All in.

I often feel too much or nothing at all, I have rarely ever experienced an in-between. In part, I think that explains a lot about why I am the way I am - either all in or not at all.

Over the past few months I've learned that although healing is a matter of time, it is also a matter of opportunity. How rare it is to find something, in this case an opportunity, that forces you to ask yourself, am I willing to take the risk and go all in? There is really no such thing as in between. The moment I decided that I would no longer live with one foot in - I watched the light come pouring in. As if, all it had been waiting for was for me to just decide to breathe again.

“There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either in or you're out. There's no such thing as life in-between.”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking I was a complex human - difficult to understand, difficult to love. I now understand that finding the right people takes all the complexity out of it. That the feeling of being too much is just a lie the world has made you believe, that the wrong people have made you believe.

I met my best friend in the 5th grade, we immediately clicked. How rare it is, to meet someone you know nothing about but your soul instantly understands theirs. We grew up two very different people, two different worlds really, but that connection remains the same today as it did that day in 2004. When I think about commitment, I come back to that friendship; how easy that commitment is when you’ve met someone whose soul is the same as yours.

So, what if we all lived that way? Chasing what and who makes us feel alive, how much easier commitment would be. How much simpler it would be to say, “I’m all in.” Ironically, the first ever CrossFit gym I joined was named All In. Funny how 6 years later, I am more committed to the sport now than ever. What if all we did, in all things, was start with two feet all in?

My brother and I share the same outlook on life and most of the time I credit most of the advice I get back to him. Not too long ago we both found ourselves at a crossroads, one where making the decision required asking this same question of being all in. His words stuck with me, and I think they may do the same for you as well:

“The most important things deserve a lot of effort. You have to know what you want first, in your life. What do you want in your health, what do you want financially, what do you want in your relationship? Who do you want to be and why? And only then when you have your why, you start finding yourself surrounded by people who are on similar paths as you. When you find your answer, that’s when there’s no excuse, that’s when you have to decide to go all in; because if there’s even a slight chance that this is what God put you on this earth to do then you owe it to yourself to go and get it.”