I'm keeping the fire burning in my heart now that WDS is over by making positive changes in my everyday life. I have many more amazing people to tell you about but for now I'll share just one more. I finally own something that has meaning for me. I carry with me everywhere my Summit at the Summit medallion give to all of us who made the climb by Tyler Tervooren. Tyler says

"Life’s most important lessons are learned from the risks we take...In order to become who we are destined to be, we must submit ourselves to the unknown. Life is best lived at its margins. "

I love those words! Go read Tyler's story and see how he inspires others to take risks in their life. Each time now that I find myself in a situation in which I'm afraid to take a risk I reach in my pocket and hold that medallion in my hand and remind myself of my experience on the mountain and the amazing people I now know because of WDS and I find an inner strength that wasn't there before. Or maybe it was there all along and I just didn't know how to tap into it. It's a powerful feeling and one I hope I can share with others someday. After all that is my ultimate goal.

PHOTO BY ARMOSA STUDIOS 

It’s been one week now since the World Domination Summit and I have been trying to wrap my head around it all to try to convey to you the sense of power and community that comes from being surrounded by 500 likeminded individuals. In short, it’s intoxicating. My mind has been swimming in the possibilities of what the future holds for all of us who attended. There are many big ideas I have taken with me but the underlining theme of what this summit has meant for me is Do That Which You Are Most Afraid Of.

If someone had told me one year ago that I would be in Portland Oregon surrounded by 500 amazing people all brought together under the common flag of non-conformity and that the following day I would climb a 3ooo+ foot mountain with 12 of those people I would have laughed so hard I’d have fallen out of my seat. You see June 2010 I was still coming out of the darkness of the worst year of my life. Hiking was a love I had abandoned in 2009 because vertigo had made it impossible to climb even the most familiar trails. And back then I didn’t know I was a non-conformist. I worked 8-5 like everyone else but with the plan to save enough money to start my own organic farm with my then boyfriend. We were going to become self-sufficient and live off the land as much as possible. I’d say that’s pretty unconventional. Well that was the plan before 2009. What happened in 2009? Here’s a brief summation – imagine extreme fatigue, vertigo, heat intolerance, memory loss, emotional highs and lows (fine one minute – sobbing the next), and tripping all the time because your left foot has dropped. Yeah that was me. Why were all these things happening? I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005 and until then it hadn’t really shown its ugly head. Perhaps this was because after I was diagnosed I went into fitness freak mode. I changed my diet, worked out every day for at least an hour, and was reading everything I could about my disease. I did this because I was terrified. I wanted to do everything I could to keep from ending up like others with the progressive form of MS. This momentum carried me forward for a few years but I was alone and felt disconnected from others. So when I met my boyfriend in 2007 I slowly began to forget I had a disease and soon fell into poor eating habits again. Then I stopped working out altogether. These changes plus the stress of going through college, working full time, and managing a new relationship landed me in the hospital on a heart monitor. That was the first warning sign. I responded by giving up college. I would not become an architect after all. Wait I thought you said you wanted to start an organic farm? Yeah I wanted both but that is a topic for another time.

Fast forward to February 2010 when everything turned around. I started working from home which meant I finally had access to the internet. Before this time I wasn’t online, had no idea what a blog was, and no idea that there was a whole group of people out there doing amazing, unconventional things with their lives. The world wide web introduced me to people like The Janssen Family, The Organic Sister, Raw Divas, Brian Johnson, and Chris Guillebeau. I started learning about what was going on in my body and making small changes that helped to clear the brain fog (like becoming vegan). Behold the power of diet, exercise and positive thinking! Life was better and there was light at the end of the tunnel. Then my 3 year relationship ended and that light dimmed. When your life plans are interwoven with another person and they leave it can leave a hole in the fabric of your life.

A month later I found myself holding Chris Guillebeau’s book The Art of Non-Conformity. I read it in a single day highlighting it and scribbling notes in the margin. Then I sat down and scrapped all my old plans and goals for the future that no longer applied to the single version of me. I wasn’t really sure then what I wanted to do but I knew the first step was to get my body back in shape. I knew I didn’t want to sit behind a desk 8 hours a day (architect). I didn’t want to farm anymore (at least not by myself). And I remembered that I wanted to travel and experience other cultures. Somehow I had lost sight of this dream after my diagnosis. So I asked myself why am I working this job that doesn't excite me? And the answer was because I'm afraid that I may need the health insurance. So what would I rather be doing? I bounced around a few ideas but my confidence level kept me from believing I could do any of them. I wanted to do something that made a difference in the life of another. How can I support myself doing charity work? I was stuck. Then Chris announced the World Domination Summit and I signed up.

So how did attending the summit help me decide to face my fear and choose a new direction for my life? First being in a room full of 500 strangers and being asked over and over why I am there was the first hoop of fear I had to jump. I'm the most awkward and shy person you may ever meet. It's nearly impossible for me to look strangers in the eye without feeling nervous and wanting to hide. So being forced to tell people my story, over and over again, not only did it help me get over myself it also helped me to hone in on the one thing I want most in my life – community. Now being a person who is intimidated by people I admire pursuing community means doing what I fear most – putting myself out there and risking rejection. How do I push through that fear to create this life I want? How do I, like Jonathan Fields, become a fear alchemist? It's easy in a setting like WDS where everyone is on the same page but back in my everyday life how do I approach strangers with my story? I guess that is the journey of the days to follow.

I took away a lot of other ideas and will discuss them in detail later but for now I’m focused on creating community around me and healing my body. That’s the direction I’m pointing my little boat in for now. I’d love to hear how others have faced their fears. 

I watched yesterday morning outside my window as ominous dark clouds rolled in. Behind them followed lightning and big fat water droplets that fell a lot like hail but dissolve quickly as they hit the ground. All of this brought to mind the email I read on Monday from a colleague of mine. One of her best customer's is St John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, MO. She forwarded an email from Dr. Kevin Kikta who was one of two emergency doctors on duty at the hospital on May 22 when the EF-4 tornado came through town. His email went on to describe in great and sometimes graphic detail what he experienced that day. I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say it left me in tears and with an uneasy feeling in my gut for most of the morning. That feeling returned to me as the wind picked up outside. Such a feeling makes one reflect on their life and I’m thinking that I haven’t done much in my life thus far that I would be proud of if such a thing happened here and tomorrow never came for me. Now I could totally get sucked into that dark place of regret but I’ve decided to take a more proactive approach and use this feeling as a springboard to action. What do I want people to remember me for? What accomplishments do I want to achieve? What would I like people to say about me when I’m gone? In 45 seconds your whole life can change as Dr. Kikta so terrifyingly explained. So why let fear hold you back from living?

You see fear has been holding me back all my life and right now I feel her familiar breath on my neck as I sit here in the Portland (Maine) airport awaiting my flight out to Portland, OR. I’m attending the World Domination Summit and I know absolutely no one there. Fear keeps reminding me of that fact and how awkward it will be standing in a room of 500 people and not knowing where to start. She reminds me I’ve never done this before, that I’ve spent most of my life locked inside my own self-doubt so I’ve always avoiding things like this. So calmly I turn and tell the bitch to shut up and that I’m confident that I will meet many new and amazing people out there and that she’s not coming because I didn’t buy a ticket for her this time.

WDS and Portland here I come!

Spring has finally decided to grace Maine with an appearance and I have finally decided to make my own appearance in this blog. Both have been a long time coming. There have been many drafts of this opening post and none of them look anything like the other. My very first draft was a whopping 1500 words and I found that to be a little bit long for an introduction. I've struggled with a direction to take this thing. Do I dig deep on the first post or keep it light and fluffy? Do I talk of my upcoming Portland, OR trip and the World Domination Summit or do I let that unfold once I arrive? I could just start by telling you what's been on my mind today - travel. Travel is often on my mind and today maybe more so seeing how I'm boarding a plane in 3 days. I have on my vision board before me a drawing of a little man sailing along in a hollowed out giant pumpkin. He's looking out the opening through a spy glass at the distant horizon. I often look at this picture and imagine myself in place of that little man. The call of travel is so strong in me right now that there's is a part of me that wants to sell everything I own, pack a few articles of clothing in a sack and board that little pumpkin regatta. Then onward I would sail away to places I've never seen (Turkey then touring the Black Sea - Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, & Georgia), places most people never see because they settle into this life we're told we have to perpetuate. You grow up, you start a career, you buy a house, a car, get married, and have kids. How would you fit all that into that pumpkin? It would sink! And that's what so many of us do, we sink. We sink into debt and obligation so our little pumpkins never leave the shore. Some people are ok with that. They have absolutely no desire to leave their homeland. They could care less about what's out there beyond the horizon. They want their TV’s, MP3's, and SUV's. They work 40+ hours a week and when Friday rolls around they let loose in the backyard with a few friends. Nothing wrong with that should it be what you want in this life. I'm not sure why but I'm not happy in that scenario. I'm okay visiting it every now and then but I've never been happy there for very long. Maybe it's because I spent my entire childhood in front of a television watching a hundred exciting adventures unfold that now as an adult I too want an adventure (maybe in Croatia?).

For almost 5 years now I've been working in a steady, decent paying, Corporate America job. I sit in front of a computer for 8 hours every Monday - Friday. I answer emails and make phone calls. I help around 200 sales people procure goods for their customers. It's not a fun job but it's not boring either. Some days are challenging but it's all basically routine. On the positive side I get to work from home and I've met a lot of really great people from all over the US in this job, people who are doing a lot of really cool things with their lives. I’ve met cancer survivors, relatives of celebrities, single dads trying to raise good kids and even some world travelers. Some have shared with me the births, deaths, and milestones of their lives. I can't even tell you how many emails I've received of adorable grandbabies from proud grandparents! But lately most of whom I work with have expressed to me their frustration in losing significant income in the last few years.  Their tales of customers going out of business or having to implement massive layoffs just to survive make me keenly aware of just how lucky I am to be employed. I can look around my own hometown and see the effects of our ailing economy. I know of at least 4 people who were laid off in the last two years and one of them is still without a job. Many of the houses stand empty and local banks are holding deeds to properties that just aren’t selling no matter how low they go ($30,000 for a 3 bedroom anyone?). It’s a very uncertain world indeed but despite all these scary occurrences I still want to quit my job. I am getting tired of my job. I want to do something more meaningful than help people buy and sale stuff. I want to be a part of something that is actually making a difference in this world. I’d rather help people accumulate positive experiences and relationships rather than mugs and t-shirts. I’d rather help people get in touch with the world around them and discover that there is a connection between us all. I don’t just mean some spiritual, metaphysical connection I mean the connection of our actions and the combined effects on the entire world. Did you know that a study found that polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were bioaccumulating in the tissue of polar bears? Most of us don't even know what PBDE is anyway. I didn't until just last year. How does one make others even care to find out? I’m not sure yet what this kind of career would look like for me. I’m hoping when I leave the summit next week I will be closer to a picture of what it might be or at least inspired to take the necessary steps to find out. Either way I’m at a precipice in my life. It’s either up or down from here.