Current Song: Justin Mylo & Navarra – Live Like This
It’s safe to say that we all want to succeed and not fail. Wether that be playing a friendly game of ping pong or interviewing for a dream job, we want to do well; I mean who doesn’t right?! But the reality is that we must fail and at times be at the bottom to live through that experience to learn and move up. The hard part is getting back up after being knocked down, and sometimes multiple times over and over again. Hell, I fail every damn day at something. Was definitely not ok with this in the beginning and struggled immensely, but found ways to look at it differently and suck it up. Why? Well because despite my misfortune, I’m still one lucky son of a biscuit. Here are a few thoughts…
It’s a true statement when someone says “count your blessings” because I sure as heck do all the time now. The first part though is to be able to recognize those blessings. Be on the lookout as they come unexpectedly and in many different forms, but the key is to have more awareness and recognize them and not take it for granted. Of course I’m not perfect at this and will never be as it will be continuous work. Could be as simple as taking a minute to be thankful for the food you are eating or being surrounded with loved ones. Idea is that more awareness of moments such as this will then naturally traverse into others areas of your life.
The people you meet in life and those interactions and experiences are purely the output of what you put into actions. If I sit on my couch all day then I can infer that I will have a zero chance of interacting with anyone. If I leave the comfort of my couch and walk across the street to get a cup of coffee and sit on that couch, I’ve now opened up a path and opportunity to interact with others. Go a step further and smile, say hello, or strike up a conversation about the book you’re reading with the cashier and there’s instantly another interaction. With all these, you may ultimately still end up with the same outcome, but have opened the door to an opportunity. What do you have to lose?!
So maybe you now ask just how do you create these moments or opportunities especially if it take you outside your comfort zone? Well, the answer is you take action. Act then SOMETHING will happen. Don’t, and surely nothing will happen. As much as we want to be genies and be granted wishes, we don’t have that luxury (well at least in this lifetime). A big part of taking action is pain. Maybe not physical, but emotional pain that will eat away at you if you let it. Known as the infamous growing pains, it’s the embracing I talked about in a previous post where you need to really feel it. This is really important and can’t be bypassed as much as we want to mask it with everything under the sun. So save the time and look it in the eye and address it.
Using my personal life as an example, I struggle being single at the age of 33 to find my partner in crime. I’ve spent 2017 healing physically and emotionally and the past eight months going through trial and error. Did the whole modern day thing with MeetUps, social dating apps, and “come meet a friend of a friend” of mine. Without actually counting, I’ve been through enough “pain” in the process and just want to give up. The daunting thought of meeting someone for the first time and going through your stats like a baseball rookie card for the 100th time is not the greatest and at times you would rather have your teeth pulled. Welcome to my present day! Well, do I throw in the towel? Let me tell you it crosses my mind pretty much daily, but I still persist.
Why? Well I know it’s part of the process. I persist in a way now much differently than I did even a few months ago. I focus on my best self and just being happy; be open to opportunities, meeting people, and I’ll let the universe take it from there. No expectations. If we expect something that’s where it can go wrong. Go with the flow for a change – I do this with travels quite often where you go with little to no itinerary versus a rigid day by day schedule broken down by each hour. Which one was more fun? Impromptu random dinner and drinking at a random bar in a small town off the coast of Spain or stressed to make a dinner reservation on time made months before because you were on a timetable?! Balance is the answer here, but you get the point! So, as we head into the week before Labor Day weekend, I hope you all have had a fantastic summer and continue to experience and further explore those never ending growing pains!
About-face 