“Believe in yourself. Believe in your own potential for greatness. Believe that you can change the world. It is something that is within each of us. Believe in the Power of One” -Evan Tanner

Today’s post was going to be about me making soup, which while a delicious endeavour pales in comparison to the news of the passing of Evan Tanner. Many of you will have no idea who Evan was, so I would first direct you to the wikipedia link. However it was his life away from MMA which made him so loved by so many.

Evan was a man who thought well outside of the box and lived a very personal spiritual life. I think he sums up a lot of what people, myself included, respected him for when he wrote:

“It is a shame that in this society we’ve been taught to judge a man’s worth by what he owns instead of who he is. Everything is surface, and so few look beyond it. A man will sell his soul, he will lie, cheat and steal, for money. If he has it, he can buy respect. Wear the right clothes, drive the right car, have the right friends, that’s all that matters. Our lives are consumed in a selfish, self absorbed quest for possessions, the latest and the best in a never-ending cycle until the day we die. We forget what it means to be truly human. We forget the things that really matter. We lose the magic of what life should be.

I won’t live by rules that make no sense to me.

- Evan Tanner “

Evan was a great believer in everyone’s ability to make a difference, his refusal to conform to the rules which shackle so many of us in our day to day lives. Evan was not without his demons but his strength and honesty in confronting them was of great motivation to me at least…

My thoughts are with his family and friends on what must be a terrible day.