Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of. It’s yours.
Author | Photographer | CG Artist | Filmmaker
Excerpt from: Courage doesn’t come from your comfort zone
You don’t get over the fear of doing something by not doing it.
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We live in a culture where it’s far easier to gain admiration for looking good than it is for doing good.
Just look at any magazine stand and it’s easy to see that society reflects our worship of good looks by putting more emphasis on those who are beautiful than on those who are making a real contribution.
Isn’t it time we pay attention less to genetic lottery winners with little more ambition than to gain attention for being attractive and pay more attention to the truly beautiful people going out of their way to add real value to people’s lives?
Because people are rarely as beautiful as when they act selflessly and perform an act of kindness for no other reason than to make a positive difference.
True beauty has far more to do with what kind of value a person adds to the people and places they encounter in life than it does with being physically attractive.
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“Less is more.”
Sometimes that’s true. And sometimes the answer isn’t less, it’s more.
Always remember that clever sayings may contain wisdom, but they are not rules that were never meant to be broken.
Sometimes the answers in life are counterintuitive. Ancient wisdom or conventional thinking don’t apply to every conceivable situation.
Sometimes less is less.
Seen in a meme:
“You can have whatever you are willing to struggle for.”
False.
No one gets everything they desire in life (whether they struggle for it or not).
Having said that…
There are inherent benefits in the act of consistently & persistently putting in the effort necessary to achieve a lofty goal, regardless of whether one is ultimately able to achieve it or not.
For it is from the struggles in life — not the attainment of one’s desires — that a person acquires strength.
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Excerpt from: If you want to be happy…
If you want to be happy, don’t make a habit of doing what unhappy people do.
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From personal relationships to business to politics, the person who isn’t afraid to be themselves, make mistakes, and even challenge you, is generally acting with far more integrity than the person attempting to do, say, and convey all the right things in order to win your affection, support or business.
Beware those afraid to show their human side or the work or thought process that led to whatever they’re saying or selling.
It’s probably wiser to consider wisdom from a wise & imperfect person — that acts like a real human being — than it is to take wisdom from a “wise” & “perfect” person that acts like a robot.
The former suggests authenticity. The latter suggests someone trying to hide their true self in order to come across as something that they’re not.
It’s one thing to have the answers, it’s another to have earned them from experience.
Don’t fall victim to those seemingly perfect people or products that cater to your ego or sense of self-worth in order to profit from your patronage.
No one in this world is perfect. There are only people who pretend to be.
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The person who screws up & learns from the experience has a lot more to offer than the person who appears perfect because they never risk making a mistake or appearing imperfect to others.
People who suffer one failure after another — only to ultimately succeed — have a fundamental understanding of experiences that people who get lucky or cheat their way to success never get.
In fact, even people who never achieve the goal they set out to accomplish often have more wisdom to offer about the experience of trying to achieve that goal than those who were able to attain it easily or without effort.
One gains far more from their struggles in life than they do from their successes.
There is a tremendous amount of value in being imperfect.
Forgive yourself and others of past mistakes and, instead, put your focus on where it is of most value, what was learned from them.
Strive for progress, not perfection.
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Want to feel better?
Encourage someone. Show appreciation. Express gratitude. Be helpful.
Seek to contribute something of value to the people and places you encounter in life. Not once, but often.
Be the embodiment of the qualities you seek in others.
Happiness is more likely to manifest itself in one’s life as a result of making a positive difference in other people’s lives than it is by solely seeking to benefit one’s own.
“Student says, ‘I am very discouraged. What should I do?’ Master says, ‘Encourage others.'” — Zen Proverb
Want to feel better? Be someone’s reason to smile today.
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“When your determination changes, everything will begin to move in the direction you desire. The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fiber in your being will immediately orient itself toward your success. On the other hand, if you think, ‘This is never going to work out,’ then at that instant every cell in your being will be deflated and give up the fight.” — Daisaku Ikeda
In order to succeed at any goal worth achieving, one must not only be prepared to face fear, challenges, hardships, and failure, one must be willing to overcome each of these things repeatedly.
It isn’t enough to simply try and fail and try again. One must build the tenacity necessary to keep trying long after one’s expectations of success have been challenged beyond imagining.
From the limited perspective one has at the onset of any journey, the pathway to one’s ultimate destination is often far less clear than it’s imagined to be — with a potential “plot twist” lying in wait at every turn.
As such, it’s important to remember that failures and setbacks are as much a part of the process of success as small victories are along the way. And that the road to success is often revealed most by the lessons learned from failed attempts to navigate it without a map.
Every failure in life provides valuable experience that, in turn, can provide illumination on one’s journey. But to reap the most from that experience, it’s important to not allow our failures to discourage us from pushing forward towards our goals.
As the Chinese proverb goes, “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
In other words, never underestimate the power of persistence.
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From truly listening to people to going out of your way to making someone feel appreciated, kindness comes in all shapes and forms.
Not only is your kindness often returned to you by those you share it with, people who feel good tend to make other people feel good simply by association.
Whether it’s simply making someone laugh or smile, never underestimate your ability to start a chain reaction of positivity.
A single act of kindness may seem like such a small thing, but so is the ember that starts a wildfire.
Be someone’s reason to smile today and you may just find yourself encountering more of the types of people who make you smile in return.
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