Bryan Parady's Blog, page 34

Why Do We Question

 

There are so many questions I often ask about life.   Such as what is it’s purpose.  What’s the best way to get from point A to point B, etc.

What is my one aim in life, should I have more than one.

How does God see us as we chase after our goals and dreams?

We often don’t want to ask questions though, because of how it might make us look.  Perhaps we’ll appear dumb. Perhaps our question will sound stupid.  Maybe someone will think less of us if we ask.

But in reality when we stop asking questions we stop growing, we stop discovering new things.

When we are in a dating or marriage relationship we ask tons of questions, we want to know all about the other person.  These questions don’t mean we don’t care about the other person, instead it’s quite the opposite.

It works the same with others.  Questions aren’t a bad thing.  Question others, question even your faith, and you will find you will learn new things you never even thought of.

So ask away.

Driven

What drives you?  What gets you up and moving?  What brings a smile to your face? Whatever it is that is what you should be chasing after.  Go for the gold, go for the difficult. If you are no a path you don’t like get off it.  No one says you have to be on it.

You are able to choose where you want to go. It’s like a car, you don’t just go sit in your in the driveway and think, “man I just hope my car takes me someplace good”. No you control the car and choose where you want to go.

This is how life should be.  Go after what you love.  Chase it and never give up.   It  may take some time to get there, but by starting today, you will be one step closer tomorrow to reaching your goal.

Running In Place

Have you ever felt like you are running in place?  Your legs pump faster, your breathing turns heavy, but still you get nowhere?

When you are on the journey to your goal, this feeling is very common.  There are every day disciplines (scary word for some), there are constant obstacles, fierce competitors, and someone or something constantly trying to make us give up.

But what we can’t see is there are all these invisible things coming together as we keep running.  Keep running, one step in front of the other, arms pumping.  As we do our goals will come together.  Sure you may not see the results, but eventually you will.

Far too often we give up just before everything comes into place.  Maintain your pace for the long haul.  Hard work, and perseverance will pay off in the end.

Freedom

Freedom is something that can be hard to obtain. While there can be people or circumstances that can leave us feeling trapped or held down, we are often our own worst enemy at restricting ourselves.  We tend to hold on to past hurts until it leads to fear that keeps us from acting, or to anger which makes us just unhappy in general.

We have to realize that when it comes to being free and moving on with our lives and living to the fullest.

Something I’ve found in my own life is how much of a snare it can be to live in your past or hold onto it.  You’ve got to let it go and start living in freedom.

It’s okay to realize you are holding onto things that are keeping you from being free.  But also realize you have to let them go.  Be free.

Stay Grounded

A lighthouse takes a beating, literally.  Wave upon wave, storm after storm, and it’s one job is to shine light to help others.

We aren’t rock hard, sometimes we break, sometimes we fail and fall.  But it is vital that we stay grounded in what we know.  Keep our feet secure.  We might break sometimes, we might fail miserably, but we are shaped and formed by our decision to get back up.  To rise above the storm, rise above whatever is hitting us from all sides.

We have to get back up with confidence, with boldness, with our faces held high knowing we were defeated, but we are now stronger than ever.  We are that much more experienced, that much more aware of our surroundings.

If you get knocked down, don’t sweat it.  Jump up and stay rooted.  You’ve got this.

Learn From Fear

Why would we choose to do something that scares us every day?  Many reasons.

When we do something that scares us we are stepping out of our comfort zone, we are chasing after something that is unknown, something we don’t have all figured out.

It stretches us in ways we didn’t even know we could be stretched. This stretching causes us to grow, we grow mentally, physically, and emotionally.  Each new experience is like a rush of fresh air, introducing us to something real and raw, and brand new to our senses.

These new experiences make us more diverse and help us to understand more of our world.  When we do that, we don’t just live life, we feel it, we breathe it, and we sense it with every fiber of our being.

Choose to do something that scares you.  You will become a better person.  And a more understanding person.

Go For It

Two words….Just go.

What is your dream.  What makes you burn with passion, what makes you feel alive like you’ve never felt before?  What makes you want to get up and do a dance, what makes you want to shout at the top of your lungs?

Whatever it is just go and do it.  Stop delaying, stop asking yourself if you should.  If it burns that deep inside of you, then yes you should.  You have to.

We each have something burned inside of us that only we can see it through to completion because only we feel so strongly about it.  We were meant to give our dream wings, we were meant to make it soar.

Sure there will be hardships, trials, failures, and naysayers.  But that’s just part of the way it goes.  Don’t give in, don’t give up, learn from mistakes, and prove the naysayers wrong.

Anything worth chasing in life will be hard.  But it will be worth it.  So worth it.

See The Good

Find the good.  It is there, everywhere.  Sometimes, it’s out of sight, sometimes it’s hidden, sometimes, you might have to dig deep to find it.  But the good is there.

It surrounds us if we let it. Perception is everything.  We can choose to see only the downside to things, we can choose to see only the bad things in our lives, or we can look for the good.

Not only the good in our lives, but the good in others.  We can find that good in others and draw it out of them.  Find something to compliment about another person, take the time out to ask someone how they are doing, look them in the eye when you do that.

Finding the good in others, will draw out the good in yourself as well.  Goodness is contagious.  Take part in others lives, and view them as valued.

You will be amazed at how your whole day and viewpoint change when you do this.  Try it.

Some Days Are Hard

 

 

If you live on this earth, you have bad days.   We all do.  I know I do.  There are days when I sometimes feel blah.  I feel disappointment, frustration,and like I am so far behind in the game.

I know it will pass, I  know I will be over the issues I am dealing with tomorrow, but that still doesn’t really help today.

I guess the biggest thing I can do today is try not to focus on the things that are hard, try not to focus on the difficult things in my life.  But rather focus on what is to come, the good things to come.

It’s easy to get caught up in wishing things were different, but life is what it is sometimes, and there are some things that are just outside of our control, and as much as we wish they were different, they aren’t, so we have to make the best of it and choose joy.

If you are having a crappy day, know it will pass.

Oh The Possibilities

 

 

We live in a culture that says just be tough, don’t let your emotions show, and for goodness sake don’t be vulnerable.  Living this way to a “T” can have some devastating results.  Let me explain…

We need to be strong in the sense of secure in ourselves, we  need to know where we stand, and what we believe.  We need to be okay if people fall away, that will happen in life, and we have to be on a firm enough foundation to know that when they do, we will be good.

But we also have to be vulnerable.  We have to open up ourselves to fully explore, dream, and live life.  Yes we may be opening up ourselves to hurt, but also to great possibilities.

So don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. It’s not a bad thing.  Being a rock, will cause great opportunities to bounce off of you, whereas being vulnerable allows you to be open to them.