There is no pause button in life. A picture may be the closest thing to a pause button. Although it captures a moment in time, it still doesn’t halt time.
Even when you stop and look at that stopped moment in time, actual time keeps ticking along.
How you spend your time is a fascinating thing. Take time to smell the roses but also keep cramming it all in before your final buzzer.
Guaranteed you are paying attention to someone or something, a person or a group. Have you thought much about this? Did you think through what they are saying, why they are saying it and what impact it is having on your life?
For example, if you follow sports closely, do you have a favourite team or player? What do they stand for or represent? Do they make you a better person? In whose eyes?
People usually think the people they follow are the best. This is true for sports teams, religions, political parties, authors, schools and even fishing clubs.
If you are interested in the greater good, for you and others, it may not matter as much who you follow as what positive influence you’re getting from it.
However, if you drop a notch and only want the greatest good for your group (not the population at large), then that is where division starts and troubles begin and it may even lead to conflict.
Groups and associations can be great. They are not all equally good. So be mindful about how much you rely on them being the only way with the correct information. You can get good information anywhere. Make sure you don’t fall for second tier info from a top tier source.
Make it one not the other when needing to make a decision on things.
Our brains naturally tend to seek easy things rather than hard things. This makes sense on a survival basis.
However, go for things that are worthwhile. Yes a candy bar is easy but a banana is worthwhile. It will do more for you in the long run.
All natural is the ideal it seems. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meat, and milk are pretty natural foods.
Sure, sour lollies are fun to eat, but they really are manufactured. Planes are also manufactured, because humans can’t fly naturally, like birds.
So many people want to encourage everyone else to eat, live, and be more natural. Unfortunately, many of these same folks want to eat, live and be manufactured, man-made or unnatural.
Why is that?
It is easy to dismiss work as hard, boring, dirty, tiring or dismal. This is not a helpful way to look at things. Check yourself if this is the only way you see work, as you may lean to the negative, which you may want to adjust.
Work can also be interesting, fun, enjoyable, creative, confidence-building and energising.
How you see it is in part how you see things generally and also what it is. You can change what you do and you can change how you see things, so don’t delay in making some changes.
Live in the moment. I take a lot of pictures, but I rarely go back to them. Even if I did, would I want to relive all 70,000 moments? It’s like reliving my life while pausing what is happening now for several years!
(Assume 5 seconds to see, on average, each photo. That’s 3 years of 40 hour work weeks to see all the shots. That does not include video.)
And then what do you do with these when you pass? Your children might want a few pictures of you and them in them and that’s it.
Then do you bin or delete all those pics after years of taking them?
Maybe our maker did a better job preparing for this. Only really important memories are kept. The rest disappear. And when you pass, they all go with you.
Think about that. And live in the moment.
Most people will recognise far left and far right propaganda and nonsense. Some won’t though.
However, we need to allow all voices the opportunity to speak out. Unless they are breaking a hate speech law in the country, we must let people speak.
I don’t enjoy hearing certain perspectives, but they have a right to speak. If enough people think it makes sense, their philosophy may win the day. That is the way it goes. The best ideas win.
Listen to what people want. Most people want very similar things. Oftentimes people can’t communicate what they want or they misunderstand what others are trying to say.
Go listen to people holding different views than you: True diversity. Listen to what they say, not what you think they would say.
Life is precious. A bullet missing a major organ by millimetres can mean you’re alive. A few unfortunate words or good ones in the wrong order could see you in jail for several years.
Misrepresenting the real situation by changing a word, tense or emphasis, could mean certain death, jail or freedom.
Life is full of fine lines. Cross them at your peril. Push things too far and the Universe will snap back. The French Revolution, a ball thrown in the air, or playing with a dog and going one step too far, are all examples of limits being crossed and the (natural) consequences.
Understand where the line is and was, and then adjust quickly, before it’s too late.
Look a day, week, year and even a decade ahead. Make a plan and follow it.
Aim to be hired on your merit. Yes, it’s expedient to be hired based on other things, but it will never be as pleasing and will rarely make you proud.
You’ll feel better about yourself if you come second on your merits than first by having some strings pulled.
