with your life. stop thinking about what your life might be in the future. stop wishing away the present. look around at all that you have now. be grateful for what you have now – for who you have now in your life – for the laughs you have now in life – for the moments you have now in life. you will never get what you want in the future until you are happy with what you have now. i don’t know why it is so embedded in human nature – to want what others have, to want more that what you have, to dream of a better life – when the life you have now is the “better life”. in every day that you live now, there are moments of joy and beauty. when you sit at a table with your family and you talk, smile, laugh – you are experiencing the best things that life has to offer –ever. it does not get any better than those moments –moments that you will yearn for in your dying hour. why are there so many cliches about living now, living for the moment, live in the present – it is because they are true. you just have to realize it. you have to flip a switch in your mind to stop wishing and wanting –and start living. because before you know it, your wish will come true – you will be in the future and you will only have regret then, for not stopping in time to flip the switch.
Tag: life
overwhelmed
as you get older, life moves faster. and as life moves faster, more pressures build upon your shoulders. this will inevitably cause you to feel overwhelmed. this is natural – it happens to every single person in this world and most people go through their entire lives feeling this way at some level or another. however, you do not need to feel this way at all. but it will take a conscious decision in your mind not to feel this way. you must understand that you have a destiny in this life -we all do. you must understand that you will fulfill this destiny if you keep moving yourself forward at all times. don’t give up and just keep moving forward –and you will continue down your path of individual destiny. and because you know that you have a destiny to fulfill if you stay on your path, then you don’t need to worry about being overwhelmed. just tell yourself that you need to be calm -that there is no sense in feeling overwhelmed -that you are on a path of destiny -so feeling overwhelmed doesn’t make any difference. it is pointless to feel overwhelmed when you look at life this way. you have a destiny and these feelings do not change that destiny. take a breath when you feel overwhelmed and understand that these feelings have no bearing on your life or your destiny.
kissing ass part 2
i wrote about this topic in 2010, but now i understand it more. we shouldn’t feel bad about kissing ass – it is part of the natural flow in this world. essentially, everyone has to kiss someone’s ass –even if you are the president of the United States –you still have to kiss ass to get what you want. thus, we should embrace the act of ass-kissing because in order to eventually get what we want or keep what we have, we need to kiss ass. for example, you must kiss your boss’ ass, even if you are the best of friends –you still kiss it a little, so that you each know where the other officially stands. your boss then kisses his/her boss’ ass and so on – all the way to the top. even when you want to tell your boss to “go to hell” – don’t do it –just bite your tongue and keep kissing ass. this is what keeps the world on track. if everyone didn’t bite their tongue a hundred times a year, we would all be living in chaos. the world runs on kissing ass. it has always been this way and will always be this way. get used to it and don’t fight it. just become the best ass kisser and watch your star rise! one day, there will be more people kissing your ass than the asses you have to kiss -but you will always kiss ass. the goal is to kiss less ass as you get older.
never give up
this is part of the Toby Code – “never give up, never quit”. and it is part of a great quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe – “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
Stowe’s mindset is the key to success. what i have found that if you keep doing something and you do not stop doing that something, you will eventually find success. but the problem is that so many people, including myself, eventually stop doing that something, especially if they do not find success fast enough. so what happens is you end up with a life full of trying things, but never succeeding or finishing the job. this then leads to long days in your older years full of small bits of regret. sure, these are small bits of regret, so most of the time you will be happy. but, if you really want to go to your grave satisfied, then you need to concentrate on sticking to something until it plays out. this is the hardest thing in the world to do. why would you keep doing something that yields no immediate or quick results? you wouldn’t. 99% of the people in the world would stop doing that something and would move on to their next fancy. but if you do keep pushing yourself to keep doing that something no matter what –even when you can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel -even when you think “why am I still doing this” –then you will be rewarded. you will find out that the journey is really the main part of this whole thing–not the end result. but the real key is to think about the end of Stowe’s quote – “the tide will turn”. when you are ready to give up – don’t. because that will be the moment that the tide will turn and all your efforts will start to be rewarded. this is what every person who has reached their dreams will tell you -just like Stowe has told us and all future generations to come.
why chill when you are older?
when i see older people doing very chill activities, like golfing or walking in the middle of the day, i first think why have they stopped pursuing new goals, why are they content not driving themselves to reach higher heights anymore? i don’t get it because i can’t possibly fathom stopping the pursuit of success at every turn. how can one stop everything and stare at the sea for hours. how can one wake up early, eat dinner early and go to bed early? how can one not talk all the time and not drive fast to get to their destination sooner? how can one not be on the phone all the time and stop going at a frantic pace from one event to the next? but then 1 day, when i am frantic in my mid 40s, it all comes to me. they don’t do all this stuff anymore because they don’t have to. life has slowed down, kids have grown up, keeping up with the jones’ doesn’t matter anymore, caring what others think doesn’t matter anymore. they have been there, done that. no need to stress over these trivial things, no need to rush anymore. the only care is living the last years the best that you can. you rushed around like a chicken with your head cut off for 20, 30 years –you are tired, you are done with that, you can now stare at the sea and not feel like you are missing anything, because you are not missing anything. you didn’t want to miss any party at 20, you didn’t want to miss any event at 40, and you didn’t care what you missed at 60. I get it.
life moves very fast
looking back is an interesting hobby –one that develops more and more as the years go by. you can start to analyze the different phases of your life by looking back. you can see that the early years up until 18 are like watching an old movie in your mind. you see yourself playing sports, meeting friends, having birthday parties, going to school, being mean to others, being nice to others, fighting with your parents in the teen years –but mostly having fun with the only stress being school and social settings. then by the 20’s, your life is full of so many events –mostly good times that now seem so long ago and you wonder wow –things seemed to move slow then but now they seem to have happened in a flash. you wonder where the 20’s went and why you did not relish the moment more. the 30’s are also filled with so many events –but you do start to become more aware of your life –where it has been, where it is going, how will you end up, what have you done, what can you still do. you do take in the moment more –but still gone in a flash when you look back on it. by the 40s, the stress starts to build –stress about kids, work, not enough time to complete all your goals. you might find yourself waking up in the middle of the night and having your fears fighting to keep you awake. it is truly a challenging time period where you start to question everything you have done –has it been good enough. i can see how a mid-life crisis can develop if you let your fears get the best of you. you have to fight more than ever to keep your grip on life. get through this time period and more glory will come after. it is so hard for the human mind to get a grip on this whole life thing –to try and grab hold of one brief moment is difficult to do. we can only think this deeply on the subject very briefly –otherwise it will consume you and affect your actions in life. you need to keep on track, keep doing what you are doing –enjoying every moment the best you can –and knowing that some things you cannot control –like life and time seeming to move so fast when you look back on life. it is ok to acknowledge these ideas –but just continue to live the best way you can –without losing your grip too much.
the scare
we will all experience the scare at one point in our lives. this is the moment when you think a loved one could be in danger of dying. this falls along the lines of the cancer scare, which almost always is just that — a scare. it is never usually the real thing. your loved one goes through tests and there are days/weeks of worry. you pray each night extra hard for this person, especially if this person is your child. if it is your child, then you are in the darkest scare of all. you want to give your life for your child. you don’t want to think about life without your child. you think about how everything will fall apart if something happens to your child. there is no way you can go on with your life if something does happen to your child. in your prayers, you make big promises to give up things to save your child. through all of this, your mission in life becomes very clear. you see that it is your family that is most important and not all the superficial things in life –money, power, success, material objects. these matter nothing if a child is lost. so, you must learn from this scare, you must keep the clear thoughts that happened during the scare –at the front of your mind. you must move away from these things in life that do not matter at all. you must focus on the things that do matter, which is helping your family thrive, which is enjoying the moments you have with your family, which is showing your family how to see clearly too. you are lucky it was a scare this time. don’t waste anymore time before the next scare becomes real. learn from the important lesson of the scare.
be bold always
when you are young, you are bold. this is obvious. but you are bold because you are young. you don’t know that much about life or the world, so you take bold steps naturally. you do not stop and think –you just do it. you do it because it is fun. you do it because it is something different to do. you do it because it is there to do. you do it because you have no responsibility to anyone else. why not do it and experience the world in a bold fashion. this bold mindset is what can push someone to go off the common path and be different. it can cause you to make an impact early in life. it can cause you to make change in the world. being bold can set you on a bold path in life – it can affect your life dramatically. but oftentimes, the bold steps we take when we are younger are small bold steps. they let you experience the world more but do not necessarily change the world in any way. as time goes on, the boldness dies down and you settle into your life of fixed habits and routine. this is also the natural way and is the way of self preservation. but what we miss deep in our soul is to be bold again. to use the past experience of being bold to still be bold and to still take the bold steps necessary to feed the never-ending desire to make bold change in your life and in the world. the hardest thing to do when you are older is to keep the boldness alive in your every day life – to keep pushing the limit by being bold. it is even hard to know that you must continue to be bold to be happy. so, stop and think about being bold once in awhile. look and see where you can be bold to keep life interesting. it is another great challenge in life to be forever bold. but to live life to the fullest, you must be bold always. stop the routine right now, right this very minute and be bold.
a boring day
yes, this is something that hits everyone’s mind –and does so quite often as well. we have boring days –it is a fact. we all have these days, even if you are in full swing at work or at home – the day can still be boring. we call it boring because it seems to be a day that includes things we have done over and over – nothing new arises – at least nothing we think significant arises. this causes us to think that the day is a waste – that this day doesn’t mean anything in our lives. we don’t like to think about the idea of wasting a day, since every day gone is one step closer to the end. however, if you think about that boring day a little more –and you do the thinking on that boring day, you can see that the day does have significance. it has it in this way. you need to stop (which is easy on a boring day) –and you need to think about where you are and what you have in life at that moment. when you do that, you realize that the boring day is actually a reflection of a state of happiness in your life. you are bored because you have everything you need. and i mean this on a emotional and human side of things –rather than a materialistic side. you have the right people in your life and you have the right life on the personal side. realize this concept and you will accept a boring day more easily –and it will allow you to think that you have not wasted a day. however, you still want to accomplish more things in life and you don’t want to think that you wasted a day in your journey to have accomplishments. but, here again, you must realize that life is a marathon and is not dictated by every action in every single day. the key is to be patient and realize that boring days also are part of the journey to succeed in life. bottomline: don’t let boring days leave a lasting negative impression in your life and think about what you have more on those boring days.
change
change is coming. it is always coming –every day, every week, every month, every year. and sometimes you know in your gut that change is near –that bigger change is near. you must not be afraid of this change. you must realize that this change is meant to happen. you must not fear what happens when this change occurs. you must know that no matter what change happens, you are always prepared because change cannot affect who you are –it can only affect what happens to you. who you are will always stand above the change. this will help keep you grounded and in control when the change happens. this will help move you through the change and into the next part of your life –which will come after the change. change always requires extra work on your part. you need to think more outside the box. you need to think outside your routine. you need to rely more on your inherent survival skills. your natural reactions to the change will guide you through the early part of the change process –you don’t have to worry about how you will react to change immediately. change is good because it forces you to grow stronger and to learn new things. embrace change and do not be afraid.