Motivational Leadership Speaker, Bestselling Oprah Author

Gregg Smith

I was having a particularly stressful day last week when I read Gregg Smith’s blog, reminding me to “Let go and let God.”  I believe in that. But it hit hard coming from a guy who’s bio says he is “a 55-year-old, HIV-positive male human being, looking to share and uplift other human beings to deal with the day-to-day struggle of survival.”

Gregg’s story is powerful. His wife of 30 years died in 2002 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Next, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She then had a stroke. Last year, he started showing symptoms of what he thought was rosacea, and dismissed it as the aging process. He finally had it looked at and was also given an HIV test. That’s when the diagnosis was confirmed that he was positive.

 ”I believe in following the path I have been given,” he told me. “The doctor said, ‘You’ll have to do the medicine.’ I was okay with that. He said, ‘You’re so calm.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t feel uncomfortable to me. I’m not shocked by it.’ ”

It’s not that he’s gay or straight or bi or anything. He’s human, he says. Don’t get caught up in the label.

After the diagnosis, he was surprised which friends closed ranks and which ones dropped off. Some were afraid to be near him. Have we really learned so little in nearly 30 years of AIDS?

“People live in fear,” he said.

Fear is what creates our stress, he said. But, when you just let it go, the fear subsides.

“I run into friends who are depressed and in crisis and they don’t understand how I stay so content. They say, ‘How do you stay so happy?’ It’s because I know who I am. There is a higher power that guides the path. The only time that crisis occurs is when you don’t follow the path. You should live accordingly. Listen to your heart, listen to yourself and you will know.”

He said his insight didn’t come to him because he is HIV- positive. “This is how I have always lived. The HIV is what was meant to be, so I will take that path.” He shared a quote that begins, “We worry as if we have a thousand years to live.” And he’s right.

We do that. We don’t realize what worry takes away from us. We don’t get to re-live today, and if we sacrifice it to worry about work or relationships or money or the future or an illness, we don’t get the time back. Gregg’s answer is so simple. Let go. Let God. Travel your path. Be happy.

Simple enough.

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