Sunday 3:27pm 30Apr06
I watched Wayne Dyer's latest PBS special recently. It was part of his
new book Inspiration - Your Ultimate Calling. I got into him two years
ago when he did the Power of Intention. I ultimately bought the book
and all the Cd packages that went with it.
The viewing of his chat on inspiration reminded me about how I used to
look for and find inspiration everywhere. Back in the days when I liked
myself more and was more emotionally heallthy. ha ha. But seriously I
used to have a more upbeat look on life and then it plummeted for a
very long time. Part of the subsequent plummeting was that I started
focusing on the wrong things, for my sanity anyway.
Since watching his program, I've been doing a few little things for
inspirations sake. One of the things is getting up when I wake up way
too early and writing down random thoughts in my journal. Enjoying the
silent peace of 4am in my apartment building when my downstairs
neighbours aren't banging their renovation and my upstairs neighbour Mr
Heavyfoot AKA Fe Fi Fo Fum isn't stomping around like he weighs two
tons when he is actually quite small. Why is it that some people walk
so damn hard when they live in apartments? Do you really think you are
the only one in the world? Do I really have to go up and knock on your
apartment and show you how to walk lightly? The thing is I've already
spoken to him about it and he apologized all shamefaced and has since
continued to walk like he's the Giant after Jack in the beanstalk. But
I digress...
Inspiration? What has inspired me lately? There was an article in the
Toronto Star recently about a man that rented out Roy Thomson Hall
after re-mortgaging his house. He rented it because he's always wanted
to get on stage and sing in front of an audience. The guy did it and
sold it out too. It was his lifelong dream. He put his money where his
mouth was and did it.
My second piece of inspiration came from the documentary that was on
A&E last night called The man who predicted 9/11. Rick was the head of
security for Morgan Stanley and got out all of the Morgan Stanley
employees safely except for 6 people. He also died in the tragedy. Now
dying in a tragedy isn't necessarily inspiring but this guy was the
type of person whose calling was to save people. In the documentary his
biographer said that when Rick was in the vietnam war he was the head
of his platoon ( I don't really know what it's called but you get the
message.) In the majority of the other platoons the survival rate was
approximately 50%. 50% of the people died. In Rick's, 6-8 people died
only. And the thing about this guy was that it tormented him his whole
life that he lost those 6-8 men. Come on buddy you did a hell of a
job. But each person was important to him.
As an aside, he met and married the woman of his dreams 3 years before
he died in the World Trade Centre attacks.
From the get go, he was looking for ways that the centres could be
attacked. he brought in his army buddies and asked for their advice.
One friend said that the best way to attack was with a bomb in a van.
Rick tried to forewarn the Port Authority, the people that owned/ran
the buildings and they nodded their heads, smiled and waved him away.
They believed in him more after the 1993 bombing attack that went
exactly as his friend predicted.
After that, he brought the same friend back and the friend said that
the next time could only be from the air. Rick, believing that there
would be another attack first tried to convince the Morgan Stanley
people to move to another building. When that didn't work, he started
regular evacuation alerts. Every three months whether you were in a
meeting, in the bathroom, on a long distance phone call, you had to
drop what you were doing and leave the building on Rick's say so. The
employees now say that that vigilance was what ultimately got them out
alive. Of 2700 employees, 6 people didn't make it out alive.
One of the big executives saw Rick before he left the building and told
him, "You need to get out too Rick."
But Rick stayed in to help the EMS workers rescue the other people in
the building. An impossible feat as we all know. As a character that
would be what would drive the story that this man cannot bear to lose
people in his care.
Every one who spoke about him said, "He would have been a hero if he'd
left the building after he got the Morgan Stanley employees out."
He would have been a hero but he still would have been tormented by the
lives lost. He died doing what he believed in. An inspiring man...
No comments:
Post a Comment