A life changing day.

I landed in Hawaii yesterday, and I've now been here for a full 24 hours. However, I still don't feel like I have arrived. It's just so much to take in. The beauty, the people, the weather. Turns out Hawaii looks slightly different than Utah (strange that nobody told me that). I keep waiting for it to snow, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.

Jace meet Ocean, Ocean this is Jace.

 I imagine traveling to Hawaii would be a life changing experience for anyone, but for me it's pretty much the equivalent of strapping me into a space shuttle and launching me towards some unknown planet. As of Friday May 13th I was roughly 10,000 days old (27yrs) give or take a few leap years, and I had never stepped foot onto an Airplane, I had never been outside the lower 48 U.S. States, never been yelled at by a foreign woman who clearly was unhappy with the image on my shirt, and I had never seen the ocean. Then, within one passing day I had experienced all of the above!

Just like that, things that seemed so out of reach just days before all came to fruition in a single day. This has taught me to never underestimate the power that one day can have. Now I'm not saying that you're not living life unless you're jumping on the next flight to (fill in the blank). I'm saying that we really don't have any excuses to let a day slip by without making it worth while. We need to leave a mark by completing a challenge, confronting a fear, expressing feelings to a loved one, or just taking 5 minutes to ponder about something we've never taken time to think about. Of course this is WAY easier said than done, but I believe taking this approach to life will create positive ripples in the water.

This crab was totally making the most of his day.

 We all have our shackles. The things that weigh us down and hold us back. The people who are closest to me know exactly what mine were (and to some extent still are), or at least the major ones. I won't go into detail about that now, but I plan on it in a later post. My shackles kept me from doing things I wanted to do. Do you think I had never seen the ocean or flown on an airplane before because I thought those things were lame? Wrong. I avoided those things because I spent so many years allowing my shackles to get tighter and tighter making me fear things that were new to me. But there comes a time when we have to chose to either give up or start creating an escape plan. It took me a long time, but after experiencing the worst few months of my life, I am now experiencing what I expect to be some of the best.

I am thankful for shackles. They make us fight for what we want. I know that I've finally escaped mine, but I also know there is another pair waiting for me. They are most likely already on my wrists slowly tightening down. I believe that breaking through these shackles make me stronger as a person, and will allow me to break more challenging, heavier barriers in the future.

I feel the need to mention that I could have never made it through these challenges on my own. I have a family that by divine intervention I have been placed in because I would not have lasted in any other. My friends are composed of the most compassionate, smart, loving, and caring people that could possibly be pulled from the gene pool. I can't thank everyone around me enough for helping me through this life. All I want to do is give back to them, and hope I am able to.

If our lives are a book then I've definitely just completed a chapter. I'm very excited and eager to start the next one! Starting it off in paradise isn't all that bad either ;) <-- "winkey face emoticon"