Lights in the Dark

Posted on July 28, 2017 by Andrew Bustamante

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I recently came across a statement by author and performance coach Jack Canfield where he expanded on Dr.King’s quote:

“Think of a car driving through the night. The headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet. And that’s how life tends to unfold before us.”

In 2011 my wife and I decided we were going to adventure our way through northern Thailand to find and attend one of the most elusive cultural festivals in the world: Yi Peng. If you’ve ever seen a travel guide or sales brochure with the picture of a night sky full of floating lanterns, that is Yi Peng. Like all great cultural festivals, Yi Peng has suffered commercialism and cheap tourist knock-offs of the celebration can be found all over Southeast Asia. But there is still only one authentic Lanna Yi Peng festival and it can be found in Chiang Mai, Thailand on the night of the first full moon of the second month (‘Yi Peng’) in the Lanna calendar (November in the western calendar). And for anyone with the patience and willingness to roam through a city that doesn’t speak English, following strangers who look at your guide book photo and point toward a barren dirt mound on the outskirts of town, Yi Peng is waiting for you.

Jack Canfield’s visual of a car driving in the dark is powerful because we’ve all had that experience. We were all afraid of night driving when we first started driving, and we all see it as second nature over time. That journey in 2011 was one of the most rewarding drives in the dark I’ve ever taken. Like Dr. King notes, no great achievement is easily visible from the starting point. Sometimes we have to trust that the next step will become visible only after we take the first step. That first step into the unknown, that blackness just beyond the headlights, is always the hardest.

When you get to Yi Peng, you will see hundreds of strangers gather on the mount with you. The sun sets and darkness collapses around you. Then one by one, small candles ignite and large paper lanterns are handed through the crowd. Families gather together to unfold their lanterns and light the candles that hang at the bottom. They speak their prayers and wishes for a good year out loud and believe they are filling the lantern with the same. And as the candle glows brighter and the hot air fills the lantern, everyone releases their hopes into the sky. And for a while, there is no more darkness. The lights of a thousand dreams blanket the hill and fend off the darkness. As the lanterns float higher and get caught in strong breezes, they are swiftly carried away together to higher altitudes and faraway places. The light fades away and the darkness returns.

What Yi Peng taught me was that we do not need to find lights in the dark before we move forward. Instead, we need to be the lights in the dark that carry our dreams higher.

Ditching Discouragement

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Andrew Bustamante

Discouragement is difficult and very real. It is often the elephant in the room, standing alone and unmentioned for fear that acknowledging its existence might make it rage. While looking away from it might help us feel safe, the fact is that we benefit more by facing it head-on and forcing it out of our space.

This week was painfully discouraging for me. Even while celebrating my son’s 4^th birthday and seeing him well over with joy, my heart was suffering from multiple conversations that had shaken my confidence, courage and optimism. My work to grow the Me.Now. Movement was at the core of my discouragement after feeling the movement come under criticism, doubt, and even perceived attack from outside. In addition to my own setbacks, I saw some of my closest friends and peers experience hurdles of their own professionally, personally and with loved ones. From within my turmoil I felt compelled to confront my discouragement openly in this post, in the hopes that others might find comfort in knowing how I deal with discouragement.

In January of 2011, less than six weeks after moving to Thailand with my wife, I contracted Dengue Fever from an infected mosquito. Known as ‘Bone Break Fever’, Dengue Fever infects up to 100 Million people each year and has no known cure. Symptoms vary slightly but share one common factor – extreme pain. Headaches, joint pain and muscle pain are at the core of dengue symptoms along with uncontrollable fevers, rashes and bouts of fatigue. A healthy 30yr old American male, the disease wrecked me physically. I spent 7 consecutive days sleeping in fits, fighting off a 104 degree fever, and rejecting all food. All my wife could do for me was mix water and Gatorade together to keep me from dehydrating while the fever ran its course. My weight dropped rapidly and my confidence went with it. When I finally pulled myself out of bed on day 8, the mirror looked back with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.

My fear that first day out of bed was that I would never get back to the level of health I had before dengue. Also on my mind was the fact that should I contract Dengue Fever a second time, my chances for survival would drop by about 5% and leave me vulnerable to a hemorrhagic fever – one where the autoimmune system cannot fight off the disease. I was overwhelmed with discouragement. Unlike the United States, Southeast Asia never implemented mosquito control measures to fight off or eliminate the disease. Living and traveling in Thailand would pose a constant threat of repeat infection.

I had two options at this point: give in to the discouragement and live in fear of another infection, or face my discouragement head-on to live the life I wanted. When facing debilitating fear, there can only be one answer – fight. Only fighting gives you the hope of winning. Giving up is a guaranteed loss. So I fought.

My body recovered fairly quickly in terms of energy levels and flexibility. While it took me 2 years to gain back the weight that I had lost, I was able to start running again within just a few months. When I look back at photos before and after my stint with dengue, I see the impact from that one little bite. But when I look back on the story of my life, I am so glad that I did not let discouragement change my course.