It’s Time to Move On When… by Shannon L. Alder

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Dare to Be by Steve Maraboli

“Dare to Be

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.

When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.

When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.

When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.

When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.

When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.

When times are tough, dare to be tougher.

When love hurts you, dare to love again.

When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.

When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.

When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.

When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.

When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.

When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.

Dare to be the best you can –

At all times, Dare to be!”

 Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

The Law of the Iceberg

It is very easy to judge a person. We all do it. We are all guilty of it. But how much do we really know of the person we are judging? Sad to say, we do not know enough to judge enough.

Our propensity to judge someone is only based on our selfish parameters to fit every person we know into our own standards. But who says your standard is right? Nobody. Except your ego.

Treat every person as an iceberg. An iceberg is a large mass of ice floating in the coldest region of our ocean. The fact about icebergs is pretty much interesting. What you see on the surface is just 10% of its total mass. In other words, 90% of its mass is submerged, hidden, buried down that icy ocean.

We are no different. Sometimes, we are quick to pass judgment on the character of a person. We even go overboard at times by thinking that we are so smart to have been gifted with a powerful intuition briefing us of somebody’s personality. But our judgments can fail us. The very person we belittle could well be our boss and the very person we adore could well be the source of our disappointments. And the parameter you use is? – Just their superficial appearance.

There are times that we judge someone’s personality by how they behave upfront without realizing that their personality is what they are while their attitude depends on who you are.

You don’t know their stories, sadness, and their pain; therefore you have no right to define them.

Sometimes, you get into a mess of disputes that has nothing to do with you. In today’s influx of social media presence, everyone deserves a mug shot as everyone can be a suspect. Suspect of holding prejudice with our fellow’s lives and personal affairs.

You saw a Facebook status of an angry person aiming bitter tirade to someone you don’t know and in your itch to barge-in the juicy hullaballoo, you shroud yourself by pretending to empathize with his sentiment; but the truth is you are merely curious of what delicious gossip your pea-sized brain could discover. So instead of being someone who really cares, you make a total travesty of yourself by being a complete nincompoop of an issue that which never concerns you at all.

Smart people don’t meddle with other people’s lives. Only low-class, insecure, uneducated breed do that. Never underestimate a person’s silence as he could be a force you could never reckon with.

Wayne Dyer said, “When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

The biggest culprit of Titanic’s sinking in an iceberg. So the next time you are compelled to make judgment, make sure you know them enough that you will not be trodden by your own preconceived notions.

Holding Anger is Poison

I would like to believe that anger is a perfectly valid emotion. This means to say that, we all have right to be angry at a certain point of time. There are several reasons why we get angry as there are stages whereby our anger could escalate to. Depending on what is done to you and how you were affected by it physically or emotionally, our anger can intensify from a mild irritation to intense fury or rage. And if you cannot control it, you can do unthinkable damage to yourself and to others. But you have to keep in mind that no regret comes before the feeling of anger. Because if you cannot control anger; your anger will control you.

The good news is anger can be controlled.

Although not all people can do this, there is hope that we can control how we respond to this perfectly valid emotion. Either you get a gun and shot your offender, or think about it in a loving way that maybe you have contributed to his outburst, defines your ways of responding to anger. Anger can be suppressed and can be redirected by focusing your attention to something positive.

When you squeeze an orange, you do not expect to find an apple juice. In other words, you will know what you are really made of by the time somebody provokes you. If you respond with aggression more than love, it spells the kind of a person you are. Hence, I believe that this is the best philosophical explanation as to why anger should exist in the world.

We all feel it and that’s one emotion that makes us human. But holding on to anger is poison. Imagine we all have a heap of coal in our hearts. This represents our instinctive dark responses towards an aggression. Everytime you are triggered by unfair doings, gossips, flagitious schemes, oppressive advances, physical threat; your anger lit a fire to burn your coal. And if you are not too careful, a once little flame could grow into a smoldering fire. It scorches your life force. It steals your joy. It causes you uncontrollable stress. It breaks your vision. It fills you with discontent. It pollutes your mind with vengeance. It kills your peace. It aged you quickly. It clouds your thoughts with nothing but ill-wishes. It destroys your relationship even to those who have nothing to do with your pain. It makes you irritable. It plants a time bomb in your heart waiting to explode. It is a poison to your life, your dreams, and your purpose and even to people around you.

You are guilty of posting a Facebook status announcing to the word that if only hurtful words and evil imaginations could kill, your offender could have long been dead. Actually, you are right! But the first casualty is YOU. Every evil thought you think; every harsh word you speak; and every hurtful actions you do, the Universe will hold you accountable for it one day. And while you are embattling with bitterness, resentments and insecurities, for all you know, your so called “enemy” is busy improving his careers, taking a great vacation and living a good life. Let go. Move on. 

Nobody may understand how badly hurt you have been. But you can begin to understand the purpose of your pain.

Anger is just anger. It is neutral. It’s neither good nor bad. What you do with it makes all the difference. You could either use it to build yourself by fulfilling your dreams or you can spend more time nurturing it and destroying yourself in the process. The right choice rest upon you.

Do yourself a favor, let go and forgive. Anger is poison but forgiveness is a sweet perfume. 

Let me share to you a beautiful quote by one of my favorite authors, Dr. Steve Maraboli.

“Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of the yesterday. Holding a grudge and harboring anger/ resentment is a poison to the soul. Get even with people…but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.”

– Steve Maraboli, Life the Truth and being Free

People Get Hurt Because They’re Dumb

Before you run vitriolic with the title, let me just make a few disclaimers. People don’t become dumb by deciding to be in a relationship but not knowing the obvious and what to do about it is what makes them dumb. Hurts done to you with clear motivation to do it intentionally do not qualify to this.

Here we go.

I am not merely talking about your romantic relationship; of course, it also includes your social relationship with your parents, brother’s and sisters, friends, co-workers and even your neighbors.

How could being dumb be the reason why people get hurt?

Let me explain through this simple analogy.

If you have a very beautiful house with a verdant lawn and a dog comes in and poop, you don’t get mad at the dog; you have to be mad at yourself because you are so dumb knowing you have a beautiful house and yet you did not put up a fence.

In other words, you expose yourself to hurts by not setting-up boundaries. Boundaries are very important because it helps you and your involved relationship draw the line between what you can do to them and what they cannot do to you. Boundaries should be set before you begin to establish a relationship.

By doing this, you save yourself from a lot of heartaches, frustrations and disappointments. True enough, this is the reason why many people suffer from Pisanthrophobia (fear of trusting people due to past experiences with relationships gone bad) that could steal away their joy long before they get to feel it.

Your self and life is likened to that house. You need to choose people who can enter your perimeter fence, the visitors you can sit with in your living room, the friends who can eat with you in your dining room and the love ones who can sleep in the bedroom with you.

Each rooms represents just up to where you can open yourself because if you recklessly open yourself to the world, negative people could always find a flaw that they could use against you.

My deep appeal is…be wise – SET BOUNDARIES. 

Never create a storm and get angry when it rains. So if you tell your husband, wife or partner, neighbors, co-workers and friends today the things you like and you don’t like – do it. It helps them avoid doing you unintentional hurt.