Wonderfully Weird

Preface

For as long as you can recall, you have overheard that a wonderful life exists. In fact, you may not think lifelong fulfillment is even real; you might even believe it’s weird to think this way. You have desired this wonderfully weird[A1] joy most of your life and perhaps even desire it for others. You have felt enjoyment’s weirdness and experienced it in others. You know when this wonderfully weird attitude is present and have suffered when it seems a million miles away. You know that it’s real—that it exists in some wonderfully weird way.

However, we often do not understand the essential cravings, drives, and urges that uniquely motivate us and direct us to this wonderfully weird life. Also, we often fail to recognize that we must do our part by planning for a life of happiness rather than a life that just happens. We must create a wonderfully weird life plan based on our wonderfully weird inborn strengths, which guide us not to temporary satisfaction but to a permanent wonderfully weird happiness that very few in life experience.

In this book, we will look at your wonderfully weird desires and how to use them to construct a wonderfully weird life plan that fits you, rather than the typical plan everybody else has for you. Your wonderfully weird plan will help you stay committed, get you ready to live a wonderfully weird life, aim your life goals toward your unique traits, give you the ability to pull the trigger to launch your life plan into reality, and set targets that will motivate you to your very best. Your wonderfully weird plan will bring you results that you have not been able to obtain. It will resolve the not-so-weird problems that seem to have turned into patterns over the years and appear to have no answers to your own happiness. Your wonderfully weird plan will empower your talents, cravings, abilities, and character to bring you results that you know you should be getting but seldom do.

You will learn seven wonderfully weird ways that will direct and motivate you beyond your dreams:

1. You must understand your wonderfully weird preferences.

2. You must know your wonderfully weird purpose.

3. You must link your strengths to your wonderfully weird passions.

4. You must recognize your wonderfully weird positions.

5. You must decide to make a wonderfully weird life a priority.

6. You must prepare yourself for a wonderfully weird life.

7. You must partake in this wonderfully weird life.

You will understand how these wonderfully weird ways or steps, together, rise above normal ways of living and how they use your wonderfully weird traits to direct and motivate you to your very best wonderfully weird life. And the fun part will be finding that all of us do have the ability to experience this wonderfully weird fulfillment in this wonderfully weird life and that the journey itself is of great value to you and the other wonderfully weird people in life. So join me on this journey, as we look at how to reach your greatest weirdness in this life and beyond. You are wonderfully weird!

Introduction

Have you ever done anything wonderfully weird? In March 2019, Sherrie and I did something wonderfully weird: we made it to our thirty-second year of marriage and decided to go on a Caribbean Princess Cruise. There I had a bit of time to reflect on some other wonderfully weird things Sherrie and I had done over the past thirty-two years together. One that was most significant came to mind: our wonderfully weird trip to Cozumel, Mexico, for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

I recall the first day wasn’t that weird; it was the second day when things got interesting. On that day we decided to go on a snorkeling adventure trip in the Caribbean Sea. To begin our wonderfully weird trip, our guide led us to a coral reef about two miles from our resort on the beach. We absolutely loved it, even though it was a bit weird for us to do! It was like swimming in an enormous saltwater fish tank. It was wonderfully weird.

Once Sherrie and I were in the water snorkeling, we decided to do a wonderfully weird thing; we decided to venture off on our own to see all the wonderfully weird fish and enjoy a wonderfully weird time together. It was spellbinding—peaceful, beautiful, and wonderfully weird all at the same time. As we snorkeled around the reef, we were captivated by the wonderfully weird life swimming just a few feet below. We saw weird-colored fish, crazy-looking plants, and the reef itself—alive with wonderful weirdness. It was truly a wonderfully weird experience, an experience of a lifetime.

After being entranced by this wonderfully weird world for some time, I lifted my head out of the water and looked around. I was shocked at the distance we had drifted in such a short time. Fixed in a riptide, a very weird thing happened, we drifted nearly a mile from where we began. Weird, right? My heart began pounding, and I fell into near panic seeing we were so far away from our beginning point. I immediately felt and started having weird thoughts. How did we get so far away? Where are we? Where’s our guide? Can I swim faster than Sherrie if a shark starts pursuing us? (Just kidding on that last one.)

Fortunately, looking behind me, I saw our guide only a few hundred feet away, patiently waiting for us to return. With Sherrie at my side, I anxiously swam back and enjoyed the rest of our wonderfully weird journey—with our guide squarely in my sight. Once back on the boat and back in our hotel, I reflected on this wonderfully weird experience.

All too often our lives are just like this experience. We start out with a wonderfully weird dream in mind, and then, without consciously intending to do so, we end up in an entirely different place than we expected. After some time, we decide to lift our head and notice the wonderfully weird dreams and visions we once imagined are astonishingly far away; they are only a passing memory in our not-so-weird past.

The truth is, most people settle for a mundane life and end up living an uninteresting and unfulfilled life; they travel the safe road, and life just happens. But if you want to live a life worth living, a wonderfully weird and fulfilled life, unlike most—it requires wonderfully weird effort and personal courage on your part….

[A1]Something tells me that italicizing every occurrence of the phrase may also backfire and feel overdone. (And after chapter 1 I’ll be following the example set there: Emphasize the phrase sparingly.) There are two easy ways to fix them if you want to take off italics.

(1) Double-click on one word and drag onto the other, and then touch ctrl + i. This will turn off italics on the phrase.

(2) Using the Replace tool (ctrl + h), with the options you can search for it italicized and replace it not italicized.

(3) A third way: Where I have added or taken off italics, you can “Reject” that change.