Why Not?

We recently got back from a little 9 day jaunt down to the Dominican and Puerto Rico. It was an absolutely beautiful trip, as we laughed and cried with old friends, made new ones, danced on the beach, climbed rainforests, drove golf carts around islands, and saw some extraordinary beauty this world has to offer. But that's not really what this post is about. There will be more on that later. Actually with that trip, we may have just gone from blogging to vlogging, as we recorded pretty much the whole thing and will probably turn it into anywhere from 1 to 4 episodes. We'll see what happens, depends how good my sister really is at editing videos.

Found a waterfall and swimming hole in the El Yunque

But this short little post stems from something that I often heard while in the Dominican. We were only there for a weekend and stayed at a resort, but over and over again the servers and workers dropped the phrase, "Why not?" The first time I heard it was at the breakfast buffet. The server came around and asked if I wanted a mimosa, and after he watched me think about it for a second he said in an awesome Dominican accent, "Why not?" And I thought to myself; Well when you put it that way, I literally can't come up with a reasonable answer to that question. I've already done my morning yoga on the beach, I'm in the Dominican with some beautiful people, I'm about to eat about 4 plates of food, so I hit him back with, "Why not?" And the wonderful man poured me a mimosa.  (This example of having a mimosa at breakfast is sort of the opposite message than the rest of the post, but whatever, it happened and I'm using it.)

Hearing this phrase and repeating it back got me thinking about my Ole favorite, Mr Jim Rohn, and something he called "Four questions to ponder."  Below is me paraphrasing his four questions.

These are the wonderful questions to stop and ask yourself every once in a while.

First question:
Why?
Why work so hard? Why chase your dreams?  Why keep getting back up when life knocks you down? Why persist through the failures? Why read the books?  Why try to earn as much as you can earn? Why try to share as much as you can share? Why try to become all you can be? Why do that much? Why give that much away? Why try to get in the best shape of your life? Why step out of your comfort zone? Why do anything tough?

Here's the best answer to question one, and it happens to be the second question:
Why Not?
Why not see who you can become? Why not see how much you can earn? Why not see what you can learn? Why not visit all of the planet that you can visit? Why not love as much as you can? Why not connect with as many as you possibly can? Why not laugh as much as you can? Why not see what influence you can have?  Why not impact as many as you possibly can? Why not share your gifts as often as possible? Why not be totally awesome?
Jim adds in a great little line about life saying, "You've got to stay here until you go, I mean what else are you gonna do?" 
But seriously, you'll be here until you're not, so while you're here, why not?


Third question:
Why not you?
You've got a heart beat. You've got the brains. You're not a tree, you can move. You can grow radically in the next few years. You can build a fortune. You can impact others. You can spread happiness. You can love. You can live your legacy. Someone out there is going to, why not you?

Fourth question:
Why not now?
As Jim says, "There never was a better time."


There they are peoples of the internet, four questions to ponder. So tonight, today, this morning, whatever time it is that you feast your eyes upon this post, ponder those four questions well. I mean come on, why not?


Be Awesome.


-Tom Spaniol

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration."
-Nikola Tesla