Someone said to me this weekend “wow Mike, you are taking this all in stride!”. It hadn’t even occurred to me that what happened was anything to stress about. Fact of the matter is that my life is 100% stress free. Possibly by force and possibly due to the horrendously stressful circumstances of the past year.

In the end, over the past few months my life has been calm. My cares of the world have become less and less significant. Life happens. Who cares if it does? There is no avoiding it, and especially there is no need in stressing about it.

Truth of the matter is this: I have a great life, I am healthy(ish), have great people who love me and show it. Just this weekend I got a surprise visit from an old friend who wanted nothing other than to hang out with me for a few hours while I was in town. She went out of her way to figure out my schedule without me knowing and then ambushed me when I least expected it. I didn’t think about it at the time, but that is pretty friggin special!

Yesterday I drove home content after a holiday with family and friends. Shortly after leaving, I decided that the freeways were no fun and weaved my way all the up the coast on the city streets. Life is way too short to rush through it with such recklessness, stopping to smell the roses is something we should all do more often. I did, 3 times on the way home. Making excuses stopping and getting a fresh cup of piping coffee on the way home and dottling around sleepy coastal towns on the Pacific.

This works out really well in the business world, and in my personal life. I have met and exceeded financial and career goals that I have set for myself and have generally been very successful.

There is one glaring, obvious problem. Recently – I lost, bigtime. Something that I worked very hard at. Because of my tenacious personality I am having a very, very, VERY difficult time letting go with this thing that I lost. Such a hard time, in fact that it effects nearly every other aspect in my life in such a way that I may fail at those things too. I have gone from excellent in most areas to mediocre in all.

I am fearful of getting invested in anything, ever again to prevent this rash of mediocrities. However, without this passion will that make me par with everything to begin with? Is my total and utter investment in particular tasks the thing that makes me good in the first place? How do I protect myself from this sort of epic failure again?

Either way, I lose. Logically, the best thing to do is to cut off the fat (so to speak) and to move on and be awesome in as many things as is humanly possible. I wish it were that easy.