My Riffs

It’s New Year’s Eve and for many signals a new beginning tomorrow. The coolest thing about it is any new day is a fresh start. You don’t have to wait 364 days to start fresh. You can have one anytime you want. 

Healing is a process. Not an event. The best supplements for healing is love and patience. 

If we examine what went wrong, we can likely fix it and make things go better going forward. Don't avoid the uncomfortable truth of what went wrong because it can give you much value.

We try to plan the future but the future often comes to us. Yes, I believe in creating the future you want. But in reality you can only shape the future you want because a lot of unexpected things will happen.  Planning the future is important in getting to where you want to be, but learning to adjust mid course is also important in getting to where you want to be.

Downtime is where you recharge for uptime. Downtime can be productive is used wisely. It can be wasted if used wrongly. 

Love does everything. Love does everything you need. It can heal, strengthen, nurture, and on and on. The most powerful force on earth does everything you need it to do. If you use it. 

There are two seasons of life that reveal who you are more than other times. When you’re extremely low and when your extremely high. The habits you form during the other times will be revealed when you hit rock bottom and when you’re on top of the world. 

Be a safe person, someone who makes people feel comfortable. Broken people (and we’re all broken in different ways) need a safe person and a safe space. People don’t truly change unless they’re in a safe and loving place. So be a safe person. You don’t have to tolerate unsafe behaviour but you can provide a safe place for any sincere person. 

Here's the big thing about gratitude, you can't wait until something happens to begin. You have to start practicing gratitude immediately. Otherwise you will always be waiting. You have to start being grateful for what you already have. You'll find that is a better than getting more.

It’s almost certain you’ll never hit something you’re not aiming at. Going through life aimless is a sure way to end up nowhere. If you aim at something good you may miss but you’ll be much closer to that good thing than had you not aimed.

Some see mud and some see stars. Depends on which way you want to look. There’s always dirt below but there’s always stars and the sun above. Look up!

Getting better (in any context) is a series of small steps. Rare is a situation where you instantly get better. Getting better usually requires patience and some form of work or disciple. So in getting better, baby steps are totally great and should be celebrated.

We can choose if we’re going to live in something. We can feel, expedience and go through things. But we can decide if we’re going to live in it. 

 Sometimes you have to encourage yourself. And that okay. It’s a skill and a valuable one at that. Having to always rely on other people for encouragement sometimes leaves us a bit short. We need people, but if we can learn to encourage ourselves we have a big advantage. 

Sometimes the difference between making it or not is simply somebody believing in you. Or you believing in them. The difference belief can make it incalculable.  It can mean not giving up for someone. It can mean starting when they wouldn't have. It can mean making a better decision. It can mean healing, love and forgiveness.  So find someone to believe in. And let them know you believe in them. You never know the difference you may make.

Arguing with someone won’t change their opinion. Very very very rarely.  But you what will? Love. 

This is the true joy of life, the being used for the purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy!! I am of the opinion my life belongs to the community by, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no brief candle too me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations. -George Bernard Shaw

One of the easiest ways to get truly lost is to do things for the approval of others. There's obviously a part of life that we all behave in a certain way, within certain norms to be able to participate in society. But when we focus in on getting approval from a certain person or group it can cause problems because we're not longer being ourself. We're suddenly not authentic. And that means we're way off track.

Life is precious. But life itself isn’t the most precious thing we have if we’re not living with purpose. Just life lived isn’t enough. Life with purpose is what makes it invaluable. 

Principles are more valuable than rules. Rules are important in certain places and times, but they change and they can’t cover everything. And for every rule there’s an exception, so there has to be a higher value than rules. And that would be principles. Principles cover when rules cannot. Principles remain when rules go or change. Teaching principles produces much more than setting rules. 

I think one of the coolest things above love is that it's bottomless. Love can be multiplied, it can't be divided.

Why is culture so important? I think one of the best answers is because it shapes our thinking and behaviours. Culture is made up of all the unwritten rules, all the norms, the values and the customs of a tribe. So the culture you're part of is extremely consequential. With enough expose you will inherit those traits of a given culture. This is why people say you will become the sum of your closest friends. Cultures change, but often they change very slowly. If you need to improve yourself, make sure you are surrounded by a culture that support that, or else expect it to fail. Culture trumps vision, so even the best visions will fail without a supporting culture. Culture informs our decisions, behaviours and ultimately our future, so the importance of culture cannot be overstated.

Fun should be part of your life. If you never have fun, your life isn't complete. Take time for fun. The people we gravitate too are often fun people. We aren't generally wanting to be around people who are boring or negative. The cool thing about positive fun people is those traits are contagious. Spread joy, have fun, be optimistic.

There is a correlation between not being grateful for something and losing it. The less we are grateful for something the higher the change we lose it. It's important to place value on the things that truly matter. Being grateful doesn't mean we get to keep everything forever, but it does mean if we appreciate them we invest more time and get more out of those things while they're available.

A sure way to be something we're not is to attempt to be someone else. Yeah we should look to good examples and try follow their example. But when we start trying to be someone we're not, we end up being nothing at all. A mature person finds who they are and doesn't try to become someone else.

Joy is tied to strength. Gratitude is tied to joy. So being grateful makes us more joyful which in turn makes us stronger. Sounds like a really good way to live. 

Why do we tend to forget the good things but hold onto the bad. Yesterday I wrote about forgiving. Forgiving seems to come hand in hand with forgetting too. Sometimes we have to keep forgiving because the wrong keeps coming back to mind. That’s where forgetting comes in. We may not be able to truly forget a wrong but we can exercise self control and not allow it to consume our thoughts. We can push it from our mind and practice forgetting. 

If we never learn to forgive we will stop moving forward. To continue moving forward in life at some point (or points) will require a lesson in forgiveness. 

A bad car accident tonight reminded me how much we take for granted. Taking things for granted is a huge mistake. Gratitude is something that teaches us to not take things for granted though. Practicing gratitude helps us be appreciative of more and more. The antidote for taking things for granted is gratitude. 

Noise doesn't matter, information does. It gets harder to differentiate the two due to the volume of noise now. Filtering out the noise though increases the value of the information.

My children often use the phrase "that's not fair". And you know what? It probably isn't. Life isn't always fair, and that's okay. The times it's unfair probably balance out the times where we didn't get what we deserved. If we get consumed about fairness we will twist ourselves into an unusable pretzel. Obsessing over fairness is a useless tasks and fairness is an elusive target. Do we aim for fairness? Of course, but when we obsess over it we generally make a bigger mess of things.