Category: Motivation

You are Only Young Once

Everyone puts pressure on the young adult.

Go to college. Nail down your career choice. Get your life together.

While these people mean well, and there is always good advice to be gained from those ahead of you in life, sometimes it’s healthy to take a step away from the traditional ideas and assess your life.

My friend Lydia Hodgson wrote a challenging quote awhile back:

“Do not underestimate the value of your own time, or the value of opportunities other than university.”

This is from her blog post where she encourages young people to take a gap year to simply live and learn without the traditional pressure of school and career.

It’s an interesting thought: consider your time now. You only have one youth.  This time is but a drop in a bucket compared to your entire lifespan.

Breathe. It doesn’t all have to be figured out today. You don’t need to plan your entire life now.

Follow your goals, be passionate, but don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of decisions there are today.

It’s surprising how much of life will come to you if you only let it.

Day 13: Delete Distraction

So many distractions today keep us from our true purpose.

Thousands of people are wondering why they get nowhere in life. Then the next notification pops up on their phone, and they become glued to the dopamine rush of interaction with technology.

Or, they put aside a project that they enjoy to spend unnecessary time watching television.

I’m not insinuating that technology is the only distraction in the world. Neither am I saying technology is bad. I am only stating that in today’s world, there are more distractions than ever before.

The bright side is, there are also many more opportunities. The rise of entrepreneurship followed technology, and it is possible now to impact hundreds of people with your ideas and creations.

Why isn’t the majority of the population impacting anyone, then?

Glad you asked. With immense opportunity comes the need to be extremely intentional.

Find your purpose and cling to it. Set your goals and stick to the path you set out on. Be intentional. Recognize that you have the ability to change the world for good if you only delete the distraction around you and blaze on!

Let Me Fail

Here’s what I love most about being a teenager: it’s expected that you’ll make mistakes often. Many people give you room to grow.

However, the more open you are about your goals and dreams, the more pressure is put on you to get everything perfect.

Additionally, as you learn and succeed, people start to expect you to get everything right the first time. It’s an unspoken rule that when you master one thing, you have to master the next.

On one hand, this is extremely motivating to me. I love the pressure, and I strive to make progress every day, to reach my goals, and to succeed at what I put my mind to.

On the other hand, this makes me somewhat frustrated. It seems like a young adult can look at failure in a positive light all he wants, but it never changes other people’s opinions of his failure. They smile and wag their heads, saying “I knew it all along,” and forget about him.

As a young person who is excited about life, I plead for every teenager who is trying out new ideas:

Let me fail.

 

Don’t try to stop me because you think my dreams are too big. Don’t stand in my way because I might hurt myself. And if I make a mistake, urge me to fix it and become a better person because of my failure.

Failure is an integral part of the learning process. To the people surrounding the young, passionate learners among you: Stop modeling failure as bad. Recognize that experience is one of the best teachers anyone can learn under.

Let me fail.

 

Musings: True Love

“True love is not a strong, fiery, impetuous passion. It is, on the contrary, an element calm and deep. It looks beyond mere externals, and is attracted by qualities alone. It is wise and discriminating, and its devotion is real and abiding.” -Ellen G White

Today I went through a closet full of clothes. These antique pieces were the memories an 85-year-old veteran’s wife.

She died two years ago, and he hasn’t changed anything in the house. Her lipstick and mascara sit on the granite makeup counter, as if she had put them down yesterday.

The pictures all through the beautiful house tell their story. Pictures of a young wife holding the portrait of her husband, off fighting for his country. Snaps of their family through the years. A heartfelt image of them dancing together.

They were married for over 60 years. The last 5 of those years, he was her caretaker as she battled with Alzheimer’s. Now, he lives alone in their empty house that still looks just like her.

He doesn’t talk much. But anytime you mention his lover, a spark lights up in his eyes and a smile graces his weathered countenance.

60 years in love. It’s what everyone dreams about but few accomplish. I don’t know what their formula was, but I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that he stuck by her till the very end.

I packed those clothes up with the determined ambition to build a love like that. It’s hard work, but it can be done.

And to those who have built a love that lasts, thank you. You don’t know how many people you impact. I’m only the veteran lover’s cleaning girl.

The Two Biggest Questions

There’s a thought-provoking Jewish story that I have pondered over the last while.

One night the great Rabbi Akiva was walking down the small road to his home. It was late and dark, and the rabbi was pondering Scripture as he walked along.

Focused on the text, he made a wrong turn when he got to a crossing in the road. Instead of turning toward his home, he ended up at a Roman fortress.

As he stood by the gate, the century called out: “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Startled, all the rabbi could answer was, “WHAT?”

The century repeated: “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

This time, Akiva’s voice came back strongly: “How much do you get paid to ask these questions?”

After a shocked pause, the century responded, “Two drachma a week.” (about a day’s wage)

The great rabbi responded: “I’ll pay you double if you come and stand outside my door and ask me those two questions every morning.”

Who are you? What are you doing here?

Life is complex. The complexities bog many of us down. We become focused on the details, trying in vain to find meaning.

It’s a lot more simple than we make it in our heads. Who are you? Not, what is your name? Do you know who you are?

What are you doing here? Are you doing anything? Many times obsessing over the definition of life takes us away from creating value.

What about simply making the world a bit better every day? What about focusing on being a more complete version of yourself each moment?

If you are confident in the answers to these questions, the rest of life will sort itself out.

That’s why the rabbi would have paid the century large amounts of money just to ask him those two questions.

Get back down to the basics: Who are you, and what are you doing here?

 

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

 

#Represent

Everywhere you go, you sell yourself.

That’s something I have heard a lot in the last little while. It’s the truth. But it’s another thing to act on it.

Everything you do represents you to another human being. Do your actions accurately reflect your values? Are you the person you perceive yourself to be?

But you don’t only embody your personal values. You represent the things you talk about.

Excited about your job? Talk about it a lot? Immediately you become the thing people reference when they think about said job.

If you support a certain viewpoint or culture, you are a model for that idea. The more you talk about it, the more this holds true.

If you say you are a Christian, for example, you are immediately the impersonation of Christianity to all around you. They will form opinions of all Christians based on your behaviors.

You can’t make everybody see you perfectly all the time. There will always be those that disagree with how you live your life.

But you can be the best version of yourself in order to represent your core ideas and values accurately.

Be intentional about your actions and ideas. Know yourself and act wisely.

#represent

 

Cool Tricks for Staying Intentional on Social Media

I’m an experimentalist. And I often end up being the guinea pig for new ideas I try out. I love to learn, and it’s amazing to watch my hypotheses come true. I laugh and move on when I am proven wrong, and generally enjoy the process.

I started this at a young age. Once, I decided to try the cute trick of seeing if the child lock worked on the front door while we were driving.  Let’s just say that I got a good talking to after that ordeal.

Many of my ideas are much more helpful to my general life.

Recently I’ve been observing the effects of social media. The attention-grabbing capacity of applications like Facebook is astounding! I love dissecting how the

Social media is all about time consumption. The longer you spend on an app, the more ads can be directed your way. This translates to more money for the company behind the app.

Maybe this objective is a direct attempt to divert the attention of culture from other more important issues in the world. Or maybe it’s simply the desire to make money that drives this technology to its peak. Regardless, the probability that social media will consume inordinate amounts of your time is extremely high.

Intentionality is the sword that combats the pull of social media.

Here are my ideas for remaining intentional in the world of attention-seeking applications:

  • Ask, “Why am I on [insert social media application here]? If you can’t pinpoint a reason, then consider deleting the app. After you’ve honed in on an objective, always keep that as your focal point. Every time you find yourself reaching for your phone or opening said app, ask yourself if it advances your purpose or hinders it.

For example, many of my social media goals are centered around inspiring people to grow. This rules out the allowance of scrolling mindlessly through Instagram, because it does not in any way inspire others or challenge their mindsets. Instead, I spend my time writing encouraging comments and replying to stories.

  • Take a break every now and then. Fasting social media is so freeing. Often it creates an unhealthy stress on your brain that you don’t even recognize until you delete the apps for awhile.

If you get bored when you are on your social media break, then it’s a sure sign that it had more control over your mind than you realized.

Another way to cut off from the addiction machine is to have certain times during the day where your phone and computer are shut down so you can focus on the world around you. Take an hour to read, take a walk, or spend some one-on-one time with a person you love. Do anything that resets your mind from the

  • Turn your phone on greyscale. Colors are addictive. If you are having a hard time tearing yourself from an app, see if you don’t get bored of it in black and white.

On iPhones this is easy. Simply go to Settings> General> Accessibility> Accessibility Shortcut. Enable Color Filters. Now, with a triple-click of your home button, you can turn your whole phone to black and white mode. This is awesome if you want to focus on writing an article without losing your focus and moving to other apps.

It’s like double-hacking your own brain. It gravitates to bold, bright colors and tends to shun dull tones. In theory, if your surroundings are more colorful than your phone, you will put it down quicker and focus on what’s around you.

  • Turn your notifications off. As a start, take charge of your inbox and unsubscribe from the emails that you mandatorily receive when you sign up for any social media service.

Go a step farther. Turn off notifications for any app that takes your time unnecessarily. Personally, I only have notifications for my calendar, in addition to phone calls and messages.

Constant notifications are leeches of your focus, whether you can distance yourself from them or not. Make your life more organized and less stressful by taking the time to turn them off!

  • Set specific times for social media and stick to them. Give yourself several 15-minute segments throughout the day to comment or write happy birthday posts. Always stick to your goal in those times, or you will lose focus and fall into the scroll mindset.

You can only get so much done in 15 minutes. If you learn to maximize the short amounts of time you have, you’ll get a lot more done than if you try to fill a longer segment of time.

Are you the owner of your social media or vice versa? Be intentional!

 

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

 

Parenting: Featuring my Upbringing

“Don’t you guys fight at all?” a young friend asked me as she watched my siblings interact at a youth retreat.

I paused for a moment to think.

“Come to think about it, no,” I replied.

Every time I give that answer, people look at me like that I just told them I have superhuman powers.

Culture has gotten to the point where everyone believes that it’s normal for families to be at odds with each other constantly. I wasn’t raised like that.

It goes back to parenting. I owe my perspective and confidence to my parents, who modeled what relationship was supposed to be. Here are some ways they raised us that differ from normal parenting.

1. I never heard my parents raise their voices out of anger or frustration.

I don’t understand why anyone thinks they are going to prove a point by yelling. Here’s the thing: humans are selfish. They tend to think of each situation from their own perspective. This perspective will only be strengthened if others throw opposing opinions loudly in their faces.

Children are individuals. I think parents forget this often. They try to mold their kids into a certain behavior pattern that hopefully holds up as they grow into adulthood.

And when the child shows his individuality by contesting a parent’s wish, mom or dad freaks out, trying to frantically put the nice behavior pattern back together. And yelling is the preferred approach.

Parents are to be guides, not slave masters. You have in your hands the life of an individual. If you crush that individuality by pushing your point, you will lose the relationship that could be yours, and

There was one exception to the yelling in my life. If there was an emergency, then was the time to use the powers of your voice. This way, we learned to act quickly and without question in the face of danger. We knew instinctively that there was a reason for the tone our parents took on. Even then, it was only one quick word, then they would reduce to normal levels to talk us through emergency procedure.

2. My parents always heard my opinion.

This goes back to the individuality concept. Many times kids don’t want to do what their parents ask is because they don’t understand the reasoning behind the request. My parents didn’t just tell us to do things because they said so. Instead, we talked about the situation that caused them to come to the decision they did.

When dad and mom were wrong, they admitted it. If my ideas were good, they changed their perspective and put mine into practice. If my opinion was faulty, I was never the worse for having spoken my mind and heard the whole process of reasoning.

The result? I trusted my parents enough to do things just because they said so. I knew that they had solid reasoning behind their decisions, and I based my actions off that knowledge.
You can’t build a relationship by shutting down the voice of your child. Instead, focus on setting precedent by hearing his or her ideas, and expressing your position genuinely.

3. Honesty was always the first priority.

We knew that we had an alibi if we would only tell the truth. My parents always heard us out. We didn’t get punished for making mistakes. But we weren’t spared if we lied about our actions.

Mistakes are a part of life. My parents taught me to realize that facing those mistakes head on is the best key to personal growth.

Honesty also helped my relationships grow stronger. If we had quarrels as children, we knew that if we were honest, we would be given the chance to fix our wrongs and move on. This birthed healthy relationship mindsets in our hearts.

Now, we are simply honest with each other about thoughts, feelings, and ideas. This keeps our relationships open and solves any problems that might come up. We have hard conversations, but we leave with stronger connections than we came with.

Did my parents do everything right? Absolutely not. But I appreciate the mindsets they built in me and I apply many of the same principles they taught me to my interactions with children today.

And if and when I have kids, I will be sure to use these three tools daily.