Pleasing yourself

"If you are going to die your own death, you might as well live your own life".

Whenever we try to please other people, we make their feelings more important than our own. If we postpone our own pleasure and always put others first, even if we think we are doing so out of love, we end up disappointed in their response to us.

Somehow it's never enough when we try to please others, for us or for them.
We end up expecting too much. And this leads to resentment.

And soon life loses its pleasure, becos' we depend on other people to make us happy and we don't believe anyone truly can.

No one will ever knows how to please us the way we know how to please ourselves.

Hope, etc...

"Is there any hope?" Is one of the most often thought about phrase in my life and I'm sure in many other people's lives as well.

I realise that it's a tough, tough world we live in. At times in our lives we must face despair, whether it be the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the breakup of marriage or relationship, illnesses or financial burdens.
There are also times in a person's life when he/she wakes up and realises that he/she is not the success they always planned to be.

Problems seem to pile upon problems, worries upon worries, and fear begins to dominate our lives. Tears flow more frequently. Sleep comes less easily. And we may begin to wonder why God doesn't seem to care, if God is really listening, or if God is even there at all.

I know these feelings cos I've faced these too. I've known great days when I could hardly wait to get up so that I could enjoy the challenge & opportunities of making things happen. On the other hand, I've experienced desperate times as well. I've known days when sleep would not come, days when I had to fight to hold back the tears. There have been times when I wasn't certain that I was loved or cared for and times when I questioned if God was near or if God was even real. Those are the tough times in life, the testing times in life.

Through all those times, I've learned that everyone must face his or her own Gethsemane. Everyone must come to a point of testing - a time that can make a person either bitter or better. When some people reach this point they simply accept defeat and give up; others refuse to allow the tough times to defeat them and persevere to overcome their difficulties.
How can you get up when you've knocked down? What can you do when all hope seems lost? Why do some seem to grow through the tough times, learn from them, and overcome overwhelming odds to step back on the path of success, happiness and hope?

Whether you emerge from trouble a better person or a bitter person depends not on what happens to you, but rather how you react to what happens to you.

I believe that failure is never final. We should draw strength and comfort from the knowledge of a living and loving God. A God that is a source of unconditional love, uncompromising acceptance, and unlimited power - power that can lift us out of the valley, bring us through the tough times and set us on a path of hope.

Choosing Happiness

Everyone I know is looking for happiness, including myself.
But happiness is not a goal in life. It is a result of doing what you like and relating honestly to other people. It's about being able to be alone, not having someone at your side. Some people need to have someone at their side, to justify who they are. This is not happiness, cos when the person leaves, you will be all alone and not be able to find your place in the world.

Happiness is about being your own person, making your own decisions, doing what you want becos' you want to do it, and living your own life to please yourself.

When we go through a difficult phase in life, we often stop to think why this is happening to me? But then again, I think we all have the ability to get over just about everything. And if we intend to be happy during this lifetime, we are going to have to get over alot of things all the time.

We need to let go of our unrealistic expectations of what we think life should be like so that we don't judge others and find them lacking and ungiving.

To find happiness we need to be our own person, not a pretender!

Something better?

Is it a possibility or just merely a dream?

Choosing the right path is never easy.
It's a decision we make with only our hearts to guide us.
But sometimes we find our way to something better.
Sometimes we fight through the regret and remorse of our mistakes, our malice and our jealousy and the shame we feel for not being the people we were meant to be.

And that's when we find our way to something better or when something better find its way to us.

Better in time

I remember that Albert Camus once wrote: "Blessed are the hearts that can bend; for they shall never be broken".

But then I wonder, if there's no breaking of hearts, then there's no healing.
And if there's no healing, then there can be no learning.
And if there's no learning, then there's no struggle at all.
And struggle is a part of life.

So I wonder must all hearts be broken?

Where do broken hearts go?

Whitney Houston's once famous song has me thinking on where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home?

I'm waiting to get a break from being sad. I'm thinking how long it's gonna take before this bad, bad feelings go away. I was re-reading my journal this morning and something I wrote last year (journal entry: 21 feb 2007) got me thinking. Sometimes the danger we face in life is making our own happiness dependent on one person. And when this person hurt us, we render ourselves powerless.

This is a hard lesson to learn, it's easier said than done. I need to constantly remind myself this each day.
We need to learn to love ourselves first. And treat ourselves with value and respect. That way, even when we are hurt and down, our spirits will not be broken.

Psalm 147:3 says "He heals the broken hearted & binds up their wounds"

What's the Real Secret of Success?

The great automaker Walter Chrysler once said "the real secret to success is enthusiasm". Steve Chandler in this book - The Story of You said, it takes more than enthusiasm, it takes excitement.
I believe it takes both.

When people get excited and have enthusiasm in what they do, they make a success of their lives.

Most of the time, people wait for excitement to happen in their lives. It's like they take a ticket and wait for their turn. For something. For someone.

The thing with excitement; it doesn't work that way. Excitement, just like enthusiasm is an inner phenomenon. It starts within us, not outside of us. People released from solitary confinement get excited and have enthusiasm when seeing the sun shine.

This excitement they feel is created by their perspective of life. Their excitement is based on how they see things. And how they see things in life depends on the lens they are wearing which is called the story of them.

What's the real secret of success for you?

What's the height of your success?

Harold Thurman Whitman once wrote “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”.

People often lose games, lose money, lose their career and lose a spouse to divorce without becoming a loser. When we lose at something in life, it’s often very easy to create a ‘loser’ story around it. However, we should compose a ‘brave’ story that says “I am brave, bold and unafraid of losing. I even laugh at defeat”.

We could actually do that but we rarely do. Instead, we almost always draw conclusions about ourselves when things go wrong and spin a tale around those conclusions so that we end up living inside a truly painful story.

We love being victims. We should lose our victim stories. The past is history. We should not see ourselves as a loser. Why? Because that’s simply not our story.
These victim stories do not serve us. They stifle us.

Instead a daily mantra might help: “The depth of your struggle will determine the height of your success”.