My Riffs

If laughter is the best medicine, we should seek it often. Every day there’s plenty to find joy in. It all depends on your frame of mind though. If you are thinking negative you won’t find joy in many places. If you’re positive you will find joy everywhere. Joy can be found both in small and great things. But you have to be looking for it. Joy doesn’t usually come take you by surprise. You usually have to look for it. And you usually find what you’re seeking for.

I’ve posted this idea before, but it’s not bad to say it again. Our greatest strength can become a weakness when over utilized.

This is an old old concept but it's worth reminding myself of. What I feed will grow. What I starve will fade. If I feed negativity it will grow. But if I starve negativity it won't grow. If I feed faith it will grow. If I starve faith it will shrink. What I feed though my thoughts, words and actions will grow.

Limits are put in place so accidents don't happen. We limit speeds to prevent accidents. What limits we put on ourself will determine the amount of accidents we get into. We can limit ourselves in things like entertainment, unhealthy food, etc. If we limit our intake or partaking of certain things we can prevent many mistakes and accidents.

I have this instinct (and I think many people have this) that when something against me where I want to blame "them". It's so easy to do. But this doesn't help me. Finding blame doesn't help me. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control what we do with what happens to us. When we assign blame we give up control. It's good practice to learn to own everything that happens to us. Unfair and bad things WILL happen, but if you own them, you can shape what they do to you. So stop blaming "them" and own your response.

If something was easy to get, it’s probably easy to lose. Things that were hard to get will be harder to lose. We want things to be easy in life but there’s little value in easy. Hard work produces value. Easy can’t compete. If we can learn to be okay with the hard things and not avoid them we will live a life of much more value.

Today was filled with some work frustrations. And I was reminded that frustration means there’s something for me to learn. You’re rarely frustrated by something you understand. So in frustration there’s something to learn and add to your understanding. I definitely learned something(s) today through the work frustrations.

You have to learn when to gloss over something and when to take the deep dive. Some things aren’t worth your attention and you need to gloss over them. But other things require you to dive in deep. And these types of things are where your character develops usually. Gloss over pettiness. Deep dive into challenges that make you and the world a better place.

One consequence of pride is that you stop listening to others. This hurts your development as you no longer take in new information. And that isolates you. It makes you an island where it’s difficult for people to reach you. It makes you an island where you’re isolated from the mainland and communities. Isolation is a terrible thing. Not many (if any) survive isolation. And those who survive carry major damage from isolation. We need each other to survive. But pride is dangerous in how it isolates.

Versioning is a process where something is tracked and incrementally changed, hopefully for the better. There's usually numbers assigned to track major revisions and minor revisions. What if we could track ourselves in a similar manner? What version would we be on today and would the version change in a week, month or year from now? Would it be a major revision or minor revision? Would the revisions be marks of improvement or documentation of things we would regret? Each day we get a choice to be a better version of ourself. Those incremental improvements lead to large improvements long term. Let your version numbers signify better versions of yourself, continually improving.

I’ve found the loudest voices are most often the wrong ones.  Good sense and wisdom seem to come from the quieter voices.  If a voice has to be loud, it’s probably making up for lack of substance. 

I believe in goals. I think they're needed. In fact I think we need to set big goals. Realistic, but big. But have you ever noticed that when you reach a goal that the satisfaction doesn't last long? It's like we've been made to never settle for what we've already attained. And I think that makes sense. It seems when we settle, we actually decline. So in order to prevent decline we must keeping pushing forward.

What you think. Your thoughts dictate become who you are. But what you eat is what you become. Garbage in, garbage out. Feed yourself a diet of garbage entertainment or negativity? That’s who you will become. So you are what you eat.

- lies - holds us back - stands between us and success - makes us judge others - makes us jealous If you can put a lid on your fear you can do anything.

We all need each other. Making our circle smaller hurts us and those were cutting out. Go around drawing circles larger than those around you. When you draw a circle larger than someone else’s, their circle disappears. Even if they’re trying to keep you out.

Most live with no regard to what they want to be in their final state. If we lived out what we would want to be in our final state our lives would likely look much different. For example, if today was our last day, what would we have changed about our life? Those are then the things to start changing now.

Attitude determines altitude. Yes.  But what determines your attitude? Your outlook. 

This is so true. We can't always choose what happens to us but we can always choose how we respond and who we become.

Short sightedness causes us to spend today what we need tomorrow. Be it relationships, money or time. Project into the future. Don't overlook today because that's a mistake too. You need to stay present but be looking out into the future. Bad goals lead to short sightedness. Check your goals and make sure they are a good long term plan.

You can't be brave if you're not first afraid. Fear can be crippling, but it also can be a tool we can use in our favour. Fear can push us to do something great and it can inspire bravery. Fear is only as strong as we let it be. The bigger the fear the bigger the potential greatness. The bigger the fear the bigger the potential for bravery.

Forgiveness may be a process. However, you can let it all go. Furthermore you have to let it all go immediately or else the process will never end.

Sometimes mistakes lead to the best discoveries. In every mistake you can discover something. Don’t let a mistake pass without gaining something.

Hope is sometimes what keeps things alive. When someone loses hope they usually end up losing everything. So hope is very important. And we all can plant hope in others life as well as our own. It’s a very necessary thing to give and cultivate.

Hard work is important. If you can’t work hard you likely will struggle in many areas of life. Sometimes you need to work smarter though. Just working harder won’t cut it. You have to figure out a smarter way to work. It may not be less work but it will be more efficient and productive. When you’re working too hard that may be a clue that you need to work smarter.

This is a public service announcement. Just reminding everyone that happiness is a decision.

When you get good collaboration you can accomplish so much. You get the the best skills from a variety of people to compensate for your own weaknesses. Then you can build something better than you can build yourself.

It's a very dangerous thing to gloat. Pride comes before a fall and gloating is pride. When something good happens to you, be humble. When something bad happens to someone else, stay humble. It could be you and very well may be another time.

The full story is impossible to get or tell. You can’t capture the full background of every character. You can’t capture the full complexities of every situation. So when you’re told a story, know this... There’s much more to the story than you’re hearing. Always.

I’m too tired for a deep though today/tonight. My only thought tonight is I’m very thankful for everyone in my life.