Beyond Behaviors

I’m sorry for the lack of updates guys (and gals). I was sick all last weekend. The good news is that I think I no longer have any fever. The bad news is that I think I now have allergies. Being sick gave me plenty of time to think of things to write about. So here’s today’s post.

Tomorrow (Jan. 8, 2004) will be exactly four years since I faxed in my signed employment contract to work as a Behavior Specialist for a school system on a tiny island in the North Pacific Ocean called Saipan. The island is part of a chain of 14 islands which are collectively called the Northern Mariana Islands. This was a momentous day in my life for several reasons. First, it would be the first time that I left the U.S. and my family to live on my own. Second, it was at a point in my life that I felt I was hitting a career-blasé. Third, had I never come to Saipan I would have never met my wife, Miwa. [We recently relocated back to Dallas (July 2007) to be closer to family].

When I tell people that I left Texas to live on an island in the Pacific Ocean because I wanted adventure, excitement, and something different, I get three typical reactions: (1) People are amazed and praise me for taking action to follow my heart, (2) People are confused as to why I would ever want to leave where I was living (Dallas, Texas), and (3) People think that I went through some sort of mid-life crisis.

Taking that job in Saipan was, without a doubt, one of the BEST decisions in my life. In an earlier post (Yearning for More…), I talked about how I had always lived my life vicariously through others. I was a true dreamer but not a doer. I guess my heart simply got tired of my mind’s wanderlust and had a heart-mind talk. In the end, the heart won out and I could no longer ignore those yearnings.

It’s hard to describe how fulfilled I felt when I came to Saipan. Within the first week or so, I knew that I had made the right decision for my life. No one told me that I had made the right choice. No self-help or personal development book answered my deep longings. Rather, it was simply a feeling I felt in my heart. It just felt right.

When I look at my life and the decisions that I made I realize that life has presented and continues to present me with many choices which I either took or ignored.

• I had a choice to attend Baylor University or other colleges. I chose Baylor.
• During my sophomore year at Baylor, I wanted to become a teacher after watching the movie, “Dead Poets Society.” Instead, I chose to remain with pre-med.
• I had a choice to study and do well in my pre-med classes. I chose to be lazy and naturally did poorly.
• When I reached the end of my pre-med classes (almost completing the pre-med program and just months from taking the MCAT, medical school entrance exam), I had a choice to keep on the same track of medicine or getting off that train. Despite the pain and anguish it caused me, I got off that train because it was the right choice.
• I had a choice to attend law school or say no. I chose law school (but I chose out of fear and attended by default because I didn’t know what else to do with my life).
• I had a choice to study and do well in my law classes. I chose to be lazy and did poorly.

When life showed me all the signs and signals in the world that I was unhappy in my current path in life, I chose to ignore them all and chugged aimlessly along the train tracks of life.

After years of regrets, self-sabotage, and self-doubt, I finally began to listen to my heart and started to choose instead of having things chosen for me.

My life changed in December 1996 when I made the conscious decision to go back to school to get a graduate degree in psychology. But it wasn’t until December 2003 (seven year later and after getting my graduate degree), when I made the conscious decision to apply for a job over 7,000 miles away on a tropical island, that my life truly changed.

In late January 2004, after a 20+ hour flight and traveling almost halfway around the world, I landed on a tiny island…and for the next few years experienced some amazing adventures, did some pretty exciting things, and got to see and do something very different.

In 3½ years on Saipan I was able to play beach volleyball with professional players, see guys husk coconuts with their teeth, fly on airplanes not much bigger than a Hummer, learn Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) from an MMA fighter, create an award-winning website, train over 800 teachers and professionals on Crisis Intervention, School Crisis Response, and Classroom Management, get invited to offer testimony to the CNMI Legislators on Assisted Outpatient Treatment, help research and edit H.B. 15-121, the CNMI Assisted Outpatient Treatment Act, produce and edit a “School Crisis Response Handbook,” and have my School Crisis Response Training presentation videotaped and use as a “teach-and-learn” training tool.

Life is not a spectator sport. It’s up to each one of us to consciously choose to participate. If we don’t, the choices may sometimes be chosen for us.