Feelings were like a burden and I had to let them go. It was like a lead weight tied around my neck while I was drowning in an ocean of responsibilities and expectations.
Fine, maybe it has its place in one’s life, maybe, but I don’t think I care very much about that, not the way I’m expected to. And that’s where the problem is at. It’s most likely the root cause of every other thing that’s gone wrong in my life.
I was in the middle of my devotion this morning (one of my morning routines) and as I was meditating, I was thankful for my position in space-time, my lacks, my wants, my families and friends, my life. Then a simple phrase just popped into my mind, right in the middle of my appreciation:
MEMENTO MORI
It was so profound and resonant that I had to pause and listen clearly. It came again: Memento Mori.
You are going to make a lot of mistakes in life if you are intent on growing or not. You are going to fail constantly, you are going to feel pain. That’s one of the costs of living.
However, not everyone sees mistakes and failures the same way. Some will fail and keep failing, moving around in circles and failing at the same thing repeatedly. As it has been rightly said, those who do not learn from the past are bound to repeat it.
You are going to make mistakes, but you are not supposed to keep making the same mistakes. Failures show us the way by showing us which isn’t the way. If you cannot learn from your failures, if you don’t understand why you failed the first time and avoid those pitfalls, you are destined to keep failing at the same thing. And trust me, that’s terrible.
The point of failing is so you can make progress, because then, you know which isn’t the way forward and you take another path. But if you refuse to acknowledge that the path you are on is not leading anywhere, then you keep going in circles and keep coming back to where you started from.
Just 3 more days to go in 2017. And then another journey of 365 days.
This made me think back on the last 361 days of my life– like, really think back. And the conclusion is that 2017 has been an amazing year.
This past year, I’ve done things I’d never tried before–both good and bad. I’ve pushed myself past the limits I’d been too lazy to push past before. I’ve arguably learnt far more in the past 360 days as regards my personal development than I’ve learn in the past 22 years of my life.
Yes. I know how that sounds. But really, 2017 has been a great year. The best part is that it didn’t take me the whole 361 days to learn the most crucial lessons I learnt. In fact, most of the progress I made happened within the last 100 days. Which means the lessons are not necessarily difficult to come by or to learn, but more about availability and willingness to learn.
Below is a summary of the most important lessons I’ve learnt this year that you can also pick one or two from.
Continue reading “18 Life-Changing Lessons I Learnt In 2017”
Sometimes it will look like nothing is working out in your favour. Sometimes it will feel like the universe is conspiring against you and luck has turned its back on you. Sometimes the feeling of helplessness may become so overwhelming that you are forced to consider lowering your standard.
If you’ve ever felt like that, you are not alone. It is a natural feeling in times of distress.
But there is something that serves like a support system in this trying times that everyone needs to have, and it’s none other than the good foundations provided by correct principles.
Principles are the foundation of anyone’s character. The kinds of principles your life is based on determines the kind of person you are. It also determines the kinds of virtue and skills that can be built on it, virtues that are compatible with the principles. Continue reading “The Firm Foundation Your Life Needs”
Sometimes I feel like life is a game put together by supernatural forces and all they do to us is just for their amusement or a mere show of power. But even at that, it still feels like their twisted sense of humour gave us something good to help us cope.
When I observe people, their ways, their likes, their wants and interests, I can’t help but wonder if all is just an intricate web designed to make a person unique. You would never find someone who has something unique to them alone in the whole world, however when you check the combination of the similarities in random orders, it makes a person unique.
But this is what begs the question of ‘nature versus nurture’ in psychology. Are we the product of our biochemical make up or of our environment and things we were exposed to growing up, and every day?
The focus for now however is on the similarities in our uniqueness. What that means in simple term is this:
“There is an old Celtic legend that says, just before each person is born, they are allowed to choose every hardship that they would experience during their lifetime. In this tradition, everyone selects the challenges that they would be able to overcome, the situations and conditions that would push them to learn and grow but that would not defeat them.”
I came across this in a guided meditation on Surrender: Letting Go by Jason Stephenson, and it made me realise that most of us had been going about challenges all wrong.
Most times when the word ‘challenge’ comes up, it almost automatically associates with words like deterrent, hindrances or insurmountable, in our mind. But really, a challenge is a demanding or stimulating situation. A challenge is meant to test us and see if we are fit for promotion. It is meant to ‘stimulate’ us for the sole purpose of growth.
