Posts tagged with patience

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August 15, 2010

What’s Really Keeping You From Breaking Your Bad Habits

This post continues a 1-week experiment post series that I’d like to call, “Short and Sweet”. This series will be based on giving concise, quality content to my readers in 300 words or less. Here’s part one.

Breaking bad habits is tough, not only because habits control everything you do, but because they force you to think your bad habits are normal.

“That’s crazy talk!” you say. “I know my bad habits aren’t normal!”

If you inherently know they’re abnormal, then why do you keep doing them? Simple. It’s because we are what we do. And if we want to change who we are, we have to change what we do.

Sadly, for most people, that’s easier said than done. <—– This is exactly the problem!

Did you catch that? It’s easier said than done. When you make an attempt to change your habits, you feel more comfortable just saying you’re going to do it than actually doing it. Not good.

Talking isn’t action. Action is action. Even I sometimes forget that this is important to remember. Truth be told, I forgot today.

I kept telling myself, “I’m going to work on my book.” But then I ended up never working on it, pushing it aside until tomorrow. My body thinks this is normal now; to say things and never do them is second nature.

But now I have a secret weapon.

The key lies in action. If it was action that got you into these habits in the first place, action is what’s going to take you out. You need to counteract your bad actions with good ones.

Instead of telling people what you’re going to do, just do it. Rather than say to yourself what your intentions are, write them on paper. Start a 30-day journal chronicling your actions.

Make it your mission to rid your addiction.

Before you put off working on that one big project, ask yourself this:

Is the day over? You can’t even take one incy, wincy step forward?

You know what? Be right back. I have a book to write.


Creative Commons License photo credit: John Althouse Cohen

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August 3, 2010

3 Ways to Eliminate the Fear of Reaching Your Potential

The first sign that you’re successfully breaking out of mediocracy is feeling unwarranted fear.

You’re more scared when you’re moving past the limits of what you believe is possible than when you’re taking action for the first time. The line that separates the mediocre from the brilliant, and the invisible from the “break-out superstar” is thin, but has the potential to be emotionally overwhelming once crossed.

When you’re in the process of crossing this threshold, you begin to doubt your abilities; how good you thought you were and how good you are right now.

Common questions that we ask ourselves tend to range anywhere from the following:

“Wow, I never thought I was that good…am I really this skilled?”

“Maybe I’ll be one those one-hit wonders… is it best to stop right now?”

“This seems too good to be true… is it just a trick?”

Many of us feel that we ask ourselves these questions because we’re on the verge of regressing back into the shadows of mediocracy. It’s that “it’s too good to be true” feeling that tries to push us back into our old ways of thinking. Fortunately, feeling this way is natural.

You don’t ask yourselves these questions because you’re on the road to becoming mediocre again, but because you’re about to rise above it. True, feeling undeserving of the positive results you’re getting is normal (similar to the way after riding his bike for the first time, a child will still want his parent to go behind him to make sure he doesn’t fall). However, just because a feeling is natural doesn’t mean we should give into it.

Eliminating the fear of reaching your potential

Everyone starts out a little frightened when they realize how much power they actually have. But keeping yourself in this state of mind can be detrimental to you ever doing your best. Thankfully, you’ll have me here to guide you through 3 ways to stop fearing your potential and embracing your self-confidence.

1. Realize that the limits are in your head

Maybe doing your best has given you such astonishing results that you think you’re incapable of doing any better. A likely assumption—except that the only way that statement could be true is if you stop practicing what you’re good at. And unless you’re completely demoralized, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Get the notion out of your head that after you’ve done your absolute best, you recede back into the pool of average. If you give it your best effort each time, you’ll rarely ever “lose” ability. You have much higher planes of skill to attain; don’t let imaginary limits hinder your growth.

Your best yesterday is not going to be your best tomorrow.

2. Don’t expect yourself to keep being awesome

After doing something amazing, you begin to think everyone expecting you to keep the streak going. While you should always aim to give it your best effort, understand that you’re only human. You win some, you lose some. While you may be awesome one day, don’t place unnecessary obligations on yourself to keep performing at your peak. It’s not healthy.

There are times that I spend the whole day trying to push myself to the absolute pinnacle of excellence, just because I feel that I have to give it everything I’ve got, all the time. I’ve learned my lesson—and eliminated pointless stress in the process.

Produce when you can, rest when you can’t.

3. Trying to use what you don’t have is wasteful

Which brings us to my final piece of advice; don’t try to extract from what doesn’t exist. If you don’t have any energy to run or lift weights when you’re trying to get faster or stronger, don’t expect to perform your best. Running on empty only makes certain your already high chance of failure.

I spent the entire day trying to write—to no avail—when my time would’ve been better spent simply reading or doing something else I enjoy. Talk about a wasted effort. That’s why I say use what you already have in reserve so that you know you can do better.

The fear only comes when you know you can’t take action at the moment of truth and you expect yourself to do more. Listen to your head and not your heart. Know when to stop.

What I find kind of find comical is that all three of these methods to eliminate fear conflict in some way. If the limits are in your head, shouldn’t you be able to keep going even if you don’t have the energy? And shouldn’t you have high expectations for yourself when you can keep doing more?

The key to answering these questions rests on you. You know yourself better than I do. I can teach you the best way to eliminate the fear of reaching your potential, but it’s up to you to trust yourself to achieve the right balance between knowing your limits and breaking out of them.


Creative Commons License photo credit: ValetheKid

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July 1, 2010

The Truth Behind Doing Work You Love

The other night, while I was working on my e-book (details coming soon), I asked myself why I was doing this. Why go through so much pain for one e-book when I can spend my vacation basking in the sun or getting paid the traditional way?

Let’s sit on this idea for a second. It’s summer. There are jobs that I could’ve easily applied for and gotten hired to do. I know plenty of people who could recommend me for very good positions.

So, why am I busting my butt trying to get this e-book done instead of selling out and getting employed like the greater portion of college kids my age do? Why am I doing such hard work that’s so far been yielding me no payment?

I’m not going to get any sort of medal. Maybe a few thousand people will get to see the result of my hard labor. Even fewer will decide to purchase it.

It’s funny that when I’m in the thick of difficult work that I ask myself this. And then the answer came to me, as if I was struck by neural lightning:

Because I enjoyed doing it.

But in an instant, I had another conundrum. I already knew that I enjoyed it. But why was it so difficult? I thought doing what you love was supposed to be easy?

Then another answer came to me in my somewhat enlightened state:

For anything to be a success, hard work is necessary. Hard work is what separates the winners from the losers; the expendable from the indispensable.

A wake-up call already woken up to

Somewhere along the line, we’ve seem to have forgotten the adjective that goes in front of the word “work”.

All the time I hear the gurus say we should be doing “work that matters”. Instead we should be telling ourselves to do “hard work” that matters. I don’t know about you, but I get the notion that most of us think doing what we love is going to be easy.

That the four-hour work week is acquired by working for four hours a week from the get-go.

That doing what you love is all fun in the sun while you get to work from anywhere.

Unfortunately, when you actually test that theory, it’s proven that only the opposite is true.

Whether you’re pushing pencils, or striving to increase awareness about the impact humanity is having on the world. Whether you’re a famous actor on the stages of Broadway, or sitting at the desk in another one of those gray cubicles. Whether you’re doing what you love or doing what you hate.

It all takes hard work.

Hard work and passion go hand in hand

“When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.” – Steve Pavlina

When you really care about something (maybe you want to start a movement and bring change) you can’t mull around expecting someone else to take the first step. Or rather, you won’t let yourself do that.

You already know, as if instinctually, that intention backed up by action makes things happen. As Steve says, hard work is a necessary element in order for your goals to be realized.

There are no shortcuts

“There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison

There are no lottery tickets in life that will dramatically increase your odds of success. Hard work has existed all these years for a reason. It’s the only tried and true way to successfully doing what you love.

The only shortcut to hard work is less work, which in the end leads to a higher chance of you not succeeding.

Greatness is not obtained through a slack work ethic

“Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.” – J.C. Penney

Alright, we know hard work matters and that it is necessary, but how much of it are we supposed to do? The answer is however much it takes to get where we want to be.

Anybody can do hard work for a few hours. Take a look at how many people work part-time. But less can remain dedicated for a few months. Even less so can stay hard workers for years.

This is why there are so few at the top. Not because they took shortcuts or free-rode on the backs of the more dedicated. But because they understood that hard work is what rules all.

The truth behind doing what you love

The truth is that doing what you love requires you to work much longer and harder than your employed counterparts for no pay whatsoever (at least in the beginning). The paycheck you seek is not coming at the end of every bi-weekly period.

But what matters much more than the time invested, the money lost, and the sweat put in is that you are doing what makes you happy and what others can enjoy.

Is this not what life is about? The pursuit of happiness? I can hear the naysayers already, telling me that this pursuit is imaginary and the “American Dream” was lost long ago.

I beg to differ.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

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May 24, 2010

75 Life-Changing Truths Written While Lying on the Grass

Wrote most of these Saturday evening while (as the title already tells you) lying on the grass outside. They were compiled to get myself out of boredom and now I feel inspired again.

Enjoy!

1. Whenever you focus obsessively on an outcome, you rarely ever get it.

2. Ultimately, nobody really does care about you more than yourself.

3. It is better to be a child in spirit than in practice.

4. It’s very hard for people to follow others’ advice, even more so their own.

5. A mountain’s worth of effort in addition to patience will get you anything you want

6. Laying on the grass isn’t as bad as I thought it would be – it’s actually quite freeing to do something out of the ordinary.

7. What people think of you matters little compared to what you think of yourself.

8. The stuff that people try to distract you with (their words, their praise, their criticism) – that is noise. Filter that out and find the good parts.

9. Complaining alters nothing (or at the very most, very little). For maximum impact, take measurable action.

10. I’ve found that people don’t like hearing the truth. That’s why I have this blog. This way I won’t have to argue, plead, or shout to be heard.

11. Television, movies, books, even blogs – they serve as an escape from reality. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take lessons from them to change your own reality.

12. I’m almost certain that I would be happier as an animal than as a human. I’d actually live everyday as if it were my last.

13. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex. Just be smart enough to know when and how to do it.

14. Sometimes, you just need a break from your normal social circle. Don’t be scared to meet new people.

15. If I can make $200 doing what I love (writing on this blog) then so can you doing what you love. Prepare to work your ass off.

16. You don’t need as much as you think you do.

17. Minimalism does not mean to be happy having absolutely nothing. It means being content living frugally and getting the most for your buck.

18. Placating others for them to like you is low-class behavior, let alone manipulative.

19. I could’ve chosen to be miserable and bored, but instead I’ve decided to make myself happy and write. Are you listening? What the experts say is true! Do what you love.

20. Don’t seek approval from other people. Do what you want because you want to.

21. How can you [blank] another if you can’t even [same word] yourself? Nearly any verb will do.

22. Appreciate art. It is created from the raw emotion of the composer.

23. School is only fun from grades Pre-K through 2nd grade. From then on, you have to start breaking the rules to keep from being bored.

24. Learning isn’t really that much fun. It’s just interesting. Applying knowledge > witnessing someone else apply knowledge > reading/learning about it.

25. The greatest pleasures in life are requited love and doing what you love.

26. I used to get scabs all the time. They were the battle scars gained as children waging the war on boredom through play.

27. Story matters.

28. Focus on the ‘why’ rather than on the ‘what’. Life instantly becomes more meaningful.

29. Don’t let inspiration go to waste. Act on it.

30. College focuses too much on memorization and grades than on what you actually need to learn to survive.

31. The teachers who have inspired me are the ones who I will never forget.

32. You don’t have to be the best. Just be better than the average person.

33. Science rules the world. Even emotion is based in science.

34. All emotions are contagious – enthusiasm, depression, anger, you name it.

35. White lies are better than regular lies; at least you’re acknowledging the truth rather than completely disregarding it.

36. 30-day experiments work.

37. Success begets success. Failure begets success. Too much failure begets failure. Inaction begets failure.

38. The jerks in life always get what they want.

39. The happiest people are the ones who get paid to be themselves.

40. Everyone is judgmental. Deal with it. You cannot deny human nature.

41. Cool, calm, and cold; that’s how you carry on business.

42. Certain people will always try and find a way to show your success in a negative light.

43. Where are your balls? The opportunities are right in front of you. Take them.

44. Why do people keep on living when death would be so much easier? Because life is fleeting and death is permanent.

45. Doubt sucks. It serves little purpose other than to keep you from trying something new (okay, and maybe keeping you from getting yourself killed).

46. Public speaking is only scary when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

47. Having superpowers wouldn’t make life that much easier. You’d just have a lot more crap to deal with.

48. (Corollary to #47) With great power comes a lot of people asking you for help.

49. Men and women are actually not that hard to figure out, as opposed to popular belief.

50. No lock is impenetrable. You just need to find the right key.

51. If religion just feels like an extra set of rules to follow, don’t practice it.

52. In fact, if a certain action is more trouble than it’s worth, cease and desist.

53. You can’t choose who or what you’re attracted to. It’s a DNA thing.

54. Being a skeptic of a traditionally-held idea is positively exhilarating.

55. Push your creativity to the breaking point. Your best ideas lie just beyond it.

56. Your reaction to a situation is more important than the situation itself.

57. To be able to change your life, you have to be bold.

58. The world does not reward those with a sense of entitlement.

59. There is no point in fearing the things that cannot possibly kill you.

60. Nobody knows what you’re thinking until you show or tell them.

61. People try new things (good and bad) because they’re bored.

62. Your thoughts come through in your body language; if you’re confident, you stand tall or lean back. If you’ve got low self-esteem you’ll slouch and flinch easily.

63. It’s not worth it traveling to other countries if you’re just going to sight see. Actually, “live” in them.

64. Hesitation, fear, and excuse-making are the things that keep the “right time” from happening.

65. Without respect, no relationship can prevail.

66. Boredom is death within life.

67. Everything starts in the enigmatic properties of your mind. Your perception is everything.

68. You cannot be completely neutral in this world. Pick a side on your own before peer pressure forces you to.

69. You can express yourself in many ways: laughing, living, writing, loving, drawing, blogging, singing, working, cooking, building…

70. People will remember you for what you did more than what you said.

71. There’s a reason everyone demonizes the aging process; youth is the only span of time in which your stamina, body, and mind are at their highest performance.

72. Your problems are not unique. Somebody on this planet is sharing the same pain you are.

73. (Corollary to #72) The same goes for accomplishments and joy.

74. You think you are any different from the people that inspire others? You too have the ability to inspire.

75. Everyone has gifts. It’s up to them to find the value in their own abilities, to find the light underneath their dark, to find the blessing within their curse.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Gibson Claire McGuire Regester

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May 13, 2010

The True Meaning of Passion

I figure I could be doing more than just writing about what I know. A lot of other web artists have learned amazing life lessons, so why not hand over the spotlight to them for a bit?

That’s why, today, I’m highlighting a 28-year-old artist who goes by the name of Monty Oum. If you take a look at his work, you just know that he’s passionate about what he does. For over six years, he’s been making CGI animation videos, slowly rising to become a prominent computer graphics artist within the videogame industry. I myself discovered him just two years ago, and I love his stuff.

A few months back, I stumbled upon a very intriguing blog post of his that I think you guys will find valuable. I hope you can pick out the nuggets of gold in his wise words:

Words to Live By

“I continually hope that someday I’ll get a chance to pass on everything I’ve learned. There hardly seems a moment considering living by my words only means having absolutely no time to say them. So at least I can take a moment in slight to utter in passing.

Never let anyone tell you that something is impossible.

I lived by that when it sparked in me the possibility of achieving something despite everyone telling me it being impossible otherwise. People have always told me it’s impossible, that it’s been tried. If you know what I’m talking about then your already on your way. What I will say to you ignore those who’ve been defeated by what they call “experience.” Keep going and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I know this might sound familiar even, never give up etc. But it’s how I live my life even currently as there still are more “experienced” people who will criticize that I’m doing it wrong. It’s the human spirit that’ll keep us alive. This rings true to the events of my life, when I started Haloid. I didn’t do it because I wanted to get a job in games, or that I wanted to become famous, or what have you. I did it because I knew it could be done, and that the road to finishing it was imperfect and difficult. What finishing it yielded me was only more steps on the path to pushing forward in what I believed in.

My life lacks much, I’m broke, my car is in horrible shape, my apartment is a mess, I spend 3 days in a row at the office regularly and sleep on the couch only when I need to. I’m helplessly antisocial. I see my girlfriend 3 times a year.

I come from an impoverished family of Cambodian civil war refugees. It been a long journey between being so incredibly poor that I didn’t have paper to draw on when I was little, to where I am now. It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t dive headfirst and take a risk, and continually risk it all to keep going forward… Heh, success? They thought it was impossible.

What is the greatest reward for living in such difficulty?..

I hope you see it someday too, Cause the world looks very different, when you’re pushing yourself every second you’ve got.”

- Monty Oum

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Here’s some of his art in motion. Keep in mind, he created the entire video himself. He is remarkable in every sense of the word.

(Warning! You must be 13 years or older to watch – normally I don’t advocate random, bloodless violence, but this is art):

Watch it here if you’re interested.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Letcombe

Have you yourself been living passionately, pushing yourself every second you’ve got towards what you enjoy doing? Discuss.

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December 27, 2009

What Life Feels Like at Almost Two Decades Old

Hmmm… two decades already. Reading such a phrase really makes you think when you consider that the average life span of a human being is somewhere around 7 and 8 decades.

I’ve come to the point where I’m beginning to accept that I can control what course my life takes. When I was much younger and said the same thing, there was a big part of my subconscious that always doubted this belief. I could always say I’d be whatever I wanted, but I never completely believed it.

I figured life always had a consistent pattern of playing out:

- Reach for the stars

- Fail miserably, completely demoralized

- Accept reality by getting a full-time job

- Climb the corporate ladder

- Midway through the ascension, get girlfriend I meet at work

- When I finally get promoted, we get married

- Have kids so they can play out the same boring cycle

I see now that it doesn’t have to be this way. And while this way of living certainly isn’t bad (millions of people live it everyday, whether they chose it or not) I just can’t do it. I believe there’s so much more out there than staying in the same space my whole life i.e. Illinois.

At my age, when it should be all about having girlfriends, going to class, and “living the college life”, I find myself more focused on learning languages, profitable online ventures, lifestyle design, blogging, and traveling. I guess you could say that I’m “growing up”, but I find that so funny. I still feel like the same person I was when I was 15, 10, or even 5. Time has just been this long line of trial and error, life experience, and discovery that I’ve been going through.

I may not be a fully-fledged adult (I think that comes when you’re 21) but I can feel the transition already. I can revisit all the things I enjoyed as kids and easily forget them or leave them behind. They’re still dear to my heart, but I can tell my enthusiasm for them has waned. For instance, I can still remember when I drank 7up as a child. For years it solidified itself in my mind as “the best soda ever”. Then, all of a sudden, my obsession just halted. If I see 7up on shelves today, I apathy ensues as I reach for plain water. “Soda’s not good for me”, I think to myself.

Television used to be all that I experienced, growing up. Whenever a Saturday morning marathon hit, I’d be overjoyed. These days, television (or TV shows for that matter) rarely cross my mind. Whenever I watch a show (besides Seinfeld, King of the Hill, or The Simpsons) I think of how much time I’ve wasted staring at a box. As soon as I had turned it on, the TV goes off, and I leave restless, wondering what my time can be better spent on.

Did I ever truly enjoy these things, or were they just things to fill up my life? More than half of my life seems to be just filler material. Even now, in the stage between young innocence and corporate responsibility, it feels like time is moving at a snail’s pace. My life is being filled with busy work. Everyday is constant preparation. For years, from infancy, on to K-12, even now, I’m preparing. Preparing for what, exactly? I don’t know. Nobody can give me a sufficient answer. While my life is being wasted away, I’m stuck preparing.

Oh, wait…everyone goes through the same thing.

Everyone, in general, undergoes the same waiting period, the same preparation, the same length of time. Is my experience truly different from the rest, or is this the same pain the rest of you felt? It is easy to think I’m unique, to feel as if my life is completely different, but in reality, there’s nothing in my life that hasn’t been felt by somebody else.

Here…now…writing about living two decades when there are those who’ve lived over twice as long – is this significant? Maybe not – I don’t know what impact I’m making. But at my age, you don’t fully understand how much ground you’ve covered until you’ve forgotten where you’ve come from. I keep moving forward without taking a breath to reflect on the past at my back.

When I do look back, I think, “Man, what a journey it’s been. No amazing travel stories yet, but they’ll come.”

So, as this year draws to a close, and we reflect on how old we used to be and how old we’ve become, ask yourself: “Is what I’m trying to do really all that difficult?” And if you still feel that way, answer me this: Is what you’re trying to do the first of its kind?

“Aging is very easy. Growing up is very hard.”

Creative Commons Licensephoto credit: kevindooley

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November 16, 2009

The Lazy Man’s Secret to Getting Motivated

Human emotions are fickle things. One moment, you’re up and at ‘em – ready to take on any challenge. The next, you feel as if you can’t achieve anything, and are skeptical you ever thought you could in the first place. But what do you expect? You can’t  be high on life all of the time: there has to be a time when you feel unmotivated to do anything.

Lately, I’ve been falling into one of these slumps. You might even say that I’ve gotten a bit lazy. Not in terms of blogging (god forbid), but in terms of college life, in general.

I can hear you now: “WHAT?! What is wrong with you! I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking…”

No, no, don’t worry. I’m not dropping out. It ‘s just that recently, I’ve been asking myself what’s the point in being here. Why am I doing work that I feel nothing for? Is this really all my life will amount to be? Studying day in, day out, feeling tired all the time? Choosing to sleep rather than work on my website?

It’s madness, I tell you. I admit, sometimes I feel dropping out of school is the answer. Maybe that way, I’ll have plenty of time to start a business.

Of course, then I remember what happened over the summer…

But over summer break (when I had all the time in the world) I was still unmotivated. I was in the house, day in, day out, doing nothing besides blogging. It was torture. I loved blogging, but, man, did I need some variety. I was itching to come to college, meet my old friends, and get back to work. I thought that would motivate me.

I was wrong

I thought returning to college would solve my motivation problem, but it didn’t really do anything to it. It was just a change of venue.

Something had to be done. Would I feel this way forever?

Feeling panicky, I had a talk with my mom. She then proceeded to tell me why I was in college (she doesn’t tend to beat around the bush :) ).

The reason why I’m here

She reminded me of the reason I was in college. I wasn’t here to simply get a degree. I wasn’t here just to get good grades (though she stressed a bunch of times that I have to do this regardless of how I feel). I was here to get the tools I needed to become successful. To become my “ideal self”. To become an entrepreneur – some who set his own hours to work.

Rediscover the source of your motivation

The secret is simply to go back to the beginning. Remember why you do what you do everyday. When we’re working towards an end we desire, we tend to forget the reason we’ve worked so hard for it in the first place.

There will be times when we feel on top of the world: when we’re sure life will be alright. And there will be times when we feel like crap: like we’re unsure of what the future holds for us. But the feelings of anticipation, anger, sadness, happiness, frustration – it’s all worthwhile just to rediscover your passion.

Go back to the beginning. What got you motivated? Why are you going through life as you are now?

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

Creative Commons License photo credit: glangille

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November 12, 2009

Guest Post Bonanza! (And Some Updates)

Hey guys, reporting in from HQ. If most of you aren’t already aware, I’ve been guest posting on a multitude of other blogs in recent weeks.

Take a gander at some of my latest and greatest guest posts:

How to Make a Difference Without a Whole Lot of Money | The Jungle of Life

How Reading Books Saved My Life | World’s Strongest Librarian

Why Losing Some of the Time is Necessary to Winning All of the Time | Quest for Balance

Why You Struggle to Connect With Others | The Change Blog

Tell Stories ~ It’s Good For You | Psi Mentor

What else I’ve been up to

- Well, I had a blast downtown last weekend. Why, you ask? Because I spent the whole morning taking part in the Levity Project! (Click here for more information on what the Levity Project is.) It was really fun laughing and spreading joy with people that I usually just speak with online. This just confirms that connections made over the net run just as deep as those made in real life.

- My up-and-coming website is coming along…. very slowly. School work is pretty time-consuming, so I only have time to really work on it during the weekends. The name of the game now is content creation – I’ll tell you much more once I get closer to completion (whenever that will be).

- A few more design changes coming soon that’ll hopefully facilitate more fluid convo in this small, but strong community :)

That’s all folks! I’m disabling comments for now, but don’t fret! Go check out my guest posts and comment on those, or drop me a line on Twitter!

Until next time, my friends,

John

Creative Commons License photo credit: a4gpa

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43 comments

October 18, 2009

Should I or Should I Not? The Curse of Indecision

Most of us don’t know what we want to be in life. We come into this world thinking anything about everything – our attention spans never really slowing down. So to allay this feeling of overabundance, this feeling that there’s too many options to just pick one, we try them all. And it’s only until we’ve done everything and made a boatload of mistakes do we realize who we really want to become.

It all starts at childhood. At a young age, the first decisions we are presented with have to do with common, menial choices such as “What color do I want to wear today?”, “Which lollipop should I nag Mom to buy from the store?”, or “Which toy do I want for Christmas” – things like that.

And through some miracle, we pick something. We choose to wear red. We decide to get a strawberry lollipop. We wish for a toy car under the tree.

Of course, these choices are simple (as they should be for any child).

But then we get to the ‘messy’ decisions. The ones that few children rarely are able to decide upon.

Most notably for me, our place in the workforce.

As a kid, it wasn’t as easy as picking the biggest cookie in the jar, or picking out what shirt to wear. This type of choice had consequences. But, as kids, we don’t care for the consequences, we wanted the cool experiences that came with each job.

I tell ya, looking back on my job choices now, I’m not sure how much sugar I’d consumed throughout my childhood. I’ll list them here, just in case you’re curious:

- an artist

- a surgeon (to fix people)

- a famous cook who had his own show on local cable

- a firefighter so I could play with the hose (and save lives)

- a policeman so I could be on the hit-tv show “Cops” (and bring in the bad guys)

- a dinosaur from Jurassic Park

- a bull fighter

- Beast from “Beauty and the Beast”

Do you think this is indecisive? It gets worse…

Admittedly, the above list was a little ‘out there’. But when I became a teenager, my mind switched into ‘logic mode’. I soon was under the guise that the world ran on money. And in order to get money, I’d have to pick the job that earned me the most.

My list changed, but more radical ones soon popped up. Here’s my “revised” list:

- surgeon (to make money)

- actor (to make money)

- a basketball player (to make money)

- a rapper (to make money)

- a business owner (to make money)

- a lawyer (to make money)

I think you get the idea. As you can see, my list isn’t really that much shorter, but the focus completely changed. What’s even funnier is the fact that after making this new list, I still hadn’t found a career I really wanted to do.

And while I could’ve simply picked the job that got me the most pay, they each contained varying degrees of difficulty that I didn’t have the patience to put up with. That’s when things got ugly.

My final decision (not really)

My parents assumed that I was incompetent in choosing my profession, so they chose for me.

My final choice was – doctor.

It was at that point that everything made sense again. Well, I am the only son in the family, so I might as well be a doctor, right? And they do make a lot of money, so why not?

So life went on as usual – I made thousands of choices a year, not knowing where they would take me, with the mind that through all these messy decisions I would someday become a doctor.

Yes, life was grand except for one thing – I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to be a doctor.

This wasn’t because of teenage rebellion, mind you. I liked the human body and it’s awesome abilities. If you really study the human body, you’ll know that it can do some pretty amazing things.

Whether or not it would keep my interest wasn’t the problem, but it was the time I would have to put in (more specifically, the time I would have to keep putting in).

To have no time for anything, but saving lives wasn’t what I wanted to do, no matter how much money was involved. I didn’t want to live my life almost completely for someone else (and I’m not talking about in terms of taking care of a family, I’m talking about being an on -call surgeon putting time I could spend with my future family into a sick person).

I have nothing against those who want to be doctor’s or need help from doctors, it’s just that I didn’t want to do that.

And with that knowledge, I decided to rewrite my list for the last time:

…….

I got squat.

I couldn’t find a single profitable job that didn’t have me sacrifice my time for money. It seemed indecision followed me everywhere I went and laughed at me when I turned my back on the medical field. Until…

My final decision (for real)

It was then that I realized, who said I had to pick one thing? Who said that I had to choose a conventional job? Why was doctor, lawyer, basketball player and other similar jobs the only choices I had?

This became my final list and my final decision:

- Blogger

- Philanthropist

- Presenter

- Future husband/father

- Traveler

- My own personal translator

- Entrepreneur

- Leader

- Orator

- Video gamer

- Learner

In other words… I want to be me.

You could say that I’m still being indecisive. I haven’t picked any one thing. The curse is still with me.

But then again, maybe I have picked one thing, and maybe that one thing should have been what I chose all along. I should have chosen to make a career out of being who I am.

I’ve chosen my path. All I ask now is what did you want to be when you were younger? What are you now? Surprised? Accepting? Happy? Sad? Share your story.

Creative Commons License photo credit: VirtualErn

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16 comments

September 7, 2009

The REAL Secret to Being Patient

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience.” – Unknown

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that patience is a virtue that most of us do NOT have. In general, we expect things to run smoothly, quickly, and on time. And in most cases, things do run smoothly, and go according to plan. However, when the rare occurrence of tardiness does in fact pop up, our normally calm nature turns similar to that of a raging bull.

Don’t believe me, huh?

Do you experience any of these physical and mental reactions when something or someone makes you wait?

  • Mental anxiety
  • Irritability
  • Pacing around
  • Face begins to turn red
  • Heavy groaning or sighing
  • Loud yelling into the air
  • Irregular, angry remarks

If you answered yes to at least three of these seven choices then (in my opinion) you’re an impatient person. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing to admit. And, as is usually the case, admitting a problem is the first step to solving it. I myself was very impatient and have in fact done every one of the choices above (yes, I know, mildly embarrassing). So how did I become more patient?

Well, first I had to understand why I despised waiting so much.

Take a look at the main reason why we really dislike lateness:

We have no control

We are at the mercy of someone else’s tardiness. For example, no matter how many times we specifically told our them to “Be here by 8:00, sharp”, they don’t show up. Or when even more commonly, when we wait for the bus (it’s on a schedule for Pete’s sake) it feels like an eternity before the bus actually arrives. We feel as if it’s our time being wasted not their’s. And there’s nothing we can do about it, but just sit and wait.

Or is there?

There’s only a handful of ways to effectively practice patience. Here are some techniques proven and tested (by me) that I’m sure you’ll find useful:

Channel your impatience into other activities

I’m sure that there are other things for you to do, so you might as well get started. Worry about the task that’s been taken out of your control later. It’s more beneficial for you to be more productive than to remain stewing and inactive.

Stay away from clocks

This one is pure gold. Unless you want a constant reminder of what you’re not doing (i.e. getting on the bus at the scheduled time), please take this technique to heart. Looking at a clock just fuels the flames.

Try breathing deeply

A seemingly simple thing like breathing does wonders for your mind and inner peace. When you’re irritable and angry, your breaths are short and shallow (like a raging bull’s). When you’re at peace or at rest, you breath slowly and deeply. Contort your body to the peaceful state you see fit, and you’re mind will soon follow.

While I’m not the new guru of peace by any means, using these techniques, I’m much more patient than I was before, and I guess I’m happier because of that.

Oh, and here’s the secret this blog post title promised you :) :

The real secret to playing the waiting game is not to play at all.

What about you? How do you deal with impatience? Any interesting stories you have on being late? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Creative Commons License photo credit: aloshbennett

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