“Life Is, Living Does: A Journey Into Understanding”
By W.C. Blackmon

DFS Toastmasters
Department of Financial Services, Tallahassee, FL
November 8, 2018




Have you ever had a dream, a goal, a desire!

One that is so incredibly strong that you can seemingly feel it throughout your entire being!

I’ve experienced such a phenomenon within me for a long time now, and with each year that I grow older, so too has it grown stronger.  Yet, I couldn’t articulate it in words until about four years ago.

So, what is it? It’s simple really.

It is to help individuals become their very best, reach their personal pinnacles, attain success, and learn to find true happiness in themselves.

Not so very, much right? 

But here is the schism.

When I came to this understanding, I wasn’t operating at my very best, I didn’t see myself as successful, and I wasn’t happy, in here or here.

So, I did what many of us do upon reaching a fork in our lives.

I looked back at the road I walked, the life I had lived, and the many experiences that served as the hammer and anvil that made me into who I am today.

I saw that five-year-old boy who was uncommonly fast and strong, but then had his eye sight abruptly taken away.  

I relived his confusion, frustration, anger and questions of “why” did this happen to me?

I saw him lying in a hospital bed following major eye surgery and I felt his fears and tasted his salty tears as his step father physically abused his mother in that same hospital room.  Cringed all over again as his mother cried for him to push the button that would call the nurse and security.

I remember him winning his first wrestling match in high school, him achieving an A on his first writing assignment in college English 1101.

I remember him desperately looking for a job and not finding one for three years.

I remember the devastation he felt when his first love told him that she wanted to go in a different direction.

Then too, I remember him standing atop a platform in the Czech Republic to receive a first-place trophy, and having his hand raised as he was told “you are overall World Champion.”

I remembered all those experiences and so many more: some good some bad, some I could wish never happened and others, either way, I’m thankful to have.

But what the remembering taught me best is that while life contains sorrows, it is the living of that same life that takes us out of those sorrows and into joy and happiness.  I learned that no matter how bad it gets, if we can just stay positive, keep an open mind, and maintain the courage to just keep going, keep moving, step after step, whatever that goal is, it will be achieved!

Now, it is an easy thing to tell yourself this, but what about putting it into practice.

Three years ago, I made the decision that I would go after my dream, my goal, that which I understood to be my purpose.  One of the wonderful things about life is that once you make up your mind about it, it will bring to you that which you need in order to live it.  Within a month after making the decision to do motivational speaking, an organization contacted me about speaking at their event.  Following the event, I understood that I had done well, but I also knew that I could really use some help in becoming a better speaker.  I returned home from the event on Monday, and that Thursday, a friend called me and said, “Man, you should come to toastmasters.”

That Saturday, I attended the Early Bird toastmasters Club.  Six months later I released my first inspirational book titled “Mind Vision.” About eighteen months after joining Early Bird, I competed in the World Championship international Speech Competition and was recognized by Toastmasters as one of the top 30 speakers in the world.

A little over two months ago on August 22, I cease to be an employee with my former employer, The Florida Department of Education.

Now, in accordance with my journey into understanding, I am working and living the purpose of my life and dreams.

Good people, each one of us has been given the gift of life, but it doesn’t stop there.  No, we also can live that life to its fullest by doing those things that are necessary in accomplishing our goals.  So, I say to you today: reach onto the shelves of your heart and mind and dust off those dreams that have been sitting there waiting for you!

Then take and if you have to, make, your opportunity to do, be, and live your best life!

***