Are You Off the BEATEN PATH ?

Are You Off the BEATEN PATH ?

We may keep pounding that life is lived on the highways but there are numerous times when we seem travelling Off the BEATEN PATH.  And that's normal and expected.  Many times in our life, we even seem to be threading along even if there is no dirt road, no trail to even guide us.  And it's not our choice but once we are  Off the BEATEN PATH, we need to be aware that managing our daily life is very different when we are Off the BEATEN PATH.

it is when we are Off the BEATEN PATH when the rules of the game entirely change.  These are circumstances when the unexpected and the unknown would creep in.  These are the episodes in life when we get into the UNKNOWN, wherein most of our assumptions are more likely 'GUESSTIMATES' more than anything else  What we should focus now is on the ground rules when the circumstances have totally changed, when you start to be threading in uncharted territory, into unknown waters so to speak.

Yesirrrrs this poster is spot on.  WE CAN'T CONTROL THE WIND BUT WE CAN DIRECT THE SAILS.  And in our life, this is all what matters.  We can only control what we can but that's the crucial piece there.  Never miss out CONTROLLING WHAT YOU CAN because otherwise, you will lose by default, and that could be a huge loss.  I bear witness on a first person account numerous cases when a person was indeed cruising rough waters but nothing was lost because he can still CONTROL WHAT HE CAN.  Unfortunately, he dragged his feet way too long.

Graduating from the university is a classic example of getting Off the BEATEN PATH.  After sixteen years in the academe, you are suddenly thrown in the high seas for you to find your niche.  But this is easier said than done because at that point in time, fresh grads hardly have any credentials to boot.

How do we go from that point when we're Off the BEATEN PATH ?  Firstly, you need to know your interests, your passion.  It all starts there.  Taking an extra step, identify the problems you can resolve at that moment.  Thirdly, look around the 'competition'.  Remember we are in a 'RAT RACE'.  By benchmarking with the market you are in, you can tweak your goals.  With your bagful of ideas which may be raw, test it, TEST THE WATERS,  From there you can gauge your capability and your shortfall as well ❗❗❗

Keeping Afloat

Keeping Afloat

Is Keeping Afloat worth our discussion ?  Absolutely.  The reason is that there have been one too many casualties who got drowned simply because he failed to Keep Afloat  So, the most basic question now is how can we Keep Afloat ?  Again, this is no simple A-B-C but if we hue to the sound fundamentals of containing life's challenges, we have a china man's chance.  

First things first.  we need to embrace RESILIENCE. Simply put, resilience is defined as that capacity to recover from difficult circumstances in our life.  That is our ability to withstand adversity and BOUNCE BACK and grow and move forward despite life's downturns.   BTW, resilience is NOT a trampoline where you're down one moment and up the next.  Instead, it's more akin to climbing the mountain without a trail map.

While resilience is a theory, let's go down to real-life experiences such as illness, loss of a loved one, abuse, bullying, job loss and even financial instability. There is that shared reality if tragic events in the news such as terrorist attacks, mass shooting and natural disasters.  People have to learn to cope with and work through very challenging life experiences to Keep Afloat. The resilience theory refers to the ideas surrounding how people are affected by and adapt to things like adversity, change, loss and various risks.

Being resilient does NOT mean that people don't and won't experience stress, emotional upheaval and suffering.  Some people equate resilience with mental toughness but demonstrating resilience includes working through emotional pain and suffering.  Resilience is NOT a fixed trait.  Flexibility, adaptability and perseverance can help people tap into their

resilience by changing certain thoughts and behaviors.  Research shows that students who believed that both intellectual abilities and social attributes can be developed showed a lower stress response to adversity and improved performance.  Key factors of resilience will lead us to deeper discussions but it's worth scratching the surface by stating that there isn't a simple TO-DO List to work through adversity. But never ignore your SUPPORT STRUCTURE because that will be at the very core so you can Keep Afloat and not get drowned ✅✅✅

Crossing the Rubicon

Crossing the Rubicon

A bit of Roman Empire history here.  During the Roman Republic, the Rubicon River was the boundary between the Roman province of Gaul and Italy Proper [controlled by Rome and its allies].  When Julius Caesar Crossed the Rubicon, that precipitated the Roman Civil War which then led to Julius Caesar becoming a dictator for life.  In our life, surely we have had our fair share of Rubicon Rivers which crossing we either avoided or ignored because doing so would mean taking a drastic and ultimate action which from our options and choices would seem to be one of our last preferred cards to play.

If you never had that Crossing the Rubicon experience in your life, not to worry, you would have one within your lifetime.  Those are the crossroads in our life which we dread to cross if at all for many reasons.  But the overriding reason we really dreaded Crossing the Rubicon was the risks staring right in our face, risks which we were so hard press to mitigate, if at all.  And that risk is the NO U TURN circumstance.  Any takers ?

Just like the DMZ [Demilitarized] Zone that divides North and South Korea.  No one just dares to cross that DMZ because you'll be shot dead on the spot.  But despite the horror stories of fatalities in their desperation to escape from North Korea, there have a handful who did Crossed the Rubicon.  What could have pushed them ?  Likely, that was the only time to really Cross the Rubicon.

REGRET. GUILT. SHAME.  These are three of the darkest emotions. any human will ever experience.  And all of us did feel any or all of these at various points in our life [especially after making a 'bad' decision].  In truth and in fact, there are some situations where we try to rewind the situations and DELETE it ! In reality though, there are infinite number of reasons we should never regret any of the decisions we have made in our life.

Instead, let us LIVE WITH WHAT WE HAVE because every decision gives you that single opportunity to take credit for creating your own life.  By making any decision involving your heart, you have the chance to create more love in the world by creating more love by spreading yours.  By experiencing the disappointment that might come with a decision's outcome, you can propel yourself up ✅✅✅

When Mayhem Strikes

When Mayhem Strikes

Who says life will be so damn good ?  Tell it to the marines and you'll here a dose of their own medicine.  So, who should be flabbergasted When Mayhem Strikes ?  We should be the last one to be that surprised though.  It's a given that life is a combination of UPs and DOWNs with likely more DOWNs than UPs combined with those zigs and zags.  But you might challenge me.  If life has more DOWNs than UPs, how come until today, we're all still standing on our own feet ?

And it's unfortunate a big chunk of the mayhem in life are sometimes force majeure, way beyond our control but there is a fair share of mayhem when and where we are in control or at the very least, we could factor in to influence the way things shape up, and down to its outcome.  Remember those points in our life when we wanted to do so many things all at the same time ?  Those times when we felt we are 'superman' enough to juggle things up concurrently ?  That's when MAYHEM STRIKES.

At some points in our life, we all had our own mess in life.  Either your home was a mess, like your partner/spouse not talking to you at all.  Or your work life seems out of control and in an uncontrollable skid.  Or your social relationships not going your way.  Problem, once we are at that crucial point, we will be hard pressed to know WHERE TO START.  By that point, we can't disagree that MAYHEM STRIKES our life. 

Too bad there is no quick fix when MAYHEM STRIKES but don't despair, we can still turn things around.  How? Let us recognize the mess we're in.  If you tell yourself EVERYTHING IS FINE, then there is NOTHING TO FIX.  The moment you don't prioritize dealing with your problems is the moment you lose.  It's possible to get through your days even though your life is a mess.  Maybe everything looks alright from the outside but day by day, you will end up more anxious and depressed until it finally hits you all at once.  Maybe you're not at a breaking point yet but I'm afraid you will get there if you keep ignoring the mess.

For things you are OUT of CONTROL, you gotta know it and LET IT GO.  When your life seems a mess, it often comes down to a lot of things around us that aren't going the way they are supposed to.  Start out by figuring out exactly where it all seems to go wrong.  Sit down and write down everything.  By writing it down, you will be able to get a good look at your messy life.  WHEN MAYHEM STRIKES, let us strike as well ❗❗❗

 

When Things Don't Add Up to

When Things Don't Add Up to    

Life is such.  As we all live in an imperfect world, 60 to 80% of the times,Things Don't Add Up to.  The results you expect does not happen.  The outcome you expected does not materialize.  Your expectations suddenly turn upside down into frustrations.  And those are the worst moments in our lives.  When everything within our expectations do not come into fruition.  And worst, when things don't shape up as we expect, it will lead to a problem or a much bigger and compounded problem that becomes more unmanageable to handle.  Till things turn from bad to worse, pushing you to the edges of life.

No pun intended but this poster can never be farther from the truth.  That is, literally speaking, when things are not happening based on what you are doing or initiating, that's it, 'SUBTRACTING' is the logical way to go.  Meaning, if you keep doing things and t's not working out, just STOP IT.  What ain't working, won't work.  Just sheer logic.  Anything that's not working, don't push your luck too far.

Oh yes, it could be as simple as when a girl messages you first, even the dog become suspicious.  Why ?  Well, When Things Don't Add Up to .  You don't need to crack your brain to figure out what's normal or not.  When someone is chasing you to signup for job.  Do things Add Up to ?  When someone offers you a 'quick rich' scheme where a $100 investment turns around as a $1,000 dividend.   Do things Add Up to ?  When you're so keen to migrate to a First World country and someone offers you a guaranteed immigrant visa for a $$$$, will you be so naive to grab that offer ?   Do things Add Up to ?  When someone offers you a business lock, stock and barrel for a fraction of what it costs, will you grab it ?   Do things Add Up to ?

What's the fix to all these conundrum ? It's UNCOVERING THE FACTS.  But this is easier said than done because FACTS don't just lay around the surface.  More often, you have to zig and zag before you drill down only to pick up fragments which you need to piece together like a jigzaw puzzle.  But once you have UNCOVERED THE FACTS, you should be better off to figure out if Do things Add Up to

At the end of the day, it takes a combination of sheer common sense and practical reasoning that is devoid of DESPERATION.  When man hits that level of DESPERATION, his cognitive thinking gets impaired because it gest beclouded by that level of DESPERATION.  So, it pays to run a self-sanity check to make sure you yourself are 'in check' before you go off track till you lose that capability to detect When Things Just DON'T Add Up to.  But we don't want to be in that predicament, right  ❓❓❓

Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE'

Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE'

Yesirrrrs this is quite a statement.  Simply put, it means that we are expected to be loyal, filial, focused and faithful in our life.  Which means we are expected to Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE'.  In simplest terms, it means we do not have to beat our chest to make the whole world be aware that we are loyal, filial, focused and faithful in every endeavor we undertake.  Just be what is expected of us and stay true to that focused commitment.

And this practice is widely recycled across our life.  You can be a student and Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE' so that your school professors can attest to your consistent above-par academic performance.  If you're a worker, endeavor to establish that focused approach at work and Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE' and your bosses will recognize you for that consistency.  In your relationship with your loved ones, remain filial and things will shape on its own with a reinforced robust state of your relationship.  As an entrepreneur, maintain that premium level of quality service and trust me, your customers will reward you by becoming your repeat customers over time.

So what dividends do we reap once we are consistent to Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE' ?  In the shortest words, it 'FEELS GOOD MAN' as this poster goes.  That intangible FEEL GOOD feeling is just irreplaceable.  It's something that can't be bought from the shelves.  In fact, no amount of $$$$$$$ can ever buy it for you.  You gotta earn it, and earn it the hard and painstaking way.  No cutting corners.  No shortcuts.  I can attest observing close enough some people thinking that they can be a 'FLASH IN THE PAN',  those sporadic efforts to shine but NO SENOR, it does not work that way.  You gotta work on it, earn it, penny by penny.  And getting that trust from your academic superiors, from your work bosses, from your loved ones and from your customers will trickle in, in drips and drops but eventually, that huge pail of drips and drops will eventually get filled.

In the NBA, on any given season, there are approximately 450 active players but everyone needs to work their butts.  Even the superstars in LeBron James and KD, they worked their butts out.  And if you don't shape out, you can be shipped out.  Those are the realities in life, inside or outside the NBA.

So, to re-cap this thread, what happens if we are unable to Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE' ?  The probabilities will be one too many and to be blunt, even the worst case scenarios will be one too many but in the shortest terms, we got to SHAPE UP or get SHIPPED OUT.  And these are the last setbacks we want to endure in our life because this sets us back significantly unless we Be Like 'WHITE ON RICE' ⌛⏳

Managing Risks

Managing Risks    

Please don't get me wrong.  I do not have an aversion to taking risks in life.  Life without risks is not life.  Risk is something we can't do without but what matters most is how are we Managing Risks.  The roads we trek are peppered with risks, so risk is not something which we can set aside.  The constant challenge is managing the risks we encounter in life so that such risks are CONTAINED, CONTROLLED and where possible, CONSTRAINED.

You can have your dog with you and once you walk it around, the risk that someone will fall prey to your dog will remain imminent.  So, how do we CONTAIN, CONTROL or CONSTRAIN this risk ?  Simple.  Keep your dog on a short leash, enough for you to quickly restrain it if needed.  In real life, though, things get murkier especially if we do not have a good handle of the risks that are part and parcel of our journey.

Risks could be as simple as our aversion for hamburgers simply because we are closely monitoring our cholesterol levels.  But for you to deprive yourself wholly and totally of that scrumptious and mouth-watering burger may be too much to demand and as from yourself.  In short, you should NOT deprive yourself of that tempting hamburger without putting your health at risk.

So, where do we go from here ?  It all boils down to RISK ASSESSMENT.  How big, wide and deep is your threshold to manage a risk ?  If you're a worker, with your modest ambitions, are you willing to simply tender your resignation from your local job and take that risk of job hunting in Dubai ?  You need to ask yourself lots of WHAT IF questions.

When I was starting off my career, yes I did take risks but only on a short leash.  When I confronted myself with WHAT IF scenarios, I told myself I am unsure as to how I can CONTAIN, CONTROL or CONSTRAIN if I did get hit by the risks I have identified.  So, where's the beef ?  Get hold of that RISK METER, keep it handy because you would need it every step of the way.  Whether you play the game on HIGH or LOW RISK, it is your call but make sure you make the right call day-in day-out ❗❗❗

Be Your Own Master [Whatever it Takes]

Be Your Own Master [Whatever it Takes]

For many obvious reasons, we all want to be masters of our own lives but the overriding question is:  Have we been successful enough to Be Our Own Master?  It's true we all yearn to be in control of things but how often, even if we are the driver seated right behind the steering wheel', would end up 'thrown out' when our journey becomes nothing but a train wreck ?

Are train wrecks a fact of life ?  Yes they are, indeed.  Much as we do not want it to happen, at some point in our lives, our life was a train wreck, like it or not.  But that is not an embarrassment.  Neither should be a stigma that will get embedded in your lifetime.  The issue is not the train wreck but it is HOW WE SURVIVED out of that train wreck.  Nothing wrong ending black and blue, beaten or bruised.  It's how we 'rise up from the ashes' that matters most.  And what could trigger us to rise up ?  It's BEING YOUR OWN MASTER.  Only then can you prove your mettle that you have survived that acid test of life and that you're back on your own feet to pick up the pieces and restart from where you stumbled down.

When do we detect that we are at our lowest point in life ?  It is when everything in our life seems spinning OUT OF CONTROL  During those skids, we will experience blow after blow even after we have recovered from a previous blow.  Those are times where we are gasping to breathe only for things to snap off all over again.  So, how do we rise up from this ?  REGAIN CONTROL and BECOME THE MASTER of your own.  Have we seen why the most fatal mishaps happened ?  It's because the driver LOST CONTROL of the steering wheel.

When do you think you will regain that brimming confidence in life ?  It is when you are finally back behind the steering wheel and becoming YOUR OWN MASTER even as your life zigs and zags.  Once you reach that new lease of life, trust me, you would feel like a dog unleashed after being held up for so long.  The question is how can you regain to become YOUR OWN MASTER ?  A few ground rules.  STOP DWELLING on NEGATIVE THOUGHTS.  Truth us, our brains can do anything we want to but once negativities creep in, those negative thoughts will absolutely prevent you from moving forward.

We can always argue that things are easier said than done.  But unless WILL POWER takes over and reasserts your control of your life for you to BECOME YOUR OWN MASTER, no amount of resolve will lead you back to that ROAD back to REDEMPTION❗❗❗

Ensure ALL Your Pipes Are CLEAR

Ensure ALL Your Pipes Are CLEAR

It's true has a one long main pipe running end to end but between that end to end, there are multiple and practically countless smaller and mini-pipes that 'criss cross' across.  Regardless or rather, with the complexity of our life's 'PIPE INFRASTRUCTURE', it becomes imperative that we are all aware and focused that we need to constantly Ensure that ALL Your Pipes Are CLEAR at any point anytime anywhere because any single clogging can clog any other pipe.

In fact, our life is a jigsaw puzzle, with tons and tons of pieces which we all need to piece together.  BTW, piecing together tons of pieces is a huge challenge because all it takes is one mismatch to guarantee that you can't come up with 100% error-free.  On the other hand, all it takes is one mismatch, enough to trigger a multiplier effect of problems that compound.  There are one too many real-life scenarios, e.g you could be financially well but what happens if you have a failing health ?  Or, you can be achieving all the successes at work but how do you envision your life if personal relationship with your partner/spouse is hitting rough patches that keeps skidding ?

Thing is, INTERDEPENDENCE in life cannot be understated.  If early on, you have invested so much in building relationships across, as you trudge along, you would never know you need to reach out to any of those invested relationships.    If you are a worker, if all along you took a myopic approach of your career wherein you [wrongly] thought that if you did things poorly in your current work, you can just CLEAR and RESET things when you hop-on to your next pit stop?  Too bad the CLEAR and RESET switch does not happen the way you want things to happen.  As long as you deal with people, people will relate with people.

Swing things with all the do-good be-good.  Embrace your job like it's your life.  Deliver things like it is part and parcel of your passion.  Then wait for the end results.  BTW, those end results can and will reverberate across multiple times, more often throughout your career.  If for whatever reason, some of your 'small pipes' got clogged in the past, ENSURE ALL YOUR PIPES ARE CLEAR.

Oh, this poster says a mouthful.  LIFE IS AN ECHO.  WHAT YOU SEND OUT COMES BACK.  WHAT YOU SOW, YOU REAP.  WHAT YOU GIVE, YOU GET.  WHAT YOU SEE IN OTHERS EXISTS IN YOU.  In fact, this says it all.  Throughout the journey of our life, every chapter may seem to be a silo but it is not.  Because that silo is one single pipe that is interconnected beneath and it cuts across all the other pipes.  The extreme word of caution here.  Never take a myopic view of even the seemingly most petty exceptions in your life because that can haunt you back.  Not tomorrow but maybe in ten, twenty years down the road. So it pays that we  ENSURE ALL OUR PIPES ARE CLEAR. Remember, we're in a LONG-HAUL flight❗❗❗ 

All Hands on Deck

❗❗❗❗❗❗❗All Hands on Deck

Can't be denied now. It's All Hands on Deck.  The once sturdy boat we were all onboard has been hit with leaks, with water seeping in even as it is slowly tilting towards capsizing.  But this is not the time yet to trigger a Mayday Call as long as the global village remains in full control.  All it takes now is for All Hands on Deck.

Quoting these latest CNN numbers, there are close to 305 million Covid cases with the United States and Western Europe alarmingly in the RED.  If yourr country happens to be in the ORANGE alert, this is no time for complacency either.  Even my daughter's school declared a week-long Health Break this coming week.  As for myself, my barometer of our Covid pandemic are the number of company-announced bereavements which is now averaging close to one death per day.

This global pandemic has destroyed all the barriers that separate the First World versus the Third World.  Regardless of culture and even religion, we are now twenty-two months since this became a full-blown pandemic way back March 2020.  And when we let loose our guard during the Christmas Holidays, Lady Covid came back with a vengeance, swathing her sword across us all.  This is our WAKE CALL, in fact.

If you're still stretching the new year holidays or if you're on an extended break, it's time to cut and cut clean now, pronto.  Let us NOT be like the Roman Emperor Nero who continued to fiddle with his violin while Rome was afire and burning.  The scariest truth we want to avoid is if this Covid pandemic breaches the 50% positive rate [which our local tabloid confirmed today].

This book by Grant and Amanda McIntyre struck me hard because Grant McIntyre was touted as the sickest ever Covid patient reported.  While average hospital stays in the UK was pegged at 8 days, McIntyre spent more than four months.  His is an untold story of someone who, in the middle of his Covid ordeals, had a kidney failure and a collapsed lung, among others.  Oooops, I'm sorry I am not here to pre-empt you with this heroic story but I'm sharing this to magnify the fact that the survival rate [if we were in the situation of Grant McIntyre] will be less than 1%.  To accentuate how society can quickly adapt to the intensity of a situation, during that first wave of this pandemic way back March 2020, do we know that the manufacturers of the ventilators in the UK were Ferrari & Mercedes.  

BTW, what we are now witnessing is only the tip of the iceberg, whew. When the world will declare that it has finally clamped down with this pesky pandemic, let's tighten our seatbelts because what comes next will be the global depression, where all economies are literally depressed and for the economies to rebound, governments need to do a lot of articificial pump-priming to get back the sick man that we are now, back on our feet.  For now, it's ALL HANDS ON DECK ❗❗❗