Live out your passion!

Here's a wonderfully detailed guide to living your dream:

Live Your Passion

I have read a quote recently but now I cannot remember where about - everyone having a purpose here on earth, maybe yours is watching television.
How concerned are you with living your purpose? Is this something important to you?
I've recently had a conversation with a friend about the reasons behind wanting to accomplish your dreams and he said it's all about proving a point, proving it to yourself that you can do it. I don't think it's this, it's all about meaning and feeling like you are doing something meaningful. Living out your passions. I have always admired and looked up to people who have managed from nothing to make a living out of their passion. What can be better than that?

Wayne Dyer: "Don't die with your music still in you."

Postponing happiness

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin–real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” – Alfred D’Souza

One of my favorite recurring topics is putting off our happiness. I love reading about this because it motivates me to live in the present and stop thinking that everything will be all right when a certain something happens, when I achieve something or when one particular problem passes.

I think the key is to be able to find the time and balance to deal with the problems and then leave them behind, then pick them up again and relax again. Kind of a challenge, but maybe it comes down to a decision only. This is my time to deal with it, and this is the time to relax and add joy to the day. But now I have started talking about worrying, when I really wanted to talk about putting off going in the direction of your dreams and waiting for the time to be just right. Before you know it, you may be in for a lifetime of waiting!

Step out of yourself

In certain situations it helps to try to step out of your life and look at the situation you are in from an outside perspective. Often we feel stuck and cannot find a solution for a situation we personalise too much. It helps to imagine you are an outsider and you view yourself as an observer. This attitude can also help when you are dealing with a difficult situation or you are being criticised.

DBT therapy is explained here in more details. When you are in the middle of a situation, instead of personalising it totally, imagine you are an observer viewing the issue from outside, without judgement.

truth, not force

love love love this:

http://www.urbanmonk.net/135/love-sorrow-and-attachment/ :

"Love and Improvement

Recently I was reading another blog on personal development. It was a long, complicated post on reconciling the conflict between self-acceptance and self-improvement. And that issue has been raised in many other places before – “How can you love and accept yourself exactly as you are and still want to improve yourself?”

My question is: How can you not?

Have you ever seen a man who is in love with his car? He spends hours polishing it, waxing it, tinkering with the engine. Have you ever seen a woman and her infant? Does she leave it alone, simply because it is perfect as it is? No. The baby is perfect to her and yet she wants the best for it. She cuddles it, kisses it, feeds it, and plans for its future. Where is the conflict?

And, I beg you, think of the opposite. How many self-improvement projects stem from a lack of self-acceptance and self-love? How many of us meditate, work out, volunteer at a charity, go looking for a lover, drive ourselves to earn more – to fill a deep sense of “not enough”?

First, know Love. And from there, let everything else flow."

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Geneen Roth: "Truth, not force, does the work "

don't write yourself off

Watch what say to and about yourself. As Louise Hay says:

'Begin to listen to what you say. Don't say anything that you don't want to become true for you.'

I have recently caught myself saying to someone else how I cannot see myself doing this or that. 'I can't see myself driving.' But then I remembered that for all the years of my life I have said that I cannot see myself work. We can go through amazing transformations of character and bring about miraculous changes. At this point there's one thing I am sure of which I certainly hope remains the same. As for anything else, anything may happen.

Question your set beliefs about yourself, such as: I am this way, I cannot change, I have always been like this, cannot be helped/ and be mindful about negative self-talk. It doesn't help you. Plus it's not true but it can turn into your reality if you believe it.

first impressions don't work

It's amazing to me how many times it has happened to me that I have completely changed my mind about someone after getting to know them. I am not one to judge and form an opinion quickly when I meet someone for the first time.
I also take it with a grain of salt every time I hear someone say what a great judge of character they are and they can tell so much about a person at first sight. First impressions are a dead wrong giveaway in my opinion. I don't believe they work.
I am glad that I've had tons of weak first impressions turn into pleasant surprises. Careful about trusting your gut at first sight.

brilliantly put

Louise L. Hay's You Can Heal Your Life

" We are meant to be different. When we accept this, then there is no competition and no comparison. Try try to be like another is to shrivel our soul.

We have come to this planet to express who we are."

what would you do?

The other day I answered the question: What would you do if you only had one more day to live. And I realised I wasn't doing one of the things I would so love to do. So now, it's up to me to find a way to incorporate it into my life.

What about you?

how people inspire

I love getting advice from people or listening to what they have to say while out in town, waiting for the tram for example. Sometimes the most mundane and simple thing said comes just at the right time.

I also love running into aquaintances and having inspiring unexpected conversations. The other day I ran into an old aquaintance who started telling me about all the projects she is involved in and I realised that since our last encounter she has literally changed her life around, nothing is the same. I admired her zest and positivity and the conversation was very uplifting even though it was hot and I was tired and felt drained before it. I walked away knowing I will remember the talk for a long time to come.

Appearance vs Reality

It hurts that I had to miss Appearance vs Reality in the club yesterday. I would have loved to talk about how I am beginning to believe that is no such thing as reality, everything is appearance. There are facts, but no ultimate truths and with our attitude to the facts we make our own reality.

It is how we perceive and judge the appearance that will become our reality, which we can change.