This isn’t a blog site for political discussion or relevance. I created the blog site to bring information to everyone. This is information which I deemed was important due to all the corporate greed, incorrect marketing and misinformation coming from individuals or companies just trying to sell you something. So even though we went through a very good election or a very bad election (depending upon your own views), it is time to move forward.
The truth of the matter is that in order to move forward, first we need to determine and set our priorities. And yes, I am currently working on my Life Coach Certification.
To help you determine your priorities, years ago I discovered this story called “Remember the Mayonnaise Jar”.
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, ” I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
“The golf balls are the important things — your God, your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions — things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
“The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.
“The sand is everything else — the small stuff.
“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.
Play another 18.
There will always be time to clean the house and ‘fix the disposal’.
“Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.
The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”
– Author Unknown
Really figure out the important things in your life. What most people don’t realize is that there is a second part to this, “We get what we expect to get.” There are several different sources that prove this. Let’s start off with the Laws of Attraction which essentially starts off as “the energy of your thoughts manifests into your experiences”. One of the twelve universal laws is the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction states that positive thoughts produce positive results, while negative thoughts produce negative results.
In the early 1970s when I grew up, things were very different. Throughout our childhood, most of us realized, maybe subconsciously, the power of positive thinking. We dreamed; dreamed about what we wanted to do when we grew up. We challenged ourselves to take off the training wheels as ride a bicycle or drive a car. We read books which increased our journey into fantasy and knowledge. We spent a lot of time being creative, whether it be through drawing or writing.
Another thing that I realized as I was writing this was television. The electronic age of portables, big screens and game consoles had not even begun yet. Entertainment as a child came from playing outside, reading books or watching television, of course most households only had one television. The television programing was very different. I remember action or comedy shows like “Three’s Company”, “The Brady Bunch”, “Dukes of Hazard” or the “A-Team” but I also remember shows that kept our attention and helped us learn. Example of these shows were “In Search Of”, “Mutual of Omaha” and “The Wonderful World of Disney”. This only added to our imagination, thinking and dreaming about faraway places or learning about different cultures or animals.
Even our toys were quite different. Toys like Lincoln Logs, Wood-Burning kits, Legos, action figures, G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls, Speak N Spell, Shrinky Dinks, Balsa Wood or plastic models, Tinker Toys, and Easy Bake Ovens. Sadly, it seems that the direction of the toys from the toys inspiring creative and learning to iPad and gaming consoles which only distract and keep us occupied.
So, what stops us from dreaming? What changes our outlook as we get older? Could it be that we stop dreaming because we start convincing ourselves that dreaming is a waste of time because it will never come to fruition. There is a belief that when we really want something, not only do we strive to make it happen, but we also are open to receiving it. Thus, becoming a reality.
I came across a motivational speaker named Mike Rayburn. His motivational lecture asks the question, “I know I can’t, but What If I could? What would it look like?” If you like music and listening to guitar playing, it is really something to check out. I posted the link down below:
Funny Motivational Speaker Mike Rayburn
We go through life and the moment that something good happens to us, we think, “It must be my lucky day.”. Every day of our life is a blessing because once it’s gone, we don’t get it back. Focusing on finding and realizing the little things that we encounter in our life regardless of insignificant or random they are and viewing them as a blessing. By doing this, we can our outlook to focus on the positive. When you really think about it, when something happens in our life, whether good or bad, it can lead to better things.
If everything in our life was good, the question is, would we even realize it? Without a bad moment as contrast, we can appreciate the good moments. The Taiji is a Taoist symbol, better known as the Yin and Yang symbol, which was developed in Chinese philosophy, shows opposites with an interconnection. The outer circle signifies the source of all existence which unifies all. If you are not familiar with the symbol, it is the round circle with two tear drops inside. One is black and the other white. Inside the black teardrop is a white circle and inside the white teardrop there is a black circle. I believe that not everything is all good and not everything is all bad.
There are powerful forces in the world, and we can empower ourselves by realizing that we are one of those forces. Sometimes we just forget. When we start developing feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, or powerlessness, we make ourselves into being were everything just happens to us. It is a victim mindset. We can regain power and control of our lives by taking personal responsibility. If we don’t like something about our lives, we are the only person that really has the power to change it.
The Serenity Prayer is a very good example of this:
The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
“God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.”
For those who are not religious, please focus on the content of the message.
When we choose to not take personal responsibility for our lives, we end up getting what we expected.
There is a quote by Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you are right.”
A pessimistic outlook is to always expect the worse, then we are never disappointed. Or we can just lower our expectations, so they are easily met and live a life without challenges. But is this the way we are going to choose to live our lives.
We now know that energy and matter are inseparable, thanks to Albert Einstein’s equation of E=mc2. A Master-certified law of attraction coach, Christy Whitman, in Scottsdale, Arizona and author of The Desire Factor, says “Everything that manifests in the physical world does so by a process of resonant energies being drawn together.”
