JUST DO IT
This isn’t so much an ode to Nike but it is to their great marketing campaign. (Although I do love NIKE!) Those three words the last few months have taken up a lot of space in my mind. Every year I take myself away for my birthday, usually somewhere exotic with clear blue water, where all I do is sit there and do NOTHING. Literally NOTHING. The destinations I choose to vacation always tend to be the places people dream of leaving their job and moving to. In fact wherever I have traveled I have encountered people that have done just that. This past summer, I was taking a stand up paddleboard yoga class, the instructor happened to be Venezuelan. Intrigued by the fact that in this tiny town I ran into another Venezuelan I asked her: how did you end up here? The answer was simple, she had been thinking of where she could move, yearning to be close to the sea, somewhere where she felt at home. Her mom wanted to go to Mexico, asked her to go with her, she ended up going, signing up for a yoga retreat in Tulum. Loved it and that was it. She told her mom she wasn’t returning to Venezuela and stayed. I was taken aback. Literally, just like that, she uprooted her entire life. I got a similar story from my Airbnb host who went to Mexico fell in love returned to NYC gathered her things and moved to Mexico to be with her now husband. Both women couldn’t be happier and listening to how happy they were was almost infectious. It made me think about a lot about the power we all have every day to change the course of lives.
Prior to my trip to Mexico I had made a decision to let go of a personal situation that was doing nothing but making me feel a way that I was tired of feeling. That feeling was not something that just crept out of nowhere either. It was building. Days, weeks months and years brought me to a point where I was just tired. And literally just like that I woke up and said enough. The signs were there prior but it literally took a moment of just do it…to let go and let whatever was going to happen-happen. Not for anyone else, but for me, my sanity…and growth. After having made that personal decision, literally the next day, with a good friend I had the idea to start this project, which I call my passion project.
Letting go one of situation left some room in my head for new things to emerge. The idea that the strength to JUST DO IT doesn’t always come from lifting weights in the gym, or being disciplined with your diet, it comes from knowing, believing, and trusting yourself. The people whom I have met in my travels that uproot their lives, taking a chance and following what they believe, taking a risk, staying true to themselves is the every day strength that is around us. Sometimes, there is no plan, the plan is literally to JUST DO IT. One day at a time, one decision, and one moment at a time…
Not even two/three weeks ago, I had a very close friend tell me he had quit his job and is going to do as much skiing as he can, blog, work where he can find it and just see where it takes him. In all my years of knowing this dear friend, it is the happiest I have ever heard him be. My response to his news- GREAT I AM HAPPY FOR YOU! I know he will find his way just like my newfound friends in Mexico that took a chance and decided to alter the course of their lives not knowing what that would yield on the other side.
It is with that inspiration that I am writing this now. The last year I have had the privilege with working with people not just with their fitness but their journey to change certain aspects of their lives. Through that work I too have changed, and with that change came this idea, and with BlancoStrong…I don’t know what will come. But what I do know is that I will JUST DO IT as my friends have and if what I write/share manages to help someone along the way to wake up and JUST DO IT then I believe I have served my purpose.
