The support system that never goes away

When people are propped up financially, emotionally, or otherwise by someone else or something else, they become dependant.  When that support goes away, they have problems getting along.

But the support system that never goes away from you is you.  Learn how to process thoughts, be productive and valuable, and take care of yourself emotionally and physically.

Learn to take care of you, so you can help others learn the same.

Be your own hero

When you occur to yourself as a strong, amazing, smart, heroic person, amazing things happen.

Get up, muster up, get out there, and solve your own problem!

Make you proud of you!

If you coddle people, you will raise babies.

Another item in my Creed would be something about failure and struggle making us stronger.  People who have easy lives are easily broken.  While failure, tragedy, “bad luck” and struggle doesn’t feel good when it’s happening, it’s a gift, often with a message to make us better – and we will realize it later if we are wise.

True – it’s best to learn from other people’s mistakes, but sometimes we have to learn the hard way because we didn’t pay attention.

How have your struggles made you stronger and wiser today?

Creeds – Part 3

We’ve been exploring Creeds – or belief statements.  After all your years on this planet, trying things and being among other people, what things do you believe most in?  I think it’s a good exercise to spend time on.  It’s good talk at the dinner table with your family members, kids and friends, too.

About four years ago I got to thinking about this for me.  I asked “What are the moments that you remember most where you had the best time – the high points in life?”  When I answered my own question with “Doing really cool stuff; stepping up and stepping out and doing things that are exciting, fun, and memorable.”  Then I thought and added that I love doing them most with other people to share the experience and memory, I clarified my personal mission statement – “An extraordinary life of shared experiences”.  

A funny thing happened.  Since I clarified it, I started moving in that direction even more.  I decided that it’s what I believed in and what I was here for, so I go for it even more.

Think about it for yourself – what do you believe in?  Why are you here?

Here is a famous Creed that you probably have seen.  Let’s see if you can guess who it is.  You can tell me (and find out) with the orange comment button.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”

I love this.   Who is it?  

Orange button!…

Creeds – part 2

We are exploring Creeds, a personal belief/mission statement.  Here is one from Jack London –

“I would rather be ashes than dust!  I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.  I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.  I shall use my time.”

What kind of ideas would be in your Creed?

I like the ideas in Jack London’s Creed and the ones in Kenneth Clarks from yesterday. 

I have a personal mission statement – “An extraordinary life of shared experiences”.

I don’t have a creed yet, but my Creed would include “I believe that all people have far more potential than they are using and we need others to provide examples, give encouragement and instruction, and help us believe in ourselves to unlock this potential.”

More tomorrow…

What is your Creed?

Most of us don’t have a creed written out, (otherwise known as a “Credo”) which is a summary belief statement.

But if you had a statement of your core beliefs/mission, what would it say?  Trying to write it out can be an interesting exercise.

Here are a few examples.  This first one is from Kenneth Clark, 1903-1983

“I believe that order is better than chaos, creation is better than destruction.  I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.  On the whole, I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.

I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence, we must still try to learn from history.

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos.  And it think we should remember we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature.  All living things are our brothers and sisters.  Above all, I believe in the God given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.”

We’ll look at a few more in the coming days.

Now is the best time!

I listened to an audiobook called “Life 3.0” by Max Tegmark recently.  The book is about life with Artificial Intelligence, and what it will be, or could be like for humans when we aren’t the smartest things around, and when we are the beneficiaries and potential victims of machines.

After listening for hours to various scenarios, I have decided that I like now the best.  While I am an optimist and believe things will always be better (indeed the things that shock the public these days are small by historical standards), I think this is a great time in history to be alive.

I’m staying, and making the most of my chance!

How about you?

Worry and you

What are you worried about today?

I woke up this morning and I was worried about racing trucks coming by me at 85 mph, 8 hours into my next race.  I decided to stop worrying about it because the worry will not help.

But not everything we worry about is life-threatening.  Maybe we are worried about running out of milk, or if it will rain on Tuesday when we were hoping to go to the park with the kids.

Worry is suffering in advance.  It comes from a word meaning “to choke or strangle”.  It is to torment oneself with disturbing thoughts.  Why do that to ourselves?

Stop predicting the future, control the controllables, do what you can do, and keep a positive attitude.

How to control the uncontrollable

You can’t control the uncontrollable; but you can control your response to it.

How are you responding to what you can’t control?

If you didn't know it was bad, how bad is it?

If we were not exposed to all the bad news in the world, would we know about it from our own experience?

Most of what is negative in the world we have never experienced ourselves.

If you didn’t know the world was bad, how bad would it be?

How good is it?  How good can you make it?