Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012

I’m a firm believer that hope drives all.  Without hope, we have no reason to continue in life.  Excel.  Reach beyond what we thought possible.  Hope is the driving force that propels us into becoming a better us.  Striving to obtain those things important to us.  Without hope, life would seem empty.  An endless trudge of putting one foot in front of the other to…to…I’m not sure what we’d be moving forward for in that case.

Sure there are passages in life when hope seems to abandon us, leaving us susceptible to life’s harsher influences.  Without our “cloak” of hope, those hardships can seem overwhelming.  But they’re not.  No matter how many curveballs life throws us, so long as we cling to hope, there’s always a way out.

Course those solutions aren’t always quick to come, nor do they materialize according to our time frame.  But…if we’re patient and maintain faith that hope will show us a clearer path, then we’ll have the where-for-all needed to progress through whatever challenges we encounter.     

Friday, Aug. 3, 2012

A number of days back, I blogged about a fortune I’d received, telling how if you don’t plan on changing your mind, then why have one.  Along those lines, I thought I’d expound on how I believe a mind is a beautiful thing to waste.

Think of all the possibilities made available when one uses their mind.  Doesn’t matter if you’re successful in obtaining your goals.  What does matter is that you take an active role in finding ways to exercise your mind.  Flex that wonderful muscle that opens the doors to endless opportunities limited only by our imagination, circumstances and means.

I believe that doing so includes setting goals and managing expectations.  Stretching what we believe we can accomplish just a tiny bit further, to appropriate levels, of what we think we can accomplish.  Think of it this way.  When running a relay, the finish line up ahead, people on either side closing in, we’re more likely to push harder to reach the finish line first.  Likewise, if we set goals that require us to reach—a bit—then we’re one step ahead of the game, for we learn to better exercise our brain in ways that will help facilitate accomplishing our goals—or, at the very least, get within arms reach of them. 

The more we stretch and exercise our brain muscle, the stronger it becomes, allowing us to do more than once possible.  Each time we reach further to accomplish our goals, the better equipped we become to see them realized.  So why waste our most valuable muscle—our mind

Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012

Failure is not an option.  This is a standard by which I endeavor to live my life.  Doesn’t mean I’ll always succeed.  Least not the first go round.  But more often than not, if I put my mind to something, I can find a way to make things happen.  Again, this isn’t to imply that things will go exactly my way.  And that’s okay.  In fact, it’s more than okay, for if things always turned out the way I envisioned, then where would lie the challenge in life?  Those things that I want/need to strive to accomplish?

Think about it.  If I begin each and every day with the mentality that failure is not an option, then I don’t open myself up to having an easy “out.”  Instead, I raise my personal bar to strive for more, reach higher and work to claim those things that are important or necessary for me—in my particular life.  Doesn’t mean those things would be appropriate for someone else.  They may, but likely what I focus on is unique to my set of circumstances.

By maintaining that failure is not an option, I allow outside influences to fall away, those things that might otherwise cause me to get caught up in needless drama/chaos.  By avoiding this, I’m able to apply that energy to accomplishing what I set out to do.  By doing such, I’m more apt to succeed.  Though I may not always succeed, I take comfort in that I put in my best effort.  As long as I continue to do so, in my book, even if I fall short my mark, that’s still considered a success, for I didn’t let myself down by taking the easy way out.      

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

If we take a step back and survey life, the view is mighty impressive.  Children are born.  Relationships begin.  End.  People move on.  Lives end.  Successes are discovered.  Hardships have a way of sneaking up on us.  And through it all…life goes on.

Even in our deepest hours of despair, life doesn’t slow.  Neither does it allow us to catch our breath, instead driving home the message that only the strong survive this game we call life.  And even then, none of us get out of it alive.

LOL.

Not only does life go on despite what’s directly happening in our inner circle, but also as expressed by the last sentence, it has a fairly twisted sense of humor.  And we, driven to continue on, have one of two choices.  We can either fall by the wayside and let life get the better of us.  Or we can boldly trudge ahead, oft unsure of where those steps will carry us, but with an ironclad determination that at least we are moving forward.

So I wonder….  If this is the enlightenment I have at the midpoint of my life, what view will I have by the time I reach my own life’s end?  That time when I know it’s game over.  Wonder if I’ll still maintain the mentality that life’s pretty darn impressive?