My wife and I retired me about 4 years ago to live my dreams of traveling the world and sharing our experiences with the world. I remember the day. We sat down and asked ourselves the most important questions we can ask ourselves: 1) What would you do if you could not fail?; 2) What would you do if you won the lottery (after you bought all the material possessions and still had tons of money to spend)? How would you give back to the world?  I never had a need to cure cancer. Besides, that already exists, it is just been suppressed by the pharmaceutical industry, because it doesn’t make them any money. So we sold or gave away everything and started our new life in Hawaii.

Where most people make their Top 10 List of Things You Want To See Before You Die, we made our top 22 list of places we choose to live.  We found that, although we wanted to see the world, every vacation was back to Hawaii. So we quickly realized if we didn’t move to Hawaii we would never see the rest of the world. Thus Hawaii is now home.

As I look out from our lanai over the quiet greens of the golf course past the palm trees and up to Kohala mountain, I listen to the birds and relax. I feel a sense of calm and peace. Congress is battling over the fiscal cliff and my nation’s economy is on the brink of another great recession. Of yeah, and the sky is falling. In my world, all is calm. All is bright.

I turned off the news about 12-15 years ago, because I noticed that it was all bad news about people I never have and probably never would meet. Wayne Dyer pointed this out in a PBS special I saw years ago. He asked what would have happened if someone I never met, in a country I will never go to, was killed by someone else I will never know?  In today’s society I hear about it on the news until I am so upset that I feel bad about my life or feel bad about their life or worse. All the while feeling emasculated and powerless to do anything to better the situation. None of these options benefit the world. If the same situation occurred 200 years ago I would maybe get a letter which took 3 months to travel across an ocean to get to me and then the news would be in its proper perspective. Old news. Thanks for the update. Next subject?!?!  I learned I can take responsibility for the information which comes into my world. I can also choose how to receive this information.

Years ago I came to the conclusion that, generally speaking, there are no emergencies requiring my immediate attention and that the U.S. culture had become a culture of demanding.  Demanding my time, my attention, my energy, my life, and more. The energy which surrounds this culture is like a petulant child always demanding more attention while trying to find its way in the world. The child does not know it is a bull in a china shop breaking and destroying everything in its path. The child if scolded doesn’t always respond positively. Sometimes the best form of teaching a lesson and getting someone’s attention is by ostracizing them. Ignore them. When the child sees it is not getting attention from demanding it, an intelligent child will try a different tactic.  Living outside of the mainland U.S. I have become more aware of this. Unplugging from the news was step 1. Step 2 was to disengage from the drama of the energy of the demanding petulant child. Step 3 is to choose when and where to engage the world. My world.

This year I plan to address many topics which have come into my life since I retired or topics which helped me choose to retire. My goal in sharing my journey is to engage, encourage, and inspire to live your life and follow your dreams.

From the lanai, of our fabulous home in the beautiful island of Hawai’i, I bid you welcome and aloha.

James Christopher

ThruJimsEyes.com