“The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating.” ― Eric Micha’el Leventhal.
Responsibility for Your Past
When it comes to all that you experience in your life, it does no good to point to God, nature, or any other factor as the reason for your plight. Even though other forces will influence your life, it is your own subconscious and imagination which combine to deliver you into the situation you are currently living.
Many will argue, this cannot be. Some fate befell you by the choices of someone else, and you didn’t have a chance. Each of us has a primary responsibility to ourselves and our lives. We may not control all things that come our way, but we control our reactions to all things. If someone mistreats you, responsibility for their transgressions lies in their own consciousness. Your responsibility lies in how you let it affect you. There can always be a time of sadness and mourning. That is understandable and probably healthy. Letting something control your life, your behavior, and your happiness forever is a poor decision. You don’t have to be a martyr for your past. Forgive those who need to be forgiven, but most of all, believe yourself.
Use Your Productive Imagination
All of us have a gift of creativity, and it comes to us in the form of imagination. Where we can picture scenes from the future as if they are real. The thing is, we can imagine the very best, ideal things, or we can spend time dreaming up worst-case scenarios happening to us that we definitely don’t want. Take a moment and think of all the daydreams you spent. Let your mind fall on in your youth. The ones you really found a connection with, put your emotions into, and took action toward probably came true.
Everything is created twice, once in mind, and then that idea springs forth into reality. There are no examples of it happening any other way. Your imagination provides the blueprint for all your creations. The energy we send to our future in our imagination can bring it into creation.
You Are A Creator
You are doing the creating. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The thoughts you entertain are going to be dictating your reality. Once they are accepted as beliefs in the subconscious mind, they will become a part of your programming until they are removed or updated.
“The possibilities of creative effort connected with the subconscious mind are stupendous and imponderable. They inspire one with awe.” ~ Napoleon Hill
“You will be a failure until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which ‘clicks.'” ~Florence Scovel Shinn
“The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds, and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. ” ~Florence Scovel Shinn
Listen to William George Jordan and Be A Better Person
You Are Better Than Most
One of my favorite authors is William George Jordan. The reason for this is that his thoughts on many topics clearly resonate with me on so many levels. If you are wondering if you are doing the right thing or moving along the right path, pick up a book by W.G. Jordan, and you will understand more about it than you may have wanted to. Here is a shortlist of topics he has helped clear up for me.
On Greatness
What Are You Becoming?
I am a great human soul with marvelous possibilities!
At each moment of a man’s life, he is either a king or a slave. Only he can decide which.
“The man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anemic commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. Living at ones best is constant preparation for instant use.”
“The supreme courage of life is the courage of the soul. It is living, day by day, sincerely, steadfastly, serenely, despite all opinions, all obstacles, all opposition. It means the wine of inspiration from the crushed grapes of our sorrows. This courage makes the simplest life great it makes the greatest life sublime. It means the royal dignity of fine individual living.”
Are We Good Or Evil?
Are you gonna be good or bad?
“Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil—the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.”
All people are duplicitous, and they have two sides, good and bad. Life seems to be a constant quest to find out which force will be the strongest in you. Recognize that this struggle takes place within everyone in the world and look for the signs to see which side is winning. This quote would have you look at a person’s actions and what he actually does, rather than the image they would have you see.
True Charity
“True charity is not typified by an alms box. The benevolence of a checkbook does not meet all the wants of humanity. Giving food, clothing, and money to the poor is only the beginning, the kindergarten class, of real charity.
Charity has higher, purer forms of manifestation. Charity is but an instinctive reaching out for justice in life.
Charity seeks to smooth down the rough places of living, to bridge the chasms of human sin and folly, to feed the heart-hungry, to give strength to the struggling, to be tender with human weakness.”
On Gossip
The second most deadly instrument in destruction is the gun. —- The first is the human tongue. The gun merely kills bodies while the tongue kills reputations and oft times kills character.
Each loaded gun works alone. Each loaded tongue has a thousand accomplices.
The crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, of malice, of anger, of envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism,gossip, lying and scandal.
Never Stop Trying to Be A Better Person
“There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is.”
Growth In People Like Nature
“Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn; so do human souls. Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle, sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing, sweetening of the fibres of character,—but she always pays.”
Practice What You Preach
The man who says he will lead a newer and better life tomorrow, who promises great things for the future, and yet does nothing in the present to make that future possible, is living in an air-castle.
Live the Way You Believe
A mere theory of life that remains but a theory is about as useful to a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean … No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest until he reaches out and appropriates it for himself until he makes it practical in his daily life until that seed of theory in his mind blossoms into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.
Calmness Doesn’t Seperate you from the world but connects you to it.
The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, for he is intensely interested in all the concerns the welfare of humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire from the world to get strength to live in the world. He realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his self-control is the majesty of calmness.
Calmness is the rarest quality of human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centered, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crises.
Never be content with who you are.
There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is.
“We should begin it today. Today is the only real day of life for us. Today is the tomb of yesterday, the cradle of tomorrow. All our past ends today. All our future begins in today.”
Ingratitude
Ingratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge, which is only returning evil for evil, while ingratitude returns evil for good.
Much of the seeming ingratitude in life comes from our magnifying of our own acts, our minifying of the acts of others.
Don’t Brag
Constantly reminding a man of the favors he has received from you almost cancels the debt. The care of the statistics should be his privilege; you are usurping his prerogative when you recall them.
Admit your mistakes
If we have made an error, do a wrong, be unjust to another or to ourselves, or, like the Pharisee, passed by some opportunity for good, we should have the courage to face our mistake squarely, to call it boldly by its right name, to acknowledge it frankly and to put in no flimsy alibis of an excuse to protect anemic self-esteem.
Unhappiness and Happiness are:
Unhappiness is the hunger to get; happiness is the hunger to give … If the individual set out for a single day to give happiness, to make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself but for others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what happiness really is.
Happiness is the soul’s joy in possession of the intangible.
True happiness must have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy with others.
Calmness
Calmness comes from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they penetrate only two or three hundred feet; below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great crises of life, we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self-control.
Be Your Highest Self
Let us seek to reign nobly on the throne of our highest self for just a single day, filling every moment of every hour with our finest, unselfish best. Then there would come to us such a vision of the golden glory of the sunlit heights, such a glad, glowing tonic of the higher levels of life, that we could never dwell again in the darkened valley of ordinary living without feeling shut in, stifled, and hungry for the freer air and the broader outlook.
“There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is.”
“He who, from sheer lack of purpose, drifts through life, letting the golden years of his highest hopes glide empty back into the perspective of his past while he fills his ears with the lorelei song of procrastination is working overtime in accumulating remorse to darken his future. He is idly permitting the crown of his individuality to remain an irritating symbol of what might be rather than a joyous emblem of what is. This man is reigning, for reign, he must, but he is not ruling.”
On Hurry
It seeks ever to make energy a substitute for a clearly defined plan, the result is ever as hopeless as trying to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.
Hurry is the counterfeit of haste.
On Sorrow
“There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.”
On Practicing Your beliefs
A mere theory of life that remains but a theory, is about as useful to a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean…. No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest until he reaches out and appropriates it for himself, until he makes it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossoms into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.
Education
Education, in its highest sense, is conscious training of the mind or body to act unconsciously. It is the conscious formation of mental habits, not the mere acquisition of information.
Individuality
Every man reigns a king over the kingdom of self. He wears the crown of individuality that no hands but his can ever remove. He should not only reign but rule. His individuality is his true self, his self victorious. His thoughts, his words, his acts, his feelings, his aims and his powers are his subjects. With gentle, firm strength, he must command them or. They will finally take from the feeble fingers the reigns of government and rule in his stead. Man must first be true to himself, or he will be false to all the world.
On Truth
“Truth is not a dress-suit, consecrated to special occasions, it is the strong, well-woven, durable homespun for daily living. Let us cultivate that sterling honor that holds our word so supreme, so sacred, that to forget it would seem a crime, to deny it would be impossible.”
On Life
“Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live. Mistakes are always part of learning. The real dignity of life consists in cultivating a fine attitude towards our own mistakes and those of others. It is the fine tolerance of a fine soul. Man becomes great, not through never making mistakes, but by profiting by those he does make by being satisfied with a single rendition of a mistake, not encoring it into a continuous performance by getting from it the honey of new, regenerating inspiration with no irritating sting of morbid regret by building better to-day because of his poor yesterday and by rising with renewed strength, finer purpose and freshened courage every time he falls.”
Mistakes
“Mistakes are the inevitable accompaniment of the greatest gift given to man, individual freedom of action. Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes, glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us to turn their light as a glowing illumination along the pathway of our future. Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom. Without them, there would be no individual growth, no progress, no conquest.”
It is a difficult task indeed to start to think about what you are most grateful for. Many people will say money. Some will say, love. Some will say, family. Some will say something else entirely.
I am thankful for all these things, but to me, there is no doubt that showing your gratitude is the most important thing to do. The feeling of gratitude is important. So for me, I guess the act of feeling grateful is the thing I am most grateful for today. Here is why.
Taking things for Granted
I was the type of person who took many great things in my life for granted. Not appreciating the things that people did for me out of the goodness of their hearts. Yet, I was not grateful. In fact, I think I felt entitled to all the things I had in my life.
The problem with that is that you are never pleased with what you have but are always angry or worried about what you don’t have. This is the problem with a lack of gratitude. No matter how much you get, you are never pleased.
When You Lose Everything, You are Grateful for Anything
In my life, I had the good fortune to lose everything. In that time of turmoil, many feelings of self-pity and anger eventually will consume you or push you to make changes. I decided to change.
It started with a change in attitude. The sun didn’t rise and set because I existed, and I could make a decision every day to decide how that day to be happy. Happiness started with a realization of how lucky I was to have anything at all.
That realization expressed provides the feeling of gratitude. When it comes to events that are difficult to deal with, your designation of either good or bad is your perception of the experience. The experience is still the same. You might as well be grateful for it.
Gratitude leads to more Gratitude.
Once you take a moment to express your gratitude each day, it has been my experience that the momentum will build, and you will find more in your life to be grateful for. I have read that the act of being grateful is one of the most important emotions that you can experience because it opens the door for more things to enter your life that will deserve gratitude.
So I am most grateful for the time I take each day to appreciate fully what I experience in my life every day. Away from labels of good or bad, they are experiences that provide all of the situations that combine to teach me the things I need to know to follow my purpose. It is the moments of thankfulness that we find what is great in ourselves.
Do you think crying is a sign of weakness or strength?
As human beings, we are blessed with many different forms of expression. Emotions are one of the things that not only help us express ourselves and communicate with others, but they also work to communicate with ourselves exactly how we are feeling.
When experiencing sadness or pain, sometimes people cry. Does this show weakness or not?
I think that each person has to answer this for themselves. I can only explain how I feel about crying, which is uncomfortable at best. At least, that is how it has mostly been in my life. Yet, I admit that my perceptions have changed as I have aged. You can decide for yourself if I am on the right track of growth or not.
Three Reasons to Cry
For most of my adult life, I tried to adopt rules that made sense to guide me in all sorts of situations. I have spent a lot of time dealing with people, and if you work with enough people, eventually, someone will cry. That is life. It took me all of 10 seconds to realize how much I hated seeing other people in distress; it is really upsetting to me. So I tried to follow simple rules when it was OK to cry.
The first reason was extreme physical pain. If your arm gets broken or a leg gets severed, then crying is a realistic option. It hurts, and it tells the world you are in distress. It is almost an instinctive reaction to a stimulus. Certainly understandable and, most important understandable to me.
Second, if you experience a profound loss, a death in the family can make anyone really sad, and I understood that might lead to a few tears being shed. I certainly cried a few tears when my loved ones passed away. I cried a whole lot when a friend of mine died in a car accident 27 years ago.
Third, when something remarkable happens in sports. I had teared up a few times. I coached a lot back then, and often I would get emotional at the end of a season because I put so much into it. Also, I got a little misty when the Red Sox won in 2004 and the Patriots in 2001. That was acceptable to me. Despite the scene below, I think there should be crying in baseball. (continued below the video)
I Was Foolish and Wrong
As I have had a wider experience in life, I have concluded that my “rules” were designed to create fake control where no control could exist.
I went through a period of depression where waves of sadness would continually hit me out of nowhere, and I had no control over whether I cried or not. It had very little to do with strength or weakness. It just was.
Those times ended finally, but I had been given a new perspective on the way that tears come to you. I realized that, and I believe it today, that the measure of strength or weakness is not going to come from if you cry or not, but from how you live your life. For all things, there is a season: a time to laugh and a time to cry.
Cry It Out Loud
Be proud. Cry out loud!!
It still makes me a bit uncomfortable when others cry because I am not sure how to provide the comfort they need. It is a call of distress to me, and I am unsure how to handle it. I also would have a hard time crying in front of someone else, and I would do it by myself but fight against it if I was in the company of others. Yet, I would not judge someone, either strong or weak, if they were crying. I would look at them with compassion and be confused about giving them the comfort that they needed. As I continue to grow as a person, I hope that I will become more comfortable with this side of the human spirit. I think it takes a lot of strength to be comfortable enough with yourself no matter what.
Be prepared for others to back away if you are crying. It is not something that many people are comfortable dealing with, and that is ok. We are all on our own journey and need different lessons. In the end, it is an emotion that allows for a release of sadness, frustration, grief, fear, or something else. That is it. No need to fear it.
Do you think crying is a sign of weakness or strength?
Thank you, Fergie, for your contribution to this writing today.
Awesome-extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear.
It never ceases to amaze me when I look at the people I encounter every day in this small part of the world, just how awesome so many of them are. Some people are kind, caring, supportive, successful, motivated to create and do amazing things. In a word, they are awesome! The strange thing is that they don’t see it in themselves. I wonder if you can see that same level of awesome in the people around you? Most importantly, do you see the awesome person you are capable of being? We will go through times when we question our choices, the relationships we are in, or the relationships we are not in our current financial situation, or any other part of life that involves a decision. Today’s challenge is to look at yourself and be conscious of the potential for awesome that exists in you, and it all begins with your thoughts, words, and actions.
Don’t Listen to Negative Noise.
One of the reasons people rarely see the awesome in themselves is because of the negative messages they are bombarded with throughout their development and into life. It takes a strong individual in a supportive situation to display the talent and not be ridiculed or chastised for it. Perhaps a well-meaning adult or a jealous peer saw how awesome a person was and tried to limit this talent. Often, it only takes one negative word that sinks into one’s consciousness and stops creativity in its tracks. The facts are that no matter who you are and what you can do, there are always going to be those who don’t appreciate what you can do.
One of the reasons people struggle putting themselves out there is the risk of ridicule. In today’s digital age, criticism is easy to give, and your words of hate can be transferred instantly and anonymously. Awesome people will be created from their hearts and will not waste time worrying about what haters are going to say. They will always exist, and the only way to avoid them is to say nothing, do nothing and be nothing. Forget that and be the awesome creative person you are!
Rarity of Awesome
Once you decide to really look at your life and your capabilities, it can be a scary proposition to follow your passions and skills. There is a lot of fear involved. You have a talent for doing something, and you love to do it. In fact, when you do it, you feel whole. The simple fears are the fear of failure, the fear of success, and the fear of what others will think of us. These simple fears have stunted an untold number of awesome people. Developing your awesomeness is very rare because it takes courage to try and confidence to continue.
The good news is that each of us has the ability to pursue our awesome gifts at any point in life we choose to do so. Many look at their current situation and see a static location. It isn’t, change is constant and inevitable, and your circumstances are going to change. Be proactive in how that change develops, and you might find your way. This is true for any goal setting in any facet of your life. In finances, relationships, or spirituality. You can begin to develop your awesome talents as soon as you decide to put your fears aside and start. It takes courage to be awesome. That is why it is so rare and why we should appreciate those currently succeeding.
Awesome Things
In your life today, there will be an opportunity to support or diminish awesome in some way. It may be your awesome that you don’t follow through with, or it may be someone else attempting to be awesome whom you either choose to support or ridicule. Your words, even though you don’t know it, might be the push someone needs. Be conscious today of the potential awesome happening all around you and be a supporter of all those trying to be great, including yourself. Be conscious of your thoughts, words, and actions. If you can help someone improve even just a little, you make the world a better place. What could be more awesome than that?
Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome. ~ Zig Zigler
Imperfection– a fault, blemish, or undesirable feature.
All of us have to face facts at some point. We are not perfect. Our lives are infected by personal shortcomings and weaknesses of all sorts, which cause us to make imperfect choices all the time. These imperfections may be physical, spiritual, emotional, financial, or fall under any area of our experience and/or lives. Despite these shortcomings, the secret to enjoying life is to explore and embrace each one of them fully. Personal growth can only come from understanding. This understanding results from looking honestly at the things we don’t like, knowing why they happen and taking actions to improve them. Increase your awareness of your perceived imperfections by looking at your thoughts, the resulting emotions, words, and actions you experience noticing your imperfections. You will find these imperfections can be a guide to personal growth and understanding of one’s outlook.
Don’t Hide from Imperfections.
For myself, I see weakness every day. Each day I am confronted with situations that either reveal or highlight some glitches in my personal makeup. There are clear choices.
No need to hide from your weakness. Embrace it.
Available to me when I experience these challenges.
The first one is to try to hide them from the world. You can ignore them and move on with life like nothing ever happened. This can be good for a day or perhaps a week or maybe even a month or a year, but ignoring something doesn’t make it not exist.
These not-so-powerful images of ourselves do not exist to make us feel bad. They are there to provide you with a road map for improvement. Don’t hide from or ignore your personal “weaknesses”; learn to recognize, embrace them and grow from them. We spend so much energy hiding our perceived problems from others, and the real problem becomes the hiding of the problem and worries about it, more than the problem itself. Embrace your uniqueness and understand it makes you who you are. Unique. It is through understanding that things change.
See the Path to Improvement
It can be a painful thing to see your weakness on display. When I see my anger, impatience, and negative attitude crop up, it can be a daunting task to face. Who wants to admit that they are not perfect in everything they do in a day? But it is only by recognizing where we are weak that we can see the path we need to follow to be strong.
So if I am negative about something, there is a reason it is happening, and usually, it is a personal, teachable moment. Yesterday I got angry several times because of the actions of others. Not bad actions, just being human and worrying about their own needs above everyone else’s needs. I am a firm believer that anger is an emotional warning sign that shows our concern that our needs might not be met or that we are in physical danger.
It seems my anger reveals my own concerns about the ending of something and the inevitable moving on. I am ready to move on in most cases, but there are quite a few people and work situations that I have become quite fond of, and both consciously and subconsciously, it hurts to see that coming to an end. But knowing this allows you to say goodbye or maintain relationships comfortably and enjoyably for all people.
I have a fear of these relationships. I am rational enough to know that moving on is the best thing for me and all of the people I care about. In fact, the end has to happen for me to grow, but it still does not come without difficulty. Without realizing this, I may let the opportunity to tell some of these people exactly how much they have meant to me during this experience in my life. I could not have enjoyed it without them, and in fact, they are all part of the combined reason it was such a memorable experience.
Grow From Understanding Yourself
So there is really no other choice in life but to embrace the weakness that shows up in your day-to-day existence. It may be initially difficult or uncomfortable to admit, but once you do, there is a wealth of information that can help to guide you on your path and lead you toward your dreams.
Dissecting your shortcomings allows you to view honestly where your work needs to be spent to live a higher quality of life. This higher quality is going to allow you a better chance to reach your full potential. All people have a tremendous potential to be great, but life’s pain and false beliefs often cover it up. Your weakness can provide you with the key to unlocking this great potential inside you. It simply needs to be dealt with.
It is also a fact that many times it is our imperfections that make us unique and interesting. In some cases, your weakness will push you to overcome it, either to prove your worth to others or yourself, and these motivating factors are a part of understanding why we have weaknesses in the first place.
Change is Constant and Inevitable
Recognizing a weakness is a blessing because it allows you the opportunity to make changes and improve yourself in almost any way. We know this will happen one way or another because no matter what you do, things are going to change. Our imperfections are not a permanent handicap on enjoying and being happy in life, and they are simply a signpost of what needs work in our lives to make our existence a greater experience.
We are all imperfect beings in an imperfect world, trying to enjoy the ride of life. You have the potential to be great, and embracing and working on your weaknesses will allow you to find success a whole lot quicker and to enjoy the experience of life along the way. Often it is our “imperfections” that allow us to become our strongest selves.
It all begins with a greater awareness of the thoughts we have about our imperfections. Please don’t make it an indictment on you personally. Make it an opportunity to learn and become better, and the growth that results will allow a greater level of consciousness today.
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. Marilyn Monroe
“The fact of storytelling hints at fundamental human unease hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection, there is no story to tell.”- Ben Okri
“There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, to complete ourselves.”-Eugene Kennedy
If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times. “Life is not fair.” I have listened to family members, friends, politicians, and even myself on more than one occasion. I am here to tell you today this statement is the biggest false cliché, defeatist statement that a person can listen to or accept. Once you accept that other factors are in control of your happiness, guess what, they are. Many times we don’t have any choice about what happens to us. We have 100% decisions about how we choose to react to things. Life is very fair, and here is why.
Perspectives of Pain and Suffering
When a person says life isn’t fair, they don’t really mean it. What they mean is, I am going through something less than pleasant, annoying, or downright heart-wrenching, and I prefer it when others experience this stuff, not me. But we all know these feelings are a part of life. I often wish the people I have known were kinder of heart, more intelligent, or just better people, but all the wishing in the world won’t change the past, a situation, or the mindset or actions of people from your past.
Life is so fair that it continually puts things on our plates that challenge who we are, what we believe, where we are going, and who we are doing these things with. It is difficult to take a broad view when the storm is raining directly on you. I have been in that storm and felt like each drop was directly meant to hit and hurt me. It isn’t. Having someone disregard you and your feelings are difficult to handle, but when you allow it to play out, you most often end up better off than you were in the situation you are all broken up about. A relationship ends, you move on to something better. You have to allow it.
I think everyone eventually asks the question, Why me? The answer is that you are human, and all people experience challenges, and they are sometimes easy to deal with, and sometimes they rock your life down to its very foundation. No matter how calm and perfect their life seems on the surface, every person in the world is faced with challenges. It is these challenges that often drive us toward our biggest growth. Otherwise, life would be quite boring. Life is very fair as we are all allowed to participate in uncomfortable things equally.
Step back. When you plug your experience into the giant map of things, perhaps you will find that the tragedy you have suffered is going to make you a better person or take you somewhere you would never have gone. Or led to the development of talents and skills within you that otherwise would have been hidden from yourself and the world.
Don’t Evaluate the Pain of Others.
Another way life seems unfair to some people is that when you compare your life with someone else, it often seems like they have things much better than you, or they have it so much easier than you. Stop that. It is a fantasy in your own mind—a monstrous waste of time and effort. Being jealous of someone else does nothing to change your experience. All people have experienced challenges, all of them. Money doesn’t make happiness. If it did, there would be no need for therapists.
The only person you can control is yourself, so worry about being the best person you can be and understand the principle of fairness that makes everyone equal in their suffering. You can’t possibly understand what was happening in someone’s life. They may look like they have it all handled on the surface, but underneath, there is a very flawed person with unhappy, contentious thoughts. Pain is not something people wear on the outside very often. We all have challenges and experience suffering of some kind. It is how we deal with things that truly defines us.
Why Bad things Happen
There is no way that I can step back far enough to understand why tragically bad things happen. It just isn’t possible. However, I believe that just like people, tragedy enters your life for a reason, most often to teach you something. The problem is that the knee-jerk reaction to most bad things is a healthy fear of whatever has happened.
I think that this is the opposite of what should happen. The initial reaction should be one of love. Why? Love brings light into the darkness. Love can change circumstances where fear merely exacerbates them. There is no way to understand a tragic loss of life or a promising life cut short by accident or disease. However, there is always a choice in how you react to these things. Perhaps that is the reason.
Life is funny, and I can’t even pretend to understand all of the secrets to existence and being happy. I do know that adopting a victim mentality of any sort isn’t going to help anyone move forward, only stay right where you are, usually in misery.
There is nothing I enjoy more than encouraging others. I have been through enough to know life is not all sunshine and rainbows at this stage of my life, but I have experienced enough to know that you can still be happy regardless. In my interactions with others daily, I often find myself counseling people to relax and let life work itself out. This is, of course, very difficult to do because we have been conditioned from birth to make things happen. To be the captain of our destinies. But the older I get, the more I understand how very little I actually know. Life is much smarter than you and me. Here are a few observations that life has taught me; some lessons are easy, and I have learned the hardest of ways. Suffering is a great teacher and a constant companion of all of us.
The Value of Suffering
As a human being living on the planet, I want to help people avoid suffering, but I have come to realize that sometimes challenges are necessary for people to go through to rise to their highest level. You can’t stop them even if you tried. Suffering is a part of the game of life. We are either in a crisis, coming out of crisis, or heading toward a crisis. The times in between allow us to reflect, but don’t wait too long; another situation is coming your way.
I challenge you to do it, find someone in the middle of some drama, sit with them and offer your heartfelt advice. Then sit back and watch as they do what they want to do. Your advice may have been perfect and thoughtful, tempered by love and experience. Still, an indisputable part of human development is learning many valuable lessons from trial and error. It is our right to make errors, so don’t judge too harshly the errors of others because we have all been there. (And probably will be again) The strongest steel has to face the greatest fire. I know it isn’t personal when your advice is ignored completely.
Pressure to Be Perfect
Young people are particularly prone to this. They feel the pressure of having a perfect education to get a perfect job and start down the perfect path of life. Even though there is no perfect education, job, or path, they soldier on with blinders on, stressing over every step.
Read some blogs. It won’t take long to hear the stress and angst coming as the pitfalls in the path are revealed and the worry that life might not be easy, no matter what you do, is the cause of most of it.
It is not very often that we look at ourselves and see the perfect parts. Each of us has attractive and unique things about us, but we tend to focus on the “ugly” parts or the imperfections. People one day realize that their imperfections can be a strength if we only recognize them. Perfection is boring anyway. Be the beautiful, imperfect person that you are and be great at it.
Enjoy the ride
When a person faces a challenge that you have been through, it is like watching a movie that you know the end of by heart. You want to tell them to relax. It will all work out in the end! These things are going to keep happening. Nothing goes as planned, and life challenges you and everyone else. It will be OK in the end if you don’t let the lessons defeat you. The peculiar thing is that just like when I was that age, it falls on deaf ears. Worrying about your rent, job, relationship, family, or whatever else provides a false sense of control. Some never stop. As they age, they keep on worrying and trying to control themselves. Wondering why things never change for them. Let people be who they are and do what they need to do.
The obvious fact is that you have about as much control over 99% of what happens in life as the flea riding on the back of a buffalo. All the worry, the planning, the fear that has been driving you is all for naught. Stuff is still going to happen you don’t like. You would be better served to enjoy the ride and see where it takes you. You will make choices and take action but be less attached to the results. They are mostly out of your hands. The attachment will only cause suffering because you have built a preconceived idea about how things should turn out. Let them turn out as they should. There will be a pain, but less than hanging on to circumstances which no longer serve you.
When you Appreciate the Ride
Great news, though. If you learn to ride the waves of life, you will find that most often, you will get what you need to be happy. All you have to do is appreciate your experiences and learn the lessons they teach you. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow anyway. All there is in life is today. I once tried to explain this philosophy to someone, and they said, “Jonathan, you make it sound so simple.”
I thought about that a lot because I am not at the end of this game, and I am not sure what will happen yet. Someone in their 60’s probably looks at me the same way. The difference is I hope I would listen to the voice of experience. Or at least I think I would. But I would probably feel like I know it all, and those other experiences don’t have anything to do with me.
Life is unpredictable
Learn how to ride the unpredictable waves of life!
One of the best things about life is that you don’t know what is coming next, how life will play out for you. All you can be sure of is that there will be a lot of things happening to you. Some will be enjoyable and pleasant; some will be neither enjoyable nor pleasant. Your reward for playing and riding it out is to become a better player and a stronger person.
Prepare as best you can for life and learn how to manage a change in temperature, direction, or the cast you are working with. Change is inevitable and constant, and the best we can do is accept it and enjoy the fact that nothing stays the same. Even when we wish it would. People will leave. People will let you down. Appreciate the good things.
Here for A purpose
Challenges are necessary for growth, and we would never evolve into anything worthwhile if we just sat on the couch all day getting whatever we wanted. You are here for a purpose, and playing this game will show you what that is if you let it. An easy life is not a good life, and it is just easy. That is true whether you choose to listen or not. It really doesn’t matter in the end if you win or lose, but how you played the game of life. How have you played the game? If you were in a room full of all the people who had ever met you, would they cheer, boo, walk out, or attack you? The answer to that question will probably define how you have treated others.
How often do you look at yourself and honestly evaluate the most significant weakness? The honesty and emotions that are raised by this sort of inquiry are not dismissed lightly. I recently searched my life to identify my biggest weakness.
There are probably many people who know me would think of, and some who don’t know me could come up with a lot more. I never claimed to be perfect, but when it comes down to my absolute biggest weakness, it is the fact that I have cared way too much about what other people thought about me.
Always Been the Case
Appearances are just thoughts, and thoughts are nothing unless you give them meaning!
Some of my earliest memories are of being shy and worrying about what other kids thought about my clothes and the things that I was doing. Even though I was lucky enough to attend a school with supportive kids who never unearthed my fear, I still carried it deep inside. As I grew up, this fear made its presence known every day. I was incredibly self-conscious in high school (I know, who isn’t), but to the point where I was looking to fit in, ANYWHERE! I was an athlete, so most of my friends came from the teams I was a part of. They were great people, and I believe today would have liked me anyway, but then I felt like I had to maintain an image. Protection over who I was so that I could never be criticized or, in a more profound sense, rejected.
This continued throughout my adult life, the pattern of only allowing people in my life a few glimpses of who I was and keeping the rest locked away, for only me. Yes, I was friendly, and I got along just fine, but nobody, and I means nobody, ever really saw the real me. I was too worried I was not good enough. This is the source of my programming, throughout life, and something I have had to notice and overcome.
Unmasked
Finally, after years of living what should have been an enjoyable life, I reached two conclusions that were irrefutable and hard to avoid. I didn’t like my job, and I didn’t like the person I was very much either. That realization made me question a few things.
Why did I not like myself? This perplexed me, and as I thought about it, it wasn’t me I didn’t like but the life I was living. I was very self-centered and selfish. Everything I did was for me and me alone. There was no actual service, no real giving, no real opportunity to be me because I was too worried about what people thought about me. I was far from the person I was, and life provided little absolute joy without the expression of my true self.
My job? I should have loved it, I was teaching school, but I started to dislike all of the rules and petty inconveniences of that particular profession. It is like trying to live your life in a fishbowl. For me, I was constantly on my guard. I could never just be myself. People seemed to criticize everything, and I tried to stay under the radar and out of the way. Eventually, that became impossible. I was not born to live under the radar, and our true self will find a way to come out if we don’t look to express it.
So Who Am I?
Let it become yours!
Can anyone answer this? It is often easier to define who you are not. You are not your job. You are not what people think of you. You are not what you feel about yourself. You are not your relationships: father, mother, sister, brother, friend. So I am none of those things, and the labels don’t matter.
I am a person who cares about others and wants everyone to recognize the unique talents they have within them and use them to enhance their own lives and the lives of those they come in contact with. That includes me.
So Now What?
Now I am exposed, and that is who I am. I will try to live up to who I am as best I can so that I can hold my head up and face myself. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of you. It matters what you feel about yourself. Everybody else will have to make that judgment for themselves. My advice to you and me is:
– Don’t hide who you are because it is who you were made to be, and nobody else can do the job anyway.
–Don’t care what anyone thinks about you because their criticisms only come from jealousy, envy, or fear. Love them because they are where you used to be.
–Follow your passion into whatever realm it leads you. Whatever you are drawn to that makes you feel whole, go there, do that thing!
Consider my biggest weakness, exposed, dissected, and dismissed. To all those who judge: “There are many things that people do happily that I can’t imagine why they would do it… But I have to say that even though I am critical or judgmental of society at large, I’m not critical of people individually. We are who we are. “
Ian MacKaye
It is funny in an odd way how fear determined so many of my actions when if we are totally honest about ourselves and our motives, everybody is terrified of something most of the time, and it determines most of our actions.
It is amazing to me how much time we spend thinking. Thinking about this and that all day long, a constant barrage of thought flowing through our minds. Yet all of this thought production can be distracting and counterproductive if you never choose to look closely at them and see what these thoughts are or what they mean. The funny part is that we all think our minds, and our thoughts define us. But they don’t. They are just something we produce, not who we are. The goal for me is to disidentify with the mind and the wild swirling eddy of thought and focus on the person looking at them. A lot is going on in your head and to become the watcher of the thoughts you are producing is quite an achievement.
Use the Tool
A mind is a tool. It has great power to remember, create, problem solve and even run our bodies. But it isn’t who we are, any more than a helpful garden tool is us. It is a valuable tool we can use to create things, to make decisions, and the mind is the biggest factor determining what we accomplish in this life. Learning to use the tool we have and not identify with who we are is the trick. Our educational system does not guide how to do this, and most information we are exposed to makes no differentiation between yourself and your mind. But they are definitely two different entities.
Take a moment and look at your thoughts without judgment. Take five minutes and type whatever you are thinking without any filter or judgment. Then analyze what you are thinking about. If you are the mind, how can you sit back and listen? Something is creating these thoughts, but it isn’t you. Our thoughts come from a combination of our experiences and new stimuli that enter our lives. Most often, our mind tells stories based on faulty programming and half-truths based on manipulations of others. If you write your honest thoughts down for five minutes, you will know where your thoughts are coming from. And with real evaluation, you can trace them to their origin. Then you can choose if this is a thought you really want to entertain or not. That is becoming conscious, and the choice very few people have made. Rather than use this tool, the tool uses us and moves our lives along the conveyer belt of life as if we are on autopilot.
Think Where it Matters
Lots of thoughts we have about ourselves are extremely negative. We speak to ourselves in a manner we wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else. Our perceived shortcomings, failures, or personal lack are magnified, and if you listen, there will be words spoken in your mind that are unhealthy and mean. Thoughts about our physical appearance or personal worth on the negative need to be identified and released. The person who most needs your kindness and understanding is you. I have known people who go out of their way to be kind and give to everyone else, but they are overly critical and mean when it comes to them. This is obviously a problem with self-esteem and personal achievement. If you deep down think you aren’t as smart, talented, or deserving as everyone else, how can you ever become successful? You can’t. You are defeating yourself.
We too often let our imaginations negatively run our lives. We spend time lost in the past, full of pleasant victories or devastating defeats. We color the past how we want and time spent there takes you away from spending time in the only place that matters. The same can be said of the future. The future will happen whether we think of it or not. There is nothing wrong with planning. That is responsible, but worrying about everything that might happen is a fool’s errand. It is paying money for a debt that most likely will never exist. And if it does enter your life, it won’t be any easier to deal with. Time spent thinking in the future takes you away from spending time in the only place that matters. Where is this place? Where does it matter? That is the now. This moment. That is all we are ever promised and all we ever have.
Living in the Moment
Becoming intensely conscious of the moment is a difficult practice. Even the most diligent person is going to find their mind drifting off into other places. The goal is to develop the instrument of the mind so that it can still be used for thinking of practical purposes, using it for discovering the best way to do things or create new things or become the best at something that you can. But to eliminate the involuntary deluge of negative dialogue that is unnecessary, unhealthy, and a waste of time.
Spend an entire day noticing your thoughts. When they inevitably drift out of the moment, and you notice it, you are back in the moment automatically. This will allow you to look at how often you spend your time thinking about this moment and how much you spend in the traps of the past and the future. Returning to the now continually allows you to live in the moment, which is the only reality there is. If you are at work, be there. If you are at the beach, be there. If you are at the gym, be there. Developing this skill will allow you to become a watcher of your mind and put you in charge of the tool. This is a power that will allow you to get out of the way of your thought stream and use your mind to create, solve problems and enjoy your life. What more could you want?
“Life is like a game of chess. To win, you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT and knowledge and learning the lessons accumulated along the way. We become every piece within the game called life!”
“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”
“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” ― Socrates
“Never underestimate the power of thought; it is the greatest path to discovery.” ― Idowu Koyenikan
“The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating.” ― Eric Micha’el Leventhal.
it is your own subconscious and imagination which combine to deliver you into the situation you are currently living.
want. Take a moment and think of all the daydreams you spent. Let your mind fall on in your youth. The ones you really found a connection with, put your emotions into, and took action toward probably came true.
