My Riffs

Taking ownership of things within your control is a power move.  It’s easy to blame situations or people, but that gives away our power. Taking ownership reclaims our power. 

People can get power hungry. It's really just an exercise in ego. You can make a name for yourself with power, but you don't need power to effect change in the world. The important things in life don't require power. Power just feeds our insatiable ego.

The loudest voice is your own. What you tell yourself you will end up believing. What's even more is your body will respond to what your mind tells it. People have made themselves physically sick by simply believing they are. People have recovered from sickness simply by finding things to be grateful for. Auditing the things we tell ourselves and cutting off the negative thoughts can alter our life and health more than any external thing.

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.

I'm a parent, and I want to provide the best possible life for my children. I've seen kids come from good and bad parents both, and end up the opposite of their parents. The means you can become good even when you've been taught bad. You can use the bad to learn good. You can also be taught good, but not appreciate it and choose bad. It seems the power is in the individual. It seems our desires eventually make their way out. So if we have an inner desire and it's not a good one, we have to internally shun it. If you feed that desire it will eventually come out. You don't have to repeat the bad you have received in your life. You can desire better and produce better. The good news is, the choice is yours.

Power is sought to control. Some spend incredible effort in trying to attain power, in order to control, in order to feel significant. The irony is that significance is found is vulnerable spaces, not in powerful ones. Power makes us feel big, but it's not real, it's a mirage. The most powerful people are the ones who are the ones who don't seek it. It's the Mother Teresa's of the world who are powerful. Some may obtain power and the only thing they achieve it being a tyrant. Seek spreading the most love, help and support possible. That's true power.

HUGE life hack here: stop blaming. It doesn't matter what happens or has happened. Stop blaming. You give power away when you blame. The more you blame, the less power you have. You want power? Take responsibility for the bad things that have happened to you. Don't blame people, don't blame circumstances. Own it, and thereby gain power to change it.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. “ - Marcus Aurelius