Lego

.

I remember, one of my favorite childhood's game was the Lego. I loved building things! ;)

Now, I have a chance to do some construction work in part time. I just realized that I'm doing "in real" what I liked playing in as a child! How cool is that! ;) And it's even more exciting that the elements don't fit to each other as easily as they did in the Lego, so I have to be resourceful to "play" with the material around me in order to make everything look nice in the end!

I had a good day today as well! I enjoyed every minutes of it! ;)

Master Piece

Mirage

.

I just listened to one of Deepak Chopra's audiobook: Magical Mind, Magical Body. How interesting it was!

He gives detailed explanation about the body-mind connection, tells about the aging process and how to slow it down, he explains an easy & effective way of loosing weight & being physically fit. He talks about the main personality types and about their balances. Love & Fear is also discussed as well as many other interesting things.

I really liked when he talked about the known & unknown. He said that most of the people are afraid of the unknown, however it's a mirage, and instead, people should be afraid of the known!

Why?
Because the unknown is always full of possibilities, while the known always limits and bounds us...

Mirage

Free Your Mind

.

I've just heard a following story recently:

The pupil went to the master to expand his knowledge by learning from the master. In the very beginning, the master poured 2 glasses of water and told him the following presentation:

"This glass of water in front of you represents your knowledge. This one, in front of me represents mine. If you want my water (my knowledge), you have to empty your glass (your mind)!"

I wonder how many times I didn't "empty my glass" before listening to my loved ones, friends and other people?! I'm even more curious how much more open I'm becoming by understanding this profound principle! ;)

Empty Your Glass! ;)

Vicious Circles

.

This week I started my trainee-ship in a residential care home where I work with elderly people. When I looked around in a nice lady's room I had to notice how gorgeous beauty she used to be a half of a century ago... And now, an elderly fragile lady sits in front of me, who is facing with physical & mental challenges.

I started to think again - I just can't stop thinking. :) How many times we stop doing exercises for some reasons (or rather, excuses?) and it results us either gaining weight or lack of energy. And the less we train our muscles the harder is to restart our workouts. We say to ourselves that we are tired or we can't exercise - while working out would be the very thing that could free us from tiredness, give us more energy and build up our muscles...

I wonder if it works the same with the mind: From our adventurous childhood we go more and more toward a secured life, avoiding risks... Until we reach a point when we realize:

If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we always got.

Then, we stop and we ask: Is that it? Is that all what life is about?

But isn't it too late by then? Will we still have the courage to take any risk to make some changes, to do something differently?

Vicious Circle

Mission Accomplished

.

I wondered many times why I used to follow through my goals related to supporting other people's goal & mission while I got stuck with some of my personal goals. Finally I found the answer.

When I set up a mission which is bigger than me, then it becomes so important that I just follow through whatever it takes.

And what is my benefit from this? The same as I can get from achieving my goals: the personality change I'm going through while I'm achieving.

I'm extremely curious what will happen if I choose to follow missions that are in the very same direction where my personal goals are! ;)

My New Mission

Interactions

.

I'm in a relationship with the people who surround me. These relationships take place in different contexts, eg. marriage, family, friends, associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods. If I take any kind of action toward a person I'm in a relationship with, that action comes back to me. How is that?

Let's see the following example:

Let's suppose I hurt somebody. Between this person and me there is a relationship that links us. one to another. So if I hurt that person, then I also hurt the relationship between us. But I am also part of this relationship, so therefore, I'm hurting myself as well.

Does this explain why you feel worse and worse when you hurt /argue with somebody - and why does it make you feel better and better, when you help somebody? ;)

Interaction

Dancing the TightRope

.

Fast & Determined - Precipitant
Confident - Arrogant
Brave - Reckless
Optimistic - Naiv

and so on...

It's always a fine art not to cross the lines...


In what other ways can learn this tight rope dancing besides the
Trial-and-Error method?

Equilibrist

Discipline

.

Today, I made 1 step toward one of my goal. I didn't like the result - I had to realize I'll need to practice this activity A LOT!!!

"But being on the ground is not failing. Your discipline, your attitude, your showing up are what count! It doesn't matter if you did it well or not! You did it perfect at the level where you were at!" - a friend -

Tomorrow, I'll try it again. It will be better for sure - even if it will be just a little better and I won't even notice the difference. I believe in this saying I've just heard a few weeks ago:

"A champion gets pinned 10.000 times before he becomes a champion."

...so I still can be turned down 9.999 times more - before I become a professional in what I do! ;)

Attitude

What's Next?

.

It's such a wonderful feeling, when you can put into practice what you learn, isn't it?! You realize how knowledge can manifest itself.

When my mind steps out of the present moment and moves to the future, then it sometimes starts questioning my goals: Whether will I ever achieve it? I don't like this, so I've learned to ask myself better quality questions, eg.: What can I do now to make one step toward my goal(s)?

To make this process even easier and to avoid getting distracted, I started to recall what I learned about project management during my college years. Well, don't think anything complicated, I just checked out 1 page on Wikipedia about the PERT network chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pert_chart

PERT Network Chart

Well, this model is not very popular in business any more, because it can become very large and unwieldy; but for what I need, it's just perfect:

- I can list my milestones and indicate the relationships between them

- I can focus only my very next task(s) without getting distracted by the rest of the process
- (So far, I skipped the time estimation from my chart to keep it simple)

I learned about subdividing goals into manageable pieces about a year ago, but I haven't tried it yet (maybe because I haven't had big enough goals until now? :) ). It took me 1 year to put into practice - and now I see how effective it is!!! Every milestone I achieve makes me feel that I'm going to the right direction, I'm getting closer to my goal! ...and I'm constantly wondering: What's next? ;)