3 Important Questions To Consider

I came across this review of a short story by Leo Tolstoy called The Three Questions, and got intrigued, so I searched for it and eventually read it.

The short story has 3 questions stated and I’m willing to bet that you’ll get 1 answer right and 2 wrong. The questions are:

1. When is the most important time?

2. Who is the most important person?

3. What is the most important thing you can do?

When is the most important time?

If you answered “now”, then you are right. It’s not the past; it’s not the future, but right here right now.

Why now? The past is just a memory. There’s nothing we can do to change what has already happened. It’s done, it’s over, it’s gone and there is no getting it back.
The future is still just an idea. It’s our thought of what’s going to happen and sometimes our prediction is right and sometimes it isn’t. The problem with the future that we can become attached to it and when things don’t work out as planned we feel lost as “this wasn’t the way it's supposed to happen.”
That leaves us with now. This very hour, minute, second is all we really have. It’s the most important time and it’s where we can achieve anything.

I’m guessing this is the question you got right.

Who is the most important person?

Most people will answer that the most important person is me, my spouse, or my kids. I think I need to disagree with you. Let me tell you why.
The most important person is the person you are with. Whenever you are alone with someone, that certain person is the most important person, regardless of who the person is and why are you together. And when you are sitting alone by yourself, you guessed it, YOU are the most important person.

Got it wrong? How about this one.
What is the most important thing you can do?

The most important thing you can do is to care. Care about anyone, we are all human and connected to one another by divine design. To care simply means to set aside our pride and bury our egos. It sets the stage for good intentions and blessings.

The most important time is now, the most important person is the person you are with, and the most important thing you can do is to care.

Life gives no assurances and we have no idea of how the future will come. The people we are with now may be saving our life in 10 minutes time, they may be the last people we will ever see. How do we want to act in the last moments of our life? Alternatively, maybe they are the next to go, how do we want to act with them in the last moments of their life? It may sound morbid but we are all here for a very short time and we may not know when or how but eventually we will all go.

We cannot change what came to pass, the future is still uncertain, but this very minute is ours to enjoy. How are we spending it? Are you watching TV when you should be apologizing or saying “I love you” to someone? Should you be making steps to getting out of debt or taking time for yourself?

What should you be doing with this gift of time? This very hour, minute, second.

Things Are Hard Sometimes

I have learned that there are two main things that stops us from staring anything new, fear of the unknown and because we think it is going to be hard.

Most of the time we look at a new venture with great excitement, at first. Give it at least 10 minutes and we have all but find a thousand and one reasons to give it up simply because it is going to be "hard."

Of course it will be. Everything we try for the first time is going to be hard. Maybe even too hard. But it does not mean we should give it up.

If we were asked, how do you eat an elephant? Not that we really do, but methaporically, and the answer should be, one bite at a time. This methapor is one of the best way to explain the thought of taking huge tasks. Sometimes we look at a new responsibility, job, task or a new endeavor as we would look at the elephant. Big, huge, intimidating, unconquerable.

It’s only when we breakdown the tasks before us that it actually starts to look do-able even easy. Everything is hard when we don’t have experience, guidance or information.

If I look back at anything that’s ever been hard initially (like going here in Saudi and going through all those experiences) I'd quickly discover that the difficulty I have had was just a thought now. Did I give up? Well maybe on some of them, but I guarantee not on all of them.

If we’ve learned to write, walk, talk, rode a bicycle, if we’ve ever written a test, or organized a space that seemed impossible we've overcome “hard” and have succeeded.

Things start off hard and then get easier. And I think life is just like that. We need to learn to be patient and look at things on a different perpective if from the first it looks a bit impossible.

Things get easier the more we learn about them, the more talk about them and the more we do them.

Next time something stops us from doing something because it’s going to be “hard”, stop, relax, think back, break it down and carry on. Nothing is ever too hard if we want it bad enough, right?

Why I Tend To Feel Crappy - In Response To "Will Just Keep To Myself"

I am being alienated even those whom I thought were my close friends. My world is getting smaller. I feel lonely.

I don’t want to minimize any of these things. It’s important to get it out of me and they are indeed real issues. But going through it day, after day, after day can leave me wondering what’s the point?

Now if I let myself get caught up in the drama it creates, there’s no wonder I could foresee gloom. I may take this on board, internalize it and it can really start to affect me. I start to feel really crappy.

While I think it’s important to be aware of events and what’s going on around me. I think I also need to limit what I take in.

Am I the type who really lets the issue get to me, who worries and is consumed by things that are really outside of my control? I think there is hope still, I don't have to feel crappy! With a few simple choices I can turn myself around.
In Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the very first habit he writes about is being proactive. According to Covey’s definition people can be classified into two generic groups: reactive people and proactive people.

Reactive people tend to focus on things that are outside of their control, things like world hunger, the weather or terrorism.
Proactive people, on the other hand, tend to focus their attention on things over which they have some degree of influence, such as their job, their hobbies, and exercise.

The difference is worrying and getting down about things we can’t personally change vs. “minding our own business” (for the lack of a better phrase) and focusing on things we have a direct influence over.

So what can I do?

I am the reactive type of person and is tired of feeling crappy, I will try focusing my attention instead on things I can actually do something about. Practice my photography and be good at it. Try to write more, blogging, extend my circle of acquaintances and hopefully make new friends.

Instead of worrying about it and fretting over an issue I should just brush it off and simply move on.

Moping about things over which I have no control does nothing except make me feel bad, dis-empowered and perhaps hopeless. I should take a good look at where I spend my energy and time thinking. Is it making me happy or sucking the life right out of me?

I don’t have to feel crappy because of all the bad that seems to be going on around me lately. Focus on the right things and I can still make a difference and feel great about it.

Will Just Keep To Myself

I am trying to be normal lately, but I cannot. What do I mean by this? Work had become something that I am obligated to do and not something I like doing anymore. I told my self if I have nothing good to say or talk about, then I better shut my mouth up. You see sometimes, by being too honest with what I feel, more often say things that cause more harm than good, even if it meant to be good. What do I expect? I am Mr. Misunderstood, so I should not be bothered by it, but deep inside, I am. Maybe I have a problem?


Maybe it is really me. Would it be better if just smile and keep whatever it was in my mind to myself?

There is nothing much I can do, when there is this new rule at work which I need to follow, literally, as it was taken literally. So be it.

It is funny though, as we are not allowed to chat or talk about anything besides work, that we cannot even mention how good is the morning, how the weather is changing now, the evenings and mornings are getting cooler. Soon winter will come but hearts got colder first.

I may have made the mistake of saying or reacting to how I feel, and the result hurt me more than from which it was intented to. I am not being forgiven for being outspoken and I am also disappointed with someone I put on a pedestal. I had to ask the question, where is...oh never mind.

But I let it go, and it was water under the bridge, though I was not spoken to for the past three days, nobody seemed to want to for that matter.I just don't know how long this charade will go on, until then I will keep to myself.

Once again, I am being alienated by the last group of people I felt safe with.

My world here is getting smaller and smaller, though I try to make it bigger. It is closing in faster than I can make it wider.

I am just afraid when the time comes when I cannot breathe anymore, I will simply get up and go and leave everything behind. Good thing though, I have my photography class to keep me balanced, for now.

Yes, I will just keep to myself.

7 Steps To Being Okay With Who We Are

1. Do the best we can with what we have available to us right now

2. Stop apologizing for who we are.

3. Stop trying to be perfect. We’re not (nobody is) and that’s okay.

4. Be proud of our accomplishments. Be it big or small.

5. Accept our mistakes. They are what makes us learn and grow..

6. Let's stop trying to please everyone all the time. It will never happen.

7. Live according to ourselves.

This world is full of people telling us what we should be, what we should have and what we should live up to. It can make us really unhappy with who we are. Who says they are all right anyway?

The Grass Is Always Greenest, At Exactly Where I Am!

I am guilty of thinking that life might be better ANYWHERE other than where I am right now. Some thoughts like:

Life will be better once I’m out of debt.
Maybe it is better if I go to another country.
If only I could find a job with a better pay.

The truth is some of my problems may go away once I have all my "if only's" and "better when's" but still my life won't be perfect. New problems will come and I would likely be finding myself wishing for this "perfect" life to be different still. I can only dream that the grass will be greener on the other side because it's only when I live it do I actually see it for what it really is.

Whatever I have in mind about an alternate lifestyle,  location, job, financial situation and so on, rest assured that each one will have it's own special set of issues.

So what can I do about this? I chose to be content with what I already have.

Just by looking around me I can already be grateful with what I see. I realized that there are less fortunate people than me and right now, rightly or wrongly, they are wishing for my exact lifestyle. When I look back 4 years ago, I was  wishing for an overseas work, and without me recaling about that time, I am right where I wished to be. Life just happens so gradually that I loose my thoughts on achievements, growth and successes.

It is free to dream big. But I should not let those dreams cloud the good things I have in front of me right now. That is why I am considering this truth, that the grass is greenest right where I am, under my feet.

Falling In Love Again...With Myself

Sounds pathetic, but I assure you it is not, I have been single for the past 5 years, and no matter how I try, it really doesn't work out. So I stopped, for a while, and turned my attention to myself. I once saw a video blog that talks about how to have someone but really the message was that it really is better not having one. A bit confusing? Let me explain why.
I was so eager to have someone to have and hold because of some fears, and one is that I am afraid to be alone. But ironically, the best way to have someone is to be ok with NOT having one.In other words, I need to be my own someone because the more I will love myself the easier for me to have that special one. Well no one is really completely that "in love" with themselves, but the closer we get to that ideal the easier it is to share that love with another person.

So if I want someone, I need to turn to myself inwards instead of looking around places and the net, and looking instead inside myself and cultivate that relationship I have with my being. So I asked myself some serious questions, "Why do I want to have someone so badly? Do I  feel incomplete when I am alone? Why? What is it that I seek with another that I myself don't have and why do I feel I don't have those things?"

The reality is I am a complete and whole person and whatever it is that I seek from another person whether, nurturing love and stability, I have all these inside myself. So I am contemplating on these things, I need to do something for myself, maybe go out on a date with myself, treat myself to a dinner, or coffee, a walk in the park, take outs, enjoy a movie, take long baths, and enjoy myself. Instead of looking at my lowtimes as something awful and terrible I should look at it as a really great gift that I could cherish. Maybe then interesting things may happen, I might become ok with being single, well in fact I might be more than OK and start to really enjoy it. Enjoying the company of myself maybe the most important relationship I could ever have in my life. The acceptance of being single breeds this tremendous air of confidence and love to people and relationships to people I meet and the relationships I make. Instead of coming across as insecure and desperate, and believe me there is nothing that's more unattractive than desperation, I might come across as someone grounded and secure in my being and that's really attractive. People might appreciate and respond to that, and when that happens that "seeking for someone"  thing will fall effortlessly into place if it's meant to be, and if it's not I'll be ok with that not happening because I would have loved and appreciated the relationship I have with myself.
Love ourselves, and as Rupaul would always say, "If you can't love yourself, how the hell you're gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen up in here?"