My Riffs

It’s hard to gain without some type of pain. Sacrifice is a pain but there’s something to gain from it.  The pain of lifting heavy things leads to gains in strength. The pain’s of life can do the same thing. Don’t waste the pain. Gain from and through the pain. 

We can't have it all. Career, family, friendships, personal development, play, these all have their place, but we can really only choose a couple to focus and proritize. And the ones we choose leaves the remainder to a degree neglected. Where you spend your time will show where your priorities are.  It's good to clearly know your priorities and ensure they are receiving enough of your focus.

Water always finds the lowest point. Humans have a similar tendency too. We tend to eventually be held down by our weakest or lowest point. We tend to find the path of least resistance. But it’s not good for us. Our lowest and weakest point should be upgraded and fixed. The path of least resistance often isn’t the best decision.  For us, easy is rarely right. We’re made for challenge. 

You can’t get better without getting uncomfortable.  Comfort is recovery and respite. Comfort isn’t the place to build, strengthen or grow.  Get uncomfortable. Embrace discomfort (with wisdom). 

Absorb new information and edit your assumptions.  Don’t be to rigid you can’t change your mind.  Allow new information to shape and change your thinking.  Use your critical thinking to check if the new information is valid and useful.  Then update your assumptions. 

If you’re not stretching, you’re not growing  Growth should be uncomfortable. It should push you.  Comfort doesn’t grow us.  Embrace the discomfort. 

We add so much pain to ourselves when we ruminate, when we hang onto the past and when we fight what we can't change. It's so hard to do. It's easy to say stop. But when you can stop these things, you can remove added pain from life. Life comes with enough built-in pain. We don't need to heap any more on.

Find more mentors. Mentors don't have to have every answer. But they can provide support and guideance you can't have on your own.

It’s a noisy, noisy world. There’s very little place for quiet. There’s little place for solitude and contemplation. We don’t look inward. We look outside for validation and get it in echo chambers. We seek out those who agree with us and feed our egos. Discomfort is something we avoid at all costs. Silence is uncomfortable. But in the uncomfortable is where the gold is. The rest only holds fools gold.  Slow down and think. Slow down and dig deep.  Check your assumptions.  Be open to changing your mind.  Do the hard work.  That’s where the real important stuff happens. 

Travel and learn. You’ll learn more by experiencing new things in new places. If you want to expand you have to travel. 

There’s only growth or decline.  Don’t stop, that means decline. 

Growth isn’t linear. So you may slip but as long as you keep moving and pointing in the right direction you’ll grow.  So keep your direction and heart oriented in the right direction. 

Often the difference between a great day and a bad one is simply our outlook.  Bad days undeniably happen. So does bad weeks, months and maybe even years.  But in those, our outlook still shapes our perception and how we handle those days. A bad day can be a better one if choose to see the good. 

A mistake becomes a choice when you make it twice.  A mistake you accept becomes a habit. Use a mistake to learn and adjust. 

What needless weights we carry. It's usually a choice to carry the things we carry. Sometimes the weight even becomes part of our identity. The thing about weight is it gets heavier the longer you carry it.  The other thing about weight is, you can lay it down whenever you decide to. So let go of the needless weights. Don't worry about who will carry it or where it will be dropped. Just lay it down, let it go and move forward lighter.

Looking down shuts off the world.  When we look out and up our world enlarges.  Keep your eyes upward and outward. You’ll see possibilities, needs and things larger than yourself.  That gives us perspective and hope to grow and reach. 

You learn something interesting when you push through something. The lesson often is simply, you can do it! It's usually easier than you think it's gonna be.  The real lesson is, what have we missed simply because we were scared to push through? Simply because we were scared to try? There's not as much to be afraid of as we we've grown up to think. The world is moldable, adaptable and usually fixable. Don't be afraid to try. Don't even be afraid to "fail". For true failure is giving up. Push through your fears. Push through those imagined barriers. There's something good on the other side.

We need to love what we do. But we better be doing a whole lot of things we don't necessarily love. Being self disciplined may not be something we love, but we need to do a whole lot of it. Pushing ourselves past our limits often doesn't feel like doing something we love. But growth doesn't occur in our comfort zones. If you don't choose to do hard things, life will be harder. Willingly choosing hard things makes the hard loads of life easier. The hardest burdens to carry are the ones from laziness and neglect.

If you drive through Houston, you may see it said “Be Something”.  Don’t drift through life aimless; Be Something! Be something good, strong and helpful!

We seek comfort and coddling. We will even go extreme length for comfort and coddling. How many times will we drive a parking lot just to find a spot a few feet closer? We want comfort and to be told we're okay. And we need that assurance. But we also need to know we can be better. Getting better can't happen in comfort. But we don't get uncomfortable often enough.  Reject unnecessary comforts, or enjoy them in small measures. Know coddling from appreciation. We need appreciation but we also need to hear when we can be better. A coddled individual cannot handle challenge. Get uncomfortable, stretch, grow and search for your weaknesses in order to address them.