My Riffs

On the cusp of a new year it's best to look back over the last years blessings and put behind you anything bad that happened. Look forward expecting the best. Some bad things will happen this coming year, but expect good things too.

It's a lot harder to unlearn something than learn it. Unlearning is a part of life though. As we go through our lives we find things we must unlearn, and those are usually the most difficult battles. We’re not to blame often, we couldn’t know it wasn’t correct. But we have to put in the work to undo it. Everyone has things to unlearn. Good on everyone who is putting in the work and unlearning. That takes honesty, strength and courage and what great characteristics to develop as you unlearn. 

If you've given it your best, let it go. Let it go meaning don't fret over it. Once you've given your best, that's all you can do. Put in your best honest effort and then let it be. 

Stop putting off what should be done today. It’s easy to push it off but we’re wasting time and life by putting it off. Successful people don’t procrastinate. Get it done today. 

If you're not doing hard things then you're getting weaker. Shying away from difficult things doesn't help us, it weakens us.

I read a good tip today about New Years resolutions. It was suggested that instead of New Year resolutions, make resolutions for new skills to learn. That sounds like a great idea!

Merry Christmas! May this day and season be filled with everything you need. 

Giving is the best form of receiving. The things you get back from giving are so much more valuable that the gift itself. 

There is little beauty when things are under construction. But things don't get better without construction. It's an ugly process of usually tearing out unneeded and decaying pieces. It hurts and it extremely uncomfortable, but it's to make things better. You don't create a beautiful edifice without some very ugly construction. If you're under construction, hold on, something good is in progress.

Your life will only be as good as the amount you love.

Every online product comes with reviews. The funny thing is there’s almost always polar opposite reviews for the same product. Makes the reviews harder to use.  What do we want to be known for? What would our reviewers say about us? Our life is a story, become what you want people to say about you now. 

Some of the surest things have fallen apart. You can be sure about very few things. Whatever good things you have in your life, treasure them. Don't take one good thing for granted.

Jesus said that Peacemakers are blessed. Seems to many are wanting to start wars today. Be it culture wars, political wars, social media wars and more. Be a Peacemaker in the middle of so many wanting to war. Your value is far higher as a peacemaker than a war maker. In a world intent on war, be a Peacemaker.

The more you know someone, the more you understand them. We too often judge people without truly know them and their story. If we try to learn and understand them we likely won’t judge them but rather be compassionate. 

There will always be a fallout for standing for and speaking the truth. That's what makes it so difficult. The fallout may not be pleasant and joyful but it will always bear good results in due time. 

Flying is best when it comes to troubles. To get up and above, to get a higher view of your issues put them in proper perspective. Ground level views make them bigger than they are. Flying above them (a change of perspective) helps us put them in their place.

You have to stick with your principles but be flexible with your methods. Companies that stray from their principles will inevitably end up irrelevant. Companies that stick to their principles and are flexible in their methods will always be relevant. 

If you don't rest enough, you can't work and play well. If you don't play enough you won't rest and work well. If you don't work enough you won't have a place to rest or play. Finding a good balance of the three is how you create a good quality life.

You can always get better. There’s always more to learn and improve. You never arrive. Cause if you stop working you slip backwards. 

Life is meant to be spent, not held back. You only live once so the only things to hold back on are negative and self destructive impulses. Otherwise, live life giving. 

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Do it well or don’t do it. 

The amount you are willing to love is the amount you are willing to be hurt. As with so many things in life, you rarely get one thing. You don't just get happiness without experiencing sadness. You don't get joy without pain and loss. You can't have love without hurt. But holding back on love brings a much worse result than simply being hurt does. It's best to love big and be willing to be hurt, because not having loved costs much more.

Don't forget you. Work, family and life can take over our schedule. And our life should largely be lived to help others. But you need to take care of you. If you don't take care of you, then you won't be able to help others. So don't neglect yourself. 

There's a time to be patient and wait. But many things (maybe even most things) require us to seek them out. To hunt them down. To knock on the doors. A little slumber and a little sleep (too much patience) will end up in poverty. We have to go after the things we want. We have to go after the good things of life. Good things come to those who wait, but don't mistake patience for inaction.

My eye naturally sees what's wrong. But I'm training myself to speak the good. No special talent is necessary to see the bad, but it takes someone special to see the solutions and the good.

You're following someone or something and someone is or will be following you. Where your aim is affects you and those after you. Our actions matter much. Our words matter much. They're not inconsequential. We likely are repeating what we're looking at. And those looking at us will again repeat.

Nobody wants to be known as a quitter. And that’s a very valid thing to avoid being known as. But it’s also good to quit some things. Or more accurately, quit the unnecessary things. Quitting the unnecessary things allows you to be better at the more important things.  

What possible good can come from resentment? I can’t think of any possible good. Resentment is something to shun. It has no positive value, it will only drag you down. 

December marks the end of the year. Make the end better than the beginning! The ending is most important so make it better than the first of the year!

The bible says it is more blessed to give than receive. From experience it feels a lot better to give than receive. The world needs more people giving and less people taking.

Today is really all we have. Planning for the future is of utmost important but not at the expense of neglecting today. The best way to live is as if today is your last day. 

It's easy to see what's wrong with others and try to fix them. But it's generally not a good idea. We're better off fixing ourselves. We likely have enough to fix within ourselves that we shouldn't waste time fixing others. The best fix for others is to simply love them.

Giving your peace away is voluntary. People can't truly rob us of our peace. We give it away far too easily.

If you’ve been thinking of doing something, just do it. Tomorrow is no guarantee. So just do it. If it’s good, adds value or brings joy, do it. 

Why delay saying the things we will regret having not said? If you appreciate someone, tell them today. There's no benefit in delaying. We never know how many opportunities we have left to say the things we want to say. So just say it, don't delay.

Living life in a hurry is a sure way to miss life itself.

Two are better than one. Two can do more than then sum of one plus one. So join up with a good person or two and you will be able to accomplish much more than just yourself.

It's so easy to point out where someone is doing wrong. Why not point out what they're doing right though? Most times that will do more than pointing out wrong. Do you let someone continue to make mistakes when you can help? No, but pointing out the better way likely helps moreso than pointing out what they're doing wrong. When you tell someone they're wrong, that doesn't leave them much, but when you point out a better way it gives them something to work with.

If you have health you have a lot. Rich people without health have very little. The wealth in your bank account doesn't mean much when you don't have good health. And sometimes the wealth in your bank account can't buy you good health. So if you have health, you have a lot!!!

We live in the information overload age. But information alone doesn't make people smarter. Information  has become difficult to trust or even know what's true. Learning to parse information is where intelligence can be found. If you can learn to find good information you live in a good time. If you’re unable to filter information you may live in the worst of times. This is exactly how very bad ideas can become “viral”. Technology takes things to market much faster, its expanse is worldwide and bad ideas travel fast. The best “fact checker” is you. Become your own fact checker. Find better information and use it to fact check. Don’t just allow yourself to be told what’s correct and incorrect. It seems the official fact checkers are really just agenda pushers.

Kindness doesn’t always come easy. It’s not necessarily even the natural response. We may need to train ourselves to be kind. But being kind may be the greatest thing we can be. Kindness accomplishes so much more than force can. If you’re unsure of what you want to be, just be kind. That’s one of the best aims there are. 

Doing the right thing always pays off. But doing the right thing is often more difficult. So many take shortcuts and do the wrong thing. So why do the right thing when it’s harder? You do the right thing because doing harder things makes you better. And doing the right thing is always the correct choice. 

Be an example to others. Humans naturally imitate each other. We need more people being a good example, because the behaviour is contagious. Being the best version of ourself is sometimes the best thing we can do for other people.

Don’t you love those people who find the good in everything? I’m talking about the people who have wisdom and life experience and are able to elevate and uplift every situation and circumstance. They’ve learned that every hardship is the birth of something good. And they’re able to convey that to others. The world needs more people like that. We all can work to be one of the people who always see the good side of things and help others do the same. 

Not everything has an edit button. Some mistakes are undoable. Some mistakes work out best simply by owning them and doing whatever possible to rectify. Mistakes are inevitable and some come with longer and larger consequences. But owning them is really what determines the outcome. The mistake doesn't have to determine the outcome, the reaction does.

How often do we come to conclusions without all the evidence? Probably very often. Learning to reserve judgement is a skillset of the wise.

The greatest builders in our world are words. We create our world by the words we speak. The words we speak turn the thoughts in our head into some form of reality. So we can’t be careful enough to what we say. We are literally building our reality when we speak. We can speak doom or we can speak victory into our own lives. This is why we have to surround ourselves with people who believe in us.

Yesterday was Remembrance Day in Canada. It reminded me that we want selective memories. We want to remember certain things and purposely forgot others. Bad memories tend to cling but they’re the ones we need to train ourselves to let go of. Remember the good and remember what others have done before you to help you. Forget the wrongs that have been done to you. 

Who you are is so much more important than what you do. People usually ask what you do but that doesn’t tell much about who you are. A job is a job. It shouldn’t be an identity or your identity will be shallow. 

Ego gets in the way. It’s best to leave your ego far behind you. As soon as you think you’re something, you set yourself up for a big fall. 

There’s lots of ways to get it done. Don’t get so stuck on one certain way. Most journeys in life won’t go exactly as planned. Be open to new paths opening. 

Forcing someone to do something doesn’t teach must. Getting them motivated to do it from their own free will is the right way to do it. 

Too many yeses means you will be forced to say no to many things. Yeses have to be chosen wisely. No is likely something we don't say enough of. We have to say no to protect our most important yeses.

The more you say it, the truer it becomes.

If you feed it it will grow. If you starve it it will die. Am I feeding the right things or the wrong things? Am I starving the right things or the right things?

Figure out what you're for. We often know what we are against but a strong for is more powerful than being against anything.

It's never too late. To apologize, to learn a new skill, to go somewhere new, to fix something that's broken... Doing good even if it's late is still the right thing to do.

You know you’re healing when you handle certain situations better than you used to. Situations may have hurt you previously and the ability to go through them better means you’re healing. Healing often means getting better bit by bit. 

If you can discipline yourself, you can do anything. Mastering ourself if the hardest thing to master. Taking on and mastering ourself is the biggest challenge and biggest victory. Challenge yourself to be self disciplined!

In nature, seasons are beyond our control. In life, lots of seasons are beyond our control too. Some seasons are our own making, but many are simply just life. Each season has a purpose, even when it's not a favourite season. In each season there are thing to do in order to prepare for the upcoming season. Failure to take advantage of the current season will affect future seasons. Embrace the current season you're in and it will make the next better.

The things we let live in our heads rent free cost us a whole lot. The thoughts we allow to accumulate in our head add weight and burden to us that is optional.

You likely can do it. Doesn’t hardly matter the task. You likely can do it if you try enough. May take 1000 times and done in a totally different way, but you can get it done. 

Once you’ve put in an honest days effort, it’s best to just let it all go. Once you’ve done what you can, don’t stress and hold onto things. Rest knowing you’ve done your best. 

You can pretty much say anything you want if you do it right. Master communicators can pretty much insult you and leave you feeling honoured. A bad communicator can compliment you and make you feel like you've been insulted. So thinking before we speak, especially something important, makes all the difference. Practice speaking precisely but also with the most uplifting way. Demeaning people never makes them want to be better. Uplifting people even through a criticism will cause them to grow upward.

You already have what most people need, that being your ear and your time. Thats what most people really need. It's not as hard to be there for people when you know you already have what they need.

Telling the truth takes work. Because when we’re inaccurate we’re not being truthful. We have to work at being accurate. It’s easy to spin things to make ourselves look better. It’s a lot more work to be accurate. So telling the truth isn’t easy, but it’s always the better thing to do. 

Yesterday I wrote about trust. Today is about character. If you don't develop good character, you will never truly develop trust. What is character? It's you when nobody is watching. It's you when you do the right thing despite the consequences.  Develop your character. From here you will build trust. With trust you can build anything.

Trust costs. It mostly costs time and experience. There are very few shortcuts to trust. And once you gain trust it may be the most valuable thing you have. When you lose it, it may be the biggest loss you can have.

The blame game. We can always find someone or something to blame. But in doing so we give our power over that issue away. When we take ownership of things that have happened, we can change them. Or we can make them better. As long as we blame others though, we can't change things. Dropping the blame game is taking back the ability to craft our future.

Pride comes before a fall. When you start seeing yourself as more than you are you're heading for some major issues. Being humble is the safest place to be in viewing yourself. Be honest, but be humble. Pride bring you down fast. Humble keeps you grounded so you can continue to grow.

What will your contribution be? Will it be criticism, slander and negativity? Or will it be building, edifying and creating? You will contribute to everything you're part of. The world doesn't need more critics, it needs more builders.

Those who can remain calm no matter what have mastered the world. When nothing or nobody can take your peace you’ve reached peak self control. It’s not to be impervious to what’s going on around you, it’s maintaining inner peace no matter the storm. 

Anything good is difficult. Good doesn’t come easy. Because something may be difficult doesn’t mean it’s wrong or not good. The journey to anything of value is tough. 

We wanna be the best at things. But we often are looking to be better than other people, not our personal best. The real person to truly beat it ourselves, to constantly be better and beat our last best.

I’ve learned that forgiveness does as much or more for the person who forgives as the forgiven. I’ve learned that withholding forgiveness is a burden that can’t be carried and a poison pill that slowly takes the life out of us. Forgiveness is necessary for freedom and life. 

Simple rule, be kind. Rare is the occasion where being unkind is beneficial. People who are kind have a huge advantage of those who can't be kind.

Contentment is truly one of the best virtues to embrace. Contentment is a path to true joy.  We must be content but also not quite satisfied. It’s two opposing positions to take. We should be content with what we have but also not satisfied with no growth. Holding those values in balance brings joy and purpose together. 

We wanna be first in all the wrong areas. First to own something, first to do something, first to think of something...  Where we should strive to be first is first to serve, first to say sorry, first to forgive. Those are the true firsts of a winner.

To love is the greatest act a human is capable of. And the faces of that love looks a lot less like romance and a lot more like maturity. People with the greatest capacity to love and amongst the most mature.

Live life back to front. That means, live life with the end in mind. That means both be aware of the time you have left and also the places you want to arrive at. We keep our eyes on the end goal to direct what we do today. 

Good is the enemy of great. It’s easy to settle for less, because it’s exactly that, easy. Know what areas to be great in. Settle for good in areas so you can be great in others. You can’t be great in every area, so choose wisely which you want to be great in, then don’t settle for good. 

How often do we get frustrated because we're not where we want to be. But we only get there by working through it. Shirking the process doesn't help. It only makes things worse. You need to work through it to where you want to be.

Do feelings matter? Yes they sure do. I don’t think it’s fair or kind to dismiss one’s feelings. But feelings importance has been exaggerated. We can’t place feelings above truth. Feelings are fickle. While they should be considered, feelings shouldn’t be the highest value. Truth should be. 

We get told to be authentic and to be ourselves. But that means be true to what you believe and who you were made to be. It doesn’t mean to be the bad versions of yourself. Be yourself, but be the best version. 

How hungry you are for something usually determines whether you will get it or not. The heart usually gets what it wants, so the things you most want, you usually get. If you want something enough, you'll make it happen. Check your appetite to learn where you're heading.

We’re in a rush for the things that don’t really matter but in no hurry for the primary. The secondary things call for our time and attention and are louder than the more important. If something is loudly calling for our attention that doesn’t mean it’s the most important. 

Make a decision based on where you want to be down the road. Because you’ll be down that very road sooner than you realize. Life comes at you fast, don’t make decisions based on how you’re feeling that day, think about where you want to be. 

Control that which is within our control. Release that outside of our control. That simple rule will bring much peace to your life.

The people who find wonderful things are the ones who are looking for them. Nobody walks into wonderful things with a negative outlook.

Do good. In a world where so many are trying to do harm to others, so good. Leave the harm for others to inflict. We don’t need more of that. We need people who are doing good to others. 

I read a post today that bears repeating here. Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain. Lori Deschene

Healing is rarely a linear journey. It’s a journey and most often is unpredictable. As long as you’re heading in the right direction, be happy with your pace. 

We push for independence but really we need interdependence. We’re all better together. You can stand when you’re united but you fall when you divide. 

Being bigger often means being smaller. What does that mean? Being the bigger person often means having a smaller ego, thinking less of ourselves, not making things about ourself, putting others first. 

Once again I’m reminded that love is the answer. It always is. Love calls for maturity. And love can accomplish so much more than hate. 

You have to do things you enjoy. A lot of life is things we don’t particularly enjoy. Alarms, jobs, chores, errands, jobs, etc, etc. And if thats all our lives are filled with, we get miserable. You have to make time to do things you enjoy.

This is a very simple rule that will do you a lot of good. Listen twice, speak once. In the same proportion of ears to mouth. Two ears, one mouth. Hear and listen twice as much as you speak.

Our minds are busy places. The amount of information, media we take in daily and the amount of decisions being made have never been higher. If we don’t take to declutter our minds, they become very confused and inept. Find ways to declutter your mind. Learn to let go of things, to let things roll off your back. Learn to set priorities of what you will consume energy on. Our current culture demands an unsustainable pace from us. 

The balance of holding on onto some and letting go of some is tough. The balance of just enough new and just enough old has to be found. Maintaining just one side of these equations is hugely self detrimental. To move, learn and grow you have to stretch and reach for new but you can’t let go of it all or you’ll have to foundation. 

What defines you? Surely not your weakest point. How do you define yourself? Make sure you don’t define yourself by your weakness.  Define yourself by what you’ve overcome. By what you’ve come through. 

If our circumstances always changed to what we wanted, we ourselves would never change.

A skill where many are deficient is listening. How many good listeners do you come in contact with? When you find one, you notice it because it’s a rare skill. It’s something we all can and should get better at. A good listener will leave you feeling heard and loved and often uplifted. 

The most important task you can do in a day is touch someone.

A reminder that laughter is the best medicine. Joy is strength. When we lose our joy we lose our strength. Find things in your day to be grateful for, because once you’re grateful you’ll find yourself joyful. 

You don’t reach big goals without doing a lot of thing you don’t really want to do. The bigger the goal, the more hard work required. Show up and do the work! 

When we wish bad on someone or something it shows more about us than the other person or situation. Wishing good on everyone and every situation is a sign of maturity.

Strength is kindness when you don’t feel like being kind.  Strength is gentleness when you could use force.  Strength is smiling when you’re hurting.  Strength is being wise enough to ask for help.  Strength is forgiving when you haven’t received an apology.  Strength is protecting the weak. 

The term drawing a line in the sand is often used. And it’s used in different ways. The most powerful way it can be used is when we draw our own lines in the sand. Things we will stand by and things we won’t allow.  An excellent line in the sand to draw is, at this point I will be content and grateful. If you draw that line, you set yourself up for a better future.