The wisest words I’ve read in a while

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

- The Buddha

Image courtesy: http://picsdigger.com/domain/thebodhitree.org/

“The Key to a Well-Lived Life: Lighten Up !”

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love on Failure

Let’s just anticipate that we (all of us) will disappoint ourselves somehow in the decade to come. Go ahead and let it happen. Let somebody else be a better mother than you for one afternoon. Let somebody else go to art school. Let somebody else have a happy marriage, while you foolishly pick the wrong guy. (Hell, I’ve done it; it’s survivable.) While you’re at it, take the wrong job. Move to the wrong city. Lose your temper in front of the boss, quit training for that marathon, wolf down a truckload of cupcakes the day after you start your diet. Blow it all catastrophically, in fact, and then start over with good cheer. This is what we all must learn to do, for this is how maps get charted—by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds. So just march on. Future generations will thank you—trust me—for showing the way, for beating brave new footpaths out of wonky old mistakes.

Fall flat on your face if you must, but please, for the sake of us all, do not stop.

Map your own life.

Subject to Change

For over a month, I’ve been stalling, procrastinating, putting off looking for a new job. I was tired and afraid of making too many changes in my life that has already seen a 180 degree turn in the last six months.  Then, I read this:

Motivation is all about motion or movement. In other words, if you are comfortable, if you are happy and content, then you DO NOT move. You do not change. Why would you? On the other hand, if you are uncomfortable, if you’re unhappy, then you want to change.  You want to move back toward your comfort zone.

…

Interestingly, you can take all those motivators and boil them down to a variation of two basic emotions: Fear and Desire. You are either moving toward something you desire; or you are moving away from something you fear.

Fear, however, can become paralyzing and will keep us in one un-comfort zone because we fear the perceived discomfort that comes with change. We fear that change could open a Pandora’s Box of more and scarier changes.

Read the whole article here

The sign couldn’t be clearer. (More) change is in the air for Su. One small step at a time. Before I know it, dealing with change will become a habit.And I’d be richer for it.

On Happiness

“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties“

–Hellen Keller

I spent almost the whole day moping and grumbling about something that is making me unhappy and that I would rather not blog about.  It is something that requires me to wait till certain things come through, that I feel powerless to change.

While I wait, though, here is the little droplet of happiness I am going to be enthusiastic about this evening: After a visit to the gym to get my daily quota of endorphins, it will be “college dinner night” with Geek, with in-laws away for the evening. That means pizza and pepsi for dinner while watching downloaded seasons of Frasier and How I Met Your Mother in pyjamas.

Life is good

Image courtesy: Purple Moon

100 Ways…

… to change your life.

I stumbled upon this list and am putting it up here because I know there are many things that I want to do differently and I would like to come back to this list every once in a while.

To start off, I’m taking up no 39, since my mind is at it’s laziest, most obese best:

39. Read A Book Per Week

Or, alternatively, a fine selection of blogs. That will keep your mind alert and your focus steady. Reading is like good food for your brain, without it, it will go lazy, obese and unresponsive. But with the proper food it can become your best friend.

And to make sure there’s no cheating, I’m going to review a book as soon as I finish reading it, to give the grey cells a session on the treadmill. God knows they need it ! (There, now it’s said, it’s out in the open, so I can’t take that back !)

Read the entire list here

The Reason You’re Stuck

Something I read this morning, and got to me drag myself in shame to complete what I had been putting off for weeks !

Ship as in get it out the door.

Ship as in make a difference at work. Ship as in contribute your art and vision and expertise and passion to the project you’re working on.

Why is it so difficult to ship?

…

when you force the distractions out of your life and focus on what needs to be completed instead. What he has taught us is that when you focus your efforts and energies on things that matter and cut out the stalling and distractions, amazing things happen. It’s absolutely astonishing how much we can accomplish (and insanely disappointing how few people do).
What separates the few who ship from the masses who stumble, stall and ultimately surrender?

…

The resistance.

Read the entire article here (while l learn to make the linking look more elegant): http://zenhabits.net/2010/01/the-reason-you%e2%80%99re-stuck/

Thank you, zenhabits ! www.zenhabits.net