Tag: personal development

Reading for Growth

I don’t think the modernity of a book is a good judge of its value and wisdom. Wisdom is timeless, and fashionable trends fade with the fickle tastes of the times.

Below is a small list of the most inspiring and life changing books and essays I’ve had the fortune of reading:

1) As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen
2) Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
3) How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
4) Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill
5) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey
6) Five Major Puzzle Pieces of the Life Puzzle, by Jim Rohn
7) Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

The ones above have had the greatest impact on my life. I can remember reading each of these books and the various moments when they provided me with life changing epiphanies. They’re all relatively short, but contain profound, timeless wisdom. They are cited as some of the most widely influential books and read by some of the greatest leaders in recent history.

The following books refined my perspective on life and myself, but require a good deal of intellectual energy to read and digest:

The Will to Believe, by William James
The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker
The Genealogy of Morals, by Nietzsche
The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen

And aphorisms, reflections, and thoughts by a few of the greatest minds:

Ideas and Opinions, by Albert Einstein
Pensees, by Pascal
Maxims and Reflection, by J.W. Goethe

And lastly: why do you want to read? What do you think it’s gonna do for you?

The reason I ask is that if you don’t know “why” you’re reading or learning something, it won’t change you. It will simply leave superficial impressions on your memory, and not lasting changes on your character. And the “why” must be powerful enough to drive you towards growth, it needs to contain enough emotion and enough reason so that what you read sticks in your mind and literally attaches itself to your character and aids in the construction of your worldview. That way it’ll never leave you and you’ll be more of a person.

It doesn’t matter what we know. It matters who we are, because ultimately who we are dictates what we do with what we know, and that makes all the difference.

So I ask, if you’re trying to develop yourself into someone better, into your full potential, allow yourself to change. Suspend judgement. Admit that you don’t know anything. Allow yourself to be wrong. Only then will you able to gain wisdom and grow and achieve destined greatness.

If you happen to take me up on my suggestions and read these books, read them with an open mind. Spend time with them. Meditate and reflect on the implication of their message on your life. Be curious and passionate, and they will teach you.

 

Excellent Living

The topic of discussion last night was whether or not you have volitional control to permanently change your mind. More exactly, can you simply choose to be happy?

The debate raced through a whole load of topics of all sorts of different natures. I don’t like to dichotomize people or ideas, but the debate shifted between two opposing perspectives that can be boiled down to optimists and cynics; or, in other words, idealists and skeptics. One position was that you could see the world however you’d like, choosing and creating the perspectives that best suit your aims or desires. The other was the cynic who held a fairly deterministic, mechanical worldview where being realistic about what is is tantamount to choosing a wholly favorable perspective.

The optimists position was a world view governed by faith and creativity and independent of the influence of unfavorable or negative externalities.  The corollary of this view is an under-appreciation of all the details comprising life, a failure to account for relevant information, which causes a certain naivety and willful ignorance. In this view the hero is the ego. The ego shapes the world we see. They believe that it influences the perceptions and therefore by changing what the ego wants, one can change perception and therefore knowledge. This renders knowledge as relative to each subject. What is unfavorable is simply the result of a flawed perception rather than anything inherently unfavorable existing in a thing or circumstance or effect. There is no essence. Bad and good change according to what ends you hold highest. The optimist personality is creative.

The cynic position views the world as an absurd place with no inherent meaning and obvious goodness. In this world every perspective counts, however favorable and unfavorable, and a person’s duty is to account for all those details if he wants to remain objective. The corollary of this view is an over emphasis on externalities, and an under emphasis on the individual’s perception and attitude to shape and determine certain externalities. The result is a certain nihilism and helplessness. In this view there is no hero. The ego counts for next to nothing. What is important are the facts which the external world often hands us through direct experimentation or by receiving knowledge through other people via dialogue where we inherit knowledge as it is passed on from one person to the next. On a certain level, the cynic assumes objective perception is attainable. This causes him to hold fast to knowledge as atomistic and almost irreducible. Relativity is simply ignorance. The cynic personality is analytic.

For sport I adopted the optimistic position, arguing that our world is dictated by our perceptions, and that if we change out perceptions, the world as we see it literally changes. Of course, I do not believe simply believing we will fly changes the limiting facts of physics, but it allows us to take certain measures and partake in certain activities where flying becomes a possibility, such as devising flight technology. What changed was how we thought about our limitations, not the limitations themselves.

What is essential to understand is that we are not simply reflective creatures. We are reflexive creatures. As both an observer and a participant, how we choose to participate changes what we will observe.

The conversation essentially revolved around how one can change their perceptions. We talked about the role of thought, habits, and actions, and, given the plasticity of the brain, the role in changing mental states, mind and perceptions. A person cannot literally change his entire brain after years of habituated thoughts and actions. Especially after establishing a life, or world around you, that attributes and reacts to you according to those thoughts, seeing you as unchangeable rather than evolving. No, the mind changes all the time, in the present. Changing a single thought will not change the mind. Think “How you spend your time defines who you are.” It literally dictates who you are, what you are. If you spend all day doing math, you will cultivate a brain that is oriented for math, you will think math, act on behalf of these math thoughts, and people will (although not always) contextualize you according to your propensity for math.

Thinking thoughts over and over again changes the mind. It reinforces neural pathways, reorients entire neural networks. Once a thought settles in the mind it has permanence, but its influence does not. To increase the influence of thoughts requires their repetition. We are creatures of habit. In this way a conscious thought becomes ingrained in the mind, internalized into the subconscious, so that it becomes apart of our character and influences us even when it is not consciously acknowledged.

But can you simply will yourself to be happy? Not in a single moment, just like you can’t will yourself to lift 400lbs on a whim. It requires that you act and live the thought or activity you desire to emulate on a frequent basis. You must anchor it through repetition, through practice.  But practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. You must practice excellence, repeat excellence, every time. There is no good days and bad days. Every day you must desire and hit the mark dead on. The best only have the habit of doing the best day in and day out.

You are a product of your environment, no doubt. You have years of habits that are most likely less than excellent. Overcoming them requires overwriting them. It requires forgetting everything you knew about the past and adopting and doing what you best desire right now. You cannot stand within and move without. You must step out of the past and any conceptions and experiences that do not support your current aim. You must redefine yourself every moment with perfect thought and action, consistently, day in and day out, until you become your aim.

To do this you must be your aim and goal from the start, and nothing less than your aim and goal. You will not become the best by trying or doing. Only by being. In this way you do not do in order to have in order to be. No. You must be in order to do in order to have.

 

More later.

Zeit

How you spend your time defines who you are.

Who are you?

When I want to judge someone’s character, I don’t let appearances do the work. Experience renders character. Where do they garner their experience? Examine how they spend their time. A man is what he thinks about all day long. Whatever task is at hand will dominate your thoughts. Your mind manifests its intention through action, through activity. Do you sit for hours online and mull about the mindless material circulating ad infinitum on the web? Do you seek out the novel? Do you spend time with quality people? Do you read quality books? Or read at all for that matter?

Many people like to think they are someone. Everyone likes to think they’ve achieved a degree of individuality. I will tell you: how you spend your time defines who you are. Ask yourself if your routine is any different from the millions of other rats trapped in this menacing maze. The habituations trap the mind into apathetic unoriginality.

I suffer these delusions. I ask myself how I individuate my experience from all other experience. If I watch all the same shit, if I desire and strive and celebrate all the typical glories that hail from mainstream adulation, I am a copy. I am a duplicate. My experience may as well be the same. How you spend your time defines who you are.

Experience renders the material of thought. It provides sense datum which feeds the flickering flame of the soul. Like the flick of a match we were born into this world and throughout our lives we burn. The brighter we burn is dependent on the kindling and fodder fed by way of experience. Experience is the filament of human existence. It allows us to burn brightly. The more original experience, the more brilliant our flame, our life, will shine.

Individuate yourself. Individuate your experience. Do we realize how asinine and inimical it is to scour the ranks of top sellers and most popular lists? Why do we fawn more of the same?

There must be something to wanting a shared experience. “Happiness is only real when it’s shared.” Perhaps that’s why people rush to accumulate all the same experiences as everyone else. While there’s nothing original in going to all the same amusement parks, in reading all the NYT best sellers, in watching all the hit reality TV shows, in buying all the latest gadgets and gigs, I see the utility in it. Yes, the utility is glaring. It creates a unity of experience. Some experience so we can feel apart of this greater whole, this greater truth. Or it fills some hole, some void thrust upon us when we were bestowed with the burden of freedom. Perhaps they are one in the same. The responsibility of freedom- those god awful chains of choice- weigh equally on every man. I understand the exhaustion. I understand the willingness to shed a link or two and indulge in ‘truth’, or popular convention.

I seem to be stuck with these bitter sentiments. What did routine do to me? Ah. I remember: lull me into lecherous lethargy.

I want to get positive. Live life with enthusiasm and passion and excitement and energy. I say that most of my time I exert the full force of my being to the moment. I long to shine through. Sometimes I question. These questions rear their head like a hydra and I find myself lost in a continual battle . Pollyanna, or skepticism. Such is life.

Successful and Lazy People: The Learning Process

Learning is an incremental process. Most people trying learning things all at once, or expect to get it all at once. The only way this ever happens is if previous understandings of similar concepts are in tact and referenced to the new information to construct a similar schema. Even this isn’t true understanding. To really learn or understand something, the idea and concept behind it, repetition needs to occur. Seeing something once only provides sense of information that stores in the rote memory. It has no meaning and therefore the information cannot be fully elaborated on and expounded upon.

True, learning is exponential, but anything new needs to be continually analyzed and thought to explore the dynamics. This sheds insight on the relational behavior of the information. Life is about relationships. Identifying what works with with and when and how and why. When you understand this and the unique functionality of information you can explore any new reality with a new set of eyes. Information takes on multiple dimensions and new possibilities and understandings erupt into a display of viable processes.

I say this because anytime I see new information I know in my head that i need to continually hammer at it and entertain creative possibilities, maybe induce some analytical trial and error experimentation within my mind in order to test my conjectures. I know, however, that its through this repetitive dwelling on the content that I gain this better understanding. Learning isn’t meaningful if it just happens. Ofcourse you can draw similar conclusions to information is tons of relatable information and schemas are available to contrast and compare to (I call this being able to bullshit really well) and I can do that, but I am no better off than I was before I knew the information to see its unique place. The behavior of information may not be that distant from any other piece of information, but it’s place and why it’s there is vitally important. It’s what gives it meaning.

People need to take a more proactive approach to learning. To see it as a process, a active process, instead of a job of memorizing someone elses ideas. Someone to thought into creating the concept based on very real premises- and anyone who encounters the information: it should be thier job to question and challenge the validity compared to your own very real experiences, as well as being open to thiers. Never question if what you know is right- BUT- make sure you metaphysical and semantic understandings are based on a philosophy seeking truth.

Incremental. Learning occurs in stages. Its not a overnight thing. It doesn’t happen in one sitting. You need to be observant and you need to think conceptually. You need to be actively involved and you need to .create ideas with each experience. When this happens you can learn from every moment of your life, every situation, every action, and every thought you decide to conjure. When you don’t do this…. you are falling farther and farther behind with every chance to grow as a person.

Don’t ever approach something with the attitude ‘ I can’t’ or ‘It’s hard’ or ‘It’s taking too much time’ or any other pathetic excuse to get you out of thinking and actively experiencing life’s challenges. Every challenge is unique opportunity for growth. If we never took them on we’d never grow. Imagine if life was easy. If we didn’t have to need to know how to much of anything.  We’d never need to grow. Imagine never having to learn anything. We’d honestly have no need to add knowledge to our data bank. Unfortunate the knowledge we have, and the reservoir of experiences and intuitive understanding we’ve gained to this point, is a result of the challenges we’ve faced and overcame in order to cope and survive. The more successful you are as a person, the better job you’ve done being able to decipher what work’s from what doesn’t.

Jump into every situation you can to grow. STRIVE to accept challenges. NEVER approach situations or experiences with the idea that it is a waste of time or it will be useless. Everything you know will help you in some way and make you better than the next.

Assimilated Summary of Locus of Control, Attribution Theory and Explanatory Style

Michael S. XXX
9-13-07
LOC Reflection

The locus of control is locality on a bilateral continuum that dictates the level of awareness one has regarding his/ her control over occurring circumstances. The two poles in reference are established as having an internal or external location of control to ones circumstances. In laymen’s terms, a scale to measure the responsibility one takes on in deciding how his behavior could directly affect the outcome of a situation(s). The locus of control offers a more measurable and spatially comprehensible method of looking into the behaviors that dictate the outcomes of specific situations for people on a habitual basis. When looking at the two extremes of locus, the external end of the spectrum is closely comparable to having a philosophy of determinism (or causality), where very little of your efforts can actually change the past or present circumstance. The external locus connotes a very irrational and powerless approach of explaining behaviors towards life and associates with persons of a very limited idea of personal responsibility. External locus is when direct casualty is placed on an outside event and outside of personal control. On the other extreme is internal locus. This refers to one who approaches circumstances with an acknowledged responsibility for shaping their future through constant thought to appropriate reactions and rational decisions that would lead to fulfilling one’s obligation to expectations. The extreme internal locus of control is most closely relatable to the philosophy of humanism, where faith in anything but self is denounced and determining one’s destiny is realized by embracing any and all responsibility they have for their actions to determine their future. The causality is placed on factors within the person as an explanation for what happens to them. The issue of motivation begins as one sees the significance in applying consistent effort to an expectation and succeeds. Only after realizing the power of responsibility one has over their life can one begin to orient towards an internal locus of control. This coincides directly with the explanatory style of learning where one sets expectations and fulfills them through discipline and acting upon the belief of competency. When one realizes that by simply assuming all responsibility for achieving, and recognizes the circle of influence he has over controllable factors, can he can effectively and efficiently tackle relative tasks that would allow of maximum growth towards expectations. Yet, these expectations can be positive or negative. The optimistic or pessimistic explanatory style is the determining factor that dictates success after an internal locus of control is realized and achieved.
There are many factors used to gauge an idea of effort involved in an undertaking. How we perceive these factors plays a huge role on the language we use to communicate and understand undertakings and expectations. Our communication and comprehension cognitive processes are developed and influenced continually throughout our lives by parental conditioning, habitual behavior reinforced by expectancy, sociological, cultural, or ethnic influences. What it comes down to is how you perceive situations. There is nothing that is too hard. There are factors that are out of your control, but it is up to you to recognize these factors so that you can allocate proper time and energy where needed to succeed. You have been half product of circumstance, half product of will until you reach an age of responsibility for the things you have control of. The more maturity, the more one recognizes ones ability to respond accordingly to their circumstances and succeed with their expectations.
In relation to task difficulty, what is simply being communicated is that certain time and energy will need to be allocated to accomplish the task. This is only to communicate so we can have a better understanding of the preparation we should take to approach the task. Many times we think task difficulty is something that one can actually fail to accomplish and never ever accomplish. (THAT IS CRAZY.) Excuse me. That kind of mentality is that of a pessimistic explanatory style. What we need to realize is that nothing is ever too difficult. This is done by adopting an optimistic explanatory style. We need to train ourselves to focus and persevere through discipline and consistent applied willpower to accomplish the task. As we approach the challenge we might not have the tools it takes to overcome the task. What this directly indicates is that we need to acquire the tools and knowledge to overcome it. It is a given opportunity to grow and to develop one’s abilities. No one has set abilities. We continually add by the constant application of principles and values that brought us previous success. Effort is relative as well. Effort is the time and energy needed to complete the task. If you don’t have the tools and don’t know how to use them then the task will seem difficult and the effort applied will be much. The way to work more efficiently and effectively is by getting into the habit of succeeding. When you succeed you reinforce what is necessary to acquire and articulate knowledge to achieve. There is life, but there is no luck. A roman philosopher quoted it best when he said “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” I believe that, and anyone with a positive internal locus of control would agree that you are fully responsible to prepare yourself for life and its opportunities and challenges- both of which can provide you with positive growth when proper preparation is obtained. When responsibility is realized, and you owe it to no one but yourself to succeed, than task difficulty, luck, ability, and effort are all pretty consistently stable and controllable.
The correlation existing between locus of control and explanatory style is that of the realized potential of the individual and the expectations they hold for themselves as they approach a task. AD/HD tendencies seem to associate a pessimistic explanatory style and internal locus of control for any failure in a particular task yet hold a very optimistic explanatory style and internal locus of control when successful in a task. LD/ADHD students used in research by Schulsky & Gobbo showed that using the attribution theory towards internal locus of self efficacy were able to elevate self-esteem, perceived control, perceived success, and academic emotions. The attribution retraining reinforces an increase in self-image leading to realized internal control and responsibility that allows for elevated measurable progress. When individuals act out these expectations and project the image of achieved success their performance matches up. These ADHD students tend to associate failures with lack of ability, an internal, stable, uncontrollable, global cause whereas students of a ‘control group’ associate failures with an internal, unstable, controllable, specific causality. The importance of an optimistic explanatory style is to boost self efficacy in order to achieve a view that failures are unstable, controllable, and specifically caused instead of something inherently flawed within them and beyond their control. ADHD students that hold this internal locus of control and use a pessimistic explanatory style tend to produce results of lacking self efficacy, leading to anxiousness and depression due to the thought that something is inherently wrong with them.
This summary shows that an internal locus of control is not necessarily a positive thing. Thinking that one is flawed is a devastating concept to live with and approach life with. The formal education system and diagnosis’s can actually be devastating disadvantages to students who have unique personalities and learn differently. They know they are capable beings, yet they begin to come to believe that they have something wrong with them and this negative internal attribution style affects the growth and competency within classrooms and undertakings in life.
I originally found this research abstract and it came off as psycho babble to illustrate very fundamental points about human achievement. I find after thorough reading and intense yearning for comprehension and understanding that it is enlightening and supportive to ideas that were currently held about my own abilities. It re-illustrated and colored new precepts I’ve acquired the past year about success and my abilities as I committed my time and energy to finding the secrets to success and achievement. Growing up I knew I was smarter than many of my peers. This was an internal attribution style I held for my abilities as a person separate from any other opinion. In the classroom my personality (medically called ADHD) conflicted with the rigid standards of the formal education system. This resulted in a gradual negative/pessimistic explanatory/attribution style that maimed my progress as a student in the classroom. (This next part blew my mind so bear with any tangents) Throughout my childhood I unknowingly relied on medication as a means to achieve. When I was on meds I did well, when I wasn’t it was obvious and my negative behavior was attributed to this. This research accurately identifies my previous perceptions of medication as an external stable specific uncontrollable cause. I was medicated from the first grade until seventh when it was decided that medication was more of a crutch than healthy assistance. When I was removed my ability to perform and produce positive desirable behaviors in the classroom was poor. In seventh grade my grades dropped and anxiety and depression set in. Severe external emotional factors such as parents with high positive expectations and hard disciplinary styles conflicted with my negative explanatory style that, try as I might, my efforts were not able to produce. This was compounded with the suicidal death of a best friend. Having a high internal locus of control I interpreted these factors in a negative attribution style which lead to depression, anxiety and a host of other usual behavioral inconsistencies. I was medicated for a variety of psychological diagnosis, but at the heart, using my hind-sight bias, I was only acting out my reinforced expectancies. I struggled with self efficacy and although I had high expectations for myself, the formal classroom stifled my ability to succeed and caused failures to be accepted as inevitable. Fortunately, I overcame any negative feelings of depression at the start of my senior year as I assumed an internal positive responsibility for the right to be happy and not live a depressing negative emotionally defeating life. I realized my circle of influence and placed external casualty on circumstances when needed.
In summary, this trend continued throughout high school until senior year when I ultimately confronted the way I really felt about my incompatibility with the education system and my belief that I was no good for it. I simply ceased all effort in the classrooms, leading to failure to graduate. I was alright with this. I let myself do it. I refused to struggle with things that were, at the time in my perceptions, out of my control. It was two years later, after failing high school, getting kicked out of my home, and after getting a taste of the real world and the basic responsibilities for survival did I change my internal explanatory style to a positive approach and took responsibility for my life fearlessly. This was a decision motivated by sheer will and the desire to directly change the expectations I had for myself. I saw how I was living, and I saw how I wanted to live. I refused to make excuses or call myself flawed. I was willing and capable and I saw that there were people far worse than me that tackled life and its challenges with huge success through persistence and determination. I made the decision to study every successful man, and read every book I could get my hands on written by the people who’ve experienced success in their endeavors first hand. I decided to learn from the best. I read libraries of books on personal development and auto-biographies of the greatest successes. Every book I read was backed by the intent to further my understanding of what it takes for achievement. Each book was reinforcement for desire of positive success and the belief that I can have whatever I want if I’m willing to get expend the proper time and energy. Two quotes resonate as inspirational fuel that reminds me of the obligation I have to myself and my ability for success: “”What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”-Emerson” and ““Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. -Calvin Coolidge””. Together they reminded me that I have a plan and I can be as unconventional as I want. No one can stop me and my desire for success. As long as that desire is there nothing can hinder my progress. “People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.”-Lewis Cass. I decided to back up all desire with immediate action.
In conclusion, correlating and translating my personal philosophy in terms of the essay at hand, I will say that I have a relatively new sense of positive internal control over my direct responsibilities towards achievement and that my explanatory style has assumed an ever increasing optimistic perception towards my set expectations and goals for success. I still struggle with old habits of thinking that sometimes barrage my confidence. Although I have a relatively high internal locus of control, 80 according to the survey, I struggle with being positive. Positivity is the ONLY way to make progress. NEVER does progress come from negative thinking, and if it does, it is never realized. An internal locus of control is good when it is reinforced with a positive mentality or explanatory style but can be detrimental when reinforced with a negative mentality. Having an external locus of control puts you in no position for progress because responsibility is not realized. I’ve learned to cope best by disregarding those negative mentalities by submerging myself in inspiring text by those who have lived success and encouraged achievement on every possible level in their lives. As long as I have a worthy ideal and I know exactly where I want to be and exactly what that looks like, I can reinforce that valuable ideal with action that directly reinforces my direction and confidence.

Research References and Articles used in this essay include:
“Explanatory Style and College Students with ADHD” by Solvegi Shmulsky & Ken Gobbo (2007)

“Are You the Master of Your Fate” by Rotter, J.B.(1966) Generalized expectancies for internal vs. external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80, 1-28

and Rebecca Matte’s Powerpoint presentation “Locus of Control, Attribution Theory and Explanatory Style” (2007)

Life is a river… moving whether you are or not.

Life. Is in your face every minute. You have to be on your toes. Constantly evaluating progress and potential actions that would either lead you away or closer to your goals. Constant self awareness. You need direction always. You need to project a positive constructive self-image that emanates everything you want to strive for. Be conscious all the time. Be responsible. You are not a collection of those around you. You are not a reflection of your circumstances. You are infinitely powerful. It is up to you to realize that potential in a life time. Endurance. Its a race. Life is a challenge. It requires disciplined effort. You have to constantly apply your best efforts, starting with your best thoughts, every moment you’re given the choice. Time is limited. Life will pass you by. You must move forward. If you wait for life to come to you… it won’t. It keeps on moving.

Life is like a river… you are floating downstream… you’re desires lie upstream. You have the choice… swim…to pursue those desires… believe that you are capable of that kind of endurance not matter how fast the river is moving and churning and your muscles are burning.. OR… you can float on your back… take the easy route… yea… maybe your happy… in those brief moments when you don’t think about everything your missing out on… your deepest desires remaining unfulfilled…you lower your expectations and except the minimum that life has to offer… you ever tell yourself that there are opportunities and they will come to me… until you wake up and you realize how unhappy you are… and you blame the river… and the rocks and the turbulence… yea thats easy. avoid responsibility. but there are those who recognize their potential.. and thier desires are real enough and their passion is strong enough that they swim thier hardest day in and day out until they reach every one of their desires that lay ahead. until they are now longer swimming against a river but they have come to a place of serenity where they can enjoy the fruits of thier efforts and they look back see how hard and painful they worked and the contrast makes the sweet taste of success and its rewards all that better.

dreamm

if this is your life. why wouldnt you want to make it the happiest most creative positive joyful uplifting inspirational gleeful existance ever? why not try to do the best you can in every thing you take on. why wouldnt you think only the very best thoughts. thoughts that capture life and invigorate from the inside out; radiating through your eyes and illuminating the world around you, even enhancing the world for the people around you? i dont understand? why wouldnt you try to conjure the very best of those thoughts and actions? do you not know what that looks like and feels like? than why dont you search for it and try to find it? if it was under your nose, and it really is, you wouldn’t know unless you looked. why wouldnt you wake up every day excited to upturn another of lifes wonders? gosh. life is never always good. those hormones are never really reliable. but you can control one thing. and thats your thoughts. and you know what can change a mood pretty quickly? a single thought. i single word can change a mood for the better. so why why why dont you search for that word every day. that fleeting satisfying goodness that could sooth any ache the day could possibly lay in front of you. attitude. its all about that. our self talk. we need to improve it. have uplifting self talk.

im not an idiot. im not naive. im not ignorant of the troubles around us. or circumstances. I like to make my circumstances work for me. I like to be incontrol of my life. I cant control what happens to me, but i can control how i react and handle it. I am responsible for my life. I do not like the thought of circumstances and happenings controlling my mood and thoughts. i like to capture every thought and have it work for me in any circumstance.

i like to be an idealist. realists are just like everything else innate on this earth. idealist see what can be. realists see what is. what kind of world would we live in if no one ever dreamed. realists dont dream big. they dream small. i like to keep things in perspective, but you know what, the craziest people out there contributed the most creative material and ideas this world had seen. what if edison was a realist? or da vinci? or graham bell? or tesla? or marconi? or ford? or daimler? alexander the great? or i mean. even Jesus. idealist think of possibility. its easier to work with what we know, but unless we think of what could be how would we approach learning?

where is the hope?our minds can take us anywhere. create whatever reality we could possibly concieve for ourselves? DREAM.