Our lives and the world we currently live in is certainly challenging to say the least. But, if you stop to think about it for a minute, all of human history has been and will always be challenging. War, famine, disease, climate change, politics and conflict between different people, countries and religions.

However, each one of us will live our lives because of what we alone choose and what we alone decide. As individuals we are singularly responsible for our own lives and not as we might want to believe is the result of or because of anyone or anything else.

No matter what we do, where we come from, where we’ve been or even where it is that we think we are going, we alone think our way through our lives. 

So, it is true that everything that we think about in regards to ourselves and our lives is the key and not actually what we might think about the world outside of us and as well, what anyone else might think about us.

A healthy mind is one that is clear, grounded and living in the present moment and not living in the past or trying to live a future which is yet unknown.I have found this mindset the key to my own peace and serenity.

No one can have a clear and happy life and mind if they are constantly worried or concerned about any of the rain or the clouds that seem to fall from our blue sky.

We can not live our lives based on what other people may care about or what anyone else thinks or does. Everyone is free to live there own life in their own way. Though we can have caring and compassion for others and their well being, ultimately their lives belong to them and we need to bless them and let them be who and what they want to be. 

Happiness depends on ourselves.
Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC 

I created the 1-Vibrant-Life Website/Blog and YouTube channel to share experiences, information and ideas that I believe may be beneficial to some of you that have ended up here on creating a life that is more vibrant and fulfilling. 

So, how and why is it that are we here…you and I?

One morning in March of 1984 my life suddenly and unexpectedly changed forever. The picture you see at the bottom of this page is of me playing the saxophone at Chicago fest in the summer of 1983 was just a couple of months before I would appear on the first season of Star Search 84′ with Ed McMahon along with the bandmates that I was playing with at the time. The other picture is a a more recent one. 

My life at that time seemed destined for record deals, jets, and limousines. As many young starving artists do I was supplementing my income by working as a waiter at a restaurant in a northern suburb of Chicago.

While driving to work on the morning of March 7th 1984′, I was traveling west on Irving Park rd. to get to the highway heading north, I was suddenly broadsided by another car heading northbound on Southport Rd.

In a life that seemed to be clipping along at breakneck speed, time for me definitely came to a full and abrupt stop.

Back in 1984, as you may remember, there were no seat belt laws and I wasn’t wearing mine at the time. Because I did not have a seat belt on during the impact from the other car my body went up into the air and forward and apparently I hit the top of my head on the metal strip around the front window. These days it that same window edging is generally plastic.

In that moment, my skull had been fractured in two directions. This type of injury is commonly referred to as a closed head injury. Fractured from the middle front towards the center and from the middle left towards the center. 

There were no visible signs of any injury but I was in a semi – conscious and ambulatory state, more unconscious than conscious it appears, so, in other words, I was mobile and moving around and somehow I had gotten outside of my car.

I still can only remember a fraction of a moment right before the accident and then nothing at moment of impact and nothing after the accident. No one at that moment could recognize that I had sustained a subdural hematoma (aka, a closed head injury) and a blood clot that was growing in and around my brain. My life was definitely in the balance.

I am outlining the specific details here for you because since I’ve now lived 36 years after the accident which is longer than I had lived before it, I have come to understand and recognize how those next critical moments in my life after the accident were the most miraculous and important moments of my entire life.

A million things could have happened to me in those moments immediately following the accident that could have certainly ended my life.

So, because I am originally from Michigan at that time I had a Michigan driver’s license and a Michigan license plate. I also had no information on me in my car or in my wallet as to who to call or contact in case of an emergency. Remember, I could not communicate after the accident, I could not respond to anyone because I was unconscious.

I was totally at the mercy of the world and anyone that might have been around me there on that very busy Chicago city street at that time. 

I could have been hit by another car while moving aimlessly around unconscious on the street.

I could have walked away from the accident and not have been recognized as being injured or having been in an accident. 

Actually, because I had long curly blond hair and was wearing an old faded green army trench coat (which I thought at the time was very cool.) I looked at the time like I could have been on drugs or and addict or a drunk.

If I’d have walked away from the accident and no one stepped up and came to look after me, I could have been taken for some homeless person on the street and just left to fall asleep on the curb.

Falling asleep unattended would have simply meant that I would die or become comatose right there on the street. I myself have walked passed several sleeping people on the street in city that I’ve lived in. 

As it turned out I definitely surrounded by angels though to this day I don’t know who they were or where they are and by the grace of the heavens above, they were there to care for me until help arrived and without question save me. It’s because of them that I’m am here to tell you about it and what it did to me, my life and how I was able to grow and learn and create a new life paradigm. 

Because of this accident 36 years ago and how my life changed then was so dramatically changed, I how I now live my life today I have come to create this Website/Blog so I can share ideas, thoughts about life and living, finding peace, happiness and experience the constant process of growing learning and surviving here on Earth.

As described by scientist Carl Sagan the ” A Pale Blue Dot,” as seen and photographed (this photograph is one of the Earth from the moon) by Voyager 1 from a distance of more than 4 billion miles.

It’s home to all of us here and as were not going anywhere though certainly our spirits may but at least not our physical bodies while we are here so we need to learn to live our lives with happiness and joy and in an alive and vibrant manor. We all need to live our 1-Vibrant-Life.