A piece of white paper.
Sketch an idea or a plan. Draw lines and color the blocks. Take notes. Write a love letter. Turn it over. Do it all over again.
Fold it once. Then some more. Make a boat. Or an airplane to take flight. Cut it. Crumple it into a ball. Throw it at someone before running away with mischief. Ha!
What do you see? A blank canvas? A construction material to realize our wildest imaginations?
Life is like a piece of paper. What we choose to do with it is entirely up to us.
She has two children of her own. She adopts her ex-husband’s two nieces and nephew. She becomes a mom of five children. Then she gets cancer.
After surgery, she sets up a restaurant to feed her children, aged 3 to 18 years old.
She chooses to forgot chemotherapy to keep her breadline going.
Perspective… imagine this lady’s life and compare our struggles against her’s.
Walking to my car, I smell flowers in bloom.
On my drive home, the sun sets to my right, as another day bids me a soft pinkish adieu.
Ability to smell and see. Two senses we take for granted. Just imagine how life would be, if our eyes and nose didn’t work!
For the next while, I will do my best to be thankful for all that I have. And sever ties with the unhappy business of complaining for all that I lack.
Daily reminders. A friend was advised to do this and I’d like to replicate.
3 things I am grateful for.
3 things I have learned.
1 goal for the day.
I am grateful for my health, amazing friends and special person.
I have learned:
1. It doesn’t matter how well you play for the first 90% of the game. It’s not over until it’s over. Play the entire game. Don’t slack off. Tidy up.
2. We should never measure today’s encounters based on yesterday’s experiences.
3. Reminders help us do the right thing. Even simple things like washing and exfoliating our faces.
Today, I will do my best to finish off what I started.
Preview and review. Repeat.
Teachers would recite 예습 복습 before every lesson.
Simple yet critical way to learn and retain.
Maybe this is another way to break down with the latest fad: live with intention.
The late Stephen Covey, through his book “8th habit”, mentions the importance of creating space between the two forces:
External forces cannot be controlled or forecast. But we can control how long and big the space needs to be. The space determines the effectiveness and appropriateness of our responses.
It’s not practical to have space for every external force. Intentional space between inhaling and exhaling is called a defibrillator. It would be silly to have space between every step we take. Some things must be hard wired.
On the other hand, it would be terrible to hard wire responses to various emotional stimuli.
Unfortunately, we tend to relate one stimuli to the next, when the person and situation are completely different.
How do we know when to apply the space vs. providing automatic response?
Once we decide, how do we create the right amount of space between the stimuli and the effect?
They say there is only one person that can love you.
Soul mate. The one. The chosen.
You look all over the world for this special person.
No matter how hard you try, you keep spinning in circles.
You may have been searching in all the wrong places.
You will find the person when you stop looking.
You will find this person when you close your eyes.
You will see that only you can love yourself. You can’t outsource the most important job to others.
Not even to close friends, family and lovers. They don’t work for you. They are there for you to express your love and appreciation.
The opposite of happiness is not caused by misfortune.
Instead of growing grateful for all that we have, we worry about the things we don’t have.
We sow our own discontentment.
We are the gardener of our own happiness.
Appreciate all that you have.
Change your attitude. Change your life.
Turn that frown upside down.
Pressed for time, the tarp atop a heap of dirt is not secured. It hangs loose. As the driver picks up her speed, a batch of dirt escapes the truck. She barely notices.
A man in his passenger car is driving to work. One of his wheels picks up a pebble. Less than a second later, the pebble flies 120 kmh before hitting the windshield of the car behind him. A small stone cracks the glass. The impacted driver swears under her breath. The man has no idea. He drives on.
Some distance away, a girl is walking down a familiar road. She must be off to school. A gas cylinder appears out of nowhere and knocks her flat onto the road. The bones on her legs crunch on impact. She cries out.
Wait for something to happen before applying a fix. Sometimes it’s too late. Often, it takes more time and effort to fix a flawed design or poor execution.
Is there another way?
Is it possible to avoid foreseeable mistakes by conducting a pre-mortem?
Play a game. Pretend that a decision was made to implement X. Instead of asking, ‘what could go wrong?’. Imagine we’re already one year post the change. Imagine that tomorrow is today. Ask, ‘what went wrong?’ Look inside the rear-view mirror. What do you see?
Now, bring yourself back to the present. Right here, right now. What do you change? What can you do better now? What must you do more of? What must you stop doing? Most of us don’t take the time to do this because what’s the worst that could happen? I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’ll get to it eventually. But we forget. We run out of time. Other urgent and unimportant things take up our finite time.
What if we used the pre-mortem method to live our best lives? If we were the author of our own obituary, would we lead a life full of meaning and intention? What would it say? Where would it be published? Does it include children? Are you married? How are you survived? How would you be remembered? Did you do everything you set out to do? Did you change the hearts and minds of the people you care about? Did you write that book you’ve been putting off? Did you break stuff? Does anyone care?
How do you feel about reading your obituary? Are you content? Are you disappointed? Are you angry? Are you sad? Any regrets?
Looking forward into our future, as if we’re at the end of our life… would it make it easier for us to prioritize and make difficult decisions? Would the future you appreciate the actions and decisions of the today?