Utmost Living: Creating and Savoring Your Best Life Now

Book by Storey Tim

1

Finding a Place for Your Dreams

M y hometown diner is a classic, with double-wing steps leading up to an entryway ornamented with arcade games, an aquamarine and silver starburst façade, booths upholstered in oxblood, a counter along one side, and sunshine spilling all over everywhere. Anyone who comes in here for breakfast can’t help feeling they’ve made a good start on the day.

I come here once or twice a week when I’m in town, but I’m not a real regular like Larry King, two booths down. He’s here nearly every day that he’s not taping his show in New York, usually with three friends. I bet more of the world’s problems get solved at that table than at cabinet meetings—solved at least long enough for them to finish their eggs, that is. Steven Spielberg drops in fairly often, looking like he’s thinking about the world that’s inside his head.

I don’t need to tell you I enjoy seeing these people, sitting in the same diner they sit in, just like I belong there. Me, a kid from a lower-income family in Whittier, California. Is this cool or what? I’m thinking. I mean, I’ve spoken all over the world, I’ve addressed the U.S. Congress, I’ve met stars in all sorts of fields, and I’m still just tickled by the whole thing. By life. You wouldn’t believe it.

Unless, of course, you believe that anything is possible. And that’s what I’m here to tell you. Anything you can think of can become real. In fact, it will become real—that’s the law of attraction. Anything is possible. It really is. Go ahead, say it to yourself. Say it out loud. Say it like you mean it, because before you finish reading this book, you are going to mean it. You are going to mean it about yourself and you are going to live it. Anything is possible. And it will feel great.

Life Is Yours for the Taking

I am the number one fan of the Anything Is Possible Network—APN for short. One time I was watching football with a friend of mine who lives out in the country. Way out. And like me, he is a big football fan, so he was really excited about his new satellite dish and what it could do for him. “Tim, watch this,” he said. “Wherever I shift the dish, that’s what I pick up. I can watch games on the East Coast, in the Midwest, or anywhere.” Listen to that again: “Wherever I shift the dish, that’s what I pick up.” We need to have a dish like that in our hearts and in our heads. Because you could be picking up the I’m So Stupid Network or the It’s Too Hard Network or any one of hundreds of other networks that are going to get you down when you pick them up. When you tune in to APN, you are going to pick up something that is going to pick you up.

One of my most interesting friends is Duane Chapman, better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter. I was introduced to him many years ago, when he was a bounty hunter, but before he became famous and made famous mistakes. He was working in Hawaii and in Denver, but he wasn’t happy. He knew there was more to life than what he had then. With Beth, his common-law wife, Dog and I began to spend quality time together. I talked to them a little about corners in life. A corner is a bend or a curve that you can’t see around. Sometimes your life just seems like it’s moving in a straight line—you’re ordering up the same thing every day, every week, every month. But if you shift your dish, you will come to a corner, and you never know what wonderful things may lie around that corner.

Dog had faith, and he turned that corner. Just around the corner he was offered a show with A&E, which is now that channel’s most popular one. And then his autobiography became a number one best-seller. I was at his wedding to Beth—after living together for sixteen years they finally decided to get married—and we were out on the ocean in an outrigger canoe. The A&E people were there, celebrities were there, and hundreds of people were lined up on the rocks on the shore, cheering for Dog and yelling congratulations. Dog began to cry. “Can you imagine this?” he said through the tears. “Look how far God has brought me.” If you shift your dish, good things are waiting just around the corner.

When I go to my diner, I can sometimes tell which of the people there do not believe that anything is possible. The people I worry about are the ones sitting alone at those tables near the kitchen. There’s Jack right now. He’s always there, pretending to read the paper while he’s eavesdropping on the conversations around him. Always next to the kitchen door, which isn’t exactly Siberia—the diner’s not that big—but surely isn’t Venice Beach. It’s noisy, the waiters are always rushing by, there are the steam and smells and heat of the kitchen. I tip my Dodgers cap to him and he nods back. Jack’s not a bad-looking guy, if you don’t mind a little piercing. Dark hair and about as pale as you can get in Los Angeles.

Frances comes by. “Where ya wanna be today, Tim? By the window? Are ya gonna flip a coin?” Frances is always a reality check for me. She doesn’t assume anything, so she makes me think about making a choice. Even about where I sit. Today I’ve decided I have a job to do.

As it turns out, now is the moment you’ve been waiting for.

—Lucinda Williams

“I’ll just sit over there today, Frances, thanks.”

“There? By the kitchen? You wanna know what Lou’s making for special today?”

“Just for a change, Frances. Humor me.”

“That’s me, the Good Humor girl. Juice?”

“That’s me. I’ll just take a look at the menu.”

“Suit yourself. It’s not like it’s changed since Tuesday.”

“Maybe I have.” I take a seat and look over at Jack, who’s pretending not to look over at me, even though he knows I’m usually across the room. I lean over to him. “Excuse me, is that today’s Times?”

“Yeah,” he says, and he thinks about whether to take the next step. He does. “But I wouldn’t say the news is all that fresh.”

I laugh with him. Jack’s willingness to strike up a conversation tells me he’s open for a change, or at least an exchange. Jack’s already made a choice, and I already feel like the day’s going to be a good one. I can help people who don’t acknowledge that they need help, but it’s a lot easier when they do.

Live by Design, Not by Default

I’ve talked to a lot of people like Jack. Jack himself doesn’t know why he always sits near the kitchen—it’s just where he landed the first time he came to the diner and he’s never sat anywhere else. Jack is living by default, not by design. For him, whatever was has become what is and what will be. Jack has not tuned in to APN.

You might think there’s nothing really wrong with just letting small, bothersome things be. Small, bothersome, distressing, distorting, depressing things. Maybe if it’s only for this morning, I could let that go. You can’t change everything all at once. I could even let it go if it’s only for today. But to live a life full of small, bothersome, distressing, distorting, depressing things is a default life. It is a life full of static that keeps you from tuning in to the Anything Is Possible Network, which is broadcasting in powerful high-definition 24/7. You’re getting the static, not the signal. You are trying to skip with your shoelaces tied together; you are trying to sing with a gag in your mouth; you are trying to make art with a blindfold on. Remember: your life is a joy, it is your song, it is your masterpiece.

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

—Fred Shero

It’s time to untie the laces, throw away the gag, and stuff that blindfold in the trash. You are here to do something divinely wonderful. Why else would God put you on earth? He doesn’t do things halfway. He doesn’t say to Himself, “Well, I think I’ll just create a little, not-very-important human being today. Just try one out, you know. See how it goes. Maybe tomorrow I’ll work a little harder.” He gives you everything He’s got and He wants you to use it. Why else go through all this?

I am going to help you find your way to the best life you can have, to your utmost life. I’m going to give you the tools to order up the life you want, and I’m going to help you discover what that life is and what is keeping you from living it.

I’m looking at the menu when suddenly there’s a bellow from the kitchen that startles Jack and me both. “Pick up! Let’s go! Diligent hands bring wealth!” I have to smile; one of the reasons I like this place is that the owner can quote Solomon. It takes me a few minutes to order, but Jack just says, “The usual,” without looking at the menu. I ask him if he likes the food here.

“Oh, it’s OK, I guess.” I raise my eyebrows, look at him some more. “Well, actually, it’s pretty bad.”

“Oh, I’m sorry you don’t like it. Do you always order the same thing?” We strike up a conversation, and Jacks asks me what I do. When I tell him that I’m a life coach, he looks a little startled and says, “Boy, that must be awesome. But I could never do it. Sometimes I’m not even sure what sport I’m playing.”

Sitting at the same table is not the only part of his life Jack just accepts. He always orders the same thing because it’s too hard for him to decide about something different every morning. He does...