DON'T Let Your PAST Ruin Your PRESENT

DON'T Let Your PAST Ruin Your PRESENT

How many of us are still 'hostaged' by our PAST?  I'll bet all my salaries that at the very least, a plurality of everyone one remains 'hostaged' by their PAST even as we speak now.  Why is that? Why let your PAST ruin your PRESENT? Regardless of the severity and magnitude of one's PAST, everyone needs to have a better PRESENT and even a much better FUTURE.  But we will end up with plain words and semantics if we claim, purely by words, that we deserve to depart from the wrongs of our PAST.

Indeed, the PAST maybe just that, as another past but the PAST can bring a lot of heavy baggage as you live and breath air now in the PRESENT and even as you move towards your  FUTURE. If things remain as murky as mud and as dark as the skies in the night, that murkiness and that darkness will remain, dim, nebulous and dreary.  And all these murkiness will remain to be the main blockage as you face your PRESENT now and your FUTURE.
 

Can you imagine if you will continue to carry all those baggage from the past?  And typically, that baggage in the past may include NEGATIVITIES and MIS-EXPECTATIONS.  Unless you clear it all, are you just fine to continue facing and living with the same NEGATIVITIES and those MIS-EXPECTATIONS of the people around you, whether they are you workmates, your bosses, your family, your partner/spouse, recalibrating is a must so that both parties are aligned.

When we speak of the PAST, we speak in shades of black and white.  It's like our mind erases the space in between those moments of perfect happiness and blinding pain.  And what happens next ?  We end up living in those OPPOSITES.  When we wander through the BLACK, we end up remembering those painful experiences.  Problem is those flashbacks of failures in the past could continue to run in an endless loop.  That is why we must LET GO OF THE PAST not necessarily forgetting it but turning our eyes forward towards healing instead of using them to stare back at the past.  Just DON'T Let Your PAST Ruin Your PRESENT❗❗❗

The Biggest RISK is NOT Taking Any RISK

The Biggest RISK is NOT Taking Any RISK

Who says that if you'll be fine if you DON'T take risk?  And that if you DON'T take risks, you WON'T fail? But hey, do we agree that the biggest RISK is NOT taking any RISK?  Indeed, it's a huge miss in our life if we [wrongly] believed that taking RISK is just an option and nothing more than that?  If I have to vociferously disagree, I'll disagree on that.

Thing is, that FEAR of taking RISKS may be holding you back in life.  Frankly, you need to take risks challenge yourself and try harder if you want to grow stronger and become better.  In our daily life, our brain will constantly try to convince us to PLAY SAFE.  It will tell us that we CAN'T succeed or that we SHOULDN'T bother trying something new.  But even when these thoughts lack a rational basis, sometimes we would allow our anxiety to prevail.

But hey, RISKS DON'T HAVE TO BE RECKLESS.  And while avoiding risks might seem like a smart way to manage our anxiety, in the long run, playing it small is the perfect recipe for depression.  The problem is that we often base our decisions on emotion rather than logic.  We incorrectly assume that there's a direct correlation between our FEAR LEVEL and the RISK LEVEL. But more often than not, our emotions are just NOT rational.  If we truly understood how to calculate risk, we would know which risks are worth taking and we would be a lot less fearful about taking them.

Whether you are afraid to take a big leap with your career, or you're terrified to take a small social risk like inviting an acquaintance out for coffee, learning to take healthy risks can open new doors and improve your life.  Sometimes, you need to take RISKS, CHALLENGE yourself and try harder at things if you want to grow stronger and become better.

So, what's the antidote to our FEAR for RISK?  BALANCE YOUR EMOTIONS WITH LOGIC.  Too often, we think our fear is directly related to the level of the risk.  The scarier something feels, the riskier it must be.  Then, do TAKE STEPS TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF SUCCESS.  Or maybe you decide to wait until your side hustle is consistently delivering income before you quit your day job and become an entrepreneur.  This might be a wise calculated risk to take.  Lest we forget, the biggest RISK is NOT taking any RISK✅✅✅

Life is What You Make It

Life is What You Make It

This may seem a run-of-the-mill expression and although this has aged, to blurt out "Life is What You Make It" can never be much closer to our heart because through your own lens, you must have witnessed various versions of both success stories and even stories of dire failure.  BTW, who says we can't dream?  Too bad, there are quite a number of cynics who would openly put you on the spot and give you a tongue-lashing that you must be that crazy for you to give so much weight to dream and dream big.

But this poster will prove all naysayers wrong because it's not a rocket science to declare that dreaming will be easy.  Truth of the matter, dreaming at the start seems easy. not until when you start to translate your dreams into CONCRETE words which later on needs to be translated into CONCRETE action that will lead to CONCRETE results.  Anything less than CONCRETE won't be acceptable at all because that will NOT bring you closer to your dreams.

Why is it many times many people get lost along the way [in life]?  If you take a random check of those who got waylaid along that treacherous and figure out their common denominator.  Either they NEVER planned or equally frustrating, they did plan but they planned either WRONGLY or LOUSILY at the very least.  Either way, it explains why their dreams seem to have been doomed right from the very start.

BTW, this piece is NOT just intended to ensure our lives are NOT off track.  This says much as well with regard countries who end up with inefficient and utterly CORRUPT leaders.  But if a country's leader is someone CORRUPT, the very fault lies NOT on that corrupt leader but the onus falls back on the people who voted him into power, to office.

Regardless of one's destiny, we need a high-resolution 360-degree camera that will monitor us every step of the way.  When political exercises come in, similar to elections of leaders, that becomes an opportunity NOT to be lost at all.  WRONGLY choosing your elected leader will boomerang back on you.  Over in France, the people voted back to office the incumbent Prime Minister Macron at the expense of Le Pen, the rightist candidate.  For those awaiting to vote in an election, please DO NOT turn it into an exercise futility in our democracy❗❗❗

You Deserve a BREAK, Seriously!

You Deserve a BREAK, Seriously!

Everyone deserves a break, right dude?  Even machines and engines, even the high-octane ones, even have scheduled annual shut downs.  So we owe it upon ourselves as well as it is a moot and academic that we Deserve a BREAK, Seriously!  But the biggest question is, what happens once you finally get that break, when you can shut off yourself away from work, when you power off all your gadgets, isolate yourself even if the cell site signals are damn strong enough to even blow you away.  So what gives?  And what benefits will you reap back once you finally get that very coveted break?  Hmmmm, you better use up that break to the hilt for you to deserve future rounds of breaks again.  Word of caution:  those breaks that we deserve DON'T mean that we can wantonly waste our time by simply uncorking one bottle after another, with a never ending intoxication till you drop on the floor.  Whew

We can't lose sight of the fact that we are not just the engine or locomotive that chugs chugs chugs in our life.  We are the very power source, power bank that will be the very originating source of energy and power that will keep our engine going.  Let us discuss just the low hanging fruits without getting into arguments and debates.  Truth is, there are just one too many consequences if we [wrongly] think that working non-stop will bring us closer to our goals in a much shorter timeline.  Theoretically that is correct but realistically, that's not just doable because the likelihood is that you'll stumble somewhere.

By now, have we all figured out WHY Friday is always the most exciting day for us?  It's because we [wrongly] think again that when the weekend kicks in, that will be sufficient for us to take a break from the rigors of our daily life.  But hey, we all got it all wrong because weekends are barely enough for lots of our 'FIX IT' stuffs to attend to.

So, to my readership, my apologies for missing out to pitch in my blog for yesterday because I literally went offline and trekked over to locations that were literally disconnected from all the internet connectivity.  I'll bet, once you decide to go offline to disconnect yourself from our daily rat race, you would realize that every minute spent with your loved ones is the best way to really wiggle out our way❗❗❗

What IGNITES Your Life ?

What IGNITES Your Life ?

Surely at some points your life got ignited from time to time.  But the bigger and rather lingering question is" What IGNITES Your Life ?  Generally, we get ignited by SUCCESSES.  That's when euphoria hovers all over us.  You have seen those victory parades because we all love WINNERS [and not LOSERS].

However, having said that, it is dismaying to say the least that most of us get IGNITED in life when we are on the UPside, on the UPturn.  WHAT IF we fail to achieve a goal, WHAT IF if we stumble down, WHAT IF we end up being out there in the cold, out in the streets jobless? Do you think you are still IGNITABLE when you are down there below?  

The key challenge is how do you IGNITE yourself when you're down there?  If in the past, joining the bandwagon was effortless [and IGNITABLE], there is NO bandwagon when you're down there.

Yes folks, this is the biggest question staring right on our face.  HOW WILL WE IGNITE OURSELVES [especially when you are so badly bruised, figuratively beaten black and blue for stumbling down on the ground over and over again.  This is when you need to summon everything from deep within you.  It's ALL HANDS ON DECK, you got to give it all, you got to LOCK-IN for you to RE-IGNITE your life.  Yes that may seem a steep mountain to climb at that point in time BUT isn't that a better option rather than raising the white flag❓❓❓

Can We DEFY BOUNDARIES?

Can We DEFY BOUNDARIES?

Looking back to the Stone Age, do we agree that life was more casual, with more spontaneity, more natural.  Whereas when our civilizations started to be governed by rules and laws, BOUNDARIES were pre-set which BTW is perfectly fine.  What is quite an irony is that those BOUNDARIES got replicated into our lives, our norms, our culture alongside everything that's DE FACTO.  

Much as many of us were wanderers and curious as ever, we seemed constrained by boundaries, many of which were simply DE FACTO and so virtual you can be unaware.  How did that impact our lives?  We got shaped and influenced to live, work and play within BOUNDARIES, giving us practically no room to wiggle, to stretch out and fathom how far and how deep can we further go.

From the time we got uprooted from home and started to live our school life, even our most basic fundamentals were shaped to co-exist within BOUNDARIES.  Over time though, by the time we left the portals of our school, that was the time we realized that hey, we CAN DEFY BOUNDARIES.  By that time, you are on your teens close to legal age.  Ironically, that has been our dilemma but isn't it just TOO LITTLE TOO LATE by then?

Oh yes, eventually we woke up from our deep slumber and realized that in fact and in truth, our life is in the midst of a wide expanse of open fields where the horizons tell us that you just cannot see things because of the gargantuan size of the whole landscape that's staring at us.  By that age approaching twenty, that is probably most of us would then realize that indeed we can DEFY BOUNDARIES, that we can plot our path.

Yesirrrrs, even if you fly off to Maldives, you won't need to ask yourself if you Can DEFY BOUNDARIES because you would realize that the only boundaries in life are those which you imposed on yourself.  And you need to fight that off because within our own selves, there will always be two opposing protagonists running on different directions and unless you take FULL CONTROL of your life, you can't DEFY BOUNDARIES by then, and that's pitiful to say the least😶😶😶 

Which Narrative Ending Do You Prefer

Which Narrative Ending Do You Prefer?

Like it or not, the eventual narratives of our respective lives remain inescapable.  Whichever ending you will have in your hands, at that point, the most we can do will be to look back and hark back to all the past chapters and phases of our life.  Question is:  Which Narrative Ending Do You Prefer?  Basically we got only a handful of scenarios on hand and these are no-brainers BTW.  Either it will be a HAPPY ending just like most love stories, a TRAGIC one [or at the very least, a FAILED one] or a BITTERSWEET one.  BTW, you got to figure things out as early as possible because it takes a lifetime to prepare for all these.

But as in love stories and relationships, nothing is built overnight.  You got to plant the seeds of its foundation, then nurture it on a constant basis and shape it up, brace for all the rough and tumbles in life with the optimistic hope that at the end of the long arduous marathon [of life], you will still end up standing albeit scathed and bruised.

In short, life is NOT simply reaching the FINISH LINE.  Definitely, it is much more than that because otherwise, it will be a huge disservice if we end up with a very myopic view of things.  What's running much in our favor is that we have our lifetime to prepare reaching for the FINISH LINE but a gentle warning though:  We CAN'T moving only on the last 2 minutes.

Many people prefer to take the path less trodden, less travelled.  However, we need to agree that to play BIG in the game of life, we need to take BOLD risks without retreating to the comforts of the KNOWN.  And while aiming for ordinary lives is NOT a crime, we need to remember that we deserve to achieve MORE.  Our limiting beliefs is what holds you back from claiming your greatness.  

Even if in a worst case scenario where and when your life is turning upside down, this is where we need to push ourselves harder.  We just CAN'T hold back.  A life of regret is NOT a life of meaning but one of GUILT and MISERY.  There will just be NO joy lamenting the past.  Which Narrative Ending Do You Prefer❓❓❓

Control What You Can Control

Control What You Can Control

We all agree that CONTROLLING is one of our most cherished strengths and pluses in life.  And I think everyone is on the same page insofar as the benefits we reap for having CONTROL.  What seems to be overlooked is that more often, we tend to go overboard, over-stretching ourselves more often to the detriment of others.  Hey, we are reminded to Control What You Can Control

What is often misconstrued is that we thought we can simply go overboard because everything is up for our taking, for us to CONTROL.  But that's NOT the storyline, not the narrative.  Factually, there is quite a list of things we CAN'T CONTROL [and in the interest of space and time, I won't rattle that off].  All that's needed from us is to be on the same page on what we CAN'T CONTROL.

Instead, please reference this infographics as it outlines that common area where we can put FOCUS and do what it takes for us to envisage CONTROLLING those CONTROLLABLE. I did receive a challenge question asking why cant we focus outside the common area?  Simple.  Outside that shaded common area, things will be beyond our CONTROL, our periphery of influence.

Pilots are our best role models for this CONTROL discussions.  They are so trained with regard what is CONTROLLABLE versus the Non-CONTROLLABLE.  And it just behooves that we lead our lives in parallel to the way pilots handle all their responsibilities from the time they walk-in to the cockpit until it safely lands.  Pilots lead a rigidly disciplined life once they are inside the cockpit.  In life, we got to be pilots as well.

What are the consequences when we try to CONTROL what we can't CONTROL?  Likely you will end up with a train wreck, a failure to be blunt about it.  Over-stretching yourself means you are breaching the areas where either you are incapable or circumstances simply will NOT allow you to CONTROL things.  What happens next, your guess is as good as mine.  So, never lose sight that you can Control What You Can Control❗❗❗

Enjoy the Sunshine While it Shines

Enjoy the Sunshine While it Shines

We all love and relish sunshine.  Too much in fact so that we get so captivated to the extent that we tend to spend a bigger chunk of our time right there in our cocoon.  But shouldn't we enjoy the sunshine while it shines?  We got to realize that not all countries enjoy their maximum time with the sun shining up there.  And that is where the parallelism between life and the sun's orbit itself because in life, we should not be missing the sunshine itself.

So why do we really need to Enjoy the Sunshine While it Shines [in life] ?  For many reasons we have to.  #1 when everything is going our favor, very likely things will NOT go wrong.  Remember those times in our life when we are in a winning streak.  In school, we're getting high marks quite often.  At work, we're getting commended left and right.

Over in the Nordic countries where sunshine is extremely limited a big chunk of the year, life is very much like the cycles in these countries because there will be periods in our life when there will be rough patches.  But before going through those rough episodes. let's ask ourselves what can we leverage for our lives when everything is running and happening very much to our favor.  

So where and how will we be badly hit when we have those LOST OPPORTUNITIES?  Theories by social scientists have circled on 'REGRET' as the most common offshoot when LOST OPPORTUNITIES rise up. And it's suggested that REGRET gets intensified by perceptions.  And those feelings of regret are more likely elicited by perceptions of LOST OPPORTUNITIES.  We tend to regret outcomes that could have been changed in the past but can no longer be changed and for which people tend to experience low psychological closure.  

Now, how do we avert missing the sunshine, missing opportunities?  #1 STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPs.  It's all about engagements and follow-up.  #2  SEEK FEEDBACK and ASK QUESTIONS.  Simply put, you DON'T know what you DON'T know. #3 BE DECISIVE.  Vascillating won't help when in fact you can enjoy the sunshine while it shines✅✅✅

Know WHERE to ANCHOR !

Know WHERE to ANCHOR !

Oh, we all know our life is akin to traversing the high seas and me thinks we all know how damn important an anchor is, especially in life.  But do we Know WHERE to ANCHOR !  I believe that's the most important question because many of us are all on the same page, being aware that we're all travelling the SEAS of LIFE but I am doubtful that we are all aware up front as to where will we drop our ANCHOR of LIFE.  And that will be the scariest harsh reality to be uncorked.

So why do we really need to Know WHERE to ANCHOR?  Plain and simple.  As we embark in our lifetime journey, we need to know NOT just our final destination but even our very 'pit stops'.  Remember, you may be running a marathon or triathlon but bottom line is, you need to establish your intermediate stops along the way where you need to refuel, so to speak.

If this may become a 'hard sell', I'm more than willing to give my spiel, my pitch.  Similar to the F1 races, pit stops are part of the equation.  It's an outlier to state that life journeys DON'T NEED lay-overs or pit stops [and if there are non stop flights, those are outliers just like that flight from New York's JFK Airport to Changi, Singapore.  Other than that, it is a given that generally in life, way before we can reach our final destination, we need to anchor our boat/ship along the way because lay-overs are a reality in life.

In case I don't get yet your BUY-IN for our need to anchor from time to time in life, here's a challenge question.  If you are out there in the high seas, when a brewing storm threatens you, shouldn't you have pre-identified where to anchor?  Fact is, you just DON'T sail out to the seas without having a contingency plan.  And your port to call should be within feasible distance.

What happens when life gets messy?  When you get hit with a storm in the middle of the high seas?  By definition, ANCHOR is defined as a person or feeling one uses to keep his or herself GROUNDED or in a CALM STATE when things hit a rough patch.  As the old cliche goes, life is NEVER a WALK in the PARK.  Life needs YOU to always plan your life based on tons of WHAT IF scenarios because any of those scenarios may happen, albeit remotely.  And if it does, do you know WHERE TO ANCHOR❓❓❓