A little tuck here, a little snip here and a little cut there and you have a Grade A certified perfect figure and look.
When we were kids with little to no rationalization what this big and bad world was going to throw back at us we were judged on perfection. Parents weren't happy with an A on the report card but you were rewarded when you had the A+. I once won an award in 3rd grade for coming to school everyday without one missed day - Perfect Attendance. Teachers would only reward us if ALL of us were behaving - Perfect Silence. We were trained that anything less than perfect was failure.
We then compete in sports where people say that second place is the first loser or receive a shower of confetti when you bowl a perfect round of 300 - we are trained as kids to be perfect and carry that mentality through our lives. Think about it...gymnasts and figure skaters go on the verge of suicide if they slip a tenth of a point but cry in joy as if they had just witnessed God touch their hands if they get the perfect score. The best achievement in baseball - a PERFECT game. When did the love of the game became the pursuit of perfection?
When we work or play we strive for the same perfection. It's not good enough that the person you are with loves you or cherishes your very existence, but we trivialize it with shallowness of their looks, figure or social awkwardness. We were trained to except nothing but the best. We work to advance, but we fail to realize the life lessons we encounter everyday. We strive to be better, faster and stronger than the next that we lose focus on what is important. We aim to be the perfect employee by destroying our own morals to get there. By any means necessary.
Perception is a strong frame of mind. It makes you see things that may not be what you see. The glasses of your world change based on the lens of you mind. You see what you want to see and in turn behave towards that vision. Perfection. What you don't see on your blind side is that perfection may be right there in front of you. It's just not called perfection. For some its called happiness, for others it can be content, or maybe passion, or maybe trust and honesty.
Rewrite your description of perfect to what you want it to be and don't let anyone tell you you're not perfect.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Ambassador of Quan
Even keel, center of balance, equal mix of rational and emotional. Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr's character on Jerry Maguire) used the term Quan to explain his center of balance.
But what is really a true center of balance? And why is everyone in the world dying to find theirs? When we were kids and sitting on a see-saw, it was more fun if you were up or down, but never when you were centered. We felt the need to be extreme, whether high or low, but that gave us joy, it gave us reason for being.
And as adults, if you lean towards one of the extremes you are branded - crazy.
We are all guilty of extremes that give us a reason to show happiness or sadness, there's nothing wrong with that, but where we are wrong is when we take those extremes to the highest point. We can't just go out to eat, we have to go to a buffet and get an all you can eat. We don't run races or marathons but ultra marathons. We don't eat healthy and exercise but we crash diet. No center of balance. No Quan.
Balance doesn't make you ordinary but tests you to see if you can maintain your levels. It's harder to have balance than to have the extremes. On extremes we let go and let nature take its course, no boundaries. But put restrictions on it - then we think we are being controlled.
So let loose and go to the limits, they build cars that can go 200 mph but put a speed limit at 65. Would you like a second helping of fried chicken - yes I would. How are you feeling - I'm feeling like I'm on fucking top of the world. No one likes to hear you say I'm just okay.
Quan - the balance. For me, I'll scream my lungs out on the see-saw going up and down.
But what is really a true center of balance? And why is everyone in the world dying to find theirs? When we were kids and sitting on a see-saw, it was more fun if you were up or down, but never when you were centered. We felt the need to be extreme, whether high or low, but that gave us joy, it gave us reason for being.
And as adults, if you lean towards one of the extremes you are branded - crazy.
We are all guilty of extremes that give us a reason to show happiness or sadness, there's nothing wrong with that, but where we are wrong is when we take those extremes to the highest point. We can't just go out to eat, we have to go to a buffet and get an all you can eat. We don't run races or marathons but ultra marathons. We don't eat healthy and exercise but we crash diet. No center of balance. No Quan.
Balance doesn't make you ordinary but tests you to see if you can maintain your levels. It's harder to have balance than to have the extremes. On extremes we let go and let nature take its course, no boundaries. But put restrictions on it - then we think we are being controlled.
So let loose and go to the limits, they build cars that can go 200 mph but put a speed limit at 65. Would you like a second helping of fried chicken - yes I would. How are you feeling - I'm feeling like I'm on fucking top of the world. No one likes to hear you say I'm just okay.
Quan - the balance. For me, I'll scream my lungs out on the see-saw going up and down.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Don't Blink
The world is big and filled with twists and turns and if you blink you'll miss a moment. I blinked recently, in fact i did more than blink, i closed my eyes. And before i knew it, everything changed. What i thought was right was wrong, my vision was shattered and my ability to make rational decisions were filled with emotional responses.
Eyes wide shut hoping that the vision that once was would come back, to see things that i once saw, to believe in things i once believed in.
Our lives happen in moments, each moment adds to an experience. No one knows how to react to each moment and we don't know the right or wrong answer. That's where hindsight is a bitch. It's our escape clause to explain why things didn't work. We beat ourselves up over the road less travelled. We sometimes make decisions on those moments thinking its the best for us where in reality if we had the foresight, we may have seen that it wasn't the right decision. We blink then we use hindsight as the cause.
We never lose our fear of the demons under our beds or in the closet. We grow out of the belief that the demons are the three headed monsters or evil monkeys, but the demons are still there. They change everytime we blink, they adjust to our fears when we close our eyes. The same reason why kids don't like to sleep out of fear of the demons is the same reason we as adults don't like to blink. Once the eyes shut, our fears appear and the demons become what we are running from.
I've made a lot of mistakes and a few regrets in my life. But my biggest regret is blinking and not fighting my fears. Not taking the right path over the best one. The best decisions are a short term win that satisfies an immediate fear but never conquers it, the right decisions are sometimes painful ones to make but are undeniable in its expected outcome. We never make the right decisions with our eyes closed.
The world is big and vast and filled with twists and turns and if you blink you'll miss a moment. I blinked yesterday and now I have to live with those demons. Time will pass and I'll blink again and one day i'll overcome those demons, but I'll have to do it with my eyes open.
Eyes wide shut hoping that the vision that once was would come back, to see things that i once saw, to believe in things i once believed in.
Our lives happen in moments, each moment adds to an experience. No one knows how to react to each moment and we don't know the right or wrong answer. That's where hindsight is a bitch. It's our escape clause to explain why things didn't work. We beat ourselves up over the road less travelled. We sometimes make decisions on those moments thinking its the best for us where in reality if we had the foresight, we may have seen that it wasn't the right decision. We blink then we use hindsight as the cause.
We never lose our fear of the demons under our beds or in the closet. We grow out of the belief that the demons are the three headed monsters or evil monkeys, but the demons are still there. They change everytime we blink, they adjust to our fears when we close our eyes. The same reason why kids don't like to sleep out of fear of the demons is the same reason we as adults don't like to blink. Once the eyes shut, our fears appear and the demons become what we are running from.
I've made a lot of mistakes and a few regrets in my life. But my biggest regret is blinking and not fighting my fears. Not taking the right path over the best one. The best decisions are a short term win that satisfies an immediate fear but never conquers it, the right decisions are sometimes painful ones to make but are undeniable in its expected outcome. We never make the right decisions with our eyes closed.
The world is big and vast and filled with twists and turns and if you blink you'll miss a moment. I blinked yesterday and now I have to live with those demons. Time will pass and I'll blink again and one day i'll overcome those demons, but I'll have to do it with my eyes open.
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