I love my wife.

There is no one is this world who knows me as well as she does. That is because there is no one in this world I trust more than her, for we have bared our hearts to one another.

That sounds pretty romantic right?

What that means a lot of the time though, is that she gets to hear me complain more than anyone else in my life. She gets to see me lose my temper more than anyone else in my life. She gets the tears, the fears, the rants, the stresses, the heartaches, the insecurities, and insight to the darkest parts of who I am…oh joy.

“Wow, what a lucky lady!”, you say.

The truth is, true love takes you much deeper than walks on the beach and candle light dinners. When two hearts become entangled with each other, our emotions can be experienced on an exponential level. The hurts cut much deeper, the losses rip you in two, and our words and actions are not given as much thought as when in the presence of others.

I have learned two things in life that are key to contentment and purpose: Mindfulness and selflessness. Mindfulness is the ability to be right here, right now; and experience life as it is happening without constantly setting expectations for each moment. Selflessness, is the ability to see how our decisions affect those around us, and consider the needs of others when considering our own needs. Knowing  this and putting this into action are two different things.

I know that a red light means stop, but what really matters is that I stop. Likewise, understanding mindfulness and selflessness are not as important as putting them into action.

I write this blog today because my wife got to see me lose my temper during a project yesterday, and I pretty much threw a full on fit… 36 year old man style. The impact it had on her floored me, and stopped me in my tracks. I had lost sight of the bigger picture of the present. My wife and I had a day to ourselves to work on a cool house project together. It was a gift to work hard and problem solve together, it was an opportunity to grow closer through accomplishing something together.

If I had put my mindfulness exercises into practice, I would have taken a few seconds each time a tile broke to breathe and realize that this is just part of the project. I could have decided to maximize our experience together by rolling with the imperfections, but I chose to minimize the experience because I became selfish instead of selfless. I chose to gratify my own selfish desire to get angry, clench my fists, and say some choice words. In doing this, I changed the dynamic of our day together. I introduced a darkness and a new stress into our project; and this really hurt my wife.

Love exposes the best and worst of us. Though it is a gift to be transparent with someone, we need to remain mindful and selfless of the time we have together.

I titled this blog “The Fortunate Ones” not because I like CCR (which I do), but because I considered how our friends and acquaintances in our lives usually get to see the best of us…how fortunate. We strive to motivate, inspire, and energize those we interact with to leave our mark on this world; the one’s we love most deserve the same intentionality.

Let us make the choice today to bring not only our whole selves, but the best of us, into the spaces where we love the deepest.