So you tell me I can't?

If you asked any of my teachers back in school how they thought my life would evolve, they may not have been able to give you a decisive answer.  Yet, they would have described traits and qualities they saw in me that showed I was very determined to accomplish what I set out to do.  Over the years, I've been privileged to meet people who have inspired me with their reactions to people who told them they didn't have the abilities to do certain things.  Consider the results.

One girlfriend I've known since 1986 transformed her life in highschool.  She went to visit a guidance counsellor to express an interest in applying to university.  Friends tried to discourage her.  Her family also had qualms. Nobody in her family had ever attended university. At the time, this friend of mine had a "C" average and a few grades higher and lower.  The guidance counsellor glanced at her grades and told her she wasn't smart enough to attend university .  She was advised to lower her goals so she wouldn't be disappointed.  My friend went home, initially discouraged.  Yet, a voice inside told her she was capable of attending university.  She chose to listen to that voice, raise her standards and graduate with a B average that enabled her to win a university scholarship.

During my travels, I met a Scottish man who emigrated with his family to Australia.  He was an auto mechanic for over ten years and then decided he's had enough of that.  People around him questioned what else he could do.  After all, whay would he give up the security of a permanent job? He felt he had the ability to achieve other levels of success.  He decided that he desired true life change.  He didn't assume change would be easy, or that it could happen overnight.  In fact, he sensed that he would have issues to address and work through.  The important thing was he decided he would become his own boss.  He then launched his own business which brought him face-to-face with many obstacles.  All-the-while, this Scotsman didn't dwell on the negative, but went about his tasks with faith and hope.  Before long, he attracted opportunities and people into his life and he was able to better himself.  He invited positive events and they unfolded before his eyes.

Success comes in different packages.  In each of these stories mentioned above, if the individuals hadn't decided to chage their attitude and goals, then nothing about their circumstances would've changed.  If you have a dream, take advice from Sir Winston Churchill who said, "Never Give Up!"  If you don't currently have a dream or project that motivates you, what are you waiting for?  It's never too late to change your life for th better.  All of that begins inside yourself. 

Protect your dream

If you aim to realize some project and gain a new sense of success, then you're more likely to experience it if you identify exactly what this project means to you.  Qualify and quantify it as much as you can. It's funny how the older and supposedly more knowledgable people become, the more eager they can be to deny the impact  and usefulness of intuition. Intuition questions your aims and views of success.  Delight more in pondering possibility and expressing feelings to shape the final picture.  Your choices and expected results are time dependent.  Your success is likely relationship dependent as well. What do you do on a regular basis to nurture and protect your dreams? What have people around you done in attempt to discourage you or turn you off your dreams? How did you react? What became of your dream as the result?

I have found that the best way to protect my dreams is to focus on them and on ways that enable me to realize them. Protecting my dream means talking about it, writing about it, believing in it, learning about my reasons for aspiriing towards it and interatcing with other people who can help me to understand it.

In the case of my desire to experience the Trans Siberian Railway, I've been reading about all the stops in between, from Beijing through Mongolia and throughout rural and central Russia. I find clues about my rationale in what I read, in videos I've watched, in people who've been there to whom I speak, and in travel agents whom I contact about my various options. 

The more I focus on believing my thoughts, the more I act, which leads to results, and strengthing in my belief that I'll go sooner rather than later. I develop patience at the same time as I plan my days and live my life to get closer to realizing this dream of a new kind of adventure. What I get out of the experience, and who I help and entertain as the result of sharing the stories I plan to write, will be comparable to at least as much energy, enthusiasm and learning that I put into trip preparation. I ask myself Why? When? How? By which means? Which lives can I enrich as I go?

"Wall street is the only place to which people will go in a rolls royce to seek advice from people who take the subway." -Warren Buffett

Adjust your sails

If you know where you wish to go and what you aim to do, then whetever pace you choose to take actually helps you get there.  Rather than focus on what other people do or don't do, say or don't say, why not focus on your own race? Ultimately, you only really compete against yourself.

Of course, if you put yourself on a boat with an inspiring mentor, or someone who strikes you like he knows what he's doing, that person will always sense just when it's time to adjust his sails.  He can intuit the direction of the wind.  He reminds you that you can always find your own wind.   It can be helpful to re-evaluate your standards based on the bevhavior of people you admire.  Yet, teach yourself not to judge yourself or others. Instead, orient your life based on how you're inspired.

Regardless of what anyone says, you are never a victim of circumstance. You have every reason to be excited about where you are, what you're doing, and how you are evolving.  As you learn to get emotional about a dream, the power of emotionals goal will motivate you to commit.  How long it takes you to reach your own goals is directly related to the clarity of your own vision.  If you don't have a strong vision, you can always revise it and review your progress.  Ask yourself an open-ended question and plan how your circumstances will unfold.  Make it happen.

Success as you are

At this moment, you can feel successful before you do anything.  Other people would love to live the life you lead. Yet true success is not about comparison.  Remind yourself that you set examples for others wherever you go and whatever you do.  Even people you don't see or notice are influenced by you. As you grow more conscious that all you do matters, then what? 

Enjoying life and feeling successful are grounded in how you choose to perceive the "here and now."  You can be as content as you decide you'll feel, and you'll become as successful as you wish.  You may have a history full of examples of suffering, tragedy, grief and loss.  You could recount your experiences to others in ways that cause them to cry or, you could choose to develop a story of motivation, perseverence and triumph.  How you choose to interpret and imagine things affects your morale, your attitude and the many ways in which your life unfolds.

What matters is how you feel.  Results may happen as you envison or not yet, you always have a choice to focus on benefits of experience and what lessons you have learned.  You are successful because you are alive and growing.  No matter what your age, you have valuable experience behind you and opportunities in front of you.  Anything that's ever mattered to you, all the people, projects or issues you've cared for, help explain why you're a success. You refine this success even now.

"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." -Paulo Coelho

Karma & success

Karma is a sum of all that you have done, all you are currently doing and will ever do.  You project your own ideas of heaven, hell and purgatories.  These mental images sharpen based on your feelings.  You can always decide to learn, to gain things from all your experiences.

You also create your vision of success and imagine what you need to experience in order to achieve it.  In order to know success, you must first evolve to determine your true desires.  This begins with you.  Evolution inside yourself results from the fulfillment of your desires. 

It has been suggested that each of us develops skills and lives as long as we're able to learn from our karma.  Success, in a spiritual sense, may then result from working through and separating yourself from Earthly attachments.  This differs from material success which is often measued in terms of acquired possessions.  It remains a mystery whether karma is infinite and constantly being renewed or whether it only exists for souls to better understand ego and physical desires.