RSS

Tag Archives: struggle

Looking Ahead

While Staying Present!

It’s necessary to find a happy medium between these two states in order to find success within both.

Looking Ahead – Of course everyone looks ahead to the future, that’s where we place all the beautiful and dreamy things we want to accomplish. Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? Obviously, which is why we set goals within timeframes that are attainable but keep in mind that those timeframes can be flexible, just because you haven’t reached a goal at a point when you expected doesn’t mean you give up or abandon the dream, it just means the timeframe gets extended. I’ve always set my goals a little higher because I have big dreams and high expectations and at times I’ve been told I’m a dreamer but so far the dreams I really wanted to work out have manifested, maybe not always for when I planned them but usually when I’ve used every last bit of effort I have and left nothing on the table. Success from really hard work has both internal and external rewards but honestly I think internally, pride of accomplishment when in pursuit of your dreams is more rewarding than the actual success.

–        If everything in life is easily accomplished then where’s the challenge?

–        How do you know how far you can push yourself if you never extend past that comfort zone?

–        How do you know what you’re capable of or how far you can go if you’ve never stood near the edge?

Staying Present – I think this is where balance is most needed, at least for me because it’s easy to look ahead and dream but it’s difficult to know what you see in the picture ahead and not yet be there, especially if patience isn’t your strongest suit. I’ve struggled with this because I have a lot of energy for moving forward and getting things done and most of the time I get impatient with the stride, especially if it gets slowed down for any reason. Even though I know that all things happen for a reason, it’s a difficult thing for me to accept when I want to be on the fast track, when I can see what lies ahead but I can’t quite get there yet. Similar to a long distance runner, they pace themselves, they find a comfortable stride and stay in that zone to maintain it. This is a great asset although I haven’t fully developed it yet, I’ve been forced into it at times and even though I think it’s necessary to help increase aspects of my character through obstacles that help build and challenge me sometimes I overthink it and it becomes overwhelming.

Just recently I had to slow my stride and I think it’s because I wasn’t balanced between these two states, I was overanxious to move ahead and tried to push past the Universe’s timeline for all things progressing, not just my own.

Not everything in life progresses as we initially envision it, as events unfold, the picture transpires, adapts or changes. Sometimes the end result we initially saw or wanted changes into something we desire more or didn’t realize at the time because emotionally we weren’t there yet.

As I challenge myself personally so do those in my life and the Universe challenges us all through experiences that we sometimes face together. Through those experiences bonds are formed and/or strengthened by an immeasurable faith in humanity and each other.

thank-you for being there

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 9, 2014 in Blog

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Protect Me Not!

I Need To Learn

Through most struggles positive change can occur but it may not if through the caring protection of another that you don’t go through the experience fully as needed.  It’s through struggle and success that we develop the tools to help us effectively deal with adversity or change and those tools help us to define who we are, what we are capable of and who we are to become.

Struggling to survive or to succeed, which are basically one in the same, are both characteristics we develop as a result of hardship and/or difficulty.  They build us into stronger people and usually help us to develop a stronger sense of respect, compassion, empathy, discretion, humility and integrity towards ourselves and others.  If you prevent someone from experiencing something, whether you are doing it out of love or not, while it is noble it may be of more harm than good because you may also be preventing them from experiencing the positive aspects that are also associated with those experiences.

For example, if you protect someone from the learning the consequences of how far they’ve pushed the boundaries you are preventing them from learning healthy limits.  Boundaries are the limits that are necessary to living a positive and productive life if one doesn’t learn that through trial and error than life ahead will likely feel like constant travel on a gravel road.

There are some experiences I’ve had that were far less than ideal and honestly I would have loved to have done without them but………if I had, I wouldn’t have learned how to make things right, how to adjust my position to accommodate and diffuse difficult change.

All lessons and experiences propel us into directions we may not have gone otherwise, if you protect someone from a learning experience you may also be preventing them from a growth experience and that will likely stunt their future potential.  Alternatively one could end up with an overdeveloped ego because they feel invincible and above consequence which would be a rather large awakening at the moment you aren’t around to deflect difficulty for them.

Another aspect to consider from not learning the healthy limits is that it may have an opposite effect and damage a one’s desire to succeed because adversity so far has been quite minimal.  It is through hardship and difficult times that the opportunity lies to further strengthen the desire to succeed.  If one doesn’t experience hardship or difficulty than their will to succeed suffers as a result, they become complacent and uninterested in doing more than what is required to get by.

You may as well be saying to them “I don’t think you can do this on your own, so I’m going to help” and in effect you’re creating a monster while lowering their self-confidence, self-worth and self-motivation all at the same time.  Chances are, after a while your own self-worth will start to diminish because the more complacent they become, the more you end up picking up the slack and feeling responsible for it.  Maybe your efforts have kept or are keeping that person from becoming the trail blazer they were meant to be, you will never know.

struggle quote

So imagine how different our world would be had we not had certain trail blazers like George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and even Noah ( he did build the Ark ).

Similar to the overbearing mother or father, you can’t prevent adversity in another person’s life because it is there to enhance them in some way and in your honest and caring efforts you are butting heads with the Universe.  I think a lot of people believe their personal karma affect is a certain way because of what they’ve done wrong but karma has more to do with the intention.  When you do something for another with positive intention it doesn’t create bad karma, I believe the adverse effect you may be suffering is the result of battling against personal destiny.  What you are experiencing is Resistance because you are going against the natural flow of the Universe.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on February 19, 2014 in Blog

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,