Part III of the Minimalize, Focus, Do series.

“There are three types of people in this world, those who finish what they start and those that don’t.

People have spent entire careers wondering whether there was something special about ‘successful’ people – was there a common characteristic? A secret ingredient? Or just something they ate?

Of course, there are many common characteristics that contributes to ‘success’, but to me, the difference between a successful person and one that comes down to one thing (at the risk of sounding like Ms. Norbury):

Successful people push.

In other words, they:

• actively put their ideas and themselves out in front of people.
• make themselves vulnerable to criticism
• believe strongly in their ideas
• believe strongly in themselves
• have the ability to keep perspective
• strive to finish

On the other hand, unsuccessful people:

• wait for things to land on their lap
• hold on to old ways
• take the path of least resistance
• stick to only what they know
• let others put them down too easily

shipping – push your ideas into the crowd

Not everything you think of will be great. Actually, a lot of ideas that have been adamantly stuck to have turned out to be quite bad, but you’ll never know unless you try.

Amazing ideas could be wasted if you don’t bring them to life. Imagine if the greatest inventors and writers cared just that tiny bit too much about how they would look to other people, then we wouldn’t have some of the most useful, innovative, sensational, ingenious, and moving songs, stories, poems, devices, products and services of all time. History is completely made up of people flying into the face of their naysayers (sometimes literally) and going against the crowd.

Imagine all of the ideas out there right now, waiting to change the world. I’m willing to bet there’s one right now, inside yourself. Until you’re willing to ship, no one will know about it.

You have to persevere with your ideas. Don’t be a pushover and let other people put your down. Don’t be pushy and force your ideas onto other people if you haven’t taken a step back to see if it’s right.

Instead, be a pusher – a special kind of person who acts on their passions and gets their creations out there.

how to be a push publish

1. Passion is number one. You can’t push for something you don’t believe in 100 per cent. It can take all of the energy and motivation you can muster to push something to where you want it to be and if your heart isn’t in it, then you’ll burn out before you can get there. Choose something that means everything to you.

2. Be willing to put your neck on the line. Put yourself out there and don’t care about what the trolls have to say. There are people out there who will try to put you down because they’re just too scared to do something great themselves, so they’d rather drag you down with them. It’s a tragedy, but it would be much worse if your joined their ranks. Nobody knows everything and nobody can predict the future, it’s up to you.

3. Take a step back. On the above note, if you receive actual constructive criticism, take a step back and see if any improvements can be made. Remember, don’t be a pushover or pushy – it’s extremely important to remain mindful as much you can. It depends on a person’s character and strength of conviction whether they let people put them down or if it leads to improvement and eventually what is just a good idea becomes a real idea.

4. Keep a balanced standard. Have faith in yourself and aim high. Setting a challenging standard for yourself is a very good thing but don’t aim for perfection, because there’s no such thing.  Try not be too self-critical, otherwise you’ll always be waiting for something that’s impossible.

5. Create something of value to other people and you’re bound to succeed. It’s as simple as this : if people need or want something you can give them, you are already on the way to success. All you need to figure out is how you can give it to them and how you can receive something valuable in return (this doesn’t necessarily mean cash). Something of value in return can be anything from useful criticism, encouraging comments or spreading your name via word of mouth.

Pushing publish doesn’t have to be hard, but unless it’s good, people won’t take notice. Posts like these take me some time to write because I always have to make sure I’ve done my best before publishing something I’ve created for everyone to see.

Anybody can change the world. But not everybody does. Don’t let it be you.

Related Posts

• 5 Great Habits of Successful Students
• If you play with fire

Part I of the Minimalize, Focus, Do series.

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Everyone has something that holds them back. It can be something precious, common or unique, something tangible or untouchable, it can be a secret or something everyone knows about. These are the things that keep us human, grounded, and it’s only natural that we would want security and reassurance in a world that changes every moment of every day.

But how much those things hold people back depends entirely on each person.It’s their choice, not anyone else’s. They can blame others all they like, but in the end it’s all down to them.

Sadly, a lot of people are prisoners to their desires. They can’t get past social pressures and consumer greed and over the years and they become increasingly obsessed with collecting more and more debt. They start basing their identities, achievements and self-worth on the accumulation of the next best toy. Even when these new toys become redundant, they can’t let go and they work long hours to pay for the garage that can’t fit a car or a basement to store all the junk they don’t need.

Then there are some people that own almost nothing, not even much more than the clothes on their backs. They’re nomads, with no place to call home but not exactly homeless. They travel everywhere and would live anywhere. They can be connected to almost anyone and anything in the world at any time they wished, or they can simply disconnect, disappear and drop off the map.

Fortunately, most people are comfortably living in between these two extremes of a spectrum of how humans can deal with the modern world. Neither is really wrong or right – life isn’t as black and white as that. There are good and bad things about both ways – on the one hand a person can take comfort in the security and consistency in their lives, whilst someone else might thrive on the freedom and adventure. What we can say is that we all have dreams, and how close we are to living those dreams right now is what life is all about.

Many of us are lucky enough to have a choice. We have the technology, freedom and equality that held the previous generations back. Just thinking about the war, famine and disease still prevalent in other parts of the world, and it’ll put your own problems in perspective.

It may not seem like it to everyone, but we all have a choice – a chance to make our one and only life worth it. If to live is to suffer, then we might as well make sure we get something good out of it too. If more people in the world slowed down for just a moment long enough to reconnect with themselves, they might realize that living life on auto-pilot is completely pointless and a waste of life.

So how do you take control? The answer is simply, simplicity. Once you learn to let go of all of the things that don’t matter to you, you’ll naturally steer towards the things that do. Regular ‘decluttering tips’ are easy to find, so here are some mantras to remember for some minimalist motivation.

25 black-belt minimalist mantras

1. abandon your fears
2. let go of sentimentality
3. cut attachments
4. relinquish desire
5. quit putting yourself down
6. eliminate the unessential
7. forgive past mistakes
8. ignore advertisements
9. stop spending so much
10. deny fear
11. drop all the crap
12. banish greed
13. say no
14. release your imagination
15. burn bridges
16. sever toxic ties
17. surrender your pride
18. loosen your grip
19. open your mind
20. ban clutter
21. discard flailing plans
22. reduce you life overhead
23. throw away old things
24. disconnect
25. remember that emptiness is beautiful

Some of these are easier said than done, but it only takes practice. It can be hard to turn off auto-pilot. After all, just cruising along is easy. But letting the wind (or other people’s expectations) rule your life can take you somewhere you don’t want to be, and you won’t realize until it’s too late to turn back. You can let people advise you, influence you or guide you, but don’t let them take over.

If you have some things that are complicating your life too much –  now is the time to sort them out. Once the water is calm, it’ll be plain sailing from here.

It’s hard to live without the internet if you’re a student. Amongst many things, you probably need it for checking email, receiving updates from societies, arranging meetings with course-mates, keeping in touch with old friends, Skyping your family, getting in touch with your professors, checking out the library catalogue and of course, for research (maybe I should have put that one first).

If you’re planning on living a more minimalist lifestyle, consider letting that attitude flow into your web experience. Here’s how.

1. Firefox Add-ons. Perhaps it is a little paradoxical to claim that adding things on can help you become more minimal but if you use Gmail and Firefox, you will love an add-on called Greasemonkey which allows you to run scripts within Firefox. All you have to do is install it so that you can run little scripts such as HelvetiMail, which gets rid of all the words and boxes that just clutter up your inbox, as well as pasting a very minimal white theme on top.

2. Adblocker. This is also a Firefox add-on but it is available in Chrome (known as Adthwart) and it so important that it gets its own step. Adblockers get rid of all the flashy ads that can clutter up web pages. As much as I want to support the sites that I use, I would never click on the ads anyway. I mostly ignore them, but I can’t resist how clean and simple pages look without ads.

3. Google Reader – If you read a lot of blogs, a great way to get them all in one place is to use Google Reader with the Greasemonkey script, Helvetireader. As minimal as Google interfaces tend to be, the Helveti guys make it even more simple. Also, having all of your RSS feeds go into one place saves time and makes keeping up with blog posts easier and more streamlined.

4. Time tracking. These last two steps might help if you want to minimalise the number of hours you surf the interweb. If you count them, you may be more inclined to reduce them. Extensions such as Meetimer or Time Tracker can help you see how much time you are spending and there are even tools that you can use to block particular websites after you have spent a pre-allocated amount of time on them.

5. Cut social networking. For me, social networking takes up a very large proportion of my web activity, and it is probably the most wasteful as well. Reducing the number of hours I spend on sites like Facebook and Twitter definitely counts towards a minimalist experience.

Other little things I like to do include keeping my inbox empty (see screenshot), cutting down the number of blogs I follow to a few high quality ones and if I’m really desperate, disconnecting once in a while.

Christmas is approaching fast. November is coming to an end and people have already started shopping for presents, things to decorate their houses with and even for food.

I get a lot of questions asking me my opinion about Christmas. Of course, I enjoy it as much as the next person, and I have some very fond memories of this time of year. We would have big family gatherings – where it would be loud with chatter and laughter and everyone would have a great time.

As I grew older, I began to realize that there are aspects Christmas that are not so good (post coming soon). So, I’ve decided to counterbalance it this year with a Minimalist Christmas Countdown Challenge.

the challenge

Starting Dec 1 until Christmas day, I will be posting short daily prompts on my Twitter feed on how to de-clutter various aspects of your daily life – productivity, money, food, clothes, health etc.

Every week, I will publish a few of the prompts on the blog with some reader’s comments I’ve received and add some of my own.

You don’t have to do a challenge everyday, but if you do, leave a comment on the blog to let everyone know how you did, or any problems that you might have encountered. You can also tell me anything you’ve learned or found interesting, and even suggest a prompt if you would like!

UPDATE: I’ve decided to schedule the challenge into 4 weeks, with each week focussing on a different category of minimalism.

• Week 1: 1st ~ 5th Dec – Minimal Money Week
• Week 2: 6th ~ 12th Dec – Digital/Info Purge Week
• Week 3: 13th ~ 19th Dec – Minimal Health/Lifestyle Week
• Week 4: 20th~ 25th Dec – New Year Cleanse Week

So if you’ve been meaning to get going on applying minimalism to your life for a little while, or you want to take it to the next level, sign up in the comments now!

Greetings everyone! If you follow me you might know that I just spent some time on retreat to Plum Village in France, learning about the teachings of one of my heroes, Thich Nhat Hanh.

I’ve taken away so many great lessons from this trip, and I can’t wait to explore it all with you guys in the coming posts.

In the meantime, here’s the final instalment about the Eightfold Path. In the last two posts, Wisdom and Ethical Conduct, I have talked a lot about the practical applications of each step. With Mental Development, the focus is more about all the work that happens behind the actions.

Right Effort

Having Right Effort means cultivating the self-discipline needed to follow through with the Eightfold path and other teachings of the Buddha.

It’s not always easy to do the right thing. Indeed, in a lot of cases, doing the wrong thing is easier. It’s easier to steal something than to earn it. It’s easier to exploit the weak rather than fight the strong.

However, although doing these things can lead to short term gain, in the long run it cannot last. If you steal you could be caught and punished and if you selfishly continue to exploit those around you, you will be resented or eventually run out of vulnerable things or people to take advantage of. In time, you will become more and more insensitive to your negative impact on others as desire, envy, aggression and perhaps even violence takes over.

Instead, you have to learn to encourage your positive mental states, such as honesty, benevolence and kindness. As long as you put in the Right Effort to be compassionate towards others, your practice of the other steps such as Right Speech, Action and Livelihood will be fuelled by your positive energy.

The practice can be broken down into four steps which can be basically summarised as:

1. To prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states. In other words, try not let yourself get angry or hurt so easily. You have full control over these emotions, it is not others that upset you, it is you who allows them to.

2. To abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen. If you do find yourself getting angry, it is best not to act immediately. Instead, take a moment to breathe, and you’ll find that a lot of your anger will dissipate quickly. Your mind will become clearer and you can make better judgements about how to handle the situation instead of making it worse.

3. To arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen. The third step is to intentionally be compassionate towards others. Smile and complement people, even strangers. Give generously to others, whether it is your material resources, time or effort.

4. To maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen. Avoid lying as much as you can. Either keep promises, or don’t make ones you can’t fulfil. Be patient and forgiving. Listen deeply to your family and friends and love them unconditionally.

Right Mindfulness

Right Mindfulness is simply the ability to see the world clearly as it is. We should try to clear our minds of delusion and judgement, because they lead to discrimination which inevitably leads to hurting others.

We may only be half conscious of it, but we spend a lot of mental energy categorising, interpreting and distorting things. We fail to recognise the importance of some issues or blow others out of proportion.

When our view is being obscured we don’t see the other side’s perspective. We don’t realise that there must be a reason why people do or think in certain ways, if it is not ‘our way’ it doesn’t mean it’s the ‘wrong way’.

Right Mindfulness enables us to be aware of ourselves and the world around us. It doesn’t stop or make us do anything, instead it is just the non-judging acknowledgement of our thoughts and actions. When we know we are doing something hurtful or helpful, Right Intention and Right Effort will guide us to stop or continue our actions.

Practising Right Mindfulness builds a mind of tranquillity and equanimity. You will find yourself much more emotionally stable and with a much better ability to remain composed under tension or stress.

The best way to practice is simply just to sit down in silence and close or half close your eyes. Once you stop moving your body and stop being distracted by information going into your eyes and ears, you can think more clearly about things the things that are on your mind.

Right Mindfulness (combined with Right Concentration) leads to insight. With clarity of conciousness, almost anything can happen. You may find a solution to a problem or make an important observation about a relationship, your past actions or realise that things aren’t as bad as you had thought. If you sit regularly and patiently, you will experience the miracle of mindfulness. 

Right Concentration

Right Concentration is developing the ability to direct all of your mental energy towards a single object and maintain that focus for a period of time.

In the context of the Eightfold Path, it means concentrating on wholesome thoughts and actions such as those under Ethical Conduct – Right Speech, Action and Livelihood.

It might be very difficult at the beginning to maintain focus and not be distracted by all the things going on around us. But what most people don’t know is that concentration is a skill, just like tennis – nobody is naturally born already amazing at it, they have to learn the techniques and practice consistently.

The best way to learn is, again, to practice meditation. I cannot emphasize how important this is. You don’t have to go on retreats, the Dalai Lama himself says you don’t have to be vegetarian, but meditation is an essential component to Buddhist practice. Even if you do not wish to be Buddhist or a Buddhist practitioner, meditation (like eating healthily or taking up yoga) is immeasurably beneficial to everyone.

One way of practising Right Concentration is to try, for 20 minutes, in whatever you are doing, to pour your entire concentration into doing it. Immerse yourself. Don’t stop until you are done with the task at hand or 20 minutes are up. Try to ignore or postpone any distractions until you have finished. If you can do this, try it again for an hour, a day or even a week.

You will find that you are able to complete the task not only more quickly, but with better quality. Each person has enormous amounts of concentration within them, which also means each person has huge potential to achieve great things. Unfortunately, it gets spread out and diluted as we allow things to distract us from our goals.

Concentration is a powerful tool. Being present and focussed is the difference between being a participant of life and being and merely being an observer.

—

It’s taken me a little while to write these posts, partly because I was busy preparing for my travels but partly because although the Eightfold path is a simple concept, it is complex in it’s teachings.

There’s so much to say (believe me, I read a lot of literature before writing these posts) but the most important point of all is not just reading about the theory but the actual practice of the path itself.

These posts have been an introduction, a guideline, a gift from me to you. However, it’s up to you now to choose where to go from here. Remember the saying?

“Imagine what you could achieve if you put your mind to it”.

Now, you don’t have to imagine. May the Eightfold path lead the way!

—

Related Posts

• A bell for mindfulness
• Life as chopsticks
• Spiritual Revolution

So here we are on the first part of our journey along the Noble Eightfold Path, laid out by the Buddha to guide us away from ignorance and suffering. In this first part, we will look at wisdom, what it means and how to attain it by practising Right View and Right Intention.

Wisdom

What is wisdom exactly? Some would say it is like knowledge, but that wouldn’t be the complete meaning of real wisdom. There are plenty of people who are book smart, or have a lot of general knowledge or can make obscure cultural references, which are all very well, but true wisdom is a different kind of knowledge that you can only gain from experience.

Unlike knowledge, wisdom is not a clear cut goal that you can reach by passing an exam. The real tests come from being able to overcome the obstacles that life throws at you.

Being wise simply means knowing how to be. What to say or not say, what to do or not do and how to be true to yourself and do well unto others.

Wisdom is the accumulation of humbling experiences that come from keeping an open mind and freely admitting when you are wrong. Wise people are not proud. They have plenty of dignity, but they are not proud in the way that most people are. They don’t need their egos boosting and they don’t feel the need to have recognition for every little thing they do. Zen teachers always tell their students, “If you think you are already wise, then you are not“.

Right View

To become wise, firstly you have to obtain a little perspective on things. Right View is being able to see things for what they really are. This means having the insight to see what truly matters, and what does not. It means realising that everything is impermanent and that the world around us is in a constant state of flux.

Stuff breaks, gets stolen or lost. People change their minds. Time moves on. If we insist on trying to keep things the same forever or if we hold on to an ideal or memory, one day when it will inevitably be gone, we will be unhappy. Instead, so we should enjoy these things while we can but we should also recognize that nothing lasts forever, so we shouldn’t become upset when it is gone.

In minimalism, having the Right View is the first step in the right direction. You have to see things for what they’re really worth – which is usually nothing really at all, just a bit of money here and there doesn’t make something actually valuable.

You have to realise that being happy is the most important thing in life, and simply possessing a bunch of stuff or qualifications won’t make you happy, so what’s the point in worrying about it all so much? The same goes for relationships that aren’t working or goals you’re holding onto just to impress other people with. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, yet we spend our whole lives striving to win points in life as if it’s one big game.

Having the Right View shapes all of our other intentions and actions, so it is vital that people put their priorities straight. What are you working towards? What do you really want to do? What matters to you?

Right Intention

Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if more people intended to leave things in a better state after they came than before they arrived? Every act of kindness, no matter how small, adds up. Just a smile or some kind words can improve someone’s day or week, or even save a life. You can make a difference. This is what minimalism is all about – resisting the pull of selfish desire for the greater good of ourselves and for others.

If people just took a moment to breathe before they spoke or acted, then there would be much less anger and violence in the world. Holding a grudge or desire for revenge against somebody else is like holding a hot rock – painful and burdening, and yet people feel like this every single day.

Extending our compassion for people who annoy us doesn’t mean we understand why they’re doing something, it means that we understand that they are only human, they make mistakes but they’re just doing their best to be happy.

Every interaction we have with the Earth and other people should be with the intention of goodwill – to make the world a better place. If you want to make your mark on the world, let it be a positive one.

Commit to this with your whole heart, and you will attract like-minded, kind and gracious people into your life. Everything slots into place if you have the right attitude, and true intentions.

People who are truly wise can see things from a higher perspective. They know when to listen and when to speak. And they know when to act and when to let things go. But most importantly, they know how to be happy.

Related Posts

• Simple Philosophies – Live to listen
• on minimalist motivations
• Attachment, defined.

Most of you will probably know the popular college drinking game ‘Would you rather…?’ where you have to choose between two (usually horrifying) dilemmas.

Apart from being an entertaining drinking game, I’ve discovered it to be a rather useful life tool to create ultimatums for yourself, especially when it comes to the difficult yet important issues in our lives.

For example, how do we balance our money/job needs with our desire to be more minimalist?

The best way to answer this question is by asking a different set of questions…

three better questions

When we think about work, it’s all about choices. A lot of people neglect asking themselves important questions regularly. They just blindly go with the flow from school > university > job > retirement and forget to stop and check if they’re even going where they would like to go

Now, here is where most people ask obvious questions like, “Are you passionate about your work?” or, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?” and so on, but those aren’t the kind of questions I’m interested in. I prefer something more challenging.

Most of us are so lucky to live in a day and age when it is possible for us to do anything we want. We have more freedom of choice than any other generation in history. Most of us are no longer hindered by the information and communication obstacles that stopped our predecessors from learning and doing what they wanted to do, when they wanted to. So it’s time for some new and better questions that make the most of the opportunities we have.

Money or Time?

Would you rather:

• work 8 hours a day and have extra cash
• work 8 hours a week and have only what you need

How you answer this question is important because it decides what kind of job you want to do. Some jobs simply cannot be done in less than a full day’s shift (such as working in retail or service)—you’re paid by a company to help customers out for that many hours a day. This kind of job can be done by anyone, and it shows on your paycheck.

On the other hand, there are jobs that are highly paid per hour because of the high value you deliver. What kind of job would you want?

Which one you prefer usually depends on which you value more—having cash in the bank, or having free time.

BUT you can have both money and time! It all comes down to how much money you need to sustain your lifestyle. In my case, I don’t have a costly life overhead, so I don’t need to work more than a few hours a week, and then I use the rest of my free time to do what I want—read, spend time with my loved ones, etc. So now I’m left with enough money, and plenty of time.

Connection or Freedom?

Would you rather do a job that requires:

• your presence
• what you create

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides, and they’re not always mutually exclusive, but which one you choose largely depends on the kind of person you are. Jobs that require your presence usually involve being interacting with customers and usually some sort of trained skill. Some people find these jobs quite fulfilling too, because they’re able to connect with new and different people.

The flip side is that you have to show up to wherever the customers are, which, if you like your freedom, can be a pain in the ass. Jobs in service sector are examples of these. On the other hand, jobs that only require what you can create, provide more possibility of freedom. You can create something of value, and send it to the customer from wherever you are.

Now or Never?

Would you rather:

• do great things when you’re retired
• do them now (even on a shoestring)

This one is a trick question. A lot of people think that they have to choose between the things that truly matter, and the things they think they have to do right now, like getting a well-paid steady job, buy a nice car/house, start a family etc. But they forget that they don’t have to wait until they’re retired to do what they’ve always wanted to. Or until they’re rich. You can live a millionaire’s lifestyle from right now.

There’s no guarantee you’ll be rich, or even alive, when you’re ready to retire. The only guarantee you have is the present moment, make the most of it!

As for myself, I tutor English for a few sessions per week. My fees are quite high per hour, so even if I have to show up for work, it’s worth it. I’m also working on moving towards freelance translation so that I would be able to work from anywhere in the world… and/or from the comfort of my bed. I’ll see how that goes.

EDIT February 2016: A few years after I wrote this post, I started freelance translations in my spare time, and now I run my own investment business which gives me a comfortable passive income. I’m living my dream from five years ago.

In any case, it’s important to keep asking status-quo-challenging questions because you may discover a new path in life. Some of the best ideas and revolutions in history came from people asking the right questions at the right time.

If you could see the WordPress dashboard for this blog, you’ll find hundreds of crappy drafts. For every post published, I have at least 5-10 drafts that will never see the light of day.

It takes a lot of brainstorming, bad ideas, poking, prodding, and feet dragging to get a single post out. Most of all, it takes time. In fact, I wrote the original idea for this post in 2011. You can imagine how my book is going.

But by being persistent, something eventually comes out of it. If you’re lucky, it might even be good. Sure, there are posts that aren’t as popular as others, but that’s okay, because there are as many posts that exceeded my expectations.

There are two types of pursuits—you either have to get perfect results, or you don’t. If you’re building a bridge, it needs to be precise. Fortunately, most things fall in to the latter type. It’s better to try and get something done, than not doing anything at all because it can’t be perfect.

There’s no such thing as perfection. Art, business, science, life…everything is one big experiment. Sometimes you’ll get something wrong a hundred times before you get it right once. Nobody learned to walk without falling.

Minimalism is the same. Doing a little bit is better than none. You don’t ‘become minimalist’ overnight, or even over a couple of months or years. There’s no final, perfect goal. It’s a continuous practice of shifting your mindset and making the best decisions you can. You’re allowed to have lapses. There are no rules, so who’s to judge you?

Embrace the struggle. Anything worth doing is difficult. The discomfort weeds out the wannabes. The hardship is what makes it an accomplishment. As Roosevelt said,

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

—

Book I’m reading now: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life — Anne Lamott

Related Posts

• Minimalize, Focus, Do Part III – Push Publish
• A complete guide to minimalist writing
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“Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.” – Dalai Lama

Do you keep a diary?

If you don’t, I highly recommend it. I guarantee that the stuff you write about will blow your mind one day.

Reading a past entry is like looking at a snapshot of your past self. What happened this time last year? How did you feel about it? It’s fascinating, some of the things that you cared so much about that you would dedicate so many pages and so much of your time ranting about.

But now, you read back, and  you realise that the things that happened to you back then, that seemed like such a big deal at the time, don’t seem so big any more, do they?

That’s because everything changes with time. It’s the nature of impermanence.

2012, an epic year indeed

I choose to see it as a sign of growth. People tend to say that they’re the same person they’ve always been, but the truth is, everybody changes over time. Sure, there are a few things, like core values and beliefs that are difficult to change, but all the rest of you, your likes and dislikes, how you spend your time, they way you move or speak, your knowledge, and of course your appearance, are always changing.

In 2012, I did a lot of changing. I went from only being able to run 3 miles at the most to completing a half marathon in less than 2 hours. I went on retreat to southern France, where I learned more about life in a week than I did in my entire lifetime. I travelled around China, where I met new people, and together we ate, saw, learned and experienced so many new things. I somehow even managed to throw in learning a new language and how to swim properly, amongst many other things, big and small. This year was one of the most exciting years I have been lucky enough to have.

There’s still growing up to do, but before I die…

As another year passes by, I realise one more change. It happens every year, but many of us don’t seem to notice.

We have one less year left to live. 

There are still so many things I want to see, people to meet, relationships to deepen, skills to learn, goals to achieve, places to go, experiences to have, new things to try, it’s unbelievable how much I have yet to do.

It would be such a shame to let a moment go to waste.

Like a lot of people, I keep track of all of these things with a bucket list. It’s simple, if I keep it somewhere obvious and I see it almost every day, I will be reminded about the goals I’m aiming for, the things that really matter. Then, as I accomplish each one, I proudly draw a big black line through it.

For 2013, I have decided to publish my list. I have created a page to make myself publicly accountable for my lifetime goals. Hopefully, this will motivate me to get out there and just do it!

Screw it, just do it

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

Who knows what the future has to bring? The best thing you can do is take control of it yourself. Decide for your own what you want to happen, then make it happen.

I have been working on it for a few years now, and I’ve managed to cross off a few things already. Even so, the list keeps growing, and at a much faster rate than I can keep up with. Even if I can’t complete every single thing on the list, I wouldn’t mind, as long as I know that I’ve truly tried to. Some of the things will take a long time, years even, but as long as I keep in mind my reasons, I’m sure I can do it. Some of the things will take an immense amount of time, effort and courage, I hope I can live up to the challenge.

Nevertheless, I will never forget what an amazing year this has been. Both the good and bad things that have happened have made me a stronger and better person. I know that when I read back on my diary for the past twelve months, I’ll be happy to know that I have already experienced so much.

Thanks 2012 for being such an epic year, and here’s hoping 2013 will be even better!