Polly Campbell - How to Live an Awesome Life: How to Live Well, Do Good, Be Happy

HOW TO LIVE AN AWESOME LIFE

HOW

TO LIVE AN

AWESOME

LIFE

HOW TO LIVE WELL, DO GOOD, BE HAPPY

BY POLLY CAMPBELL

Text and photographs copyright 2015 by Polly Campbell.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Viva Editions, an imprint of Start Midnight LLC, 101 Hudson Street, Thirty-Seventh Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-63228-033-6
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63228-037-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Jerry, thanks for all the little thingsthe coffee and the calls, the laundry and the late-night conversations, and the countless other things you do to make a big, fat, awesome difference in my life.

Piper, you have showed me how to climb trees, how to sing while doing math equations, and how to appreciate millipedes and moths and worms. In a gazillion ways, you show me what awesome looks like.

Thank you Team Neubert.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

From the time I was a kid growing up in Seaside, a small town on the north Oregon Coast, to now, Ive been surrounded and supported by awesome people who have loved me well and made me better. I would not be here without them, and this book wouldnt be either.

To my parents, Lynda and Steve Campbell; my sister, Paige Campbell; and my awesome nephew, Quinn McCarthy; thank you. I love you.

To my awesome friends Sherri Sacconaghi and Tonya Robson, thanks for the love and encouragement, fun and humor. Thanks, too, to Todd, Luke, and Kyler Robson.

Thanks to Regina Micheline-Eldien, Teresa Adams, Lori Wampler, Kelly Hatler, and Megan Thatcher.

To Ginger Buzzell, president (and only member) of the Polly Campbell Fan Club, your positive energy and encouragement inspires me. Thank you.

To friends and writers Jodi Helmer and Kelly James Enger, thanks for your insight, both professionally and personally. And, Jeff Mazeriak, thanks for your encouragement and wisdom.

To the extraordinary Brenda Knight, thanks for everything you bring. Thank you as well to Eileen Duhn. To Katie Gira, thanks for saving me from myself and to the entire Viva Editions team thanks for bringing awesome to the world.

To the booksellers who have embraced my books and to all of you who have read my work, or reached out to me via the Internet or through my appearances, workshops, and other events, I am so grateful. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. Everything I write, I write with you in mindno kidding. It is a privilege to connect with you personally in the process. Thanks for sharing all this with me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I was fifteen minutes late even before I hopped into the rented Hyundai and jammed the pedal down. And, well, nothing says speed quite like a Hyundai. The engine whined up the highway ramp from Corte Madera and onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Sweat was already beading along my hairline when the traffic came to a stop. A complete, turn-off-the-ignition-you-arent-going-anywhere kind of stop.

I looked at the cars, stopped in every lane; looked at my watch; yep, still lateand then I looked beyond. I was stopped on the Golden Gate Bridge. In its center. Overlooking the abalone-colored bay on a clear, warm fall day at sunset. It was stunning, this view. This weather. The sea below. The sun bouncing off the bridge. And in that instant, the moment transformed from a tight and stressful Im-gonna-be-late occasion to one filled with all kinds of awesome.

Life is like that. There are awesome momentsthe kind that cause our jaws to drop, tears to well up, and love and gratitude to pulse through our beingsright there in the middle of the congested, icky ones.

And if we are paying attention and engaged in our lives, those moments of beauty can intermingle with those moments of ick and raise us up a little. They can inspire us. Encourage us. Change our lives.

That kind of energythe energy of awecan remind us of our purpose, motivate us to live our passions, move us toward a life of meaning. That kind of energy illuminates life during the big experiences and the quiet little moments. It clarifies our vulnerabilities and weaknessesfor sure, because awe can remind us how small we really arebut in the very same instant, it connects us to the bigger things in life and to our vast inner landscape. The place where joy and possibility reside no matter what we encounter in the outer world.

Thing is, we dont often see it. We dont pay attention to this energy. We forget to slow down and look for those transcendent moments. Were just too busy. Or we turn away. Or we think its indulgent to pause for a breath, or read a book that moves us, or savor our food, and marvel at the world around us. So we forget to see the goodness that is there and has been there all along.

We notice, instead, what is hard. We complain. Worry. Zone out. Eat too much. We focus on not getting sick instead of living healthy. You see the distinction? Life is all of it, of coursethe sickness and the health, the messy and the pristineso we must notice all of it. Sure, we see the traffic jam, but we must also look at the view beyond.

When we can do this, we become less snarky. More generous. We become healthier and happier, more patient, less stressed. We inspire and become inspired.

Of course, there is plenty that is awfulas in rottenrather than awesome in this world. Awe, or in its archaic Scandinavian form of Old Norse, was used in that language to describe fear. In ancient Greek the word derived from akhos, which meant pain.

Awe became regularly associated with the gods; fearsome, omniscient, punishing gods and rulers.

Technically, to say that something is awful is to say that it is full of awe, which is the feeling we get when we are bowled over by something amazing and big and unexplainable. Thats the feeling we get when we stare at the full moon over the Rocky Mountains or watch a spider weave its web.

But these days the word awful has been co-opted to imply something terrible. Dreadful. Something so scary or horrific that we are appalled, shocked, devastated by the sheer badness of it all.

Awful stuff nowadays means bombs that can bring down towers of concrete and steel. Mutant cells that replicate so fast they can kill us in months; love that once infused every breath dissipating into emptiness in just a few years time; the loss of a job after thirty years; a hurricane with ninety-mile-per-hour winds and thirty-foot wavesall awful.

We wouldnt say that those things are awesome, no, but they contain the seeds of awe just the same. Think of the awesome and sometimes awful power of Mother Nature. Both words are impressive, both are awe-filled, but one surrounds you with its mysticism and possibility and beauty. The other scares the bejeezus out of you.

When I talk about awesome, Im taking the more benevolent, marvelous view of the word. After all, Im part of the generation that made totally awesome into a tagline. First popularized in the late 60s and 70s, the term became popular as slang for excellent and was often associated with the California surfers who used it to describe primo surfing waves. It didnt hurt that movie characters like Spicoli, played by Sean Penn in