If you know Rich already, you understand what I'm conveying. If you don't, I only hope you get the chance to know him one day. Click here to read my post, Wisdom to Know the Difference, but please make sure you check out the rest of Rich's insights while you are there.

On April 3, 2012, Seal Press/Perseus Books, will publish her book Lessons from the Monk I Married. Half love story, half spirtual guide, the book is her memoir about the 15-year journey with her husband, a former Buddhist monk.

I look forward to reading her book when it comes out. Click here to read my guest post, but be sure to check out the other writers featured on Katherine's blog during the month of January, as well as her other posts.

Writer friends had warned me to decompress for a day or two before diving into writing. I took that advice to the extreme. By the fifth day, I finally stopped avoiding the blank page and sat down to get serious. But doubt filled my head rather than words filling the pages. Who was I kidding, I wondered? Did I truly have the writing chops to pen a novel? How could I make this book fly with my limited experience and flawed discipline? Even if I finished a quarter of the book in the remaining days, how would it be possible to return to the real world to complete it given a packed schedule and the multiple obstacles life liked to hurl at me? I sat on the deck that day with pen and paper in the late April sun and instead of pushing through and making it work, I focused on my flaws as a writer and the imperfect writing environment that awaited on my return. At the end of the day only meaningless scribbles emerged.

By the middle of the sixth day, I could no longer tolerate the stench of the garbage I’d written so I grabbed my camera and drove to a nearby hiking trail to walk off my frustration. Taking photos of nature relaxes me. If I couldn’t find the perfect words, at least I hoped to find some perfect shots. The trail I chose had a sign at the entrance that gently warned of predators: black bears, bobcats, and snakes. Had I actually stacked up some good writing over those six days at the cabin, maybe I would have hesitated, but the thought of becoming a bear’s meal seemed more appealing at that moment than

I took John flying over farmland he’d recently purchased so he could get a bird's eye view. His good friend and new neighbor, Neal, joined us. Neal, a developer in the Charlottesville area, is a great guy in his own right. His land is adjacent to John’s and they both enjoyed seeing their acreage from the air. It’s always intriguing for me to watch “aha moments” as people see something from a different perspective.

After a smooth flight we touched down to knock around Charlottesville for the day. Neal headed off to a business meeting while John and I hit Keswick Hall for bloody marys on the deck that overlooks the hotel’s stunning golf course. Later we regrouped with Neal at the Downtown Pedestrian Mall, a bricked-in area on the city’s early Main Street. Strolling to lunch, we passed John Grisham eating at an outside table within a stone’s throw of the writing office he has above the mall. Once we finished lunch, Neal ran off to make his next deal but promised to meet us for dinner.

John and I spent the afternoon exploring his future farm. We covered a good portion of the hundred-plus acres, zipping through wooded trails on a John Deere Gator. Stopping at various landmarks we’d seen from the air, we walked as John explained his plans for them. On one trail, a deep blue glint caught my eye.

When I think about this in broader terms, I realize it applies to any accomplishment in life. I can’t think of any goal worth achieving that is performed without effort, or more specifically, without being “uncomfortable” in some manner. Yet, we seem to have become a nation that seeks comfort. We chase it instead of our dreams. We seek the path of least resistance instead of the path to enlightenment.

And it’s making us soft... mentally, physically, and spiritually.

For many of us, our days are filled with numerous activities that get us nowhere. We do them because they make us feel comfortable. They suck us in. Who hasn’t misplaced an hour or two getting lost in the internet or a few television shows? But we don’t seek out these activities because we truly desire them. No, we bury ourselves in them because we are avoiding something. Some may say we are avoiding our dreams, or success, but frankly, what we are really avoiding is the hard work, time, and effort that it takes to be:

-Great

-Fulfilled

-Content

What are you avoiding because you’ve been confusing comfort with happiness?

Do something today that makes you uncomfortable.

Related Posts:

Live Your Future Now

The Most Important Promise

The Real Questions Are...

• Read
• Write
• Hike
• Camp
• Spend more time outdoors
• Work in the garden
• Exercise
• Spend time with friends

I’ve yet to hear anyone say they would:

• Eat more
• Watch more television
• Surf the internet more

The question is great because the answers always remind me that most of the things we all want for ourselves, are simple activities we can have now. Yet so many defer them until they “have enough money” or “have more time.”

I’m not sure how many of us will ever “have enough money” or “have more time.” That’s why it’s important to recognize how much we defer living, waiting for a future that may never come. What do you dream of doing one day? How can you do it now instead of waiting?

There is a person you are meant to be. You know this because you’ve dreamed of it. Perhaps that person is a painter or a photographer. Maybe it’s an entrepreneur or a scientist. But whatever the goal, many of us have the same issue in trying to reach it: we tend to only see the people we are now. When we peer in the mirror it’s too easy to find the faults and imperfections, both inside and out. As much as many of us do not want to admit it, we cling to that person inside whom we don’t want to be.

Why do we do this? Maybe it’s because that person is all we know and it’s so difficult to imagine the higher-self beyond.

I’ve done my share of clinging in life, and while it felt comfortable when it occured, over time it only felt empty.

One book in particular opened my eyes to a new way of thinking: Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus. Read it to discover its wonderful message for yourself. The journey is worth it. But I will share the line from the book that helped awaken me from fumbling through this world on the ground.

But flying a plane is a lot of work. When students first learn, the whole process is overwhelming. We focus on yokes and rudders and throttles. We learn airspeeds: what is too slow, what is too fast. We learn altitudes and air space, the required distances from clouds. We work on coordinated turns and slips, how to lean the fuel mixture and when to turn on the carb heat and somewhere in that early process, we forget that we wanted to peer on clouds from above or to simply soar.

Before my checkride—an actual flying test to earn my license—the plane I’d flown during training had to go into the shop for an extended period. I borrowed a similar plane from an acquaintance who happened to be a flight instructor. We met at dawn to fly together so I’d be comfortable with any differences between his plane and the one I knew well.

Canvasing the Triad area for interesting stories, they planned to book slots for filming, then open it up to the public. I was a bit uncertain whether it would work as there was a possibility I'd be flying back from the west coast the day of filming, but everything fell into place and I made it in time.

Even though I think of my whole blog as a series of Aha Moments, it was easy to pick one for the spot. Funny thing is, the moment I wrote about is not actually on my blog. It's a guest post of mine on Rick Smith's blog, bestselling author of The Leap.

Click here to see the filmed Aha Moment. And if you'd like to read the full account, click here.

We all have aha moments. Feel free to leave a comment and tell the world about yours.

As I neared, he lifted his hand to show a huge splinter sticking out of his index finger. Actually, splinter is the wrong word; “wood chunk” better describes it. Blood flowed from the wound, running down into the creases of his finger as he held his wrist in his other hand. I tried to calm him even as I started to whisk the chunk out. The half inch of wood that protruded from his finger gave me plenty of surface area to grab.

Things don’t always turn out the way you see them in your head. Instead of the wood slipping right out, the part I tugged on simply broke. Not until I cleared the blood away did I realize he had jammed that piece of wood all the way through the tip of his finger. Some of the blood had been coming from the opposite end of the wood where the tip had pierced his skin on its way out.

Urgent care, here we come.

With a scared little kid in tow, I made arrangements with another parent to stay with John since my wife was in Seattle for work. I kept Cort as calm as possible and even though he hardly made any sound as we hurried to the car, tears spilled down his cheeks.