Bryan Parady's Blog, page 39

Step Through The Door

The door to your future is right in front of you.  It’s not locked.  It simply requires you to step forward, turn the knob and step through.

Some of us though get so stuck on the doorstep. We stay stuck and stand staring at the door, sometimes for years.  We stand there while we are miserable in our current job or circumstances.

Your degree plan, your job, these things are not a final death sentence.  If you hate where you are at.  Turn the knob and choose a different path.  Step through the door.  Don’t stay stuck.

We applaud heroes in movies when they step out of their comfort zone and do something noble, heroic, or daring, and yet when it comes to our own lives we let fear cripple and paralyze us.  We let fear stop us from chasing our goals.

The door is waiting.  You don’t have to sit around waiting to find it, or waiting for it to be built.  You already know what is in you to do.  Stop sulking around the doorstep, open it and walk through.

Go Easy…Sometimes

While we have to push ourselves hard to become and do what we dream of doing and being, we also have to come to terms with the fact that we are far from perfect, and never will be perfect.

Perfection actually kills you achieving your goal.

Should we strive for perfection?  No we should strive for our dream and do the very best we can.  We will trip, fall, look stupid, let someone down.  All these things are inevitable.  The choice you have to make is, when these thing happen, pick yourself up, learn from your experience and move on.

Keep running toward the goal.  Don’t just give up because you’ve messed up. Every single person alive screws up at certain points, because humans are imperfect.

Again…this is okay, give yourself some grace to fail.  But learn from your failure.

Don’t fail, lose hope and become a victim.  Your failures are only setbacks if you allow them to be.

Why Not?

Everything you’ve ever thought would be so amazing to do is achievable.

What do you want to do more than anything?  Are you doing it?  If not how come?

We talk ourselves out of things so easily.  We want to do this or that, or have this or that dream to do something, but all of our talk just ends up being empty.  We fear 10not being able to see out our dream, we fear other rebuke, we fear others looking down on us for taking a risk.

But here’s to the risk takers, the death defyers, the take on any challenge people. When you lie down at the end of the day you have to know that you did what you set out to do, that you lived your life the way it was supposed to be lived.  Not the way someone else said you should live.  Your fight, your determination is what makes it happen.

What you want is waiting for you.  All you have to do is step through that door of decision. Make the choice and go for it.

You will always regret the things you didn’t try.  Live without regrets.

Outlook

Our outlook affects everything we do in life.  It can make us pleasant people or miserable people.

For some reason it seems easier to be an unpleasant person many days, we get to feeling sorry for ourselves, or wish things were different, and before we know it we are walking around with a storm cloud over our head and making other people miserable in the process.

It’s really simple for life to start looking up, start thinking positively.  Start looking for good in things, yes you may have to search hard in some situations, but there is always something good.  Give yourself daily affirmations, tell yourself what you are lucky to have (or not have).

Repeat this for a couple weeks, every day telling yourself something good in your life.  Repeat the same thing throughout the day.  After 2 weeks evaluate and see if your outlook hasn’t already improved.

The world doesn’t need to change…just your outlook.

Examine Your Motives

 

 

We all hit times in our life when we question things that happen.  We question if we are making the right choice, if we are on the right path, if we are doing good enough.  We’ve all been there, and we will probably all be there again.

Questioning can be good, it causes us to evaluate what the heck is going on in our lives.  Yet at the same time it’s hard because we don’t feel like we should be questioning, like we should have it all together.

But that’s just it.  We ourselves can never have it all together.  We are capable of some pretty spectacular things.  We can set our minds, and set our wills and complete just about anything we set our minds too.

But even if we make it, even if we hit our goal, we may still question ourselves. Why?  Because on our own there will always be something missing.  There will always be this hole in the center of our lives.

Not to sound cliche.  But without God we will always come up missing something.  It’s not that we can’t do great things without him, but it won’t mean as much.

So take some time, figure out your motives. It’s okay to question.  It drives us to the answers.

 

Pour Out

I can be pretty self absorbed.  Let’s face it, we live in a society that teaches the most important thing is #1.  Sure we may not say it in such terms, but that is the message conveyed.  It’s easy to ask ourselves “what’s in it for us”, whenever we are faced with a question.

The problem with the me mentality is that it consumes us, we don’t think of anything else when we are consumed with what we can get, how we can get it, and what benefit it will be to us.

But there is something that I myself lack.

Giving to others.  Giving of my time, my resources, myself.

Almost everyday I come face to face with the bleak fact that I am an extremely selfish person.  I don’t want to be one, but I am.  I get disappointed if I don’t get something I was hoping for, if someone does something I don’t like.  Lots of things cause to disappoint because I am focused on the effect others have on me.

But my life isn’t about me, it’s about service to others, it’s about giving of myself, it’s about keeping silent when I’d rather lash out.  It’s putting the way someone else feels above myself.

Do I successfully do this?  Heck no. I have a long way to go, but it’s a goal.

 

Dream On

 

 

When we stop dreaming we stop living.  We have to go for the improbable, the seemingly impossible. Any person we tend to look up to in history has overcome ridiculous odds.

Helen Keller was blind and deaf.   Einstein was considered dumb and didn’t speak until age 4. Jim Carey was homeless.  Oprah gave birth at 14 and lost her child.  Edison failed over 1,000 times.

It’s easy to blame our circumstances or present condition on someone else, or some hardship we have gone through. But adversity should be nothing but a propellant for us to push ourselves further.

How do we do this?  Don’t stop dreaming.  It’s really easy to get stuck in your routine.  Work, paying bills, college, taking care of your family.  These are all admirable and very good things.  But in the midst of these things it’s easy to give up on our dreams.

We all have some time in a week, whether it’s our weekends, the time we spend watching football or the Walking Dead.

So don’t use the excuse that you don’t have time to pursue your dream, because we all have time if it’s important enough to us.

I remember when I was dating my wife, long distance. For awhile we lived 6 hours away.  At the time I was working, in Paramedic school, and played drums in a band.  My life was fairly crazy.  Yet I made time to come see her every weekend, often driving all night to get there.  Why?  Because it was important.

It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of importance.  Remember your dreams.  They are important, and you must chase after them to fully be alive.

When You Don’t Know

 

 

 

If someone were to ask me do I know myself, I would immediately respond “of course!”  And yet, why do I time and again surprise even myself when it comes to who I am?

I’ve discovered it takes time to understand yourself.  The same could very well be true about our spouses.

When we get married it’s really easy to think we know everything about our spouse.  But again we would be very wrong.

If I want to know what my wife likes, I have to do things to find out.  Try a certain type of food together, ask her if she likes this or that.  Watch her reactions to certain things. Basically study her. We do this very well while dating, but it needs to continue into marriage.

In the same way it’s really important to study ourselves.  There are so many things we’ve never done, or never tried, so how do we fully know who we are?

Just like the only way to find out about my wife is by studying, the only way to find out about myself is practically the same.  I have to study myself, and the biggest way I do this is by trial and error.

I have to get out there and try new things, see what sticks and what doesn’t.  I can’t just sit on my butt and wait for things to drop in my lap. It will never happen.  I’ve got to go after them.

So if you don’t know yourself, or your spouse.  Start studying.  It takes some work and time, but it will be worth it on both accounts.

Given Up

There comes a point where everything we’ve ever known falls apart. I can know all the answers to something.  Know it backwards and forwards.  Know what to say and what not to say, but when faced with the reality of what it really means, is when the realization that knowing about something, and knowing it to the point where it leads your life are two totally different things.

I can know that there is something called engineering, I could look up definitions, and engineering words, but if I had to design a functioning highway interchange I wouldn’t have a clue.

It’s the same way when I hit a point where the actuality of living something out and knowing it are two completely different things.

When this hits I feel like giving up.  Giving up on everything I’ve ever known or felt.  But I’ve found that this point of giving up is a good thing.

It’s a good thing because it breaks away all the fakeness, all the pat answers that sound good in theory but really mean nothing.  Giving up isn’t the end, but it’s rather the beginning.  A chance to start over and begin again.

So if you are at a place where giving up sounds incredibly refreshing, then take it as a sign to evaluate what you’ve been doing and what you’ve believed, discard the fake bull crap you’ve been holding on to, and really find out what you believe.

Let It Go

Sometimes there are circumstances that are out of your control, there are things you can’t define, things you can’t just suck it up and do because it involves things that are out of your control.

In those times, you can drive yourself crazy trying to make it work. You can try, hope, and strive, but you can also drive yourself absolutely crazy in the meantime.

There’s really only one thing you can do to keep your sanity in times like these…..let it go.

There are times, when you’ve got to step back and realize that you are only responsible for yourself, you have to do the best that you can possibly do, but you can’t control things outside of that, and those things, just let go of.

Be free of them.  The issues won’t suddenly vanish, but you’ll have a new perspective, because you realize that no matter what happens, you know you’ve done all you can do, and time will tell what happens.