It never ceases to amaze me how much life’s experiences, often ironically but always unexpectedly, end up altering the course of our lives in ways and measures that we have absolutely no control of whatsoever. Since we fail miserably as humans to predict the future yet we have naive imaginations that always convince us that we can, it is these little tiny experiences that traverse the river of future experience in our minds and land us solidly in the banks of the unexpected.
When I started my HSM at the beginning of 2009, I did it not because I had a personal vendetta to change the way people drink (by the way - I still don’t!) but because I wanted to understand why we drink. ‘Why?’. Now, almost a hundred other people have taken the same challenge upon themselves and collectively their stories are tales of pure inspiration, but am I closer to answering that question of why? Not even close. But my question has changed a bit. I’m now more interested in the question of ‘why not?’ Let me explain...
Right now, relatively ironically, I am in a pub. I have had a couple of schooners of Carlton Draught and I am typing these words from a small little establishment just outside of Bendigo at a place called Bridgewater. The pub is called the ‘Loddon Bridge Hotel’. It is a quaint little hotel that is girded by a river that captivated me as I spluttered through in my green Wicked van on my way back to Melbourne. That was 4 hours ago. I am still here now, swimming in my thoughts and the colloquial conversational fabric of a small country pub.
I am seated on a dark timber-framed, 70‘s style high chair in the back corner of the tiny circular front bar. The back of my chair and legs is being warmed by the immeasurably charming fire that crackles behind me as I take turns between sipping my schooner and writing the paragraphs you are reading now.
I spent the first two days of this week talking to high school students in Broken Hill about alcohol, binge drinking and all the things I have learned about why people do it on Hello Sunday Morning. I am truly blessed to be able to do what I do, to tell the inspiring stories of individuals and get paid to do it! BUT... that is just what I am, a storyteller. I don’t think I really mind whether a person drinks to excess or not, I care more as to whether a person can inspire me or not, rather than the amount they drink. People that tackle life head on, live every experience and step up to the challenge inspire me. People that just do what is expected of them, don’t. I think this is what separates a person that chooses to do a HSM. They choose to not drink in a culture that argues so compellingly for it. That, my friend, inspires the shit out of me!
As more people get involved in Hello Sunday Morning and the conversation continues to grow beyond the five mates that originally did it with me at the end of last year, you would think that I am getting a better idea of how much a person should drink to have a ‘healthy relationship with alcohol’. But... I don’t. In fact, it’s like knowledge - the more I learn, the more there is to learn. The more people I meet, the more there are reasons why to drink and why not to drink. I am no closer to coming up with an answer to this question than where I started because it is a question that ultimately has to be answered by the individual. I may have a wealth of information on the collective, but it is (and will always be) the individual’s choice that trumps that knowledge.
A healthy relationship with alcohol, is something that you have to find out for yourself. You might work that out with your HSM, you might not. I am still working it out for myself and I am definitely enjoying the process! But where I think HSM has the greatest value is not so much in the changing of drinking behaviours. It is in the realisation of awesomeness we have all around us. Life is awesome. It’s so fucking awesome. As such, the people I see making the most of their HSM are the people that I can quantify as having one single predominating belief and that is this - 'I am not a victim of circumstance, I am a creature of opportunity'. Or as Richard Branson (honorary HSMer ;)) says, ‘There is an opportunity that passes under your nose every 10 minutes and you are a bloody idiot if you can’t take one of them!’
If HSM can teach anything to anyone, I would like it to be this, getting drunk can be great but waking up on Sunday morning (or any morning) to a life that excites you, a life that is so awesome that you just don’t want to miss a single second, to put simply - is immeasurably and unequivocally - better.
To me, my Hello Sunday Morning is just like the sun that rudely opened my eyelids this morning (my van has one uncurtained window!) and beckoned me to peer outside of my van window and smile at the sheer beauty of the sunrise I was looking at. Initially, it's a little painful but it really opens your eyes to the possibilities. It’s the tiny little conversation, in the tiny little victorian pub, next to the tiny little river that stopped me in my tracks and made me think about the 'why not?'s' in life for a few stolen moments. It's nothing more, nothing less than finding the awesomeness all around me.
24/06/10
Enlightening as always!
24/06/10
Love it Dude.
Keep crushiting it.
See you soon
28/10/10
Mate love your work. Great story and can’t wait to get on bourd for next year. i have done six months and cant wait to do 12. Take care,
Timmy.
29/10/10
Thanks mate! Look forward to having you on HSM! When you are ready to start, click here – http://hellosundaymorning.com.au/wp-login.php?action=register.
04/08/11
Welcome to the beer Zamosc:)