“Starlight” Is Her Map To Spiritual Health: A Soul-Soothing Journey

This in-depth review by Kelly Steele, of my newest book --Awaken the Starlight Within-- is our first guest post.

She deep dives into life's joys and sorrows, revealing her one-of-a-kind experience with "Starlight," a book that guides your inner healing and positive feelings.

Kelly shares how Starlight helped her deal with losing a loved one, a journey from tragedy to triumph which many other readers have experienced, that warms my heart.

Starlight was written to help you navigate whatever challenges life throws your way, uncovering the light that is always within you. 

Here's a short teaser about it from Kelly: “Awaken the Starlight Within is a road map that anyone can easily follow… for those who are ready to heal themselves… with an easy beginning and an ending that leaves us wanting more.”

Read below for Kelly Steele’s review of Awaken the Starlight Within: Heartfelt Wisdom to Reveal Your Personal Power.

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Kelly received an advanced copy of 'Awaken the Starlight Within' by I. C. Robledo for an unbiased review. The book is a self-development guide that helps readers along their spiritual journey. Robledo encourages readers to let the book 'read' them, applying the wisdom to their life experiences. Kelly's review reflects her transformative experience and what the book's spiritual guidance looks like in practice, and the value of self-discovery.

Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of Awaken the Starlight Within in exchange for a short review. The following post is completely separate, not sponsored by I. C. Robledo, and I was not paid for this. 

Why We Are Here

I received a copy of this ARC book seven months ago and I finished reading this book five months ago.

And the review has been on my to do list ever since.

I wasn’t ready five months ago to write this.

As I re-read my notes last week, I realized why. I needed time to let it all simmer behind the scenes. I needed time to subconsciously apply some of the knowledge in this book.

Because, as I re-read my notes, everything meant ten times more to me last week, than it did five months ago. It probably would have meant five times as more to me than it would have two months ago. Basically, I needed to not write this back then. This piece could only have been written now.

Let the Book Read You

One of the very first things I. C. Robledo mentions in this book, is to let the book read you.

I gotta be honest. I thought he was crazy. I also don’t know what that even means. At least, I didn’t. Not before I actually read the book when I realized that I did, in fact, let the book read me.

Issac Robledo, a man with a mission “to seek truth and use wisdom to help individuals and societies pursue higher states of consciousness, understanding, and being,” has written many books, including this one.

His books include topics ranging from daily questions for inner exploration, how to take more away from books you read, guides on how to live your life peacefully, happily, and even one book that will help you discover that you are actually a genius, you just have to know how to access it.

I will be honest with you. I haven’t read any of his other books. I cannot even remember how I stumbled upon Robledo. I think I started following him on Twitter back in 2020, 2021, but that was a decade ago. And I am not even 50% positive of that.

I probably followed him because of his wise words. I’d tell you the type of wise words he says over there, but I am voluntarily, no longer a member of Twitter.

Moving on. 

No Two Journeys are Alike

I have been on my own personal spiritual journey for a few years. I went through an existential crisis in 2020 due to a personal tragedy that gutted me and made me rethink everything. I ultimately became something, someone, new.

Robledo says this book is ultimately to help people bring all the things they have learned and discovered on their personal spiritual and self-development journeys. Into – more or less – a book that encapsulates all the aspects that one on a spiritual journey will encounter at one point or another.

With 15 books under his belt, all on various aspects of self-improvement and spirituality, he knows what he is talking about. He pulls from his personal life and shares the gifts that he has been given. And through his words, Awaken the Starlight Within is a road map that anyone can easily follow.

This is where his instructions to let the book read you, come into effect.

No two journeys are alike. Our personal journeys are much like fingerprints and snowflakes. Vastly different and unique. Where two people may have started at the same time, both will encounter different points of the “road map” at different times. And probably not even in the same order.

As someone who has been on her own spiritual journey for the last handful of years, I was honestly curious about what I would learn from this book. I was also curious what Robledo considered “Starlight.”

I was pleasantly surprised by the end.

Take Notes

I took notes while reading the book. Something I never do, but I felt compelled to do so for this one.

And then I completely forgot about the existence of the ARC until an email I had snoozed months earlier for future Kelly to deal with, popped up.

As the book read me, I had already encountered most of the topics he covered. Such as how to stop worrying about the future, how to stop caring what other people think, and learning to live with yourself not against yourself. I already had found my inner calm.

I started from the beginning and read in order. I did not skip around. Through the first half of the book, I found myself nodding constantly. I understood everything he had written. All things I experienced in the beginning of my journey.

Themes like remembering to look at the big picture, be present, look inwards for your own light, and live with – accepting – the knowledge that everything is temporary.

After each section I read, I jotted down a few thoughts.

After this first batch I read, I wrote:

“Robledo puts my feelings and understandings into words.”

And it’s true. Each concept that he discussed thus far, were things I had been ruminating on for a while. I just had a hard time finding the right way to describe them. 

Notice, Find, Be the Good

I’d also add – make the good. 

The next big chunk I read, included Robledo’s wisdom on how to notice the good, to find the good, to be the good.

He writes about daring to look inward at the flaws in our ideas because that is what we can control. This man of wisdom wants his readers to own their fears, to confront them. Because that is where we find our strength, our light.

My thoughts after this section included his Universe of Thoughts and the marriage of conscious and subconscious. A concept I hadn’t heard about or explored. And I made a note that I needed to work on this. Just not sure where to begin, how to start. I still haven’t looked further into this idea but I know it’s something that stuck out to me. 

You see, Robledo’s book may compile things all types of things people have experienced on their road to becoming their best self. A lot of which are common information and things most of us know are important, yet we also struggle with. Daily.

Such as being empathetic and understanding, to rise above our anger, to let go of our ego, and staying true to who we are at our core, all important points on your personal journey.

Just this morning (the morning of editing this) I got frustrated with my 14 year old for something I have been reminding her to do for 6 years. Over and over. It’s become part of our daily conversation.

Now, in that moment, I didn’t scream. I didn’t yell. I told her how frustrated I was. And then we came up with a game plan. Before 2020, I would have lost my cool and everything else. The rest of my day completely ruined.

Instead, I went to the gym, came home, had a journaling pity party, and moved on. 

The Value of Being Perfectly Imperfect

Robledo continues on, reminding his readers that our philosophy is a constant work in progress. That there is always a choice, and that starlight is what radiates from us to others when we have positive energy.

My kids know (now) that I don’t hate them when I am frustrated with them. I am not angry with them. I am frustrated about the situation. About the actions they are choosing.

They know that mom is, 95% of the time, positive. It took many years to get to this point, and every day, every situation, I still find myself needing to re-evaluate my thought process and how I am reacting.

Issac pushes this idea of being the perfect imperfect version of ourselves because trying to reach perfection will only bring about the “illness[es] of society”, such as imposter syndrome, ignorance, addiction, anger, lying.

Awaken the Starlight Within is a road map for those who are ready to heal themselves. It is for those ready to put in the work, or, at the very least, ready to open their minds to what could be. Because once they are ready, that is when the starlight within begins to awaken.

I.C. Robledo discusses topics that range from learning how to master our own selves, our own emotions, and thoughts, to becoming a lifelong student, an information seeker, where everything is something to experience, something to choose how we respond.

Around this time in the book, I wrote down:

“So many of Robledo’s thoughts and few choice words have made my hair stand up on end. Like we are similar souls and I was meant to connect with him.”

No cap. I don’t remember how I connected with him, just that I am glad I did. 

Our Power is Both Creative and Destructive

And then we get to the next chunk I read. It included ideas on how to find our inner strength, how to rely on our intuition, to give up desire, thus taking ownership of our life. Robledo discusses creative and destructive forces. That “the power to create is deeply connected to the power to destroy.”

This chunk probably resonated with me the most as it tells us how to practice being still, practice patience, and how to take ownership of our life.

All things I find so incredibly invaluable in my life, that I am constantly finding ways to teach my kids these lessons so that they don’t have to learn this stuff at 30 like I did.

When I was re-reading my notes where I mentioned that “a year ago, I would have been dreaming about finding my personal power…as I read it [the book] today, I realized that I AM this section.”

I then go on to pledge to “destroy the last few remaining bad habits.”

It’s been 5 months since I read that chunk, wrote those thoughts. I didn’t do it consciously, but I am happy to report that I have destroyed 90% of those remaining bad habits I was thinking about when I made the comment.

You see, when you are on a journey to healing, a journey of self-growth, self-improvement, spirituality, whatever – everything you pick up along the way, stays with you. Maybe not consciously, but it will be there when it will mean more, make more sense. It will be ready when your path finally passes by.

Visualize What Can Be

When this book reads you, not everything will make sense to everyone. And yet, this book allows us to see ourselves in Robledo’s words.

The way he writes, the poetry and rhythm, help the reader feel what it might be like to not be angry constantly, to believe in ourselves, to let go of the externals. What it might look like if we were to throw out the frameworks to replace them with what makes sense, what seems a better fit, not what has always been done. To conquer our own weaknesses that we may not have realized we have.

Although, if you are reading this book, chances are you already are aware of your weaknesses and strengths. You are aware of what you want to change, evolve, so you can become unapologetically yourself because that is where starlight shines. Where your starlight shines.

When Robledo talked about No Man’s Land, a place with trials, a place unknown, a place not to be lived in, and yet completely unavoidable on any spiritual, physical, mental health journey, I made a quick note to remind me of what I felt in that moment that I read that section:

“This blew my mind! I think this section and the ones to come, is where my journey may be heading.”

I have been on this path for so long that when I think I can’t learn anymore, dive any deeper, heal anymore, when I read this section, Robledo stopped me in my tracks.

My thoughts after that section:

“Wordless. I am in No Man’s Land and the Twilight Zone theme song is playing. I am just frozen in awe. Everything is aligning…. I have been unlocking my limitless potential and that’s how I am here [reading this book].” 

Memento Mori: Remember, You Must Die

I could have closed the book and walked away then. I had a lot to think about. No Man’s Land is where we aren’t sure what comes next, yet we continue to put in the effort to open our minds, to constantly seek knowledge, and apply what we learn to our lives, ultimately becoming our best versions.

“Death teaches you to live,” Robledo wrote. And that is straight facts. When my best friend died, my personal tragedy, I metaphorically died with her.

It was after her death, after I finally picked myself up, that I started reprioritizing. I stopped caring what people thought of me. I poured myself into what excited me, what sparked joy inside. I learned how to live in the present. Of course, those are all things I didn’t really start to master, let alone truly internalize, until this past year.

Robledo reminds us that there is never enough time. That, while this book reads you, life is but a snippet in time. A snippet that we should all aspire to live fully, freely, without regrets. A snippet in time in which we shouldn’t live to work, but work to live.

Our life’s blood, as Robledo refers to it, is what gets us the most excited, and gives us that feeling of “flow”, that makes you so happy, everything else blurs, that’s risky but worth doing, and that’s something you can do all day without succumbing to any of those illnesses of society Robledo believes in.

If we can remain true to that which makes us feel alive, aligned, authentic and still want to pursue more wisdom, more knowledge, and open ourselves up to the potential of being changed by something outside of us, with no expectations, that is how we awaken the starlight within. 

Awaken the Starlight Within: A Roadmap

Robledo’s book is a roadmap. One with an easy beginning, and an ending that only leaves us wanting more. But we have to go through the other points along our journey to truly understand, to fully believe, to wholly embody and become, the starlight that he describes as representing goodness, unlimited potential, inspiration, love, truth, hope, joy, excellence, and, eventually, enlightenment.

Enlightenment: A place where, according to I. C. Robledo, we are finally seeing with our “whole being, heart, mind.” A place that we no longer have the energy for, or the energy of, the negativity and that which dulls our starlight.

Six days after I finished the book, I wrote my final thoughts. I mentioned that the last chunk I read didn’t really provide me any new info that I didn’t already know. However, what I did read, helped me internalize things that just had been floating. Those pieces that I have collected throughout my journey that I hadn’t had use for yet.

Like deciding to one day hire a house cleaner because I hate laundry and dishes and cleaning, yet I need a clean house to be creatively efficient, unhindered. Reprioritizing.

I wrote how writing and photography is my life’s blood. That I am a cheerleader of truth and try to teach my kids the value of truth – in the world around them and their own. That I made the problems in my life, and that I have the power to unmake them, taking away their power.

Robledo says that the more we understand, attract, give, love, the more our starlight will shine, our goodness. But only if we keep our minds clear and master our thoughts and true selves.

Remember to Keep Living

A few weeks earlier, I had completed a 16-mile 1 overnight backpacking trip with a few friends that I had been planning and working towards for four years. For four years, this experience consumed me. I had put so much energy into that event, that I completely forgot that life existed afterward.

Robledo would have some thoughts on that, on getting so focused on one goal, we forget to keep living. I lost myself for a few weeks after that trip. I was on a raft in the middle of a current-less ocean.

It was this book that reminded me life still existed. Actually, this book was what told me, made me realize, that I forgot to keep living.

Robledo ended his book talking about ending the chase. That by feeling fulfilled inside, we wont need, or search, or want. Or chase. I wrote in my takeaway thoughts that I wasn’t sure if I agreed or not with that statement. I am still of the same thought. But, I can confidently say that this is also where I am currently at in my journey. 

However, I did write that this was the only section in the entire book where:

“This made me stop and think and question and long for more understanding.”

My Final Thoughts

Below are my final thoughts. Mostly grabbed from what I actually wrote down in my journal on June 15th, 2023.

All in all – this ARC book was enlightening. I didn’t know how a book could read me, but it did. It was as if it looked into my soul and formed the words I couldn’t.

I have been on this spiritual journey, this journey of awakening since I rose from the ashes in 2020. I. C. Robledo was able to put a very subjective spiritual journey into words and actions.

I don’t know if someone at the beginning of their journey will get it quite as clearly, but this book has many valuable lessons, stories, and methods on how we can become our best selves. Which, just so happens to also Awaken the Starlight Within.

For those farther on their journey, this book provides further support and evidence, proof that we are headed in the right direction. Towards experiencing unconditional truth, love, and understanding.

It should also be noted that Awakening the Starlight Within is not a one-and-done thing.

We all have starlight within us. It’s up to us to bring it to life and continue nourishing it.

This journey, this path – is living, breathing, evolving because this journey is us. If we stay still, stagnant, what’s the point?

If you find yourself stuck, still, stagnant, frozen, unsure how to move forward and are ready, Robledo, a spiritual guru, has some wisdom and knowledge he would like to share with you.

In the meantime, Adventure on with Curiosity,

Kelly “lifelong spiritual student” Steele

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Now, a message from I. C. Robledo:

Ready for Awaken the Starlight Within to read YOU? Pick it up on Amazon or other major retailers.

How to Look on the Bright Side (Even When Times Are Tough)

Often, the assumption is that being happy or positive is easy. Common advice would be that you can just do something fun, exercise, or spend time with loved ones. Then, you will be more positive.

And there is some truth to that.

However, when times are tough, it isn’t always easy to see the bright side. Sometimes, it may seem easier to sink into darkness…

But it’s important to remember that we always have a choice: Light or dark, good or bad, positive or negative?

Maybe you aren’t used to thinking that positivity is a choice. Perhaps you have felt that positive and negative things happen in life. When good things happen, it’s natural to feel positive. Then, when bad things happen, of course, many of us feel negative.

But despite how much good or bad is in your life, you can choose to see the positive side at any time. You have this power.

What motivated this post? Over the past few months, a question has popped up again and again in the lives of people around me:

How can we be happy or positive when there is so much negativity happening around us?

The underlying thought process I’ve observed in many people goes something like this:

Life is hard. So much bad stuff is happening. What is the point in even trying to see the positive if all of this negative stuff keeps happening and weighing me down?

I’d like to go over a few examples of how I’ve seen this struggle to be positive play out in different people.

Example 1: Droning on About the Negatives

A friend sent me an email where he shared a long list of his personal struggles and was quite upset at some of the financial difficulties he had faced in his business. But toward the bottom of his email, he mentioned that he was actually acquiring more clients than ever, and on the path to making much more money than he’d made in the past. Despite any struggles or stresses he had, any time that he needed money for his business, he found a way to get it.

His focus was on the negative, yet after I finished reading about his whole situation,  I wondered: Why was the focus on his “struggle” and “money problems,” when in reality, he seemed to be on a wonderful path that quite a few entrepreneurs would likely envy?

Consider this: When we have many positive things happening in our lives and just a few negative ones, why do we let those negative ones drag us down? It doesn’t make much sense to feel negative when most of your life is going positively, does it?

Something that can help us to consciously focus on the positive side is to list out all the positives in our lives, and then at the end, list out the few negatives. This can be done in a list we keep for ourselves to keep perspective, or we can also do this if we want to share how our life is going with a friend. We can also make an effort to come up with more and more positives to add to our list.

But often, people do the opposite, right?

They provide a list of all the pain points and complaints, almost forgetting all the good that they have in front of them.

Ultimately, we have to practice our gratitude. Take a minute to be grateful for how much positivity is in your life, rather than allowing yourself to feel upset or anxious about a few things that didn’t go as you had hoped.

Example 2: But… My Life is Actually Negative

A reader told me that her life had been too difficult to comprehend the level of positivity she found in my newest book, Awaken the Starlight Within. What some readers may not realize is one of the key motivations for writing this book was my own repeated struggle with seeing the positive.

In the past (over a decade ago), I fell into a void of darkness that I felt would be impossible to escape, but ultimately, I did.

Personally, I don’t think the book is “too positive,” as I aimed to capture some of the complexities and realities of life, not give a superficial positive spin on things.

Regardless of her impressions of Starlight, apparently, her repeated negative life experiences and hardships had made her give up on the idea of positivity.

In this case, I don’t believe that falling into a state of negativity or a life of negative expectations and outcomes could be the right approach. In fact, I’ve gone through similar feelings as her in the distant past, that “positivity isn’t worth it” or “I’m just a negative person because my life is negative,” and each time, I’ve come out seeing the light of positivity, deciding that it was better to feel uplifted rather than dragged down.

In the end, we decide — do we respond negatively to life’s hardships or positively?

Do we become embittered by negative experiences and spread that into the world, or do we make the effort to see the positive no matter the situation and spread that instead?

While I don’t know this reader especially well, I am aware that she has suffered through some major hardships in her life. But with that said, she is a highly capable person who has generally performed at a very high level.

Regardless of how tough things get in life, if we get sucked into negativity, then we go through life expecting bad things to happen, and in a sense, we end up creating negative outcomes for ourselves.

A quick example would be someone who goes to a job interview already certain they will make a bad impression and not get a job offer. Then they don’t bother to prepare, dress professionally, or take the interview seriously, and of course, they do not get the job offer. Understand that by feeling that we know a negative outcome will occur, we tend to make it happen.

Rather, an immense power we have is to focus on positive things that could happen and then consciously choose to make them happen. A negative person tends to foresee problems, difficulties, and failures. But what if you use some of your visualization powers to foresee all the solutions, positivity, and success that can happen instead? (The negative and positive can work together for some positive benefit, but the point is not to get stuck in negativity.)

Example 3: Small Negatives Ruin Your Mood

I took a taxi ride late at night, and toward the end of the ride, the driver had to take a narrow road that had many bars nearby. As he drove, some younger people were walking in the middle of the street, oblivious, and the driver had to wait for them to move out of the way. He reacted somewhat impatiently and bitterly, telling me, “See what I have to deal with every day?”

I couldn’t help but think that pedestrians on the road were fairly common, especially since we were close to some bars and it was night. To me, it didn’t seem like a real issue, but I suppose to the driver, he felt that he was being slowed down and ultimately making a bit less money.

This example seems so minimal that it almost isn’t worth mentioning, right? (The trip was literally slowed down by 5 or 10 seconds. That was it.)

And actually, that is the reason I decided it was worth mentioning. When something so minimal or trivially negative happens, it’s probably best to let it go. We don’t need to add energy to it, allowing it to drag down our day.

This example ends up serving as a reminder that it’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing a minor negative event as bigger than it needs to be. Every time this driver encounters a pedestrian or cyclist that slows him down a bit, he remembers all the people that get in his way on a daily basis, and likely, he falls into a negative mood.

Rather than getting hung up on small negativities, these are great opportunities to practice letting things go. Also, we can put such events in perspective and understand that if such a minor thing is irritating us, then that means life as a whole must be going pretty well.

Another way to keep such minor issues in perspective may be to practice empathy. In this example, these young people were just enjoying a night out, and they were not blocking the road on purpose. They likely just didn’t expect traffic to come through late at night. From their perspective, we were probably interrupting their fun conversation, even if for just a moment.

Example 4: Nothing But Bad News

Recently, I went out with a group of friends whom I had not seen in years, and I was surprised that much of our conversations gravitated toward terribly negative life situations that they or people close to them were going through. Someone was facing unemployment, a long-term marriage was breaking up, or a loved one was very ill. Even institutionalization for mental health reasons and a rising wave of criminal activity found their way into the conversation.

I couldn’t help but wonder why we were fixated on some challenging life situations when we were given the perfect opportunity to also catch up on all the good that life had offered us. Yet most of our time was spent on the bad rather than the good.

For the negative topics that were being brought up, none of us could actually do anything about them. The reality was that most of us were going through intense or especially challenging life situations, or if not us, then some of our loved ones were going through it. But recreating these issues or focusing on them wasn’t accomplishing anything.

The topic of sharing our life issues or problems with friends and loved ones may be a bit tricky. When we are struggling, and we need some form of support from someone, then it makes sense to share. But if we find ourselves exchanging bad news with friends, taking turns unloading negativity, at some point, we have to wonder why we are hung up on life problems.

It can help to stop and ask:

Are we looking for a way to see the light of positivity and create a better way for ourselves and the people we love, or are we just sinking into despair, excuses, and reasons to stay stuck?

If you find yourself in a situation where loved ones are going on about negative life situations, you may look for ways to shift the focus. For instance, you could congratulate the person on any positive action they have taken to help counteract the negative event in their life. Or you may mention new positive opportunities that have come up in their lives, even through a dark life event.

As with the prior examples, we would be better served to practice gratitude, focusing on the positive happening in our lives, changing our perspective to be able to see the good in the bad, and aiming to visualize and create more positive realities.

Understand Negativity, So You Can Choose Positivity

To be able to choose positivity, it’s important to understand negativity more deeply. Below, I’ll mention some key features of negativity that will help you to focus more on the positive side of life.

Some of this was already mentioned above, but I believe it’s worth highlighting these particular points.

Negativity can fuel us into doing something positive, as we aim to counteract that negative force.

Example: If you know someone who is sick and needs help, then you can offer help and attempt to make their life better. Often, something negative comes in the form of a problem that we may have some power to help fix. If you take this perspective, negativity can actually help to fuel positivity. So even negativity itself is not all bad.

Remember: Any negative event is an opportunity to choose positivity. You always have the power to take actions that will make a positive impact.

Negativity can put all the positive things happening in our lives into perspective.

Example: If you sprained your ankle and it will take a few weeks to recover, then you can take a moment to be grateful for all the rest of your body that is still in good working order. And you can feel positive knowing that you are healthy enough so that you will recover from this without any permanent problems.

Remember: When something negative happens, it is an opportunity to remember all the positive things that have happened. Rather than getting stuck on a negative event, you can choose to shift your attention to some of the good things happening.

We can use negativity as a test, to help us see that we don’t need to turn a minor negative event into something bigger.

Example: If someone is rude to you, you don’t need to let this ruin the rest of your day. Instead, you can view this as an opportunity to practice your positivity.

Remember: You can choose to see any minor negativity in your day as a test, to help you become a more positive person. If you practice this daily, you will find yourself feeling positive and peaceful much more often.

Occasional venting of negative emotions or feelings can help.

Example: If you have recently gone through a breakup or any other major challenge, it may feel natural to want to unload some of your troubles or emotions onto a friend who is willing to listen.

Remember: If this “venting” becomes a normal, everyday habit, then it’s not so much venting as it is getting sucked into a negative way of seeing life.

You can choose to vent if it helps you to feel better or if you are open to hearing potential solutions. However, if you are venting or dwelling on negative situations daily, you can see this for what it is, take a step back from your constant negativity, and begin to shift your attention toward the positive.

I’ll share a quick relevant story: A close friend recently went through multiple crises at her workplace, where she would receive awful news every week. And this became a vicious cycle, where major problems at her workplace became routine. The advice I gave was to allow herself to feel as she needed and to vent as much as she felt inclined to, but not to allow these workplace crises to ruin the week/weekend. She could have one evening to go through it, and then I would challenge her to move on. She recently revealed to me that on top of all the workplace crises, she was going through personal ones as well, and the advice to put a limit on venting and negative emotions was especially helpful for her. If you tend to vent longer than is healthy, you may try this out as well.

Final Thoughts

I hope you understand now that it’s a choice to be positive.

It isn’t always easy to be positive, but when the choice is positivity or negativity, the positive path is the worthy one.

Fortunately, every bad event, problem, or stressful situation of our lives is just an opportunity to strengthen our ability to be positive in the face of negativity.

Interestingly, with the consistent practice of looking at the bright side or being positive, you can learn to see a negative event as a chance to become even more positive.

When you are ready:

You can see the light through the darkness and even become a source of that light in the world.

Then, with every word, step, and action, your light will spread.

I encourage you to choose positivity and take positive actions, which is how we will create better and more fruitful lives. After all, does the alternative make any sense?

I have one last question for you: What will you do today to push yourself to be more positive, even if times are tough (or easy)?

If you’re interested in further tips on how to stay positive, you won’t want to miss another post I made - How to Stay Positive (10 Tips)

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If you enjoyed this post, there's plenty more insights like this in my new book.

It mixes self-development and spirituality into a beautiful package of touching insights. You’ll find immense value here if you want more love, emotional healing, mastery, self-reflection, or deep wisdom.

The title is – Awaken the Starlight Within: Heartfelt Wisdom to Reveal Your Personal Power – scroll down all the way for an opportunity to get a free copy.

Are You Choosing Freedom? (Or Have You Let Them Steal It?)

This past month, the topic of freedom has come up many times.

My wife Perla saw a sign for a small dog that was lost, and I told her maybe he wasn’t lost. Maybe he had found freedom.

I imagined that dog having the time of his life out in the open, exploring the world without any leash or restraints. Many of us would rush to be concerned or protective of a small dog like this without its owner, but perhaps he will experience some new joys, learn something new, and make new friends.

Who are we to take this dog’s freedom?

The next day, I saw a YouTube episode of Eyes Wide Open (Tip: bookmark this video and check it out later), and my friend Jay was asked what the best part of being homeless was. (He used to be homeless.)

Jay answered that the best part of being homeless was freedom.

Essentially, he was free not to have to go along with someone else’s way of doing things. He was free not to always have to be connected with others. Perhaps there was more solitude, but that could also be a freeing experience.

It’s a powerful thing to realize we all have freedom if we’re willing to take it.

It’s also a powerful thing to realize that while society may sometimes feel sorry for a homeless person, even someone with few possessions has the freedom to choose their actions.

In a prior post, I said: “Every moment of every day gives you the opportunity to change it all around.” Know that we have tremendous power to choose the direction of our own lives. That is our personal freedom.

When we find ourselves lacking freedom, often we gave it up (or we let them steal it). We are responsible for the level of freedom we have in our lives.

So there is freedom of action. But what about the freedom to think what you wish to think?

When I was younger, I sometimes spent long periods alone, and while it could be lonely, those experiences helped me learn to think more freely. I could search for the best, most worthy thoughts, not being concerned if someone else approved or if they agreed with me.

Yet, the potential downside to that mental freedom is that I could head in bad or less worthy directions, and perhaps no one was there to correct me.

There is such a thing as being free to head down the wrong paths. But then again, that is part of the experience most of us go through as adults. We are given the freedom to make mistakes, to learn a lesson or not learn it, to be considerate or not. We even have the freedom to value and pursue freedom, or to seek comfort, protection, and stability.

And despite that many of us are scared to make mistakes (I used to have that aching fear), there is great value in heading down the wrong path, realizing this, then fixing this for yourself.

The freedom to make mistakes is a valuable one we all have.

Personally, I like freedom and open options, and I also like stability and comfort (for example, a home, marriage, steady income, etc.). They’re not always contradictory. I can pursue more freedom and options in areas where I want to grow in life, and I can be fine with stability and comfort in areas where I feel good with what I have.

The topic of freedom also came up in other ways, recently. It’s been a recurring theme…

After hearing about the missing dog, and Jay’s response that freedom was the best thing about being homeless, I overheard someone’s conversation about freedom at an electronics store.

Yes, even strangers around me were spontaneously bringing up freedom…

A client came in to look for a phone to buy, and he mentioned that he had broken his phone five days ago. The associate was surprised and said that he knew a lot of people who couldn’t last 24 hours without a phone.

The client said:

“At first, I was upset that my phone broke. But then I realized that without my phone, I didn’t have to answer to anybody. No one could get a hold of me or tell me what to do, and I was relieved. It was a freeing experience.”

This man was animated, glowing, and appeared to have had a personal revelation that he wanted to share, as he spoke quite loudly, and I could hear him even though I was a few aisles away.

I want you to realize that we allow everything in our lives to take a bit of our freedom. It’s not the phone that has the inner power to take our freedom, we are the ones who allow a phone or any object to restrict our options.

Let’s take a minute to explore a question. What are some things that can suck away our freedom? (If we allow them to):

Phones

How many people do you know who when they get a text, they must look at it immediately? Or they start scrolling through social media, and they lose track of time, not accomplishing what they actually wanted to do. (A song I’ve been listening to lately is actually called Doomscroller, by the band Metric.)

Email

Often, people send us emails, and we allow this to dictate our days rather than planning out what was important to us. Sure, one or two emails shouldn’t make much difference, but many professionals receive dozens of emails in a day.

Obligations

How many tasks come up that you feel obligated to do rather than truly wanting to do them? Are you allowing them to take your freedom from you, even if you sometimes find them mindless or unimportant?

Wanting to Be Liked

I suppose it’s normal to want others to like us. We are social animals, after all. But when we want to be liked so much that we only do things hoping people will want our friendship, or perceive us in a certain way, then we lose a piece of our freedom too.

None of these things in themselves are truly bad. Most people engage with all of these to some extent. I don’t believe the “solution” is to remove all of them from your life.

My personal solution to help regain my freedom from my phone is I don’t answer unknown numbers, and I happily mute it if I’m busy with something. Also, most pings and updates are shut off.

With email, I often struggle, as I like to get back to people as soon as I can, but I usually receive dozens of emails in a day. While I respond to them eventually, I don’t obligate myself to respond immediately. In fact, to avoid getting distracted with my main goals for the day, I batch respond to most emails on Fridays (unless they’re urgent and important). And though I’ve often kept my email tab open all day, lately I avoid doing that, to keep my focus on my priorities for the day.

As far as obligations, it has been an ongoing practice for me to avoid feeling obligated to almost anything. Very few actions are truly necessary. But often, someone asks me for a favor and I agree to it. Then of course, I will feel obligated, though not necessarily in a bad way. I have learned to be much more careful about agreeing to do things. I only agree if I am confident that I am enthusiastic to help and I have the time available. If things happen to change and I am no longer enthusiastic or I no longer have the time though, I am at peace with changing plans.

Of course, most of the types of “obligations” I would get involved in are not matters of life and death.  

I also choose my words carefully. I avoid making promises, and rather I might say “I’m happy to help with this when I have time.”

What about “wanting to be liked.” How do I handle that?

When I was younger, I often did worry if people liked me or not. But in time, I’ve learned that it’s more important to live life on my terms. I’m not interested in living a life where I make decisions based on whether others agree or like them. I’m the one living this life and dealing with my actions and their outcomes, not others.

Though of course, most of us want to be liked. The healthy approach to being likable is to be kind, helpful, loving, and also authentic.

It's normal to want to be liked, but if you make one misstep and someone no longer wants to be your friend, perhaps that’s alright. Do you need a friend who is ready to leave you when you make a simple mistake?

Understand this: We all have immense power to act freely, but we tend to give up that power to objects or other people. When you feel compelled to do something, lacking alternatives, that moment is when you are losing your freedom.

When you think “I should,” is that really something you should do, or is it just a thoughtless habit you have fallen into? Perhaps someone guilted you into thinking you should do something. Often, when I hear “I should” in my mind, I realize that there is a societal belief system at work. The thought that “I should” is coming more from societal expectations than from my true self.

As an example, consider if a friend is moving and he wants your help. He calls you the day he is moving to request that you help him out. But you already have your own plans for the day, and you do not have time to help.

Your friend is adamant – he needs help now. “If you do not help a friend in need, what kind of friend are you,” he says.

The societal voice in your head starts to say: “I should help him move if I am a good friend.”

But the truth is you have the right to plan your life, prioritize what is important to you, and decline to help anyone for any reason. Are you going to allow something that pops in front of you to control your life, or are you going to choose freedom? (Of course, you are free to choose to do what pops in front of you if that is your conscious choice.)

Maybe you want to be an excellent friend (or sibling, spouse, etc.), and that is fine, but does being a great friend mean that you always do what your friends want?

Are you here to please everyone around you, and disregard your own needs, wants, and feelings? Then, where is your freedom?

The above situation with a friend actually did happen to me. I had other priorities, so I did not end up helping him move (though I helped him move on other occasions).

Later, the same friend called me up again. We were 20 years old at the time.

He said: “Hey, I’m in jail. I was driving with an expired license, and I need you to bail me out for $500. I’m sure you’re good for it. I can’t have my parents finding out about this, so just bail me out, and I’ll pay you right back… Otherwise, I might end up spending a couple of nights here.”

I wasn’t comfortable with giving him $500 when I knew, more likely than not, I’d never see the money again.

I also wasn’t happy to see that as a 20-year-old adult, he was scared of his parents finding out about his poor life choices. I wanted him to own his poor life decisions and actually learn something.

His spending a few nights in jail seemed like it might just be the medicine he needed to start getting his life together. So I exercised my freedom and told him I wasn’t going to bail him out.

A last, important kind of freedom I want to discuss is the freedom to truly be yourself. If you place too much importance on who others think you are, who they expect you to be, or who they wish you to be, then this can restrict your freedom.

Perhaps others expect you to follow a specific career path. They say you’re good at science, so you should be a doctor. While it’s good to keep in mind your strengths, ultimately you are the one who has the power to decide what you do with your life. Don’t allow others’ perceptions or expectations of you to dictate your life.

Or perhaps you are especially quiet, and people expect you to be shy, timid, and a pushover. That’s fine. You can still be socially engaging, start conversations, or even tell jokes if you wish. Their expectations based on how you’ve behaved in the past do not restrict your freedom.

What if you’re often right about everything, and you feel tremendous pressure to continue to get everything right, and not make mistakes? If that’s the case, again, learn to release yourself from the expectations of other people. Even if you are usually right, everyone can make mistakes, and that is fine as long as you make an effort to learn from them.

I wonder if you will choose your freedom today. The options your life path can go on are limitless. But many things in this life keep us tied down. Most of the restrictions in our lives are ones that we have allowed to keep us limited. So if we are the ones who choose to engage with them, we can also choose to let them go or at least stop them from stealing our freedom. Ultimately, we can regain our personal power to be free.

Stop letting people, things, and even beliefs or ideas rob you of your personal freedom and options.

Choose to be free. And for any constraints or restrictions of your life, make sure they are truly worthy.

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Learn to Love a Challenge (and Stop Being Scared)

In my last post, I discussed the idea of embracing change.

But the ideas of change and challenge are not so far apart.

With change often comes a challenge.

In this post, I want to explore the idea of embracing challenges more deeply.

Consider this example: If I’m outside in open fields, and hail suddenly begins to fall, this is a change in the environment that presents me with a personal challenge.

It may be natural for most people to feel scared in this situation.

But I have learned to be open to change, so I welcome the challenges that will likely unfold. (Though I have never been in this “hail” example, I’m using it as a point of discussion.)

This is a practice. I see a change and the challenges coming with it, and I welcome and embrace them, not getting stuck on seeing the bad, risks, and problems. Instead, I also perceive the good, growth, and solutions.

I can see the hail and think: Countless animals and people have had to deal with this. I can figure out a way forward too!

Change and challenges are going to happen either way. So it helps to have an adventurous and positive spirit toward them. Through time, I taught myself that for any challenge that comes my way, I can overcome it.

I can, and I will.

A new challenge is an opportunity to learn, grow, and perhaps even have fun. With this mindset, eventually you learn to LOVE the challenges that come your way. At the very least, you stop getting SCARED just because you face something new and difficult.

Yet, someone who closes himself off to new changes is not welcoming to the challenges that could arise.

In that case, when the hail begins to fall, he may think: Oh no! This is going to hurt, and there’s nowhere to go….

This person has likely not dealt properly with challenges in the past. Sometimes when they came up, he avoided them. Other times, he got someone else to solve the problem without learning anything new. And other times, he barely got through it while being scared and overly worried. Through time, this person taught himself that he could not deal with challenges. When new challenges arise then, he doesn’t feel ready.

For him, a new challenge is a burden, a threat, and a disaster waiting to happen.

Who is more likely to figure out the way forward and find safety from the hail? The person who is closed off to changes and challenges, or the person who is open to them?

Every day, some “hail” arises in our lives, and it is up to us to overcome the challenge. In time, we can even learn to triumph through challenges, becoming calm, focused, and energized through issues as they arise.

When the hail begins to fall…

Do we take a moment to look around for shelter in the form of trees, buildings, or any object that can protect us, or does the challenge overwhelm us, and we get pummeled by falling ice, convinced that there is nothing we can do?

How do you deal with life challenges?

• If you suffer a minor injury or illness, can you get through it smoothly?

• How do you react when you expect a friend to help you with something, and at the last moment they are unable to?

• If you are required to learn something new for school or work, and you cannot make progress in the way you expected, what do you do?

• When you work hard and do everything right and are not rewarded for your efforts, how do you feel, and how does that impact your life?

• If someone lies to you, then when you confront them, they continue to tell more lies, how do you deal with that?

If you take a moment to explore these “challenges” more deeply, hopefully, you will conclude that none of these is all that bad in the grand scheme. You can even see these situations as a good challenge because you should be able to learn something and come back stronger from all of them.

You may even take the opportunity to be grateful and think: However overwhelming this challenge is, fortunately, I am in the position to have family and friends, advisors, and resources to deal with it.

We must learn how to handle fairly minor life challenges to prepare ourselves for the larger ones.

Consider the following possible challenges, not to stress you out, but to keep some perspective and dig deeper into some larger life challenges people can go through:

• Divorce or breakup

• Death of a loved one

• Loss of life savings or a job

• Being threatened / Feeling unsafe

• Lack of basic needs such as food and shelter

In the past few months, I’ve known multiple people who needed to take on these challenges or were close to someone who did (except for the last point, though a close friend of mine was homeless for years).

For a moment, even I felt unsafe this past month when I received a call from a spammer who knew my full name without me providing it. My gut told me he was not who he pretended to be, which was a representative at Amazon.

This was an excellent opportunity for me to practice “dealing with a challenge,” as I confidently told him that even though he had my name and phone number, I would not give him any further personal details.

He became angry with me, accusing me of not trusting him. I calmly explained that anyone could access my name and phone number, so I would not give him further information.

As I spoke, he realized he could not trick me, and he hung up the phone.

Has any little challenge like this happened in your life lately? How did you handle it? Are you happy with your reaction, or is there room for improvement?

Perhaps sometimes you have not dealt well with challenges. If so, that is okay. I’ve been there, as I’m sure everyone has. I used to suffer from social anxiety – a vicious cycle of avoiding social situations and becoming even more frightened of them.

I’m not here to judge if you are still learning to deal with life’s challenges. The only reason I’m able to discuss this topic with such clarity is because I’ve been through the trenches myself. I know what it’s like, and there is a path forward.

Consider this: If you have made past mistakes and not risen up to the challenge and moved forward, then today’s post presents you with a tremendous learning opportunity.

Many of us don’t seem to understand that we teach ourselves as we go.

You teach yourself who you are through your decisions, and how you react to life’s situations.

Every moment is the chance to take a new course of action that changes what you thought you knew about yourself. One of my prior posts discussed how every moment presents a choice.

I used to be a person who was too shy to talk to someone new until I spoke to someone new, again and again, eventually with confidence. In time, I was no longer scared of facing the challenge of having a conversation with someone.

You can always take your skills as deeply as you wish. Through life circumstances, I lived in Mexico for a few years, often meeting new people while speaking my second language. Then, I lived in France for a couple of years, where I sometimes spoke to people in my third language, which was an even greater challenge.

That approach of facing challenges directly eventually made me a person unafraid and unconcerned with facing new changes and challenges. Or even if sometimes afraid, I was willing to push through anyway.

WHO are you when challenges come your way?

Are you someone who faces it, understanding that this is an opportunity for growth, and overcomes it? Perhaps even LOVING the process, or assisting others to view challenges in a positive way?

Or if you find yourself struggling, are you someone who communicates your concerns with people you trust and who want to help you, or do you stay quiet about your needs? In this case, are you willing to do the work to improve the way that you deal with challenges?

Or are you uncertain, unable to move forward, and simply stuck? Are you SCARED to face the challenge?

And as many people can be complex, your reaction to changes may depend. Maybe you are good at dealing with certain changes and the challenges that unfold. Still, perhaps you are not adaptable and effective with other types.

Ultimately, it is during times of hardship, stress, and uncertainty that we learn who we are.

How did you deal with your last life challenge, whether minor or major?

What did that teach you about who you are?

Did you like who you were when problems entered your life, or did you wish to handle them differently?

You have taught yourself who you are up to this point. Did you teach yourself something worthwhile? – That you are a person highly capable of dealing with challenges?

Or did you teach yourself something that is worth unlearning and reconsidering? – That you are a person who crumbles under the weight of new challenges, and is incapable of overcoming them.

Hopefully from here on, you can handle new challenges more directly and confidently, ask trusted people for advice or help, view the challenge as an opportunity for learning and growth, and so forth.

You have the power to change how you perceive changes and challenges. And you can triumph over them. I hope this post helps you to learn to love a challenge and stop being scared of it.

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7 Ways to Embrace Change in Your Life

Introduction

Recently, I read an advanced copy of my friend J-Ryze’s book, Eyes Wide Open, Vol. 1 (The world’s first self-help coffee table book), and he discusses the importance of embracing change. His book encouraged me to think about how we respond to change more deeply and has sparked today’s post.

I wonder: Do you embrace change? Have you seen that this is a powerful way to approach life? Keep in mind that seeing change positively can help you succeed, make more friends, adapt, and find happiness even when many changes are on the horizon.

Think of this the other way around. If you don’t embrace change, life will be tough. You’ll want things to be how they used to be, but we often can’t control or force things to stay the same.

When things change, do you often think about “dealing with it”? The problem with this thinking is that you are not embracing what is new in that case. Instead, you are viewing it as a problem or obstacle. You are resisting the change and only focusing on the bad that may come.

For most of us, embracing change means changing our perspective. Are you ready for that? Take today as an opportunity to do that and see where it leads you.

My viewpoint on change used to be quite harmful. I was suspicious and careful around new people, places, and activities. Now, I know that changes can bring a lot of good in this life, and changes are inevitable, so we might as well view them in a positive light.

The following are 7 ways to embrace change in your life:

1) Expect Change and Prepare for It

All you have to do is look at the world to see that change is everywhere. Movement is a change in position. Spending or earning money is a change in net worth. Relationships becoming closer or more distant is a change in how you value the people around you.

Of course, some significant parts of our lives may stay the same day after day or even year after year. Perhaps you are close to the same family members, work at the same job, or live in the same place, for example.

To a certain extent, we can design our lives to have predictability and to be the same from one day to the next. But we do not have complete control over that.

Eventually, something changes even if we do not expect it or predict it to happen. Sometimes those changes are minor, and sometimes they are major.

It helps to get along in life if we understand that change is always here and change is always coming. We might as well expect it to happen and prepare for the more likely changes in our lives. To resist change is to resist life and reality as it is. That approach is not helpful and can make us miserable.

My wife and I have moved every year or two for many years. Some of this was foreseen, but many times it was not. In our last move, due to reasons that are not relevant here, we lived in Alabama for less than a year. We had not planned to move to Alabama, and we had not planned to move out of Alabama (that quickly), but it happened.

Multiple changes have also happened in our lives recently, and we will likely move again this year. At this point, I would feel like a fool not to expect change. I’ve seen the pattern that unforeseen events tend to happen, and we tend to need to move quite often. Even if you may not need to move, it is helpful to consider that a significant change may happen in your life, and it is better to be ready.

My way to be ready for a change, in this case, is that I am not upset if we need to move. I already knew it would happen, so it was easier for me to see our current location as a temporary stop along the way somewhere else.

In your case, you may need to move to a new office, job, or location, or it may even be as simple as the old vehicle that you were used to no longer starts, and you need to get used to a new one. If you see that these changes can happen at any time, you will be ready for them when they happen.

2) Try New Things

When a friend wants you to join in on an activity you’ve never done, if your gut reaction is to decline because you’re unfamiliar with the task, reconsider this. Just because you’ve never made pottery, gone bowling, or been on a long road trip doesn’t mean you can’t try it out and have fun.

Even if you have tried something once in the past and you did not enjoy it, I would encourage you to be willing to give it another chance. Within a domain or type of activity, there are many ways to experience it. If you travel to one or two places and you do not enjoy the experience, that does not necessarily mean that you will not enjoy traveling to other locations.

I used to say “No” to most things I was invited to or when someone asked me to try something new. But eventually, I realized that when I agreed to do something new, I learned, and often, I enjoyed myself. Even if things didn’t go as I would have liked, there was tremendous value in trying something out and pushing myself in a new direction.

One interesting new thing I tried a year ago was skiing in Colorado. I accompanied my wife to a work conference there, and it was a unique opportunity to try out this activity. This was a challenge, but ultimately skiing felt freeing and gave us some joy. The hotel we stayed in also had a setup where there were hot tubs outside in the wintry weather, so we could enjoy being comfortably warmed while still seeing nature, mountains, and even snow around us.

3) Change Routines Regularly

In the self-development world, habits are often a hot topic. Many seek new habits to incorporate into their lives for better health, and wealth, or to strive for success. While habits can be helpful, we should also look for ways to break up routines in our lives that are overly rigid. If you begin to feel that you must do things in one particular way, it is an excellent time to try changing that routine to help you become more adaptable.

Of course, habits can also be implemented with the mindset of changing routines. Perhaps you can re-evaluate your habits periodically to avoid having them get stale. If you like to exercise, for example, you may focus on swimming for one quarter, biking next, running, and finally, weightlifting. Or you may focus on a different exercise daily if that suits you.

Is there something else you routinely do the same way – perhaps the meals you cook, the shops you visit, or how you engage in conversation? Then consider changing something in your approach.

Another way that we engage in routines in our lives is during our spare time. In your free time, do you always tend to watch TV, browse social media, or read the same genre of books? Is there something you could switch up?

The point here isn’t that doing the same things regularly is necessarily harmful. However, we should remember that if we get too used to needing to do the same types of tasks, in the same way, at the same times every day, then we are not building resilience to changes that will inevitably come.

Personally, when it comes to working, I tend to work regular hours on weekdays. Yet it is a natural part of my job that I do distinct kinds of tasks on different days, depending on my overall goals. Also, I travel regularly to accompany my wife on her work trips, vacations, or family visits. This helps to provide a regular break to some of my routines. Some of these travels also involve different countries where I may practice speaking another language, and this provides a break from my routine.

4) Learn Something New Regularly

When something in your life changes, you will often find that you must learn something new. For example, if you move to a new area, people will likely do things differently. Or perhaps your workplace will stop using one piece of software and use a different one requiring you to change your approach entirely. As another example, maybe your spouse needs to go out of town for a few weeks, and now you need to learn some tasks around the house they used to take care of.

When you think of what it means to learn something new, I will encourage you to expand on how you view this. Many think of reading, courses, or specific skills when learning. These are helpful examples, but for anything that you enjoy or you are curious about, you can learn more about it. Learning doesn’t only apply to challenging or school-related topics.

Learning something new also does not need to be overly ambitious if you don’t want it to be. You could look up any new words you come across. You can watch a documentary. Otherwise, you could go to an arts and crafts shop and buy a kit to try creating something independently. YouTube can be a helpful resource where you can see experts do something, and you can learn by observing them. You may even practice conversing with new people regularly, as you will likely learn about new topics this way.

Many of us think of learning as another chore, and it takes some commitment and work. Still, the issue is that if we are not learning regularly and wait until we need to learn something, this tends to make our lives much more difficult.

You will be better off embracing change, learning regularly, and assuming that change is coming. Instead, if you only react to changes that happen around you and learn when it is absolutely necessary, then you will constantly be trying to catch up with life, feeling left behind.

Consider this example of life change, which is quite common. Imagine if the “reliable” industry you have worked in for twenty years is disrupted, and the job you used to have suddenly no longer exists. In such a case, the person who has learned new skills and abilities will feel more confident and capable of finding new employment.

I use this example to show you that the person who learns and embraces change as a lifestyle is much more capable of managing, adjusting, and benefiting from the changes that inevitably happen.

A person who does not learn regularly and resists change for years or decades may be fine for some time. Still, eventually, there is likely to be a major shift to “deal with,” and this may feel like an overwhelming challenge.

Interestingly, learning something new can also help you to learn many further lessons. For example, in this post, I share life lessons that I learned from playing chess.

5) Spend More Time with People Who Embrace Change

If you reflect on some people in your life, you will see that some have a much more open and positive view of change, while others do not.

The people who embrace change are the ones who like to do what I’ve already mentioned above: try new things, change routines, and learn new things.

Some people like to do new things all of the time, and you do not need to do that if you do not want to, but it may help you to make friends or to spend more time with such people.  

When you spend more time with people who embrace change, their open and positive outlook toward change will begin to rub off on you. In time, you will look forward to new experiences and opportunities.

Due to spending more time with some people who embrace change, I have come to feel much more comfortable with changes as they happen in my life. But there was a time when I tended to fear when something new was coming. I was not confident that I would be able to figure out something new, and that was partly what fed into the fear.

Yet, having lived through change repeatedly, I no longer view it as something to fear. This is just something that requires adaptation, ongoing learning, and persistence.

When you spend more time with people who have a favorable view toward change, you gain confidence that you can get through new changes on your own. You welcome and embrace it.

Sometimes things in my life change, and they are beyond my control. But other times, I may decide that life is not going in the direction that was meant for me, and then I choose to make changes. Either way, change is not to be dreaded or resisted. It happens, we flow with it, and we grow from it. Ultimately, if we get used to embracing change as a way of life, we learn to benefit from it more and more.

6.     Spend More Time with People Who Think Differently

When we think of change, we tend to think of changes happening in our lives or the world around us, but there are also mental changes. I would advise you to embrace some mental changes. To do this, open yourself up to other minds or experiences that can cause you to change the way you think about something.

Many of us are inclined to surround ourselves with people who think similarly and believe or behave as we do. Still, there is also value in sharing or exchanging ideas with people who propose different and insightful ideas that you may initially disagree with or are unsure of.

Befriending such people will help to encourage your mind to work in new ways rather than have you rigidly think in the same patterns you always have.

Understand that a mind that holds onto the same ideas and has a rigid way of thinking isn’t necessarily correct about all its views. Most likely, it’s just a mind that has not been adequately challenged and tested. It has held onto its views through habit without embracing new or different perspectives.

Keep in mind that embracing new perspectives does not mean that you need to accept all of them. It just means you are willing to keep an open mind and consider them more deeply rather than resisting them and clinging to old ideas.

Some different thinkers who have helped introduce me to new thoughts or ways of thinking include J-Ryze and Arthur von Boennighausen. J-Ryze along with Cynshine have an Eyes Wide Open podcast that lives up to its name if you are willing to embrace new ideas. And Arthur has a recommended reading list that is likely to push you to think in new ways.

From a relatively young age, I was highly motivated to learn about new ideas that pushed me to think and understand in new ways. However, this is likely the only way to embrace change that I was good at earlier in life. The rest of these points were challenging, and I resisted them. But eventually, I saw that resisting change caused me more pain and trouble than simply accepting it. Finally, I moved beyond merely accepting change, and I began to embrace it more and more.

A further resource you may want to read if you would like help thinking differently is my blog post, Think Differently to Become a Difference Maker.

7) Look Forward to the Unknown

In society, we often build our lives to ensure things to the best of our abilities. Going to college (or studying a specific skill set) is supposed to help ensure you get a good job. Buying auto, home, and health insurance is supposed to help ensure you will not have to go bankrupt if an unforeseen disaster happens.

Generally, we avoid the unknown as much as we can. But not all changes are predictable and known. Sometimes, things change suddenly, and no one asks for our opinion. It just happens, and you must adapt to it.

There may be a time when you have to accept that this life has led you into a situation where you need to stumble around and figure things out for yourself. You can’t magically escape this unknown territory, so you must find your way through.

If you truly embrace change, you may find it in yourself to embrace the unknown as well. At some point in your life, you may find yourself in more emotional turmoil than you’ve ever experienced, more lost than ever before, or in a country where nothing is familiar. And if this happens, hopefully, you will be able to look forward to whatever this new unknown feeling or place brings you. Understand that even tremendous change that takes you outside of or beyond everything you know is not necessarily a bad thing. Be open to that idea and you will be in the best position to get through or take advantage of any unforeseen changes that come your way.

I have had to learn to embrace the unknown and whatever it may bring. When we know the changes that are coming, we can plan and prepare for them, but when we don’t know what may be changing, it is much more challenging to prepare. Yet when you make embracing change your way of life, you learn that whatever changes come your way, you will get through them and prevail.

The unknown merely becomes a higher-level challenge to see how you will respond to this new change. It may not be clear why it is there or where it is taking you, but it is testing you. How will you respond to it?

Conclusion

Embracing change is a key way to live a better life, and find success and joy. Alternatively, if you cannot embrace change, this makes life difficult.

7 ways to embrace change are: expect change and prepare for it, try new things, change routines regularly, learn something new regularly, spend more time with people who embrace change, spend more time with people who think differently, and look forward to the unknown.

I have personally seen that for times when I resisted change, I suffered and probably caused more suffering as well. Instead, I was more at peace and joyful when I embraced change and allowed it to happen smoothly without resistance.

If you have resisted and “dealt with change,” how will you move closer to accepting and embracing change? Which point above will you focus on today? (Feel free to answer below in the comments).

Did you enjoy this post? You won’t want to miss my next one - Learn to Love a Challenge (and Stop Being Scared)

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Note: Since publishing this post, J-Ryze has published Eyes Wide Open, Vol. 1 (The world’s first self-help coffee table book). I served as an advanced reader for the book and I found it insightful and captivating. To learn more about the project, visit this page.

7 Inspirational Life Lessons We Can All Learn From Oliver James (The Man Who Struggles with Reading)

Introducing Oliver James

Oliver James is a TikTok (and #BookTok) sensation, motivational speaker, and personal trainer.

In his TikTok videos, Oliver often introduces himself by saying “I’m a 34-year-old man who struggles with reading.” However, it wasn’t long ago that he would say “I can’t read.”

He opens up about many deep struggles he has gone through with learning to read and his mental health. His story has been so inspiring that he ended up being featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, the Rachael Ray Show, NPR, and other major outlets.

The way I came to learn about Oliver may surprise you — after all, it surprised me. Oliver’s partner gave him a book that I compiled, titled 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By. It was the first book he ever owned, which was the beginning of his journey of learning to read better.

Oliver James, Tiktok sensation, motivational speaker, and personal trainer holding up "365 Quotes to Live Your Life By".

Often, he would read one or two quotes from the book while doing a workout session. Since the quotes are short, he did not need to spend too much time on them. Importantly, with this book, he had no excuse to avoid reading. There are at least 10 videos where he reads from the 365 Quotes book while he does a workout or after he reflects on his challenges with learning to read.

As 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By inspired Oliver, I was also inspired the more I learned about his story, and the more I realized how much of an effect a single book could have on someone.

As I browsed his videos, I was amazed at who this person is and what he has accomplished, and the shining path that he is illuminating in front of him. I’ve seen most of his videos at this point, and they are truly inspiring.

Oliver James has a greater depth of wisdom and understanding in him that is perhaps not apparent at first glance.

It’s easy to assume in this life that we know better than someone else because we have more education, financial resources, a better social network, status, or whatever it may be. But I will continue to tune in to see what Oliver is doing because I know that this is just the beginning. And I know that I and many others can learn from his struggle, experience, and the insights he shares.

Below are 7 Inspirational life lessons we can all learn from Oliver James, the man who struggles with reading (and who used to say “I can’t read”). To be clear, some of this post involves information I learned from his TikTok videos (@oliverspeaks1), including his words, and some of this is my elaboration or further thoughts on what he has said or done.

1) Start somewhere – Take the initiative.

A theme I’ve noticed in my own life, and the lives of many people lately is that just starting anything seems incredibly challenging. It’s common to build something up in our heads as being more difficult than it has to be. Then we may find ourselves thinking about starting, or talking about starting, but not actually doing it.

However, thinking about something without acting on it can be futile. If you want to help someone, go out and help them. If you want to make a change to better your life, then take a step toward that. Whatever it is you want to do, make sure you are taking action. A thought, even if it is positive, hopeful, or useful, can only take you so far when it comes to improving yourself.

The question is: What gives us that spark, that drive, or initiative? In Oliver’s case, he realized something. He saw that he would not be the best model for his kids if he could not read. Why would Oliver expect his son to be a great reader and achieve his dreams if he didn’t focus on this himself?

Ultimately, he saw that his life was not going in the right direction and all the difficulties that he was going to continue to have if he could not read. Oliver understood the pain that not knowing how to read well was causing him and the people around him, and he wanted to change that.

This type of realization can be a key motivator for any of us. When we see the pain we are causing and perpetuating, it is natural to want to stop this and embark on a new and better path. This is when you become empowered, find the courage within, and take action toward your goals.

Whatever it is that provides that spark in us, we need to tune into that if we ever expect to take major actions in our lives that lead to improvement.

What is so important in your life that you can’t afford to turn away from it any longer? Like Oliver, we have to see that for what it is and get started somewhere.

2) Work on your goals in your way.

Oliver’s goal for 2023 is to read 100 books. That would be quite an impressive feat, wouldn’t it?

Well, in one of his videos, Oliver discusses how some people don’t think he will be able to read 100 books in a year. Many people who read regularly, after all, still do not read 100 books in a year. And he is still learning and struggling. But Oliver knows that the goals other people set for themselves do not matter, or whatever opinion they may have about his goals also do not matter.

This is his personal goal that he has set for his reasons, and he will attempt to achieve this in a way that works for him. It may involve reading children’s books, or simpler books, as he isn’t trying to fulfill this goal in any way other than what works for him.

Oliver says, “If you set a goal, and you’re doing it at your pace, and you’re doing it for you, that’s all that matters.”

Often, we work on goals that someone else set out for us, in the way that they want us to work on them. This means we work on them in ways that don’t necessarily make us happy or that don’t allow us to function at our highest potential. Rather, we should listen to Oliver and tackle our goals in our way, for our own reasons.

Keep in mind that if Oliver was concerned with learning to read how other people say he should, perhaps he never would have gotten started. Conventional wisdom may say that you should start with a tutor, with a class, or with a particular kind of software or system meant for learning to read. But it seems Oliver decided that the most important thing was to get started and to read in the way that appealed to him and where he was able to get something done.

His partner gave him 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By, and he decided he would take it on his workouts, drives, and wherever he was going, and he would read a quote or two when he had the chance. Many people may say that this isn’t the right way. But it doesn’t matter, as long as Oliver is reading in the way that works for him.

To summarize, Oliver realized that to change his life, and keep himself from feeling stuck, he would need to learn to read. That motivated him to take the initiative. Then he worked on his goals his way, as he understood that this was the only way he would ever learn to read. What works for other people won’t necessarily work for him, so he didn’t concern himself with that.

When you have an important life goal, ask if you are approaching this in the best way that works for you, or if you have allowed too many people to tell you how you should be approaching this. Then, is their input helping, or is it just holding you back?

If their input is holding you back, consider Oliver’s next tip.

3) Don’t listen to the people who focus on the negative. Don’t let them restrict your potential.

One of Oliver’s TikTok videos shows a young woman who makes extremely negative and hurtful remarks when someone asks if she would date someone who could not read.

He responds to her hurtful words, as he wants his audience to learn a lesson here: “People’s words, they don’t mean nothing. Don’t let nobody label you. You are as smart as you think you are. Don’t worry about what anybody else says.”

As I already mentioned, when you have a goal, some people may criticize that the goal isn’t the right one, or that it is unrealistic. When people find out that you are not skilled at something, they may attack your intellect, ability, or motivation. Of course, regardless of what we choose to do in this life, there will be critics.

Constructive criticism can be useful and help us to make progress, but when someone is negative and hurtful without any purpose behind it, that is something that we have no reason to allow into our lives.

I am grateful to hear that Oliver does not allow the negativity to distract him from his purpose. He knows he wants to learn to read better, that he must get better at reading to improve his life, and that there is no reason to allow some negative comments to derail his plans. His plans are bigger than that.

Oliver took the initiative of getting started to read, and he focused on learning in his way, but he must also push through any negativity that others use to try to make themselves feel superior, or to doubt his potential, even if it may be well-intentioned in some cases.

We must retain our power of being able to clear the mind, stay focused, and know that we are capable of getting to where we need or want to be. Don’t allow the negativity to steer you off course, or to limit what you are truly capable of.

Redirect your focus onto the larger goal here, whatever that is in your life.

4) Pursue something that challenges you, and stop avoiding it.

One of my favorite things that Oliver says is “What hard and challenging thing are you doing for you that might make you a better you?”

Most of us know that challenge is a part of life, and it doesn’t help you to always seek comfort. You get tougher, stronger, and better by pursuing challenges. But the reason these words were so special is the person who says them.

Oliver was placed in special education as a child and treated abusively. He served over three years of his life in prison because through a lack of knowledge, he didn’t realize that trafficking weapons was a crime. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent most of his life being functionally illiterate. In his own words, reading saved his life.

Perhaps it is cliché to say, but this is a person who seems like he would be a statistic, a cautionary tale. Rather, he has transformed his experiences into an inspiration for the world, and more importantly, he is learning to read so that he can be a better person, and hopefully make progress on his issues and ultimately accomplish his dreams.

When a person with such life experiences speaks to you, even if through a TikTok video, the words shine in a truly meaningful way. He isn’t coming from a place of judgment. Rather, it’s just an honest assessment — if Oliver James is pushing himself to learn to read, then we can all do something that challenges us every day.

Some of his personal challenges include mental health issues, a learning disability, and of course, not knowing how to read well. There is an even more fundamental issue in his life that interfered with his ability to learn to read, but we will discuss that in our next point.

Despite all the challenges he faces every day, he urges his audience to pursue a challenge in their lives and to seek to become better.

Oliver went most of his life avoiding reading, and as soon as he decided to face the challenge head-on, to always keep a book on him, and to stop making excuses, his life began to change. This is the second part of this lesson.

We must stop avoiding that challenging part of our lives that we don’t want to deal with.

This is the part where you may ask – How can I get the courage? Where can I start? Who can help? All of these types of questions are the exact reason it is a challenge. There is no simple road map to show you the way. Don’t you think Oliver went 34 years of his life wondering the same thing? Don’t you think he stopped and wondered who was going to come and help him? In one of his videos, he discusses realizing that no one was coming to save him. He was going to have to do it himself.

In time, he has gained so much support and fans, but it began with him choosing to work on his goals for himself. He stopped trying to avoid and escape the challenge, and instead decided to pursue it. No one else could do that for him.

We should all be willing to dive deep into a challenge in our lives. The deeper we dive in, the more we can grow.

5) Be open, sincere, and honest

In one video, Oliver says “I want to be as real and honest as I can so I can develop into a better person.”

Being honest and truthful has been fundamental in Oliver’s ability to make progress on his reading journey. To make progress at anything, you have to be real with what the situation is. In this case, Oliver was functionally illiterate. He could read some words, and understand things in a very basic way, but up until recently, he didn’t even feel capable of reading a menu in a restaurant.

He has been asked why he didn’t learn to read when he was younger, and his response was surprising, yet honest. He was physically abused when he was in the special education system as a child. The system was more interested in controlling and restraining him than they were in educating him. That abuse made it so Oliver didn’t have the energy to focus on learning to read, or on learning anything for that matter. Instead, he thought of ways he could get expelled so that he didn’t need to be there at all.

As they say, “the truth hurts,” but Oliver was willing to discuss this uncomfortable reality with his audience, because he understands that this is the path to progress. He is not running away from reality. It’s better to be honest with himself and the world.

Many people are interested in Oliver’s journey, as he has over 129,000 followers as I write this. And I believe people are attracted to someone open and sincere about who he is, who he was, and where he wants to go in life. The truth of Oliver’s situation is not all pleasant, but the fact that he is open and honest will help him to find the path to improvement. Likely, his honesty makes his followers want to help him as well

But if we hide from our problems, our insecurities, and our struggles, then we will not grow. If your energy and attention go to covering up your issues rather than shining a light on them and doing something about it, how can you expect to make progress?

Some people want to pretend that they are doing well — that everything in their life is perfect — but if we do that, then at some point our energy goes to maintaining the illusion that things are going well, rather than making improvements in our lives that we need to make. Again, if your focus is on appearing to be doing well, then when are you going to find the time to make real improvements?

Like Oliver, we must learn to be open and truthful about the struggles we are going through, and the problems of our lives. We must have the courage to face the reality of who we are, where we’ve been, and the problems of our lives. That is the only way to make progress.

If you do not want to share your struggles and problems with the world, that is fine. But at least dare to be sincere and truthful with yourself. Stop hiding from it.

6) Love yourself (You have to love yourself)

Oliver says that one of the greatest lessons he learned through his reading journey was that “I have to love myself.”

As many of us do, he likely struggled to love himself because he found it difficult to accept some less favorable aspects of himself or his life. As long as we want to escape who we are, it is difficult to truly love ourselves. It seems that self-love comes from learning self-acceptance. We may work to learn and grow in certain ways, such as becoming a better reader or learning a skill, but it’s also important to see that there is no need to become something that we are not. The core of who we are is fine, and is someone we must love, and is always worthy of love.

Fortunately, Oliver understands that he needs to love himself, and he needs to work on that. He knows that nothing good comes from being too hard on himself.

I hope you understand: We all need to be kind, understanding and accepting of ourselves. A key reason we have to learn to love ourselves is that it’s very difficult to love anyone else if you can’t even love yourself. We must be mindful of the type of energy we are putting into ourselves because that is the same thing we put out into the world.

Yet, even if the world around us seems especially difficult, troubling, or hurtful, we must find a way to love. Remember that we are good inside, we are worthy, beautiful, and with tremendous potential. Perhaps it is difficult to find love for ourselves at times, but we need to work on it. Strive to see yourself in a better light each day. Practice being understanding and forgiving with yourself.

In life, we often crave for someone to love us, to see us as beautiful, smart, or worthy somehow. But the key is to start to see this for yourself. Why wait for someone else to see it when you can work on this yourself? When you see it, your love grows.

I am aware that many, or perhaps most of us go through self-doubt, we think harshly of ourselves in our minds, or we find it hard to let go of mistakes that we made. And part of this is just being human. It’s not easy to completely let go of all negativity, and we can’t expect to accomplish that either. Nonetheless, we must find our way back to Love.

Love is the foundation.

When on the path to bettering yourself, as Oliver is, you have to return to love, because it’s all too easy to be hard on yourself. You try something challenging, and it may not go the way you hoped. Rather than get into self-doubt or self-hatred or excessive negativity, allow the love to flow through you.

7) “Be happy even when you don’t want to be.”

This last life lesson is a tip that Oliver James gave to his son. He appears to be giving parenting advice, but I believe this is advice that we all need to hear. If anything, the adults need to hear this more than the children.

Oliver says, “One of the keys to staying young and feeling happy is to be happy even when you don’t want to be. When you feel frustrated, when you don’t feel good, you don’t feel happy with the decision that you have to make… try your best inside to still be happy.”

My way of thinking of his advice is that this is how happiness is created in the world. If you are only happy when the situation is good, then that is expected. It is easy — no energy or effort has been required from you. However….

If you can be happy or strive to see the good in situations that are not the best, then you are creating happiness in your own life. You are making it happen.

Many of us may have a difficult time understanding this advice, and that is because to get to the point of striving to be happy even when you don’t feel it, you must understand that happiness or your state of mind is not always occurring due to outside events. We have some control over our thoughts, and with that, we also influence our emotions.

Don’t wait for happiness to come to you. Make it happen.

If you are on your way to work, and someone rear-ends your vehicle and they cause some damage, then you have the choice as to how you think about this.

Most people may get upset and believe that someone distracted on their phone probably hit them, and then the insurance isn’t going to cover this because it’s not that much damage anyway, but it’s still going to be expensive, and they’re going to be late for work, and the boss isn’t going to be happy, and so forth.

But if you practice striving to be happy even when the circumstances are not the best, you can get to the point where you may react differently.

You may react with concern for the other driver, and make sure that everyone is okay. You may realize that as long as everyone is okay, that is what is important here. You can always find a way to pay for any damage that you need to, or you can simply continue to drive the vehicle even with the damage, and life will go on. You can also decide that even if you are late for work and the boss doesn’t understand that you have a reason for it, then perhaps it was time to find a better boss and job anyhow.

How do you think these different ways of thinking and reacting will influence your emotions and your happiness? Don’t take my word for it. See if you can change the way you think about negative events in your life. Then see how that influences your happiness or your emotions and well-being.

The trick is to practice being happy even when the situation seems to be an unhappy one. Practice this, then when someone rear-ends your car one day, you will find a way to be happy through it.

Think about it — so many of us want happiness in this life, but what are we doing to actually work on it? Are we putting in the effort to be happy even when there is a mild inconvenience? If the slightest problem is enough to make you feel unhappy, sad, or moody, then this is something worth working on.

I won’t ask you to pretend to be happy, as that is not what this piece of advice is about. It’s about making an inner effort to see that most things in life are not worth feeling unhappy about. You have so much going for you in this life that you just need to open your eyes to it and see it and be grateful for it. Be happy with what is — don’t allow yourself to become unhappy because something didn’t go the way you wanted.

Oliver James was functionally illiterate for 34 years of his life. He doesn’t allow that fact to make him an unhappy and bitter person. He is working on changing things and improving every day. That is all he can do. We can’t expect any more than that.

This month, or likely this year, I will be working on putting all of these bits of advice into practice in my life. I hope that you do this too.

If Oliver is doing it, why can’t you? What is stopping you? As I said in my prior post, every moment presents a choice. What choices are you making?

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I didn’t want to crowd the post above with too many links. Below are some resources you may wish to check out:

Oliver James’ TikTok channel - A TikTok account is NOT required

365 Quotes to Live Your Life By - Oliver began his reading journey with this book

Good Morning America (ABC) - Oliver James shares his story with the world

Oliver James’ video - this is one of my favorite motivational clips

Oliver James’ video - this is one of my favorite clips that includes 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By

Every Moment Presents a Choice

The new year is upon us.

But today, rather than reflect on the prior year or plans for the future, I think we could use a reminder of a power we have always had.

That is the power to choose the direction of our lives, every moment of every day.

Sure, there is a life path we have found ourselves on through having created it, stumbled upon it, or found ourselves in it through necessity.

For better or worse, this is the reality of our lives.

Yet we always have choices.

A thought that has occurred to me is that many of us don’t truly understand the number of choices available to us in a given day.

Consider this: A dear friend once criticized me upon realizing that in a day we spent together, he had made every decision about what we did. He got tired of it, and he asked me:

Have you even made a single choice today?

His question made me realize that every moment of that day had presented me with a choice. I could go along the easy route with the path unfolding before me, or I could fight against it.

Neither way is necessarily better than the other, but that is the key, predominant choice of our lives. Flow along with the stream of destiny, or work to create your own path.

I explained to my friend that I had made countless choices that day, all of which involved doing what he wanted to do and spending time with him. Even in that moment of discussion, I had chosen to continue our conversation rather than part ways.

Every moment is a choice.

It so happens that with me, when everything is going well, I don’t fight the path in front of me. I allow it to unfold as it does, to take me where it flows, but I am still choosing that.

But what about when your life’s path presents more and more obstacles, and you dread what lies ahead?

In such cases, we must use the power we have to make a choice.

Even if you made a mistake, and for 100 moments in a day, you chose to continue along a futile, unrewarding, miserable path, you still have the power at any moment to change that.

Every moment of every day gives you the opportunity to change it all around.

Even when it comes to mental states – if, in the course of a day, you find yourself unhappy and bored, you can ask what choices led you to that. And if you make new choices in a different direction, can you begin to find the happiness and stimulation that you need?

Taking things further, even our beliefs about ourselves or the world, and thus the emotional states that may follow can be a choice.

Here is a belief some people may hold:

I believe I have little power, and my life’s path has been decided by my parents, the government, or society.

The issue with that belief would be that it completely nullifies your ability to choose your life’s path. If you are willing to accept your power of choice in every moment of every day and do something with it, then you have that power in you.

However, if you are not willing to accept that you have that power, then you do not have it. You have taken your own power away, then.

Consider this: How many choices or opportunities for change do we get in the course of a day?

Let’s say a moment is equal to a second. Then that would mean that in your waking hours, or 16 hours, there are 57,600 moments where you can make a choice. That is quite a few….

Those are 57,600 opportunities where you can choose to continue along a path or to seek a new one. To use your own judgment or pursue a mentor to guide you. To rely on the same habitual ways of believing and behaving or to pave a new path of being. To value time and use it wisely, or waste it on nonsense. To help yourself or another, or help no one.

Even to reflect on your choices or not, or to write down what you have learned or not are choices you get to make.

The choices are seemingly infinite. Yet there is always a choice.

Of course, it’s easier to blame others and say they are at fault for the setbacks in our lives. And perhaps other people are at fault, to some extent. But complaining, obsessing, or stressing about that does nothing for your progress.

In fact, if you get hung up on how others are at fault, you are the one who has chosen to delay your own life’s progress.

So, of course, we must avoid that and accept our power to choose every moment of every day.

How can you use your power of choice?:

When your time is being wasted, with nothing to gain from it, choose to use it on something more beneficial. Or at least decide to avoid such wasted time in the future.

When you are disrespected and unappreciated, choose to pursue better people to spend your time with.

When you have been treated unjustly, choose to speak up rather than ignore the issue.

When you have made horrible mistakes, choose to learn and improve.

When someone needs help, choose to help if you can.

Choose to see the good in people and situations and not just the bad that is there.

Some of us who do not use our power of choice may not know what we want. In that case, we should reflect on what we believe to be truly important.

For example: Family, Peace, Success, Love, Happiness, Mastery, Knowledge, Awareness, Service, Giving, Truth, and so on. What is most important to you?

Then ask, are your choices helping you to create the life you ultimately want to live? And are you taking advantage of all the choices available to you at every moment in time?

Of course, the point here is not to get overwhelmed with so many choices, as who really needs 57,600 choices? The point is this:

Realize that every moment of your life is a moment of true possibility, where your life can begin to unfold in a new direction of your choosing.

What better time to reflect on that, and to truly understand it and make it a way of life, than the new year, here and now….

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Who Deserves Respect?

A long time ago, when I was in high school, I did something without having put much thought into it. I picked up the phone and called my friend. I will mention that he is Vietnamese, as perhaps there were different cultural expectations at play in this story.

A man answered the phone. It was my friend’s father, though I had never spoken with him.

“Hello, is [my friend’s name] there?” I asked.

He went ahead and got my friend on the phone.

Then this friend of mine, with some embarrassment, explained to me that his father was of a different generation, and it was important that any time I called the house and if he answered, I should be more respectful in how I spoke.

He explained to me that I should say something more like this:

“Hello Mr. [last name], may I please speak with [my friend]?”

While I didn’t think I had behaved disrespectfully, I understood that actually, I was being disrespectful in the sense that I had spoken to a grown man in the same way I would speak to a peer, in a casual, and perhaps dismissive fashion. I hadn’t even greeted or acknowledged him or introduced who I was.

Despite that I felt I behaved respectfully at the time, clearly, my friend’s father had disagreed.

This is an experience I have often reflected on. I was very surprised that my friend mentioned my disrespectful behavior at the time, because he was a kind of reckless individual, seeming not to have a care, and not particularly respectful.

Nonetheless, I did not want to be viewed as disrespectful, so I happily treated his father in a more respectful manner after he instructed me about the different expectations of his “father’s generation”.

So today I wonder about this idea of respect.

Is respect an outdated idea, where older people simply wish to keep some form of power over younger people?

Is respect something that is earned, that those who are older or wiser, or more accomplished deserve?

Or is respect something that we all deserve, and that we should all have the right to?

And if different cultures or generations or people may have different ideas of how we can show respect, then how are we supposed to behave respectfully?

My thinking is that as humans, we all do deserve a fundamental kind of respect. The exception of course is if a person himself is not behaving morally, disregards the thoughts or feelings of others, or is otherwise disrespectful. Then, some of that innate deserving of respect may be lost.

Think of it - will you go out of your way to show your respect to the one who doesn’t appear to even respect himself, and shows little interest or care for anyone else?

Personally, when I meet someone new, I aim to be respectful, and I wish to be treated the same. I do not need to be revered, but at least I hope that my space, my time, and my being are all respected, not imposed upon, and not treated carelessly.

Much of what respect is, of course, is just basic courtesy and consideration for others.

Many of us, I would think, may behave more respectfully, or think it is more important to be respectful around a boss, or generally around people of higher status, power, or authority.

That may be a reasonable approach, but of course, such situations essentially dictate that we be respectful. If you are not respectful of your boss, you may upset him and he may look for a reason to fire you. If you are not respectful of an authority figure, they may abuse their power and make your life difficult. So if those are the only cases where we behave respectfully, then that does not show much value for respect itself.

Sure, some people behave the way they do out of the expectation for the returns that they will get, treating their decisions as if they were an investment that they needed to profit from. And they may see no reason to respect someone unless they can gain something from it. I do not live my life that way, but certainly, the reality is that such individuals are out there.

Rather than just situations where respect is almost required of us, I believe respect is important in many circumstances beyond this. I reflect on the experiences that most people have gone through, and how these make us deserving of respect. For example, most people have had some kind of difficulty or pain in their life. Most people have had something go wrong, or had a failure of some kind. And most people have struggled in some way to do what was right or moral, or with figuring out their life’s path.

Many or most people have also had the struggle of dealing with their own minds, perhaps vicious negative thoughts that they impose on themselves.

For example, just before writing this post, I saw a live chess video by a Woman Grandmaster (this is the name of the chess title) and she made a poor move in a game and berated herself, calling herself stupid for it.

I have found a spiritual calling (so to speak) in removing such negative thoughts from my mind. The most toxic negativity is that which is imposed on the self by the self. The world is sometimes unkind to us, so we must build mental resilience and fortitude, a mental fortress if you will, and focus on positivity, not berating ourselves with hurtful self-talk.

As this post is about respect, the most minimal way to show respect would be to avoid offensive gestures and language, and certainly to avoid verbal abuse. Unfortunately, many of us struggle to even be respectful to ourselves. And if you don’t respect yourself, you will not respect others.

Keep in mind that there is a sort of human struggle that we have all taken part in, and which may make us worthy of respect. As much as our successes or good experiences make us worthy of respect, perhaps the fact that we have all shared failures or negative experiences also makes us worthy of respect.

Now that I am old enough to have seen cases where a younger person was disrespectful, either to me or another adult or senior, I relate more to how my friend’s father must have felt. I wish these kids would consider their behavior and realize that the people around us deserve a basic amount of respect and decency.

Of course, we all have learning and growing to do.

Something I have to remind myself of is that children and younger people also deserve our respect. They have minds, beliefs, emotions, and lives of their own, and perhaps some of them get tired of adults undermining them and treating them as if they do not have much value.

Their way of dealing with this perceived lack of respect may be to lash out and disrespect older people, or simply to not show them proper respect.

I would say even for someone who feels disrespected, it is important to at least attempt to show basic respect to those around us. You can disagree about something, or have personal differences, and still be respectful about it.

Something that has come up many times in my life is that I learned after having met a person and known them for months, or years, that this person saved someone’s life, volunteers to help children in need, survived a particular trauma, is world-class in a skill, or has many connections with elite individuals. And many times, after learning this, I thought – Wow, I had no idea. This person truly deserves more acknowledgment and honor, or at least respect. Respect would be the minimum we could do, really.

Understand that there are so many things we do not know about the people around us. Many people around us appear to be ordinary but have actually gone through something much more, that we are not seeing.

I believe the least we can do is attempt to treat people in a cordial, respectful way.

Respect in the end may just be a way of saying to our fellow humans - I see you, I see that you matter, and I acknowledge to you and those around us that you matter, despite your successes or setbacks, despite your productivity or problems, despite our agreements or disagreements.

As to how we can be respectful, that is something we have to learn for ourselves. Being respectful to a colleague or peer may be different than showing respect to an elder or superior, or someone with a special title such as “Doctor”. Also, showing respect to someone you know may be different than showing it to a stranger. There may even be differences in how you show respect to people of different cultures or backgrounds.

To show respect, you have to take into account the expectations of the person you are with. What do they expect, or what do they feel is proper? Be observant, and see that if they do things in a particular way, the most respectful thing to do may be to join them in how they do things. If they speak in a quiet tone, perhaps be careful not to be overly loud. If they prefer to shake hands rather than hug, then shake hands. Of course, if they have their own unique cultural or religious customs, you should ask before joining in.

Be mindful of things from their perspective, and this will show you the road to being respectful.

I believe you will find that when you show people the proper respect that they deserve, you will be held in much higher esteem by others. They will like you because you are simply giving them the proper respect and cordiality that they were due. You will in turn be someone that people come to respect.

Stop Looking For It

Whatever it is you seek in this life….

Whether love, happiness, peace, money, joy, respect, knowledge, wisdom….

At a time in your life, release yourself from the deep yearning to have this for yourself….

Allow yourself to experiment, to see that perhaps in stopping the act of searching for it, and in halting the desire for it, it will come on its own….

The desire to make it happen may have actually been holding you back, interfering with your progress….

In my life….

I have said to myself….

To heck with it, if she doesn’t like me, she doesn’t like me….

(After dealing with crippling social anxiety.)

Then she liked me….

I have said, if I stop reading and I become ignorant and foolish, then so be it….

(It’s not that I don’t read, but I am willing to go through periods where I don’t read anything.)

Then I became wiser….

I have said, if I am unable to be tranquil because of a chaotic environment and situation (out of my control), then oh well….

And I found peace through the storms, even practicing meditation/mindfulness through them at times….

I have said if I invest in this thing I believe in, and it fails miserably, then at least I did something I believe in….

Many of those investments (in my own book projects, for example) did fail, economically speaking, but enough succeeded and they carried me forward into a deeper journey of learning, growing, and writing….

Over and over, I found that in releasing myself from the desire for an expectation, the desired expectation came true anyway, often right after I gave up on it.

As a chess player, one of the best things you can do in a losing position is to say to yourself “Okay, I am utterly defeated.” As soon as you truly accept that defeat, you open yourself to strange, threatening problems to pose your opponent.

There is magic in that moment where you see the futility and stare straight into it.

You accept defeat for a moment, but then you press on, never truly giving up. Even if there is one window of opportunity, that is all you need.

True awareness is where you find that thing you were searching for….

You come to understand that “I will never find this love – it is simply beyond me, but one day, maybe it will find me, if I keep on doing what I know I must do in this life….”

You give up, but just temporarily.

Then somehow, people in your life come to sense your newfound inner-worth, because you know you no longer need anyone else, and they become attracted to you.

More importantly, your love for yourself will finally have grown, as you stopped measuring your life by whether another person loved you….

Here is another example….

A few years ago, I developed tinnitus (ringing in one ear), and at a certain point, it was bad enough that I actually didn’t know how I would be able to focus again, with this loud, annoying, constant piercing sound in my ear. I had developed regular headaches, and it was a miserable experience.

But at a certain point, I accepted defeat, rather than searching for what to do about it.

I stopped looking for the feeling of relief from the tinnitus. I stopped hoping for it to go away.

I told myself that this tinnitus ringing sound isn’t even there. My brain is producing the noise (I believe this is actually true, medically speaking). This sound isn’t important. It’s nonexistent. I will go about my life like always. And I did.

And soon enough after that, the “sound” eased off. I barely noticed it anymore. I’m not sure if it actually got better, if I simply stopped noticing it, or both.

Strangely, in giving up on looking for any relief or solutions, it mostly went away. Now, it is quite mild and doesn’t affect my life.

(Of course, the one thing I did and continue to do, is protect my ears from loud noises, but that does not make the tinnitus go away.)

Understand this….

Typically, our life problems are self-created, working in cycles, over and over. And we exhaust ourselves simply to repeat them….

The desire to escape the pain or troubles, somehow actually manifests them, over and over.

If you truly inspect your life and see it for what it is, you are likely to find that you must do something different.

You must actually stop wanting that thing that you think you want, in order to get it.

And if you don’t get it, you may find that your life blossoms in other ways that you never could have guessed.

Of course, if you had a goal, you went directly for it, and you achieved it, then you are done. There is nothing else to do….

But I am speaking to those who have spent themselves totally, drained their life’s energy for a pursuit, only to have it escape them, perhaps over and over….

What else is there to do?

Accept defeat, even if just for now….

What is the worst that could happen?

Abandon the goal, or if not, at least abandon the hope that it will turn out in a certain way.

Let it go.

Find freedom there, in not needing everything to happen in a particular way.

Allow yourself to play with this life, to explore and see where it goes, rather than needing something from it.

Perhaps you can have love, happiness, peace, money, joy, respect, knowledge, or wisdom, just not in the way you had expected to find it….

Stop Looking

But still be there, present, aware, ready for when what you desire arises on its own….

Ready for when the ingredients to make it happen all line up for you….

Give it a month….

You’ve spent years or decades trying to get there….

If it didn’t happen, give yourself a month of not looking. Give it an honest try.

Get back into a hobby, play a musical instrument, get in touch with old friends, write a book, or whatever keeps your mind off of this so-called goal.

See how it goes.

Let me know….

Life is Therapy

When you go through something troubling, remember that life can be its own form of therapy if you allow it. Life always has a way to help you heal the pain.

You can go for a walk or jog and see where your journey takes you, going wherever the path leads you….

You can listen to music, and allow it to take you to a peaceful plane, or to work out a certain emotion….

You can sit with a friend, and talk about the most trivial things, and let it be, or just have a laugh over nothing in particular….

You can see a dog with its head out the window of a car, truly joyful, perhaps beyond what most humans even experience, and let that sink in….

You can plant a seed and watch it grow and flower….

You can gaze into the clouds, or into the starry night, and search as far as you can….

You can lend a helping hand, finding the person who needs help more than you do….

Even when you are deeply troubled, unsure how to proceed, life can act as a form of therapy, helping you along through the storm.

You can sit back and listen with your whole body, not just your ears, and truly take in all that is happening as it happens, wherever you are, quieting the part of you that must explain and interpret all that it sees and hears….

You can find it in you to let go, to truly let go of whatever you have held onto so dearly, unable to let it be, and finally begin to open the path to somewhere….

You can observe a tree, the changing leaves of autumn, flowing with the wind, strong yet still….

You can sit in gratitude for the chance to experience anything at all, even the pain or troubles which have ultimately molded you into what you needed to be….

You can express yourself in any way that your heart would be contented to do, giving of yourself to the world….

You can simply be kind, patient, and heartfelt, even when these have not been granted to you….

How many examples must there be, infinite examples truly, where life is its own therapy? We simply must be aware and awaken to it.

Remember that for any troubles and pains, you can work through them and come out better on the other side.