Finding your happy place – Page 8

Don’t Stop Trying.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal
2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Existential Dread- The inherent believe that life is meaningless.

Life can get really complicated and with that the feeling that no matter in which direction you turn things just never seem to work out. Inevitably, death is the end result. This is the kind of negative thought that we need to leave in 2019. However, in the midst of all the optimism and hopefulness of the new year is someone who thinks this way.

I wish there was a manual to follow concerning what to do and not do in life. There is often no person who can save you from the bad choices you are likely to make. However, life is a gift. One that if we take it a piece at a time can offer us varied and unique experiences. Often times, it is the fear of the unknown that either cripples or confuses us into making the choices we most regret.

Sometimes you need to take a step back and get out of your head. By living in your head too much you can create a reality that does not exist. So, we need to face all the things we fear and rely on God to catch us before we fall or fall too far. We need to remind ourselves about why we have to keep going even if it makes no sense, even when we cannot see the prize and especially when we travel solo.

However, we need to also remember that no one can do everything alone, even though it may be hard at times, we need to reach out to the right people who can help us on our way; and in turn someday, we can return the favor to someone who will be in the same place we were when we felt like stopping.

Found this and thought it was so meaningful to this post
Song by Lauren Daigle – Rescue

About New Year’s Resolutions.

I have observed that at specific times of the year, people make the effort to change some aspect of their lives, but the new year is when we see this need to change explode. I like to think of it as promises on steroids. We all have made countless unrealistic wishes and promises about how the new year will spawn a new us. This usually lasts for the first couple of days and then most fall back into old habits.

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I think a big part of why they don’t work is because we leave reality out of our new year’s resolutions. We forget for a couple of days, what our situation is truly like and make commitments based on dreams we have nurtured since childhood and comparing ourselves with other, which is always a bad thing to do.

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Also, we now have many self-help articles that speak to setting goals and not resolutions. But I wonder what the difference really is.

Goal:An aim or desired result.

Resolution: The quality of being determined or resolute.

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The problem I believe is not in creating goals or having resolutions. The problem is being unrealistic in making or setting either and having a spirit of stick-to-it-iveness, to see them through. I have had many great ideas of things I want to accomplish, but have fallen short because of my own self-doubts. Setting goals over having resolutions does not mean that you will achieve them. For both, you have to have a plan of how they will be realistically achieved. Further, I also believe that anything we want to do must have a purpose. It cannot be that we want to be rich or lose weight but it’s because that seems to be the trend. Our purpose for wanting to achieve something has to be clear. It means then that once we have identified realistically what we want for ourselves this year, we need to consider why we want to do so and if in the long run there are real lasting benefits to doing so.

At the end of the day, I say take your pick and call it whatever you will. However, what I feel is more important than the title you give it, is the need to ensure that you are mindful about the things you would like to achieve this year.

Patience of Job

Patience is not passive, on the contrary, it is concentrated strength.
Bruce Lee

Growing my grandmother needed a lot of this. From running away, to my habitual stealing, many lies and other mischief, I was a real thorn in her side. I guess she was hoping to whip me into a semblance of a somewhat decent human being, and she did.

But it can be hard to be patient and do the mundane things when you know that great things are in the making for you. It can be especially hard when it looks like things got worse a whole lot quicker. However, we need to remain unshakable in the face of great adversaries, especially when they stem from our own self-destructive tendencies.

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I love the story of Job because of how faithful he remained and how convinced he was that all things work together for good to them that love God. So, when things seem really desperate, I am comforted by the story of Job. Therefore, while it seems we are working for a good that is long in coming, we should remain patient and be positive.

For 2020, we have to be especially persistence in the face of blockages in our way and use it as a part of our daily mantra. When things do not work the way you want them to work out, be glad, because something better is in the making.

Also, we need to develop a new concept of what it means to be patient. One where we do not submit to everything thrown at us, until such time. But we need to be stubbornly optimistic no matter what anyone says, or, how bad things appear. When we trust in a higher source, one beyond human understanding, and are confident in knowledge that we too are worthy of all goods things floating around us, all things are possible.

Let us rise above all the forces of darkness that can be find every where. Let us stay above all negative thoughts, emotions and reactions that are waiting to bubble up to the surface.

We may need to take the most terrifying leap and finally leave everything that held us back in 2019 and let it stay there.

Here’s To The Next 10 Years

Don’t change because a new year is coming up but change for your own personal growth no matter what resolutions you make, they start with you.
Unknown

Okay so suddenly I am into looking at life in terms of phases. Must be because I’m getting older, or something. This January the 4th like very January the 4th, whether or not I acknowledge it, I will be ONE YEAR OLDER. But that is not what I want to talk about. I don’t know when, but I now firmly realize that the end of 2019 means the end of a decade, and the start of a new one. Well that’s what I’ve been hearing.

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So, we will go along joyfully into the new decade, happy that we made it out alive of the last one. But many of us dread any more signs of the kind of dystopic world we seem to be descending into more and more, similar to dystopia in, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

Instead, we hope to set and focus on personal goals and taking things a day at a time. So if you have not decided what this new page will look like, now is a good time as any to do so. Just consider that there are many, who do not have the prospect of thinking beyond today and so find it difficult to plan for tomorrow, much less 10 years! Also, while it’s a new year, old problems still exist. There are still thinks about ourselves that we need to work on and things we have to come to terms with.

However, many hope that they will be able to take on new challenges and make some positive changes, because nothing stays the same forever. Right?

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So…

Here is to being yourself more and more and being more concerned with what is happening around you than what is being done for you. We look forward to being happy and grateful about the things beyond our control. Let’s hope that when we are faced with changes, we roll with them and are not crushed by them. Here’s to not aiming for perfection in yourself and others but live and let live. Based on last year and previous years, we know that moving forward it will be another bumpy ride, because not only the date, but everything in your life could change in the blink of an eye.

With all that being said, there is one thing that is for certain, the new year brings abundant hope. May we not be fixed on our despair but on the possibilities moving forward.

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Don’t Pick A Side

I thought came to me recently. What would happen if in any situation I chose not to pick a side?

Would I be allowed to do this?

Everyone claims that there point is the right point and some go as far as to say that their point is the only point. So it does get confusing about who is right and how is wrong.

It can be exhausting to constantly be bombarded with the need to pick a side and it can lead to emotional burnout.

Therefore, I feel it’s not necessary to hate the one and love the other, to accept one and reject that which seems opposite to the one I just accepted.

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Instead of living in a black or white area, I think I prefer the gray area that could eventually lead to more colour and balance. Being in a seemingly fuzzy zone can be warm and comfy. Before anyone disagrees, no it is not a way of remaining indecisive, but I see it as way to co-exist with people who think and act differently from the way I do and being okay with them. Similar to how I can be interpreted as a person – in many different ways – I don’t have to hold fast to one tried and tested way of being.

So, for the purposes of retaining the little sanity I have left, I will not declare I side – if I can help it. I will begin to appreciate that life and people by extension, are filled with grey areas that makes life interesting.

Then again, I could be wrong; life is complicated and the grey zone I seek may be hard to live comfortably in.

Lazy Luck.

So is there every a time when being lazy is a good thing?

Well I think so!

Many people will be surprised to know that I can be super lazy. I was so lazy at one point that I did not bathe for one whole day!

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But I don’t think that is something I should put out there. Thank God my readership is small so I can get away with that. Whew!

So, one time I was invited to be a part of this scheme to sell coffee. It was some kind of super coffee, with tonnes of health benefits and I was gonna sell coffee and that would make me rich, rich I tell you!

Rolling in the dough, money money money!

Except, I didn’t have to sell the coffee all I had to do was buy it.

So, how was I gonna make money?

Well, when I went to the “meeting”, in this really poorly lit room at about seven or so in the evening, I learned, “hey, you don’t have to worry about how much coffee you sell, you just need to get more persons on board this scheme”.

So, all I had to do was recruit persons to buy coffee packages – a lot of it – that they were not expected to sell and I could make money off them, when they got more people on board. Now, my non-mathematically inclined brain went into overdrive and my very introverted spirit screamed a resounding, NO!

I would have to find people to get on board this very strange business of buying a coffee package for, I think it was $10,000, could be more, at the time so that they could drink all the products, because that is not where the money was, and seek human bodies to also buy coffee they were going to drink to get rich.

I smiled and drank and ate what they had, told them I would be at the next meeting and left. I went home, patted myself on the back for doing something outside my comfort level, consoled myself for being a fool but not that great a fool and never thought about that meeting nor the coffee again.

You know what really got me upset; initially, I was told about this wonderful product and opportunity I would be apart of and when I got there it was another story. The super coffee was not the focus, there was nothing about how to sell this amazing product nor this great company I was told I would be a part of. Plus, if this coffee was so great and life changing why didn’t I hear about it before. I felt like I had wasted my time at the end of that little “get together”.

More than a year later I saw the guy who had introduced me to the scheme and asked him how things were going. I thought he would tell me he was rich – it seemed he would do well in the scheme, he was so enthusiastic! Sadly he told me it didn’t work out, because he could not get enough person to sign up. You think! So, he lost that money he initially paid to get the package, had coffee that he did not need, and wasted time trying to find people to sign up to this thing.

However, he was pursuing this other venture that would definitely work out. I slowly but surely crept more and more out of his get- rich-obsessed gaze, I wished him well and went on my way. I have not seen him since.

I also learned later about ponzi schemes and that is what is was. All I know is this, that was not how I was gonna be rich! At the time, I thanked God I had more sense than I thought I did and jumped ship before it sailed. Also, thank God I was too broke and too lazy to shoot myself in the foot – I was already doing fine on my own in that department, without anyone else getting involved, thank you very much.

So I guess being lazy sometimes pay, just as how it can get you into stuff, it can also take you out of stuff incompatible to your purpose.

Highest Esteem.

Anyone can say anything they want to say about you, but you don’t have to let that in. I realize now that it’s easy to be persuaded by what someone thinks they know about you, but it does not have to mean that that is all there is to you.

I realized this when I was listening to different sides of one issue. For each person that I listened to, I felt each had a valid point and I left each person appreciating them more. However, when I listened to each person discussing the other I became doubtful about the authenticity of the person they were discussing. My take away from that is, to never allow someone to determine how I treat another person, no matter what they say or how persuasive they sound. I remember my grandmother use to tell me that any disagreement she had with an adult, was none of my business and she instructed me to greet them and have “manners” to them. However, lessons learned at a young age, are often forgotten until we reap the consequences of forgetting.

I have never been someone who likes to blindly follows what others say or think. But sometimes, in an effort to remain in everyone’s good graces I have gone along with what everyone or the majority seems to be saying. Whether it were about a person or an issue and I would see it as just the way things were. However, being in that situation the other day made me question how quick I have been in the past to judge someone based on what others have said. If you are friends with someone I do not believe you have to agree with all they say or what they do, and you should be confident enough to say so to their faces. If not, doesn’t that make you a hypocrite – just going along with what they say, even though in your mind you are shouting at the top of your lungs all the reasons why they are wrong?

Your definition of a problematic person may differ from others, but consider, we are all problematic in some way to someone. We all have things about us that cause people to look at us funny, to at least one time, question if they even know us by the things we say or do. Therefore, we all deserve the right to be heard and accepted for the point of view that we have. Because if we think about it, the things I may see as a problem in that person, could be an improvement on what they were like last year. Check them next year, they may not be at the same place.

We always have room to grow, to evolve, to change, to be whatever we want to be. What we need to do is to stop expecting people to be exactly what we want them to be. Stop defining people by our standards and let them be who they are in that moment. The behavior that you see as problematic, may be an idiosyncrasy that you don’t know about. Let’s really have the highest esteem for others by allowing their story to evolve and not write them off.

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