Dealing with Integrity and Personal Truths

I’ve been thinking a lot about the truths that I know to be valid in my life. I know it sounds odd, but one of the only things that I can absolutely say I know for certain about getting older is that we start collecting a list of personal truths. This list doesn’t necessarily have to be true to other people, but they are true to one’s self. As I write this, I am enjoying one of my personal truths: That is, that I know when I need to be in a very melancholy yet inspired mood, all I need is a little Sade and a bottle of pinot nior. This has been this way for years and I know that about myself.

As I was going for an enjoyable autumn hike today, I started thinking about how life sometimes just isn’t the way we plan. I do feel that there is a great role for us all and sometimes we don’t take the most direct route of getting there but right now, I can’t figure out where my route is going. Before I get into this whole topic, I must ensure you that this is not a pity parade or some sort of self-inflicted guilt show; it is only to share what I have learned in this experience and hopefully gives a sense of security to someone else out there reading this.

Last January, I signed on to a great load of new work that would bring me into the next chapter of my life. It was December thirty-first and almost midnight and Dina and I were ferociously working on getting our first month’s edition of Dign2it Magazine. After that, we officially turned our Dign2it name into an LLC and started our media company. Much of these efforts are applauded to my friend and partner Dina. She took on such a burden by getting all of our paperwork set and filing all of the necessary papers to the proper offices. None the less, we got our company up and running.

At this same time, I was to set on my journey of Project Kinect. I put all of my belongings in storage, set a course to Las Vegas and then Austin, TX and then where ever from there. The purpose for my travels was to find out how people are connecting one-on-one and how these people, making up a plethora of different communities, are taking action to better them and their communities. This journey brought me all over the south and the east coast. I spent some time in Tampa and Saint Petersburg, Baltimore, New York, D.C., Connecticut, Rockford, Tuscaloosa, Minneapolis and many other significant places. I was on the Today Show, heard so many horrible sad stories and got the opportunity to hear stories of triumph. Despite the state of my current location, this journey is far from over.

While I was travelling, I was also working on helping our magazine grow and find ways to build our business. With me not in Los Angeles to help, it became almost a burden than a new opportunity on both Dina and I. We are still extremely motivated and moving forward, but the lack of day to day support grows heavy on our shoulders and success is taking a bit longer than we had hoped. Isn’t that how it always is though?

In all of this though, we celebrated her birthday in LA, we put on an amazing two year anniversary show of The Dina and Gregg Show and are expanding our media company into a great new venture. That is something to really celebrate as we go into our third year on air.

In June, all this greatness came to a halt. I was in Tuscaloosa, AL helping out with tornado clean up from the April twenty-fifth tornados that flattened much of the city and surrounding area. When I returned to Wisconsin to get centered, I realized that there was no more money in the center and I picked up an opportunity to make some money helping out a good friend at her new restaurant. Starting out as a summer gig to get back on my feet and continue with my journey on Project Kinect, it has now become a six month, rent a house and stick out the winter kind of set up. I love what I am doing and love that it is helping out the big picture of a friend’s dream but I can’t help to feel left out of my own life and in a huge space of idle back story that isn’t moving me forward.

So, I sit here in Wisconsin with a huge space in my heart and a huge lack of integrity. The space that is there is both positive and negative. It is a space that wasn’t there because my plans for the entire year were so set in stone. Now that I am here for these six months, I have space to work on some other things that would not have necessarily had the time to focus on them. Because of this new space, I have made a lofty list of goals that I will have accomplished by the time I leave. Some more personal and some are extremely business oriented to help all of my endeavors along.

This lack of integrity thing though is where I am having the major issues. I am not someone who just stops doing something and falls to the wayside on projects he sets out to accomplish so when I face the fact that I have stopped Project Kinect because I need to make money to go on, well that goes against what I said I would do if I got into this position. It goes against me saying that I would be out on the road for one entire year, nonstop, helping out and getting other people’s voices heard. I have failed at that goal.

I know, you are thinking “well, things happen. We all have to do what we have to do sometimes.” That is a help but I have so many beautiful loved ones who are supportive and tell me those same things. Well, I don’t need that right now. I need someone to hold me accountable to what I said I would do and say “Why the hell are you not doing it?” and tell me “Not good enough” when I answer them.

Unfortunately I don’t have anyone else to share this with right now because life is nonstop and the friends I can share with can’t understand and the friends that could understand have more pressing issues so that is why I am sharing it here, on my personal blog that doesn’t get read very often. It is out there and can be received by whomever, however, whenever.

I spent some time in Los Angeles working and partaking in the Landmark Education program. The most important thing that I took away from these great experiences is that once we admit that we have lost integrity, we can regain it by restating our intent and then continuing to do what we say in that intent. I have always felt that I have great integrity and that makes these feelings about what has happened in the last ten month even worse. However, with this knowledge, I can re-state my plan, and follow through with that new plan; always keeping in mind that the universe has it’s influence too.

Now that I am honest with myself, with my integrity and my plan in line, I go to the things that I have known to be absolutely true in my thirty years on this planet. We are always trying to know ourselves better, that is the bottom line. We do it in different ways like finding our soul mate, getting that perfect career, always finding a way to lead so people can be amazed by you and so on. Right now though, while I am getting through this rough part, I will go back to what I know are absolute truths in my life like Sade and red wine. It really can be that simple some times.