Perfect

What if it does not work?

What exactly do you want work? Do you mean that you want it to work at your every first attempt? Do you in other words mean that you want your life to be perfect?

Everybody wants their life to be perfect. But what exactly is perfect? Your definition of perfect can be very different from mine. We are all individuals and we have our own perception of everything in this world. Each incident has two sides of the story, just like each individual having two faces.

You did not read wrongly, each individual has two faces. Perhaps you do not want to admit it but it is a fact. One is the highly motivated positive face, and the other is the downside normal skeptical face. Westerners call it the angel and the devil. Taoist call it yin and yang. Whatever names we choose to call it, each of us do have two faces.

Success only presents itself to those who are in balance.

Being motivated is good. You have the energy to take anything to its highest levels. You have the courage to drive yourself uphill. However, being overly motivated can sometimes pose a threat. Because you are so confident in yourself you can become ignorant to the signs that the universe is trying to communicate to you. You are too busy scrambling your way through the jungle, you ignored all the important pleasures of life. You forgot to just stop once in a while to observe your surroundings. You forgot to stop once in a while to simply breathe and belong. You will reach the top faster than everyone else but there is a sense of emptiness within you that is hard to recover.

You can be wealthy of money but poor in relationship.
You can be healthy of relationship but weak in self-love.
You need to be present. You need to be here now.

Being skeptical is good. You can find the problem before everyone else. But being overly skeptical is a problem altogether. It is because you scrutinize everything that comes your way, you tend to lose opportunities. Way too many chances are just gone because of your doubt. Those questions that you keep asking yourself. What if you fail? What if people laugh at me? What if people hate me? What if it does not work? What if … what if … These endless “what if’s” are not going to get you anywhere. After a decade or two, you should already realize that you need to change but somehow, you are still where you were. By the time you are ready to finally make the first move, it could already be too late for some.

“What if” is the first two words of a question we can ask ourselves differently:
What if I can make the difference?
What if I regret for not taking action?
A question can be good or bad depending on how we choose to phrase it.
A question can make a huge variance to which path we choose to take.
When you ask a question, ask wisely.

What makes a successful person?

Anyone can be a successful person. We only need to learn to balance ourselves in all situations. This is a skill that people learn over time. Even if the person is born with the life of an emperor, he has to decide to take the path moving towards becoming a good emperor. Otherwise, his empire will be very short-lived. Throughout his entire journey to becoming an emperor, he has to face many challenges. While he is an emperor, he has to try to turn enemies into allies. Before he steps down from this throne, he has to train his successor to become the person fit to rule the entire civilization. All the choices he make, he has to balance between good and bad, educated and spontaneous, love and war.

There is not a single decision by anyone in the world that is good for everyone. It is always positive for some and negative for others. It only matters that the decision made is for the good of the majority and less painful for the rest.

Life is not perfect. Accept this for a fact and you will feel better.

 

Nobody’s perfect. We’re all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

Jeannette Walls, American author and journalist, 1960-present

Expensive

Which is more expensive?

Learning is expensive. Going to college or university or even buying a course online is expensive. Perhaps learning can be do-it-yourself (DIY) by surfing the internet. But there is just way too much information available. Which ones are legit? Which ones to learn first before the others? Things can get rather complicated without proper guidelines or coaching. You can be spending loads of precious time figuring out the how, what, when, where, who and still end up learning nothing at all. How much will your time cost?

Then perhaps you will be giving yourself more excuses. Your schedule is jam packed you do not have time to deal with all these hassle. So you just simply sign up with anyone that looks promising. You somehow find out later that the programme does not suit you. You think it is a total waste of your time and money. You get demotivated. You have made a promise to yourself that you will never ever get cheated again. You do not sign up for another course even though it is one that you really need. How much will demotivation cost?

After much hesitation, you finally made up your mind to signing up one of the many courses that came your way. You learn with all your efforts. You spend hours upon hours making notes and then, you ponder upon all the notes that you have, you still do not know where to start. There are channels through which you can ask your mentor but you are too shy of being judged. You keep everything to yourself. You tell yourself that you will figure it out on your own. How much will not knowing cost?

A year, two years, may be even five years have passed. You are still the old you. You are still trying to figure out on your own where to start. By this time, all your course mates have already done something and are happy with their outcome. Just because you did not ask, you end up where you were when you initially learned that something new. Life has changed a lot. Now, you feel you are too old to start anything new. How much will non-action cost?

You continue with your unfulfilled life. There seems to be a void but you have no idea what that void is, and you have no idea how to fill it up. Now you are already in your sixties or even seventies and you are thinking to yourself, “What have I achieved so far in life?” Now that you have retired, what are you going to do with this time? Are you going for a trip around the world? Do you have the money to go for that trip? Do you have the health to go for that trip? Do you have the time to go for that trip? How much will regret cost?

Money is something you have to earn while you can.
Health is something you have to take care of while you can.
Time is something that you can neither buy nor reverse.

Whatever it is that you want always comes with a price. The choice is yours.
The price of learning versus the price of not knowing.
The price of making it happen versus the price of not doing.
The price of challenge versus the price of demotivation.

We are all given choices. Whatever choices we make determines who we are. Whether we are just living through life like everyone else or we choose to live the life that we want, it is in our hands. Nobody else can do it for us. It is a matter of choosing the route, not so much of the value of money.

Either way, you pay. Whether you choose to pay now or later.
When you were born, you have time and health but no money.
When you are an adult, you have health and money but no time.
When you are a senior, you might have money but lack of time and probably no health too.

Time! Health! Money! Which is more expensive?
Fulfillment comes with a price. What is the price you are willing to pay?

 

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

Harriett Jackson Brown Jr., American author, 1940-present

Create

Why now? Perhaps the question one should be asking is why not now, instead of why now.

Now is a good time. Considering the situation around the world right now, it is a good time to start anything that we have been dreaming of doing. This is a calling. A calling for something to change.

All along, we are just living the life we thought was the life that is. Day in day out doing the same routine over and over. Life is just as is because it is just as is. There seems to be no way out of the situation at all. Life seems to be fixed, whatever life we are living.

A farmer seems to be just living the life of a farmer. Wake up, head out to the farm, sow seeds, water the crops or harvest the crops. Send the reaps of hard work to dealers and get some money in return. During the lockdown, people are just not allowed to move around too much. Though categorized under essential services, because of the lockdown, a large number of harvested crops are left to rot. Farmers have no choice but to take another route. They go online. Now, consumers can directly purchase from them at a cheaper price, while they are making higher profits without the need to go through middle men. It is a win-win situation.

As for the middle man. Life was great prior to the lockdown. They source for good stuff, then they resell to the end user at a marked up price. There is no need to produce anything to sell, they only need to know where to find something to sell and where to market it to the right audience. However, during the lockdown, many things cannot be done. Perhaps it seems like efforts lost in translation. If they do not change the way they run their business, there will be no business to run after this ordeal. When people can no longer move around like before, it is a good time to bring the business online.

When everyone goes online, this will mean the initial online businesses will be affected because the pie has been cut into way too many pieces. Perhaps this is a great time to think out of the box. What else can you do differently from all the other businesses out there? How can you differentiate yourself from the norm? How to find your perfect niche within an ocean full of sharks.

Some may say that it will be easy for things that people will definitely need to buy to do business. How about those things that are considered redundant?

Nothing ever is redundant. It is the perception of people that makes things useful or not. There are more than 7 billion people in the world. There bound to be people finding something that you are offering. You just need to know where to market and how to market. Knowing the where and how is of utmost importance for any business, regardless of whether or not you are in an industry that many say is dead now.

Take tourism for example. Many companies have ended their business because it is impossible for sustenance when nobody is allowed to travel around. Perhaps it really is the right time to think of something else. Perhaps tourism is not the right business for you. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to change your business model. Every business should be able to sustain even if they are running for at least 6 whole months without any income. If the business is running on a day to day basis, then there must be a weak point in the business model itself. If you are still holding on to it, you will just end up stressing yourself about it right till the end.

It does not matter what life throws at us. It only matters how we look at life. When you know that something is not working well, stiffen your heart, cut loss, and let go. There is no reason to keep hanging on to something that you know will end up nowhere.

The old you will have to first die to create the better you. You do not die literally, you just let go of everything that are pulling you down, and you start anew.

 

To create is to live twice.

Albert Camus, French-Algerian philosopher, 1913-1960

Simple

There is just so many things that needs to be done. Which is more urgent?

Humans have the greatest minds in the entire world but humans have also made things more complicated than it should be. Life is really simple. You wake up, you get through the day, and then you sleep. This is basically all we need to do every single day. How complicated can this be?

In this day and time, having a simple life seems so distant. We have too many things on our plate. There are too many distractions pointing us to different directions. We just cannot decide on anything when the time comes. The most common question people ask these days is probably one that nobody in the ancient history would even imagine any of their descendants asking.

How to live a simple life? I have no time, no money, and no skill to do it.

Seriously?

We have been too cluttered with the outside world that we just forgotten to connect with our inner self. This is the only reason we are feeling totally lost, especially at times like this. When the whole world is on lockdown. When you are sustaining a pay cut. When you risk losing your job. When everyone else is talking about the pandemic. When the people around you seem to be changing but you are still the old you, stagnant. You still think the world revolves around you.

It is time to wake up. Nobody is stuck. Everybody has been put to the test. When there is a huge challenge, there is the opportunity unlike any other you have ever seen before. You need to grab that opportunity to make you become the better version of you. What are you waiting for?

The world is on lockdown. You have all the time you need to ponder on what makes your life simple. What other time better can you think of if not now? How much time do you need to think? Does it take a whole year to sit in the loo? Perhaps you do not yet realize this but sitting in the loo actually is the best time to find clarity. When you are passing motion, that is the time when your strength to force trash out is at its peak. Notice the feeling right after that peak. Does it feel like a big sense of relief? Notice that second this happens, notice how clear your mind is. You only need this moment. Your body is clear of shit, your mind is clear of clutter, and your soul is pure.

Living a simple life really only mean simple, nothing more than that. Do not be brainwashed by anyone else. We see things differently. We live through life differently. You may have friends telling you that living a simple life means to have a cottage in the countryside away from the city. Then you would be having all sorts of objections to it because living away from the city means you will have to commute very far each day. It is just not economical. If it is possible for you to live in the countryside, you are free to do so. But if not, then what is wrong with the place you are living in now? Any place can be simple. You buy less things. You keep less things. That is a simple life. Just that.

You say that you are a very messed up person. You do not know how to simplify things. You love to keep all memorabilia. You want to have everything just in case one day you might use them. You do not know how to differentiate which ones are important and which ones are not. You are always living thinking of the future. Really, it is not a skillset to learn to let go of things. It is all in the mind. You do not know which ones to throw out, simple, just close one eye and junk everything out. Put yourself in the situation whereby you have lost everything and you need to rebuild your life. What do you really need in your life? Do you still need that magazine you bought two years ago but never flipped a page? Do you still need that dress you bought five years ago just in case you attend a ball but has never seen the light?

In the end, you will realize what you really need is just you, and probably your phone.

Finding yourself takes little to no effort. Living a simple life gives you time, saves you money, and require no skill at all.

 

Best rule for a simple life… Care with no reason, Love with no expectation.

Ritu Ghatourey, Indian writer

Nothing

The fastest way to fail is to do nothing.

While you may have all the positive thoughts and mind. It is your action that matters. Everything else do not mean anything if you do not take action to move forward.

People often like to start things. Each time there is something new, you are motivated to get started. It is very common to just forget about it when you do not get the desired results you want. Perhaps you have been way too optimistic when you started. You get carried away easily when you hear of success stories of the people that say they get a million dollars in their bank account in a month, or they get six-pack abs within a month.

While you only see the success side of their stories, you do not know the huge changes they have made in their lives in order to achieve such promising results. While you pay to get their blueprint to success, you do not become successful overnight by just reading it, or dreaming on it. Life does not work this way. However positive a mind can be, it can only go so far. It is taking the first step out of your comfort zone that makes you one step closer to your success.

You can have all the information in the world. Information is readily available on search engines, on chats with your friends, or even on your mentors in the programmes you have signed up for. You love to start. You also like to give up easily. You expect to see results immediately with little effort, which is the ultimate reason why you give up so easily.

Always dream big, but start small.

Whatever it is that you want out of life, be it having all the riches in the world or having that great healthy body, or being in that loving relationship, everything can be done with determination and patience.

You can dream of having all the riches in the world. You still have to take action to move towards it. Even if you dream of winning a lottery, you still need to get out there to buy that lottery ticket. Correct? If you just stay in bed thinking hard that you are going to win a lottery, you are not going to win it no matter what because you have not taken action to buy that lottery ticket in the first place.

You can dream of having that great healthy body. You still have to make efforts and walk in that path. You can imagine that you are healthy. You can imagine that you are muscular. You can imagine yourself to be in any shape and size but if you keep putting junk into your body, it will be just junk in junk out. You have to make efforts to first sleep well and then eat right. If you are just sitting there playing computer games all day and night, you deprive yourself of sleep. If you are just munching on prepacked foods all the time, all you will get is to become obese. You have to make that change first and stay through to it to see results. Break your goals into small achievable chunks. When you complete a task, you have achieved something. You will stay motivated to keep your milestone.

You can dream of having a loving relationship with your Mr or Ms Right. Whoever that may be, that person is perfect to you. There are many ways to meet this person and get into a relationship with. However you come into contact with this person, you still need to start a conversation. Your relationship does not go anywhere if you remain silent throughout. However loving you may be with each other, there is still a reality you have to face. There will be problems that arise in all relationships. How you react to each problem is how much you understand your partner. How you face the problems together is how much closer you will get.

You have to understand one thing, that life is fair. You get thrown out of place, you get back up and continue walking. One fine day, you will see the end of the rainbow that you much sought after. If you just sit and mull over it without a nudge, you are just going to be stationery.

Do nothing and you fail. Do something and you move a step closer.

 

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. (Muhammad Ali), American professional boxer and philanthropist, 1942-2016