YoYo’s World

Over the past few weeks I have been slowly changing my beliefs and becoming a more “glass half full” kind of person. I have to say that I have noticed changes in myself and came to a realization yesterday.   I have a very independent personality and for the most part I feel I can handle life myself without the help of others. When I go on a mini be-by-myself rampage, I find myself needing to be around people. I can expect this would happen with most people. There have even been scientific experiments done on chimpanzees and humans put in isolation. (These studies have ultimately concluded that contact with the outside world is necessary for our survival.)  This past week I have been at home visiting family and friends. As positive as I am, I don’t feel as happy when I’m not sharing my happiness with them. I still feel happy most of the time, but I feel 10x happier when I’m sharing these moments with others. Experiencing this has really taught me a powerful lesson;  

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”
- Mark Twain

“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
- Aristotle

These two very powerful quotes speak volumes. You have probably heard someone say that their high school or college years were the best times of their lives. Want to know why? They had friends to share it with. They surrounded themselves with people they loved and cared about. “The greatest thing you can learn is to love and be loved in return.” To share a moment with one other person whom you care about and who cares about you is a truly joyous moment. Why do we always want to hang out with our friends? Why do we even need friends? Because if you both add value to life at the same time, you experience purpose of life; to be happy.  

When I really came to this realization, these quotes meant so much more to me and I learned appreciation - appreciation of the people around me. My friends, my family and all the memories we share with each other. They mean that much more to me now and I am truly grateful to live the life I do. It is a very humbling, relieving and joyous to have what I have and to know that I can experience life like this with anyone.  As said by Natasha Bedingfield:

“Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else”

-YoYo

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For the past few months I’ve been reading a blog called MySelfDevelopment.net. It is a wonderful blog with a plethora of valuable and useful information and tips. I was just reading today an article called “Learn How to Be Lucky” and it really ‘hit me hard’ so to speak. I found the content to be pretty enlightening and I’ve decided to go ahead and experiment with ‘thinking lucky.’

I suggest giving the article a go. For all you know, you may have been lucky finding it.
Learn How to Be Lucky

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Today’s motivational clip was compiled together by Mays10 from youtube.com. It’s a clip about Michael Jordan and it includes some very enlightening quotes made by him. This is a definite fish pumper clip. I suggest giving this a go when you’re feeling down-in-the-dumps. Either way, good compilation and very motivational

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Over the past few weeks I have found some amazing motivational clips off YouTube.com. All of them have made a great impact on my life and all of them have helped keep myself motivated to continue working towards my goals. I have found such a plethora I felt it would be a completely unjust to not share these videos. I’m talking seriously awesome videos.

I have made a YouTube Playlist, so here is a link: http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FE743387C5B466A3

The first motivational clip for this series will be a motivational speech given by Steve Jobs, co-creator of Apple. Here is a transcripted pdf version of the speech. If the video doesn’t work go here.

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(A bit of an impulse post right here.) Today I was randomly searching the net and came across a video that may be of interest. This is a video of Will Smith talking about the two keys to life. It’s a clip of him giving his speech at the Teen’s Choice Awards for receiving an award. (I don’t know what he won for though.)

There will be times in life where we when we get to advanced techniques, we find our basics need a little brushing up on. Going back to the basics is never a bad thing because it allows you to learn more and come closer to mastering those techniques.

Here is a bit of those basics to visit today. Try not to get so caught up in what you’re doing that you forget what you learned in the beginning. That has happened to me many times to me and it’s always nice to stop, take a break and do some review.

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I’ve been following this blog called MyPersonalDevelopment.net for a few months now and it is just great! There are so many good reads it’s amazing. I’d like to point out one great post that I just read. It’s a guest post by Eric Zorn and it’s called “50 Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years.” There are so many fun-filled little life facts and it was so enjoyable to read.

As you can see above, there’s a link to go check it out. Here is a mini excerpt of some of the wonder life tips it offers:

“9. Cough syrup doesn’t work.

10. Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.

11. The Golden Rule is the greatest moral truth. If you don’t believe in it, at least try to fake it.

12. Keeping perspective is the greatest key to happiness. From a distance, even a bumpy road looks smooth.

13. You can’t win arguing with police officers or referees, but every so often you can fight City Hall.

14. It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency.

15. It may not feel like it, but it’s good luck when you have people at home and at work who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong.

16. It’s 10 times easier to fall in love than to stay in love. And no matter what the sad songs say about romance, broken hearts do mend.

17. Don’t waste your breath proclaiming what’s really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.

18. Keeping an open mind is as big a challenge as you get older as keeping a consistent waistline.”

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Fear. The root of all evil.

There have always been times in our lives where we make everything a little more difficult than it needs to be. We look to the future and grow in fear because we may fail, we may succeed, we may make fools of ourselves, we may hurt ourselves, we may die. The picture of the future in our heads are so real to us that we sometimes don’t take the action we need to take in the present. Thinking of the future makes us hold ourselves back.

What are thoughts anyway? They are us thinking. They are us thinking about the past. They are us thinking about the future. They are us making reality in our heads.

The thoughts in our heads are so real, that we try to logically come up with solutions to our problems. We convince ourselves that we’re not good enough. That we’re not strong enough. That we’re not that person. But what validity is there in that? Is it reality? No. It’s our perceived reality. It’s our imagination. The future hasn’t even manifested itself. How can we know for sure that this or that will happen? How can we know that we will fail?

Looking to the future stagnates us because we’re so occupied in what could happen, that we’re not concentrating on what actually is happening. Our present moments are passing before our eyes and we’re not taking action because we’re too busy worrying bout the possible negative in the future. Inadvertently we are causing the negative to manifest because we’re letting it distract us from what we’re doing.

You can only change things in the present. The more you change things in a certain way, the more a particular future will manifest. You can only change the present. You can only take action in the present. What else is there? Nothing but the present.

If you find yourself afraid and reluctant to do what you know you need to do, that means you are thinking about the future. You are stuck in your imagination and what you need to do is come back to what is now and just do. Next time you watch a movie and you get scared for the main character because you see them catapult through the air, thing about why you are scared. You’re scared because you know when they land on the ground they will get hurt and it will be painful.

Why add stress to your life like that? Why make things unnecessarily difficult? Just be in the present. Dump all that future and past trash that’s been building up in your mind. Take the trash out.

Just remember, pass it on.

-YoYo

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A few months ago I made it my goal to find my purpose. I wanted to know what my passions were so I could decide early on in my life to pursue them to the fullest of my abilities. While on my journey to find a purpose I read much material on the subject. Majority of what I read were good reads, but I still found myself stuck. I tried Steve Pavlina’s method, I tried Deepak Chopra’s method, I tried many others but to no avail. Feeling a bit desperate, I decided to look outside of the box and approach this a little differently.I began reading biographies about people who were absolutely passionate about what they did. They made their passions their purposes and they all shared some underlying characteristics:

• They absolutely loved their occupations and
• They would follow their passions even if it meant they would be working  for free

Realizing this I decided to take money out of the whole equation. This led me to the following question: If I was given unlimited monetary resources, what would I do with me life? To help you with this simple exercise, I will use my experiences as an example to better explain these ideas. These are my answers to the question.

• I would write
• I would study Kung Fu
• I would grow through meditation

These are my passions but I decided not to stop there. I rewrite them in more detail. This helped me really clarify what made me passionate about these passions. = )

• By writing, I would firstly be organizing my thoughts and cementing my beliefs. If I put this on showcase for others, it would give others the opportunity to find value in it if they wish to.
• I can raise my abilities to new heights and teach others the benefits of Kung Fu by becoming a master.
• I can get in touch with my deeper self and develop more a sense of unconditional love and increase my passion to help others.

Detailing your passions really help internalizing and clarifying what exactly you’re passionate about. It helps you figure out why you love doing those things. There are some passions that are very broad; for example, business. This may be one of your passions but what specifically about it are you passionate about? Are you passionate about the law aspect of it? Small businesses? Loans? Marketing? Public Relations? By defining the actions that make your passions pleasurable, you add clarity to the general things that make you happy which will help you in this next part; outlining your purpose.Once you have done the step above, try to find the common themes that are prevelant. It helps to find similar words in your statements and/or words that hold generally similar meanings. These are the themes that I found in my specific passions:

• Learning all I can about life and sharing that knowledge to help others grow and add value to their lives for themselves.

If you look more closely at my specific passions you will find that the first things I mention are growing and adding value to myself. In my first passion it is, writing to bring clarity and cement my thoughts. In my second passion it is, raising my abilities to new heights and in my third passion it is, growing. The second component to my passions is teaching and sharing my knowledge with others in the hopes that they can better themselves. In my first passion it is, showcasing my ideas so others can put into whatever usage they want, my second, teaching the benefits of good health and my third, helping others find their deeper selves.

Essentially, the common themes statement becomes your general purpose. It sums everything up together bringing your passions and common themes together in one or two statements. The reason I began with finding your passion(s) first is because why would you center your purpose on doing something you don’t like to do. If you do this, your purpose will always have an underlining negative connotation. You are not going to bring value in the world if you don’t enjoy what you do and rather than force yourself to enjoy something you don’t, why not start out with something you are absolutely beaming with passion about? Why not start with doing what you love to do? What better place to start than here?If you start with your passions everything will sort of avalanche into place. You won’t feel it’s a chore to work according to your purpose because you deeply enjoy it. Since it is your great joy you will naturally grow your skills and talents associated with it. This may not necessarily be a goal that you hold, it’s something that you will unconsciously do because of the fact you love whatever it is you’re doing. You love the subject matter so much you take in as much as you can. You’re like a sponge just soaking up as much water as you can possibly hold. You become so enthralled you are loving every second of educating yourself and bringing yourself deeper into the subject matter.

I have read a dozen articles about living your passion rather than living for money. Now this subject goes beyond the scope of this article but this is the next step to consider about once you’ve found your passion. StevePavlina.com has a lot of articles and posts on this and I will soon be writing about this but as of right now what you should do is figure out your passion so you can find your purpose.

Until then, good luck to you all when finding your passions and just remember, pass it on!

-YoYo

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