Impossible = I’m Possible

Many times I look at my goals and ask myself whether my goal is realistic or accessible for me. It’s a good question to ask as it lets me assess how I plan to get there but often times, it is a doubt that I have put on myself. Through my doubt and my insecurity I have put a limitation on where I feel I belong.

We are all human; yes even those in government and on the television screen. And a lot of them went through hard times just as you have. But, what made them a household name or name in the office they are in was a drive to be successful. A drive to be a success in their field. A drive to dedicate more than 8 hours a day on their work or draft. They said to themselves, “I am worth it and I will work until I have reached my goal.” No self doubt of whether they were meant to be there or if they could achieve it; they went for it regardless.

Tell yourself you are enough. Tell yourself it’s possible for you just as it was for them. Throw away all the self doubt and insecurity; it’s only holding you back from pushing harder and really believing you deserve it When you believe that nothing is impossible, everything will be possible and so much more.

I just loved this video I came across on YouTube. Sparsh is a 13-year old child prodigy, singer/song writer/rapper born with brittle bones (130+fractures), but an unbreakable spirit. He wants to show people how they can transcend every difficulty that comes their way in life and how they can start a chain reaction to be a guide for other people who want to turn their life around as well. He became a worldwide internet sensation with his Purhythm versions of Eminem covers. He aspires to inspire and sing in front of a billion people one day. Sparsh has been learning Hindustani classical music for the last seven-and-a-half years and American vocal music for the last three years. Sparsh is multi-talented. He performs at community events and has appeared on local radio stations and television shows, besides hosting shows as an MC. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Your Value Lies Within

Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s thoughts about you, including your own. It’s just a fact of life. It’s like 11×11 is 121. No matter how you got to an answer, 121 is always going to be correct. It’s the same way about being valuable. You were born valuable, and you will always remain that way. No matter who you are, what you do, who wants you, etc.

Our inability to believe in how valuable we are takes a negative toll on us. It completely limits us. And it shouldn’t be that way. Your place here on earth and what you can do to make a valuable and positive impact is essential and possible; you just have to believe it!

Just because someone sees something differently does not mean you need to adjust the way you perceive yourself. Who knows why that judgment might be different. It could be because you have different points of reference, varying experiences, or incongruent expectations. In fact, no two people see things the same, so there’s always going to be a conflict. But speaking to the problem at hand here, this new found information should not make you less confident in the value you offer.

Do you know why? Because we approach life from our own lens, with our own points of reference, our own experiences, built out of our own expectations. It’s not practical to think that someone else knows how much value you add through your life because they didn’t live it! But you did, and that’s worth everything.

Besides, What if the opposite was true? What if someone said that you were worth more than you believed to be true? You’d probably resort to your own interpretation, because they don’t see the full picture. Well, that’s true on the negative feedback side, and it shouldn’t be any different.

At the end of the day, your value lies within!

Glass of Lemonade

There was college student who was always silent and alone. He always seemed bit nervous and didn’t even had any friends. His teacher noticed this and one day asked him to meet him after class.

When student went to see teacher, teacher said to him, “I see that you are often very quiet. Neither do you talk to anyone nor you show interest in anything and it’s effect can be seen in your studies too. What is reason for this?”

Student replied, “Sir, I had very difficult life. I had to face some very sad incidents in my life and i keep thinking about them. Because of this i am not able to concentrate on anything and don’t even feel like talking to anyone.”

Teacher carefully listened to student story then thought for a while and invited student to his home. On decided day, student reached teacher’s home on time.

“Would you like some lemonade?”, teacher asked him.

Student hesitatingly replied, “Yes.”

Teacher went inside and while preparing lemonade, he deliberately added more salt and kept quantity of sugar low.

Teacher bought lemonade for him. Student made a strange face, as soon as he drank a sip of that lemonade.

Seeing this teacher asked, “What happened? You didn’t like it?”

Student replied, “It’s just there is a bit too much salt in it..”

Teacher stopped him and said, “Oh.. You can’t drink it.. I will throw it away.”

After saying this, as teacher was lifting the glass to take away, student stopped him and said, “Sir, you don’t need to throw it away. It have just bit of extra salt in it, if we add a little more sugar then it will be perfectly fine to drink.”

Listening to this teacher smiled and said, “This is what I wanted to hear from you. Now, compare this situation with your life.

Now understand this, to improve the taste of lemonade, we do not remove salt from it but we can fix its taste only by adding more sugar to it.

Likewise, we cannot separate tragic events from our life that have already happened to us but we can erase old bitterness and sorrow by adding sweetness of good experience in our life.

If you keep on crying about your past, neither your present will be right nor the future will be bright.”

When teacher was finished talking, student realized his mistake and vowed to give the right direction to his life.

Learning:
Often, We keep looking at the closed door for so long that, we do not even pay attention to good things happening around us. One should learn to forget about past sad experiences and try to give new direction to life.

YOLO

You are the captain of your life, the chooser of your fate, the architect and builder of your unique, fleeting, and precious existence. It is yours, not someone else’s — yet we so often allow what others think (or what we think they might think) to direct our actions and our lives rather than our own values and sense of purpose.

It is a disservice to ourselves.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Aristotle

We can all do ourselves a favor by reducing the headwinds against success by not paralyzing ourselves or slowing down for fear of what others may think.

We are players on a global stage, eyes are on us, yet we must perform as if no one is looking, create without fear of rejection, do without the worry of what someone might think. Philosophy has much to say about this, for most philosophers have faced a generous helping of criticism themselves.

Care about people’s approval, and you will always be their prisoner.

Lao Tzu

Caring too much about what others think is a detriment to your achievement. Here are some reasons to do the opposite, according to philosophy.

1. Worrying About What Someone Thinks Gives Them Control Over You — Control They Do Not Deserve

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.

Epictetus

2. Living According To The Opinions Of Others Means Living A Small Life

If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according to what others think, you will never be rich.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

3. They’re Not Thinking What You Fear They’re Thinking

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

4. Love Yourself Enough To Cherish Your Own Opinions Too

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

Marcus Aurelius

5. It Separates You From Peace Of Mind

The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. Not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.

Marcus Aurelius

6. They are their own critics too

Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of — and how judiciously they judge themselves.

Marcus Aurelius

So today, focus not on what others may be thinking, not on random opinions, not on unhelpful criticism or what your imagination says they are thinking. None of that. Instead, focus on what you can control, and what Marcus Aurelius valued as true fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

Move on

There’s an Arab proverb that states that you should write the bad things that happen to you in the sand, so that they can be easily erased from your memory. However, most of us engrave the bad things that happen to us in marble; therefore, our painful memories remain immortalized in our minds.

We walk around with our failures, our mistakes, our disappointments, and our hurts. In order to live fully in the present, and adequately plan for the future, we need to learn what we can from the painful memories of the past, and then let those memories go.

Let go of the past so that you can be free and move on from the past shackled around your ankles, weighing you down. No matter how hard you try, you don’t have the power to change it. No one can change the past. What’s done is done and you can’t go back to the past and change the situation. The only thing you can do is to accept it, learn from it and move on.

Forgive yourself and others. Don’t waste your precious minutes dwelling on the past events. Life is so short that I’m sure you have more important things to think about and lots of goals to achieve. Focus on them instead.

Do you know how long you’ll live? No one knows. This pandemic has made me realise how much life can change in an instant. We’ve all had someone close pass away in the recent past. This helps me realize that we should appreciate each second, minute and day of life. If you have a habit of living in the past, think about all people that have lost their lives. I do agree, it’s a terrible thing to think over. However, it will help you realize that you don’t have time to waste your life.

By holding on to the past you are blocking your own happiness and the last thing you want in life is to be alone. However, if you become a toxic person, others will avoid you and stop respecting you. No one wants to be around a resentful person so don’t let the past ruin your relationships.

When you live daily in a painful past you are living in darkness. The only who can take you out of your darkness is YOU. Work on your relationship with yourself and decide who you are aside from the pain. Take an inventory of your life and decide what you no longer need. Your past does not define you and your future. You are responsible for your well-being and that includes being happy, and you do get to choose how you will let happiness into your life.

Be Kind, Always!

We come across all kinds of people in our lives. Some of them we like, some of them we don’t. Some of them like us, some of them don’t. That’s perfectly fine. No matter what we think of others, what we assume of others, I believe we must find it in ourselves to be kind to one another. It is definitely not easy, but it is imperative to be kind to all those we encounter.

The theme of not recognizing that people have lives we know nothing about and can’t possibly understand is so present in books, movies, even TV shows and yet, we hardly ever give people the benefit of the doubt and stop to ask ourselves if we’re treating each other right.

We are aware of all the struggles in our own life, and we walk around like they are the only struggles that matter.

Rarely do we ask ourselves if someone else is carrying a heavy load, if we might be able to help them just by being a bit kinder and more approachable.

We might be missing only a one small detail from the person’s life that would make us aware of the whole picture. There are many things that could have happened in someone’s past or could be happening in their current lives that would completely change your view of them if you knew.

Your chubby friend might have struggled with an eating disorder she’s finally cured and then you tell her she should lose weight to look more attractive. Your coworker might have a sick child at home and you constantly discuss how they could be trying harder.

Being kind matters. It brings us closer to others. It brings others closer to us.

It creates a human connection that helps everyone achieve a certain level of trust, love, and empathy.

We see a child in the playground acting aggressively or in a restaurant running around unable to calm down and we think about how the child’s parents aren’t raising them the right way.

It never crosses our minds that the child might have a mental illness that causes them to act a bit differently.

The thing is, we get easily frustrated with things we perceive as other people’s mistakes.

When a loved one or our best friend does something wrong, we know when they are having a bad day or going through something and we, sure enough, easily get past that.

When a stranger or someone we really know nothing about does something ”wrong” we snap almost immediately.

Wouldn’t it be easier, more humane, and even more practical to give them the benefit of the doubt and kindly try to resolve our misunderstanding? It sure would.

Be kind to each other. Put effort into actively thinking about other people and their lives.

Don’t jump to conclusions, don’t judge, and don’t be selfish.

Choosing your Battles

Choose your battles means to be selective of the problems, arguments, and confrontations that you get involved in. Instead of fighting every problem, you save your time only for the things that matter. This means fighting the most important battles and letting go of the rest.

Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn’t measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It’s not winning battles that makes you happy, but it’s how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go

C. JoyBell C.

Why is it important to choose your battles?

  1. Not everything is important. Some things simply don’t matter in the long run. If you think about what matters 5, 10, even 20 years from now, it’s apparent that many of the things we worry about are small, and we should instead focus on the big important things.
  2. Every battle takes up time. Every problem you wrap yourself in takes up time and energy. Even if you win that battle, maybe your time could have been better spent elsewhere. Victory isn’t all that matters sometimes — making the best use of your time is.
  3. We all have limited time on earth. Ultimately, the reason why anything matters is that we have limited time on earth. You and I will die someday. When you look back at your life from your deathbed, what do you want to see? A life where you worried about every little thing and argued with everyone who stood in your way? Or a meaningful life well lived, where you spent your time only on the things that mattered, such as with the people you love and things that help the world?

The point of choosing your battles is to be strategic in how you spend this limited resource called time. What matters to you? What are your most important goals? Who are the most important people to you? Fighting every battle means having no time for these things that matter. By making the choice as to what battle you want to fight, you are already winning the big game called life.

Be Who YOU Want To Be

Do you believe that you can reinvent yourself and change who you perceive yourself to be and your relationship to the world? Or do you believe that you are destined to carry on as the person you have always been? Half of you probably like who you are, but some of you might still feel stuck in a rut, locked in an unsatisfying relationship, or just plain ridden with guilt and self-hatred. I often hear people say, “I can’t help it. That’s just who I am,” or “S/He’ll never change.” And the truth is, s/he might not. But you can make a different choice for yourself, if that is what you want to do.

There are always key turning points in people’s lives that make a difference in relation to who we become. Some events are traumatic and painful and take us into dark places where we might wander for years. And I believe that some of us need to take that journey, so that we can chart a course back to the light of living freely and with joy. Some of us, after we heal our own lives, bring pieces of that map back with us to pass on to others.

Every day we make choices — some big, some small. Those choices add up to who we are today, and who we will likely be tomorrow. Whether it’s what you’re having for lunch or what you say to a frustrating colleague, you have (literally) hundreds of chances every day to define who you are.

Without that conscious direction, your identity is left to forces, patterns and stimuli beyond your control. The job you stumbled into, the personal history of loss or disappointment, even the apartment or the neighborhood or the movies you watch — these will all, by default, determine who you are, if you don’t consciously decide to choose them for yourself.

The phenomenon of waking up one day to discover that you’re living a life you don’t truly love is a real one. It happens when you don’t actively decide who you want to be. Without a captain at the wheel, a ship will just capitulate to the sea. So will your life. If you want to become a better person, a more fulfilled person, you need to take action.

The “trick,” if we can call it that, is to be aware of every choice you make, and use it to build yourself into the person you want to become. Because some of our decisions can move us toward who we want to be, while other decisions can move us away from that person. The good news is, when you view every decision as a building block, you know the next decision about who you want to be is just around the corner. We are creating ourselves at every step.

It can be intimidating to realize that every decision contributes to the person you want to be. But there’s something very powerful about radically taking responsibility for your life. When you accept that only you can make decisions to become a better person and build yourself into the kind of person you want to be, you give yourself an enormous amount of power.

Compare this mindset with the default one, in which you view yourself as largely created by external forces. That worldview can be easier — at least it can feeleasier — but it’s also far less secure, fun and empowering. Our real power as individuals comes in how we choose to react to those forces. If you lose a job you love, for example, you have a few options. You can choose to mourn and groan about it for a week — that can feel very satisfying, natural and easy. Or you can acknowledge the loss and choose to throw your negative energy into finding an even better job. Or you can sit with the feeling as you go on a five-mile run, contemplating your next move.

Either way, your choice is determining the person you are now.

And we’re not just talking about chasing big dreams. This is about recognizing that however you respond to your life situation — big or small — you are determining the quality of your life tomorrow. Wallow in self-pity, or go for that run. Stew in the disappointment, or take a risk by applying for the job you’ve wanted all along. The possibilities are only limited by our own imagination. “Reasonable” is a lot more ambitious than you think.

Becoming the person you want to be starts with deciding who that is. And you can start right now! In order to experience real personal growth and change, and to become the human you want to be, embrace the fact that you will always be in the process of becoming that person. It’s up to you to join that journey and stick with it. It begins by recognizing that you can grow into the person you want to be. And it continues by always reflecting on who that person is.

Happiness is a State of Mind

I’m sure you have heard this phrase many times. Although it sounds completely legitimate, it seems unachievable, at least to you. Most of us are like this. We take pride in making philosophical and deeply inspired conversations about happiness and things in life that truly matter, yet when it comes to our own lives, we can hardly reach this state of mind without that job promotion, new love interest or a dream vacation. However, if we take a more systematic approach towards happiness and consider it as an everyday process that includes certain actions, in time we would be able to reach happier and more positive state of mind faster and without external factors.

There is no guide, no rules, no manual that will teach you how to live a “happy” life. There is advice, however, that can teach you how to approach certain situations to gain the best result.

Happiness is not determined by what’s happening around you, but rather what’s happening inside you. Most people depend on others to gain happiness, but the truth is, it always comes from within.

Anonymous

True happiness comes from surrounding yourself with people whom you love and love you in return. If the people you surround yourself with are bringing you down, then it’s time to trim the fat. I guarantee once you eliminate the negative people in your life, you will be that much happier. Why would you choose to spend time with people that are holding you back when you can surround yourself with people that can elevate you?

One of the biggest challenges in life is learning to accept people for who they truly are. Once you realize that your expectations cannot change people, the better off you will be. The problem will arise when the expectations do not materialize. If you find that you are going out of your way much more than the people you surround yourself with, it may be time to make some adjustments.

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

Martha Washington

It is so hard to make real progress in your life when you are stumbling over old roadblocks. Look around at your immediate surroundings. If there is something that is not bringing value and meaning to your life, then get rid of it. Do not feel obligated to hold on to something that is only making you miserable. You owe it to yourself to lead the best possible life you can.

You, and only you, are in control of your happiness and when you choose to expand your mind and to focus on the good, you will be happier. It is different for everyone, but once you stop looking for excuses as to why you cannot be happy, you will find so many reasons as to why you can. People make these justifications to prevent themselves from achieving greatness. This is a horrible mistake to make in life because all you are doing is sabotaging yourself. 

I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.

Louise Hay

Learn to depend on yourself rather than others to bring you fulfillment. Only once you are happy on your own, can you hope to share your happiness with others. If you don’t, your unhappiness will resurface and manifest itself in destructive ways. You cannot hope to have any sort of successful relationship, whether it’s in the platonic sense, romantic sense or business sense. If you aren’t comfortable with yourself, how do you ever expect any relationship to flourish?

The Secret to Success – 3 Bones

This quote is often attributed to songwriter Reba McEntire, but was infact first said by Dr. Kavanagh during his talk on ‘Moral Anatomy’ – as cited in the New Rochelle Pioneer way back in 1908. More recently, the New Zealand All Blacks mental resilience coach Gilbert Enoka has often referenced the statement as part of his no-nonsense approach to coaching rugby world champions. “In the end, you need only three bones to be successful: a wish bone, a back bone, and a funny bone.”

  • Wishbone – emphasises the importance of having great dreams, a goal, a focus and something to aspire towards. This bone provides us with personal motivation and keeps us facing forwards.
  • Backbone – underlines the importance of mental toughness, being resilient and seeing things through. Having the courage to stand our ground, to stretch ourselves and attain the goal. This bone keeps us on our feet, even in the most difficult times.
  • Funny bone – reminds us that we all need a sense of humour, the ability to laugh at ourselves – to not take life too seriously or be too self-absorbed. This bone reminds us that it is okay to make mistakes and be vulnerable on occasions. This final bone helps us to stay optimistic and enjoy where we are and what we are doing.

The suggestion is that all three bones need to be present for a successful life.  Having a purpose and a sense of humour is no good without the mental attitude required to achieve your goal. Having the goal and the right mental attitude may make you fiercely ambitious, but without some sense of humility, people are unlikely to support your cause. Having the ability to laugh at yourself combined with a resilient nature may well make you extremely robust as an individual, but without any clear plan for yourself or set of intentions, it is unlikely that you will ever realise your true potential.

Any other bones you think are missing?