I am lucky to meet people along the way out here on the road.
My friends come to see me and I make new friends every night.
People share with me, for some reason they trust me. They tell me about their
problems, losses, sickness, good fortune, new guitars they've bought :)
The list goes on. I am always happy to listen and thankful they feel so comfortable with me.
I have a soft spot for recovery stories, and all too often I hear about someone losing a family
member to drugs or alcohol, it's very sad. But I also do hear about how someone has cleaned up
and they have 1 year or 5 years or 6 months clean and sober, it's always uplifting.
Recently someone reached out to me to share with me that they were working at the club
the last night I opened for Walter Trout in St. Louis
and was so messed up he had to sit me down and
read me the riot act. They told me they remember the night, and that I was really out there, a mess.
Recently they saw a video with myself and Walter speaking about that evening and how his helping me set off a chain reaction in my life and I have been clean and sober a long time.
This person told me that one of the bartenders that night at the club was a bad alcoholic as well
and he showed him the video. Today this man has years of sobriety.
Finally the message ended with this person telling me that his own son was having a terrible
time with drugs and that he was going to show him that video today.
That's amazing. It's like everything matters. Every word we say, every action, every non-action,
it all counts. We are connected to each other whether we like it or not.
I do believe in Karma, but maybe not the way most people do.
I do not believe Karma is a vengeful repercussion that is coming to get you for doing me wrong.
In my mind, Karma is the ripple in the pond. It strikes the water and makes a wave, small or large.
Either way, the waves matter, they are going somewhere.
Consequences are probably the most fitting way to describe what I am talking about.
Consequences always have a negative attached to them, but that's only half true.
We certainly have positive consequences as well.
Everything in this life matters.
It comes back to us, in one way or another. Striving to be our best is really the only way to
succeed at happiness in this lifetime. But even through the worst of times, God has a plan.
The Universe is making good out of whatever we determine to be "wrong".
Trusting the process is what it is all about, I have to trust that this will lead to something positive,
and it always does.
Delbert McClinton told me "You're only as good as your last show"
and I have taken that to heart, in all aspects of my life.
I am only as good as the last conversation I had with you.
I am only as good as the last time I played with my kids.
Because that's what people remember, the last time they were with you,
the last thing you said to them.
Play like it's your last show, that's what his advice means to me.
Love like it's the last time you'll ever love again.
Life is short.....and life is long.
The big picture seems to be so sweet and over too quickly,
but the day in, day out is always in front of us. It's staring us in the face right now....
How will you speak to me today? How will we interact?
It's hard to be great all of the time, to be perfect and wonderful and full of love....I know.
It's not a possibility to be God, but it is a possibility to be "God-Like" if we try.
A is always for effort in the world of Karma and good intention, but doing and action gets the plus.
I will try to do my best today, you never know who is watching or how this will affect
someone near you. Everything matters.
Peace, Love...Zito
Here is the video of myself and Walter Trout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-z2yckSdUs
