While they might be right, they might, also, be wrong. So I would rather take a chance and be right than for nothing to happen. I no longer want to be ordinary with few dreams that stretch my boundaries and I hope that you don’t either.
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Courtesy of Renee Rodriguez Photography
I feel, as if it were yesterday when I published my first piece, “Hello World.” As a matter of fact, I’ve been publishing for exactly three months never missing a single week.
This blog has been a blessing for me. First of all, it has me writing again-one of my loves. Some time ago, I edited an online blog and had lots of fun helping to run it. However, I let life get in the way of creating and I didn’t realize how much I missed it, until I made the decision to launch this blog. Since that moment, I haven’t looked back. I love sharing resources that I’ve come across that have benefited me and I have the same hope for you.
Also, in writing about the self-help/self-improvement stuff, it has motivated me to make changes in my life. It takes considerable discipline to have a full-time job, in addition to having this blog and continuously generating content. Also, it’s one thing to write about certain improvement practices. It’s a whole different thing to do them. The consistent output and implementing the self-improvement practices keeps me honest and it shows that if I, as a regular person, can do these things, then so can you.
However, I came to find that the self-help/self-improvement sphere seems pretty saturated. I felt that there was part of my voice that I wasn’t expressing. In that blog that I mentioned editing, the focus was generating content for Latinos and people interested in Latino culture. What feels better to me is blending that self-help/self-improvement content but coloring with a more Latino flavor. There are various issues that are important to me and I am sure matter to others as well. I felt that it was wrong not to discuss them.
In my original piece, “Hello World,” I talked about freedom of expression, self-examination, asking the right questions, and, most important, how the blog is a work in progress. If I need to make any changes to the blog name or catchphrase, I will make them as quickly as possible. I respect you enough to make it as clear as possible, where I intend on going. I hope that you stay with me. However, I can, also, if it’s not your thing. If things do change for you, then we’ll be here to help you pick up where you left off.
I can’t say that the idea of revamping isn’t scary. However, I don’t look at it as a risk because this wasn’t a haphazard decision. It’s something that I thought about doing and I asked the advice of people close to me that I trust deeply. All of them gave me thumbs up.
So with this, I jump into the abyss and am nervously yet optimistically curious to see where this takes me. I am ready. Are you, too?
In my last piece, “I Know I Can (Do It)”, I spoke a bit about my East Coast trip. In this piece, I would like to write about a practice that I started doing leading up to the trip: practicing gratitude.
I am constantly on the look for practices or ideas that can help me to update my “operating system.” My “operating system” is a sum of everything that directs among other things what I do, why I do it, what I think and I think it. Among these various influences is Stoicism, which I wrote about in my mission statement, “Hello World”. In it, I wrote about how I tangentially discovered it through Tim Ferriss. What drew me to it was it’s emphasis on accepting circumstances for what they are, as well as acting on what is under your directing control to help nurture your “happiness,” although contentment might be a better word.
In the Daily Stoic’s piece, “The Daily Art of Giving Thanks,“ it quoted Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations,
“All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6
Then, there is, also, a passage from Epictetus’ Discourses that, also, speaks on gratitude:
“It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude. Without gratitude what is the point of seeing, and without seeing what is the object of gratitude?” — Epictetus, Discourses, 1.6.1–2
My life is far from “perfect,” which I don’t even know what that really means anyway. I have most of what I need: a loving family, an adequate house to house it, a loving family and other close people, food, clothes, a job and a car to take me to where I need to go. These are the things that matter to me and for which I am grateful.
Yes, circumstances don’t always work for me in the way that I wish. It never does for everyone all of the time. However, I made the conscious, ongoing decision to focus on the things that are going my way even if they might be few. Especially on the days, when it seems that everything is going wrong and the world seems like it’s imploding around you, this practice, built up over time, can be a lifesaver.
My hope for you, as it is for me, is that instilling this practice into your day and developing it will help you to focus on what matters, so that you can accomplish the great things that you are capable of doing, but haven’t done yet.
