My Riffs

I don’t know if there has been another period in history where so many ran from responsibility. But responsibility is a gift. Adopting responsibility is an opportunity to be better. Shirking responsibility makes us less of a person.  

Be careful what you accept. Be very careful. The things you accept will either raise or lower your personal standard.

Ever notice how you can look at something but not see? You can glance at something everyday but when quizzed about it not know any details. We actually ignore more of the information we come across. It’s not a necessarily bad thing. There’s a lot that isn’t worth paying attention to. But what are we missing when we don’t pay attention to what’s going on around us? Don’t be caught looking but not seeing when important things are going on.

Really all that’s required is your best. If someone is giving their best you cannot ask for more. If the results aren’t what you want, you have to just accept them. It’s always a bad thing to make people feel bad when they are giving their best.

If you listen to many of the things your mom told you, you prqobably will end up a decent person.  Things like, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. 

Everyone has prejudices. Its being aware of them what’s important. It doesn’t mean your prejudices may not have some rationale to them. But prejudice doesn’t equal fact and prejudices can often get us into trouble. So try and be aware of your prejudices.

Always the target but never attained. It’s the aim but never is completely attainable. If you don’t aim for an ideal though, your aim is too low.

A made up mind can accomplish a whole lot. Some things you need to make your mind up long before you’re even in the situation even. But some thing you need to wait and make up your mind on. Be slow to judge. Be strong in your convictions but slow to judge.

If our lives are filled with purpose, we won’t be distracted looking for everyone’s approval. - Bob Goff A better use of energy is fnding or fulfilling your purpose over looking for approval.

Sometimes feedback becomes simply feedback. Or in other words it becomes noise. For feedback to be effective, make sure you're soliciting it from the right places. Also, don't solicit feedback if you're unwilling to make alterations. Feedback can be effective or not depending on it's quality, quantity and implementation.

Here's an interesting life lesson I've learned. It doesn't always feel good getting what you want. Sometimes you may want something quite badly and when you get it, it doesn't feel so good. Usually that happens when it costs you more than you thought it would.

We have a goal, then we achieve it. But the satisfaction doesn't last long. We seem to get more satisfaction from the journey then the goal. The journey keeps us engaged, but the goal can often cause us to become disengaged. This doesn't mean you don't have goals. You HAVE to be aiming at something or else you will become nothing. This is to say, enjoy the journey. Enjoy the pursuit. Once you reach a goal, strive for another goal quickly thereafter.

There's any interesting contrast about humans having to know something. There's many deep, fundamental things we accept but don't truly understand. Do we really understand how any why music moves us? Do we fully understand how a piece of art can be worth millions to someone? Do we really truly understand and comprehend things like gravity? There are many things we just accept but don't have full understanding of. But then there are some things we refuse to believe with much more proof or knowledge. We don't necessarily have to know in order to believe. That's a beautiful thing humans possess. A couple ways we can term this is faith or hope.

Being willing to be wrong is the first step in changing yourself, learning and becoming better. If you’re never willing to be wrong, you won’t change yourself. You won’t incorporate new better data or ideas. You have to be willing to discard what you may think you know in order to at times incorporate better knowledge. And in turn the better knowledge makes you a better person.

It’s 2019 and people want answers! And it’s now easy to get answers. You can just google it to find the answer you likely want. Answers are cheap. Teaching people how to think and find answers is much more important than providing them with answers.

Our brains use past experiences to form what we see. When we come across something new we struggle to understand it because we may not have a past experience to compare against. But that comparison quality can cause us problems. Comparison can rob our joy. Comparison can rob us of being in the moment. Learn when to shut off comparison.

Success is usually viewed as the hugest thing to reach for. But what’s most scary is succeeding at the wrong things.

Sometimes you do have to force things. You have to force yourself to keep doing the right thing. You have to force yourself to do the things you don’t feel like doing. Those are the type of things to force. There are many times and places not to force things though.

There's nothing that erases the old quite like the new does. Past things that we want erased don't seem to go away until something new and maybe bigger replace them. Some thing are irreplaceable though. And those are the things that hurt the most and are the most valuable to us.

A great example of cognitive dissidence is smoking. Everyone knows it's bad for you, but many people still choose to do it. The more of these we hold, the worse off we are. The fewer of these we hold, the better we live and the better, more effective of a person we become.

We all probably have a huge stack of tasks that we should do, but are avoiding. The thing is, avoidance doesn’t seem to remove the task or issue. Generally, it makes them grow. Avoidance is a terrible tactic.

Play is important. For kids and adults. The forms of play changes as you get older but the need remains. As you get older play often looks like hobbies. As a child play is where you develop your imagination, where you learn how to interact with other  kids and so many other things are learned. As an adult play is where you balance your busy life. It’s where you explore your creative or curious side with creations or education. When you stop playing, you may stop growing. Never stop playing!

You have to constantly update yourself or you become irrelevant. It may be as simple as keeping your knowledge updated. But also you need to keep you education updated, your health updated and your relationships updated. Update before you become extinct.

You don’t grow by going backwards. But sometimes you have to retrace your steps. Or to deconstruct. Sometimes you have to go backwards in order to go properly forward.

The end result is generally dependent upon the expectations that were set. High expectations are good, but unrealistic expectations can cause needless failures. Setting the expectation before something begins greatly influences the outcome.

If you're not very careful your time will be eaten away and you won't even know where or how. Technology is making this increasingly true. But also, we can get preoccupied with meaningless things and they suddenly take over our life. Your time is just that, yours. Don't let the wrong things steal it from you.

He who contrives, defeats his purpose; and he who is grasping, loses. The sage does not contrive to win, and therefore is not defeated; he is not grasping, so does not lose.

People generally only have power over us as far as we allow them too. We have to be careful who we allow to have power over us. Sometimes we can give people power over us when they haven’t even asked for it.

Your convictions are a good way to gauge where you're heading. And the strength of those convictions are a good indicator of the chance you'll get to where you're going.