Saturday, January 26, 2008

Even Quitters Get a High 5!

"Do you really wanna win? Or just look good losing?" - Phonte of Little Brother in "Dreams"

If you've ever played sports, you've always heard coaches say, "Winners never quit!" Or maybe it was your parents who pushed you to get that A in high school chemistry, but a B+ was all you could seem to produce since science just wasn't your subject. They too exclaimed "Winners never quit!" No matter who it was, we've been given the definition of a winner and part of that definition is never quitting. However, sometimes that is so far from the truth. O Magazine's January issue recently had an article on this same topic so I must give credit to my inspiration (along with Phonte from Little Brother) Martha Beck the author of "Know When to Fold Em."

This Phonte quote above rings home to any person who has had the job, man/woman, life of their "dreams" and decided to quit one day. Sometimes we have a picture in our heads of what is "perfect." Then, we achieve our goal, that dream image, and it's still not quite what we want. Or maybe, after 1, 2, 3 years we simply out grow the situation and change our minds as to what we want. Yet, this is what we planned! This is what we hoped for! We can't simply quit! This is what we've always wanted! At least that's what we tell ourselves. And of course we've been socialized to believe, "Winners never quit." Sometimes though, we have to let go and know that quitting is OK. Sometimes quitting is actually winning. Quitting a marriage that is failing beyond repair can actually free us for the relationship that is right for us. Yes you may disappoint a few people who want you to "stick it out," but do you really wanna win or just look good losing (look good to others that is.)

Recently, a few of my friends and I have all come to terms with changes in life direction. We all seem to be quitting something, but are rejoicing in the adventure that awaits us. About 8 months ago, I came to terms with not wanting the job that I worked so hard to get. It took a few months of agonizing over it. I thought I lost my stuff! I just didn't have what it took to survive in such a competitive industry. I beat myself up because I thought I was getting lazy or lost motivation. It wasn't that at all, however. It was that I didn't want what I had. You can no longer try to win when you don't want to win anymore. It took me 4 internships to get hired in this "glamorous" business. After a few years of paid employment, I simply out grew my circumstance. Why I out grew my position is a whole new blog all together, but coming to terms with quitting and being OK with quitting is very liberating. Staying at my job would be the epitome of "looking good losing" because it is the job that hundreds of people die for (ala The Devil Wears Prada.) There is a strength in quitting when it is really the appropriate thing to do. If you truly WANT something then go for it and try, try again. However, know your limit and know when it is time to pack it in. Winners quit when they don't want to simply look good losing. Quitters deserve high 5's too!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Woo-Sah photo of the day!

Some High 5 club members were at the top of Sandia Peak in Albuquerque, New Mexico this summer. Although we did not take this beautiful photo, we traveled to the top of Sandia Peak via tram and took some wonderful pictures of our own. All we could do was breath, take in the beauty, and be inspired by this place we call Earth! WOOO-SAAHHHHHH!!

Giving Along with Taking...

Not so long ago, I was going through a rough patch in life. Every morning, I would get on my knees and ask Spirit for what I wanted/needed. I have never had an issue with asking the Universe, God, or Higher Power (however, you’d like to phrase it. I am not sure how I’d like to phrase it since I am so open spiritually). At this difficult time, I also found myself receiving all that I needed! Slowly but surely all the “bad” things were dissolving away. I was getting so much from the Higher Power and I was truly overcome with gratitude. Then, it struck me. The thought popped into my head out of the clear sky or at least that’s how it felt. “The more you get, the more you must give.”

From that day forward, I devised a plan to make volunteering in the community a routine. Even if some months I have a hectic schedule, I make sure at least once a month I have donated some time. Luckily, the organization I have found allows me to pick and choose from a variety of activities. I can be at a coat drive one weekend, a soup kitchen the next, or take some kids to a museum. I leave completely exhilarated with a renewed sense of spirit. It is the one true way I have found to create a natural balance. I enjoy receiving, but I also enjoy the giving portion as well.

Perhaps volunteering in a structured setting like a soup kitchen isn’t for everyone. However, every day you pass by people that need help. You can always stop and help a mom struggling to carry a baby carriage up the subway steps. It takes 2 minutes really. You can probably run into this scenario a few times a week and there is your version of volunteering! There is no one right way to “volunteer.” It is something that you feel compelled to do at that moment and you leave the act feeling renewed. Think of this way. Your local deli may have a “Give a penny, take a penny” cup. If no one put any pennies in, then no one could take a penny when their item rang up to $5.03! Some times you just have to give your pennies too! J

Not long after I began volunteering, I read an interview with Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin Group) in Oprah’s magazine. In it he states, “Capitalism is the only system that works, but it has its flaws; for one, it brings great wealth to only a few people. That wealth obviously brings extreme responsibility.” So for that inspirational quote and all his charitable work around the globe, Richard Branson gets the High 5 of the day!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Hang WIth Nine... And You'll be the Tenth

A commonly used American idiom to express or forewarn the benefits (or lack there of) by one person to another about the company that one chooses to keep. Yet as much as we've heard Grandma, Mama, Uncle-This One, or Auntie-That One, say this, we somehow forget to apply it in our everyday lives.

Keeping good company is not a modern concept by any means, it's been a basis of life for people since the beginning of time. Regardless of caste, class, nobility or socio-economic placement within society, the good folks have always tended to wield a lasting degree of power. The bad folks? Well they've come into power yes, but their losses always seem to far outweigh their gains, and Ha! you guessed it, those same good folks are always right there to pick up the pieces and restore order at the fall of the bad folk regime. The good folks over at Disney, you know the ones that keep making good money from all those good movies, good programs, good networks, good plays, good theme parks, High School Musicals (and accompanying multi-platinum selling soundtracks and tours, wow) that you hate-to-admit-you-love, toyed with the whole "hang with nine" idea about 15 years ago (among countless other times, this just illustrates it best) with the whole "Circle of Life" concept... well, sort of. See the good animals hung out with other good animals regardless of creed, and the bad animals - all cast aways and even close relatives of the good animals - cliqued up together and collectively "hated-on" the good animals, and... Well, you've seen the movie, it made in excess of a billion dollars (try that scarface... good/bad, making sense?) so everyone's seen it. But the point is this, not only will you be judged and measured by society at large due to the company you keep, but those are the standards by which you'll judge yourself. Good happy animals (and people for that matter) really don't have much time for their angry, jealous, hateful bad opposites - no matter how much they love them. It's just not worth them risking the personal investment they've made in themselves. So, f your third cousin twice-removed, brought 12 men on a day time t.v. show to determine who fathered her child, only after her 2 other friends did it before her, guess who's next in line!

So does this mean to rush out and find a bunch of financially rich, ivy leaguers to buddy up with and throw up two fingers (peace) to your cousin & co.? Lol, it wouldn't hurt! But how many of us actually have 9 of The World's Next Top Leaders waiting around in the wings for us to get our acts together? Show of hands? Yeah, didn't think so. So the next best thing is involving, surrounding and immersing ourselves in the throes of the good folks around us. We should invest in our personal interest instead of the common interest that our projected upon us, and join the circles of the best and the brightest on your level in that field. I say "level" because you're obviously not going to be invited over to Bill Gates' house after your first day of a computer science course , but you can choose to hang with the kids that were most attentive in that class instead of the ones who slept through it. Hey, the precedent has been set, so there's nothing to hold you back or have you believe that you and your crew can't be the next Bill Gates, Paul Allen and the rest of the crew that founded Microsoft. And if you think that success can't be repeated, send an email to the guys that own this whole Blogger/Blogspot thing, I think they call their company Google. Think about that next time you're lucky number 10.

Peace

Relative Success and the Power of Positive Energy

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome" -Booker T. Washington-

With grandiose displays of wealth and apocalyptic-like signs of poverty being embedded into our society's collective consciousness, the millions of us stuck in between the two are often left wondering which side do our lives bear a closer resemblance. If we are to believe what we see and are told the wild, young, flavor of the week millionaires who have helped bring terms like "paparazzi" to prominence in everyday American-English, and their snarlingly stiff billionaire "guardians" are the embodiment of the word success. In today's bustling world anything falling beneath that simply misses the mark.

Of course, if you're honest enough with yourself to think that through just a little bit you'll know that nothing could be farther from the truth. Because when you think about it, you'll think of all the other images of hard work and perseverance you've seen and/or experienced throughout your lifetime that pushed you to keep going when times were rough. You'll think of the immigrants, not of Ellis Island of yesteryear but those of today; the refugees of war-torn Cambodia, Sudan, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. You see their scars, you feel their pain. Are neighbors from just below, who risk their lives on the lines of an invisible border to experience the luxuries of proper clothing, shelter and running water. You think of those who have come in rafts from countries so close in proximity that you just may be willing to commute that distance to and from your to home to a place of employment 5 days of the week - but so far behind in terms of progression that if our land is considered to be of the "new" or "first world", their homelands have been left behind in the "third". If you're being honest with yourself, there is no doubt that you think of them and countless others that have seen that beacon of light held high in the sky above Liberty Island "Enlightening The World" .

Being completely truthful with yourself you think of the scruffy kid you met in college, who at times seemed to be in perpetual motion - always on the go, with the weight of the world on his shoulders as he hustled back and forth from job to job funding his "chance". All just so he could slide through at the bottom of the class in a triumph that would rival that of your school's summa cum laude recipients. Or think of the kid you watched wait tables at the local greasy spoon until would he one day own the place. Maybe you even think of the girl who was subjected to an unplanned teen-pregnancy in high school, but now as an adult raises a healthy family on the salary she makes as a youth counselor educating young women who are at risk of facing the same fate. Then there's the story that always warms your heart, the one that you gladly share with friends and family whenever it comes to mind about the down-trodden, underprivileged, undereducated, overburdened guy that you seen come up from waving a change cup in hand on a street corner, to zipping by you each day with a smile on his face, leaving his apartment, on his way to work. Or hey, if you're seriously, seriously being honest with yourself, you may even think of... YOU.

See with all that's going on in the world, with all the images pushed into your head, with all the expectancies and the demands that are laid upon those of us stuck in the middle, the biggest problem we may have within this jumble of extreme plight and prosperity is that we forget about ourselves. Yes, if you admire the openly apparent accomplishments of your neighbors, by all means, be inspired. But, by no means what so ever should you feel compelled to keep up with the pace they have set for themselves - for, that is who that set it for, themselves. Nor should you allow yourself to feel pressured to live like the ever-present, star-spangled, celebrity "Jones'". The darlings of mass media that sneak into your home each day are paid well to do so, but you must remember that there's always more to it than what meets the eye. If you really want to be inspired, look no further than yourself. Look at what you've done to make your life and the lives of others just a bit better - no matter how small that bit may seem (you gotta start somewhere)- and build from there. Reward yourself for your past accomplishments and use that positive energy as a stimulus for triumphs of the future. If the greatest accomplishment of your own that you can recall is taking one step toward a goal that lies 10 paces away, use that first step as a catalyst to take the second - see how much closer you are?

Where ever you may be in life, you worked hard to get there and if you've fueled yourself with positive energy along the way, that place is undoubtedly somewhere to be proud of. So, the next time you find yourself caught in the middle of the world's madness, take a quick time out and with a full open hand - fingers spread wide - give yourself a congratulatory pat on the back; or as we like to call it around here, a "Personal High-Five"!!!

Peace





Friday, January 18, 2008

The Key is Believing...

"What you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours." - Mark 11:24

It is very easy to want.  In 2008, you may want a new job, a better salary, a boyfriend/girlfriend, weight loss, and the list goes on.  Your lists of resolutions are things that you want to have or happen.  However, do you BELIEVE these things are possible?  Do you want to lose weight and think, "Well I lost 10 pounds last year, but gained it all back so what's the point?"  With that thought, you cancel out your true desire.  Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend?  And yet, at the same time, believe you will not find them easily in the places you frequent?  All of the doubts simply cancel out your desire once again.  Your wants never get a chance to appear in your life due to your own disbelief.

The quote above from Mark 11:24 is the key to manifesting your true desire.  Asking is always simple.  Creating the desire for that new job is simple!  However, it is the belief that you can have it that can be tricky!  Maintain positive thoughts on your quest for a job.  Know that you have the skills, intelligence, and motivation for the best opportunity possible!  Even in a slow hiring market, all you need is the one interview for a better position!  All it takes is ONE company to be hiring with a better salary, better hours, or whatever it is you desire.  Yes, you may have days of doubt.  You will send hundred of resumes, but the more passion you put behind the belief, the greater the possibility of the job showing up.  It has always been said that like attracts like.  A positive person with strong desire and belief can only attract what they want!  Now ask your God, the universe, or write in a journal what it is you desire.  Then, BELIEVE, BELIEVE, BELIEVE!