Among my favorite television commercials of all time is a spot promoting Coca-Cola that aired a number of years ago.  In the commercial, a nurse asks an elderly gentleman – presumably residing in an assisted living or nursing facility – if he wants a Coke.  The man responds affirmatively.  While drinking the beverage, he remarks that he has never had one.  And then, a revelation strikes him.  What other positive or pleasurable opportunities has he missed in his life?

The next sequences show him contacting a lost love to propose marriage, riding a motorcycle, diving from a high board, and running with the bulls in Pamplona.  The commercial ends with the nurse, returning to the spot at which he had been seated previously, bewildered by his absence.

As in the advertisement, sometimes our lives and perceptions can change for the better in an instant.  Positive change is a decision, like every other decision we make in our lives.  Why the man had never previously pursued any of the challenges and adventures portrayed in the commercial is a matter of conjecture.  If he is at all typical of most of us, his reasons may have included fear, anxiety, lethargy, and a host of other emotions or attitudes.

Also, as in the commercial, sometimes a particular happening will awaken us from the slumbering state in which many of us lead our daily lives.  “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” is an expression connoting the observable fact that learning and awareness depend equally upon the availability of the particular subject matter as well as the learner’s ability and openness to absorb it.  In the case of the man in our commercial, the experience of a Coke for the first time awakened in him the desire to pursue other new avenues and, in a sense, helped him summon the motivation and will to venture out from the relative comfort and security of his current situation.

Each of us is presented with revelatory moments frequently in our lives.  Often, self-imposed barriers inhibit our capacity to act on our newly-discovered aims.  As we are presented with stimuli that awaken within us the desire to blaze new trails in our lives, may we individually have the courage and energy to “run with the bulls.”