It was the window seat I snagged that day, to the left of a sixty-something year old man who smelled vaguely of urine and cigarettes.

“If you stay on this road long enough”, my odiferous neighbor tells me, “you hit the Atlantic Ocean.” He then laughs, as if he has revealed previously hidden wisdom. As his laughter descends into his chest, creating a raspy cough, we pass to the right of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PyramidArena.jpg">Pyramid</a>, its shiny metal siding reflecting light into my eyes as the driver heads toward the ocean.

I won’t be going quite that far.

# # #

For 13 years, I lived in Memphis. Growing up, a dirt-poor kid in Marshall County Mississippi, I dreamed of moving to Memphis – of living in a gated community, of owning a red sports car, of the hot wife, the career spent in books and letters. Check, check, check and check.

But, as John the prophet said, life is what happened while we were making other plans. I spent the first decade of my adulthood climbing the ladder of success. I climbed, and I climbed and I climbed. One day, I stopped, and looked around. It was then I noticed that while I had done a good job of climbing – I am, in fact, a hell of a climber – my ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

What if you plan a life and nobody comes?

When I was 30, I had been married to a beautiful woman for six years, I was a successful (in a middling sort of way) financial advisor, I had a great apartment on a good street and a closet full of Ralph Lauren suits.

And I was throwing up blood about once a week from the stress. And I was drinking way too much. I hated my life.

So, I quit. Not just the job – I quit the whole life.

If at first you don’t succeed, to hell with it.

# # #

That was five years before the day I sat next to khaki-clad smelly man on an east bound bus, with what was left of my possessions in a duffle bag stuffed under the seat. Here I sat, two years older than Jesus ever got to be, with a head full of Transcendentalist poetry, a gut full of bad coffee from the bus station and tears running down my face, washing away the memory of the dreams of all my yesterdays.

I was headed to Raleigh, NC. I needed a fresh start – a new place where I had never sold books or insurance, where I had never broken anyone’s heart, lost anyone’s fortune, where I had never fallen in love with someone who wanted the me I used to be, where I had never broken a promise or a wedding vow.

It was time to be born again.

# # #

So, that day, I sat on that bus, my entire net worth boiled down to $800 cash, a few books and two pair of jeans. And I was starting a new life – I had spent the first 35 years or so of my life focusing on me. On that long bus trip, I made a list of all the things I did not like about me.

It was a long list.

But chief on it, right at the top, was that I was a people user. I was all about me, and what people could do for me.

I hated that.

It was not the “me” I liked to think I was. I thought of myself as loving. Generous. Caring. Jesus-like, even.

But, I wasn’t. Truth is, I was just a user.

So, I decided it was time to change. Time to be the person I wished I was, the person I dreamed of being, the person I would be proud to be. The person my wife, or my girlfriend or my grandkids would be proud I was.

I decided to change.

Change is hard. I have heard it said that we only change when it becomes harder to remain the same than it does to change. Maybe that’s true. All I know is, on that bus, with broken dreams and shattered relationships behind me, I decided to change.

So I did.

I started a ministry based entirely on relationships – relationships with people who often cannot return the favor, and who can’t advance my career or puff my ego. I learned from them, and then I began to speak to churches about what I learned. Then I took resources from those churches and used them to help my new friends.

It was not easy. It was not the simple path, or the easy path – but it was the right path. It was my authentic path – the path I was born to follow. It was the path I was fighting all those years I was climbing furiously a ladder leaning against the wrong wall.

For the last four and a half years, I have lived the life I wanted to live – an authentic life: A life where I am not a user, but a contributor. I am married to my best friend. I have a wide variety of friends around my dinner table all the time. My work makes a difference. People’s lives are changed because I live mine. I get to do stimulating work and exercise my creativity.

Life is good.

# # #

So, why am I telling you all of this?

Because it is January. This means a lot of you are thinking about change. You are looking around and you see your life staring back at you and you do not like what you see. You see the broken promises and scattered dreams in your history and you find you do not like the story of your life. You are not living out your authentic story.

And you want to change.

But you are scared.

Scared you will fail. Scared you will be laughed at. Scared you will lose friends. Scared you will struggle.

You should be scared. Deciding to live your authentic life is scary. Deciding to be the person you want to believe you are is scary.

But you know what is scarier?

Waking up one day and finding out you spent your life living someone else’s dreams, building someone else’s vision, creating someone else’s legacy – and being too scared to change.

You can change. You can wake up and live the life you were born to live. You can build great things, dream big dreams, watch them unfurl and drink in the victory of living a life well played.

You can be born again.

But first, you have to decide to change.

<span style="color: #999999">(image courtesy of  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/2083679415/"><span style="color: #999999">Telstar Logistics</span></a>)</span>