The only thing you can change is yourself. Of course this is while change is happening around you. You either evolve or devolve. You may believe you're staying the same, but in truth your growth or breakdown might be just slow.

Yesterday I made two considerable strides personally. People might consider them small, but I considered them great.

1. I jogged for 40 minutes yesterday. I don't know the distance bcause I was focused more on time than distance, but just the fact that I was able to jog for 40 minutes, without stopping, made me very happy. In the process of I think 2 weeks I went from a walk/speedwalk/jog routine to a straight jog. It made me really happy. It meant that whatever I was doing was working and gave my work validity.

2. I was able to calm myself down from a really angry mindset to a joyous on within 10 minutes, without the use of substances. This took some talking to in my part with myself. I know the whole thing about "talking to yourself" isn't really deemed what normal people do, but most people don't have inner peace either, so let us not follow the norm. I was at a point last night where I wanted to scream my head off about something when I took myself in my room and talked to myself in the mirror, putting everything in perspective and calmed myself enough that I not only cracked a smile, but had a sense of balance and inner peace. I couldn't stop smiling. What did I tell myself?

"Everything that happens is just an experience. Our ego gives it the label of positive or negative. Our ego is also that which decides if it offends us or not. We cannot control the experiences we have, but we can control how we preceive them, react to them, and more importantly, use them in our favor."

The ego is superficial. If you don't allow it to get in the way, you will be quite surprised to find what happens.

Comment! (2) | Recommend!

Right now I'm going through a headache and I think I know why...

Fruit.

I've been on Phase I of the South Beach diet for a little more than two weeks and today I am officially on phase II. I was allowed to bring fruit back into my diet, so I did. For one of my snacks I made myself a fruit smoothy.

Now if you don't know anything about this diet, the first two weeks runs like atkins. No fruit, no carbs, no sugar. Well, out of personal experience I know that once you do this for a while, the second you add any sugar back into your system, you're going to get a nasty headache. Fruit has sugar, sugar causes headache.

Enough said.

But out of experience, I also know that the lack of sugar caused one annoying problem with me; lack of endurance. When I would go out running, if I didn't have a little sugar in my system, I wouldn't be able to complete a full lap jogging. I also didn't do so well when I played DDR. It was like my focus wasn't there.

So now I've gotten rid of my excess sugar from my system and this whole thing of easing it back into my diet is somewhat painful, but necessary. They're not processed sugars, so I don't have to worry, and because I've added protein powder, flaxseed, and 2% milk, it slows the digestion process, which is what I'm looking for.

Oh, and if you're curious to know my progress in regards to this thing, you can check out my diet blog...

http://dietordietrying.blogspot.com

From my heaviest weight, I'm looking to drop 80-100 lbs. Thus far from my heaviest, I've lost 30 lbs.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

The biggest problem that humans have are all attached to one thing: the ego. Our egos are what tells us we're better or worse than someone/something, are responsible for us getting offended and/or angry. Basically it's the one thing that messes up our lives the most.

Since I'm going through my transformation, I've decided I'm going to push my ego aside, with the one exception (because it deals with my personal respect and self preservation). If I feel someone is harmful to me, in any way, shape, or form, I will separate myself from them as much as possible. Otherwise everything else is fair game.

But let me get back to what I was saying. The reason I've decided to push my ego aside was because of something that occurred to me this morning. This morning I found that my roommate had left the apartment early. She and I have been friends for over 15 years to the point that we are like family. We even fight like sisters. Anyway, whenever some big event goes down, we usually invite the other to join. When she was gone so early I instantly thought that she was going with her co-workers some place fun like 6 flags or something and didn't bother inviting me because she was in one of her moods lately. Stupid, I know, but that was my ego getting hurt and assuming bs. Anyway, she came home a couple of hours later and then went to her doctors appointment.

Then this evening, she had the ball game on the tv while she was @ the computer. I was having dinner and wanted to watch the game (it was getting interesting), so I sat on the couch. Instantly she put her hand to her face like "WTF are you DOING?!" I wasn't too sure if it was because of me sitting on the couch or the game, but I figured I'd better use this time to practice pushing my ego aside, so I didn't move. At one point I gasped over what had just happened in the game, and again, hand to face, other hand was moving and I knew what was going on. She was annoyed that I was sitting on the couch. She didn't say anything though. But at that point I was finished with dinner so I went to the kitchen to clean up my dishes. She was still pissed though. And I thought to myself "she's using my experiences to get herself pissed off". I know she wants to be able to go back and forth from laying on the couch to watching television whenever she feels like it, and by me sitting on the couch, she wasn't able to do it. She could have said something, but she didn't. And even after I had left the livingroom, she was still upset. And this was all because I sat on the couch.

I can tell you, a small piece of me was hurt and angry by this, but when I saw it for what it was, the anger disappated. How often do we allow ourselves to get hurt by what others do, and it might not even be towards us? Because regardless of what we all were taught in our childhood, the truth is we are the ones that decide what offends us and what doesn't. Nobody forces anything on you, and the truth is you're doing it to yourself. If someone passes you quickly and you accidently spill your coffee on yourself, most people would get pissed off by the person who passed you, however it's you that's allowing yourself to get bothered by this experience. In truth, all actions have no polarity. In other words, nothing has a positive or negative unless we give it to them. Just like there's no better or worse. That was created by humans and dictated by humans (ego), because in truth, nothing in nature is imperfect.

You know the line "one man's trash is another man's treasure"? Same deal.

But getting back to it. Ego is the one thing that causes us pain. It causes us misery and it causes us grief. Please don't confuse ego with appreciation. Appreciation for who you are, what you can do, the life you have, the friends you keep. That's not ego until you start attaching the positive/negative labels to it. When you start feeling good about something like this "I hang out with the popular crowd, therefore I'm cool", guess what? That's ego. You're no longer appreciating the fact that you have good friends, you're giving false value to yourself because of the false social worth of those around you.

All ego does is make you miserable or make you a target. I'd rather get rid of something like that as quickly as possible.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

When I envision anything (I don't say "dream" because that denotes something that might not manifest) I go all out. I don't fear asking too much from the universe because only you limit yourself.

So when someone asks me what kind of income to I envision myself making in my life, instead of the common answer of $50K or $100K a year, this was my answer...
2.5 billion dollars... I'm leaving this life a trillionaire.

I can sense you choking on your pudding.

Nothing is impossible, because every time someone says something is impossible, it's proven wrong. Examples: earth being center of the universe, earth being flat, flying, horseless carriage, ships made of metal, men on the moon, wireless communication.

I like how Henry Ford put it: "I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done"

Of course money isn't all that I envision. My music career, my home/s, my live overall.

My grandmother (when she was alive) used to say she would expect the worst out of any situation, so if it actually turned out well, that would be an extra bonus, otherwise you're just setting yourself for a heartache.

If that be the case, then you're already telling me it's never going to happen, which means you don't have faith in the universe to provide, and you are already adding negativity to it... taking the gun, aiming it at your own big toe, and pulling the trigger.

The sad part about it is there are a lot of people that feel the same way.

They say that it works for them, in the same regard giving themselves an escape route. I'm sorry but escape routes are only for those who don't have enough faith to know what they want will be.

I'm not saying don't purse other interests. Hell no. My main passion is music performance, however I have delved into other interests that just happen to reinforce my talent, including writing, video editing, web development, music publishing, business ownership, promotion, production, and it goes on and on. I've been able to survive off my other skills to finance my music. In other words, it's always good to be well rounded, because it can only help you with your plans, not further them.

I dream big because my mind has no limits nor does my potential, and I recognize this as truth.

Guess what?

The same thing applies to you.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Last night I went to the meeting. It wasn't what I expected.

Not saying it was at all bad, it just rather eye openning.

The situation goes like this. The VP of the organization was not physically there, but had emailed her points for the meeting, which was brought to the group.

She had made three points: change the date of the event, change the venue, and overhaul everything about it.

During the meeting a lot of brainstorming went on in respect to what we should do this year. A lot of wonderful ideas came from all parties involved and many differed from the VP's email. None of which the VP had made any comments over.

While we were with her on a conference call, the only points she wanted to press were those involving what she listed in her email. Sentiment in regards to expanding the event into a two day deal, which everyone at the meeting seemed to agree upon was ignored by the VP, evident when she tried to pass a vote where the event was to only be held on the Saturday (different from the Sunday, which it was traditionally held). Thankfully that vote was tabled until next meeting.

There happened to be two people who oddly enough were not sitting at the table with the rest of those brainstorming, who also seemed to be the only ones agreeing with all of the VP's plans. And an addition they were the ones bringing the energy down with reinforcing the lack of volunteers, and the limited funds, which are important to note, but not when you're putting ideas together. You don't put the cart before the horse, and you don't douse the flames before you start a fire.

The sentiment that she gave off was the only pushed was that which was listed in her email. Which was sad.

I'm one to believe if you want to accomplish big, you have to be willing to separate yourselves from all that is familiar and try something different. It reminds me a quote by Thomas Troward, a philospher of mental science who stated "The law of floatation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of things, but by contemplating the floating of things which floated naturally, and then intelligently asking why they did so." In other words, don't think why it can't work, see how it can, and find someone who has made it so, and use their methods.

When you tell yourself you can't, and believe it to be so, you never will.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!