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
“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.
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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“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 acquaintances to best friends to married couples, all great friendships involve teamwork.
Teamwork sits alongside trust, communication, and tolerance as a building block of the best relationships.
Teamwork is not “What can I get out of this relationship?”, it’s “What can I bring to this relationship to make it better?”
Teamwork is the combined commitment to overcome obstacles. It’s support. It’s encouragement. It’s working together.
It’s rising to the challenge of bettering yourself for the benefit of the whole. It’s providing the support & encouragement necessary to help others better themselves and succeed in their endeavors.
Whether it’s providing a kind word, sincere appreciation, a listening ear, or something else entirely, never stop trying to add value to your relationships.
Never underestimate the power of teamwork.
Never stop asking, “What can I do to make this relationship better?”
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Catching people’s attention, getting exposure, or having an audience is a wasted opportunity if what one has to offer is rarely engaging, meaningful, or thought-provoking.
Don’t just say or share something because you can, have something to say and express yourself with intention.
When you communicate with a purpose other than simply filling space, your message becomes much more effective and your life more meaningful.
Whether you have an audience of one or one million, remember that how you act and what you say is your message to the world.
Be a voice. Live with intention. Lead by example.
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Excerpt from: What it means to “live life to the fullest”
The key to living life to the fullest is opening your mind and stretching beyond your comfort zone. Because if you’re not being challenged or intentionally pushing yourself beyond the realm of things that are familiar to you, then the experiences you’re having are no longer changing you.
“If we are growing we are always going to be outside our comfort zone.” — John C. Maxwell
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Seen in a meme:
“Happiness is a choice.”
No. Happiness is not a choice. Attitude is a choice.
Happiness is not just putting on a fake smile, acting cheerful, and pretending everything is OK.
Sometimes things are not OK. And that’s OK.
That’s life.
Stop for a moment and imagine you’re grieving over having just lost a loved one.
Now imagine someone comes up to you and says, “Happiness is a choice.”
Would you believe it? Would you be able to let go of your grief, shrug your shoulders and say, “Ok, I’ll be happy now” and actually be happy?
Unlikely.
What about depressed people or people who have suffered psychological trauma?
Would you tell a suicidal person that “happiness is a choice” and expect this superficial catchy catchphrase to solve the problem?
Of course not.
Even if attaining a state of happiness was as simple as making a choice, telling someone who isn’t happy that “happiness is a choice” is as about as helpful as teaching someone how to fish by telling them that “there are fish in the sea”.
It isn’t helpful.
Happiness is a byproduct of enjoying the journey of life.
You teach people to achieve happiness by providing them with the tools necessary to deal with life’s challenges in a positive and productive way.
You teach people to achieve happiness by showing them ways to navigate their mental & physical world in such a way that they can enjoy their journey.
And one of the most effective ways to enjoy one’s journey is to adopt a healthy attitude that allows one to appreciate life experiences regardless of one’s circumstances.
Suggesting that being anything but happy all the time isn’t a healthy way to view life.
Making people feel bad about feeling bad isn’t terribly effective at making people happy either.
The fact is, there is nothing inherently wrong with being unhappy.
“The ability to feel a full range of emotions and different states of being is an important part of the human experience.
It’s ok not to be happy. And in many cases, a large part of personal growth is dependent on recognizing when one is not happy and then actively working through it.”
Sometimes that journey will be difficult and life won’t be fair.
Again, that’s life.
“It’s ok to have negative emotions. It’s ok to make mistakes. These are an essential part of life and how we learn. But it’s important to not let these things hold us back or lock us into a cycle of self-pity.
Instead, we can use negative emotions and feelings of discontent as the motivation to initiate positive changes in our lives.”
We may not like everything that happens to us in life and we may not always be happy as a result of what happens, but we can always choose our attitude when dealing with it.
A bad attitude inhibits happiness. And when we are happy, a positive attitude accentuates it.
It’s not happiness that’s a choice, it’s attitude.
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“We actually have as little choice about wanting to become happy as the heart does about pumping blood. We’re incapable of wanting not to become happy. The pursuit of happiness isn’t merely an inalienable right with which we’re endowed or an activity we’re capable of choosing; it’s psychological law we must obey. Even people who appear to want nothing to do with happiness, like those so immersed in self-hatred that their principle aim becomes self-sabotage, will say they haven’t lost their desire for happiness so much as ceased to believe they deserve it” — Alex Lickerman, MD (From: The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self)
Each day you awake, assume something good is going to happen to you.
And if a whole day passes and nothing good happens, realize it’s not that nothing good happened, it’s that you missed it.
Not everything good that happens to you in life comes with bells & whistles attached. Sometimes the good in our lives is composed very simple moments we take for granted.
If you don’t see the good in your day to day life, look more closely.
Because if you’re alive, it’s there.
“I get so annoyed when people…”
“If this person [performs annoying action], I’m going to respond by [acting badly]….”
Often, when we think things like this, we’re not only setting ourselves up to harbor negativity and carry unnecessary stress, we create triggers for future negative thoughts & feelings.
“I get so annoyed when people…” not only creates the expectation that we will feel annoyed when something we expect to annoy us happens, we essentially give ourselves permission — in advance — to be annoyed when it happens.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And in the worst cases, we take it a step further and use our annoyance as an excuse to behave badly.
“If customer service doesn’t give me the answer I want, I’m going to lose my shit.”
Remember, crossing paths with an idiot is not an excuse to also act like an idiot.
We often deal with situations on automatic pilot and forget that getting annoyed — or at least staying annoyed — is a choice. We don’t have to let the bad behavior of others affect us as much as we often do.
How much more effective it would be if, instead of creating a negative expectation, we created a positive one:
“The next time I encounter something that annoys me, I’m going to handle it in a positive way.”
It’s much easier to handle the negative situations we encounter in life when we expect — or better yet, train ourselves — to deal with them productively.
We certainly don’t have to let the bad behavior of others cause us to act badly or lose our shit in response.
“That guy cut me off, so I’m going to do the same to him. That’ll teach him!”
The “lessons” we often try to teach people by acting badly are often lost on them. Rarely does the recipient of bad behavior respond with, “Wow, you’re right.”
On the contrary, it often provokes more bad behavior and more negativity.
If you want to teach someone a “lesson”, be a role model and set a good example.
Don’t let the bad behavior of others be an excuse to also act badly.
You’ll know you’re on the right track when, if everyone imitated your actions, the world would be a nicer place.
Lead by example.
“Inner Peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.”
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Are we free if we live our lives in a way that consistently requires the approval of others to be truly happy?
Are we free if we consistently force ourselves to live within the confines of other people’s expectations?
Are we free if we consistently dilute our true selves to make others happy?
Are we free if our emotions and mental state are easily controlled by what others say or do?
Are we free if we cannot consider an opposing point of view without getting emotional or immediately dismissing it because it contradicts our own beliefs?
No.
These are limitations we place on ourselves. They are, quite simply, bad habits.
The good news is that, as habits, we can replace them with better, far more empowering options if we so choose.
It may take work to rewrite years of mental and emotional constraints, but who is in charge of your life?
“When you truly know who you are — and who you are in the process of becoming — you will no longer live in fear of what people say or think about you.”
Whether it’s strong, confident, carefree, independent or all of the above, give yourself the freedom to be as you truly wish to appear to others.
Don’t give power to those who don’t have your best interest in mind. Reclaim the freedom to be your true self by defining your own identity and wrestle back control of your thoughts, feelings, and sense of self-worth from those you have inadvertently given power over you.
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