It's All on Us

Blog 037 -- May 7, 2018

I spent the majority of my life turning weaknesses into strengths. The hardest path through was always my option. Part of me believes it was due to the need for me to prove that I could. A bigger part of me believes it was because I followed the trends set by other people. I have always had a hard time figuring out what it is I wanted to do with my life. So I simply did things. Without ever truly knowing myself, I shot blindly in the dark, in hopes that I would land in something I was meant to do.

The biggest issue with this method was that I often chased skillsets that focused on the analytical nature of the world. I never allowed myself to believe that I was creative, that I was right-brained dominant. This is why I chose to be an aviation mechanic in the Marine Corps. This is why I chose to get an Accounting Degree in college. This is also why I ended up choosing to pivot 180 degrees and create a life that has little to do with any of the hard skills involved with those two disciplines.

I do not regret living my life in this matter. I can now use the left-side of my brain to heavily supplement my creative nature. This allows for efficiency and effectiveness to be instituted in every process I create for myself. This also allows for me to hold conversations with analytical people and understand where they are coming from. Unknowingly I created balance within myself. I created the ability to utilize both sides of my brain when making decisions or choosing direction.

In comparison to other people, I am not as far along as I want to be. That is looking at my life through a results-based perspective. This perspective has led me into depression on numerous occasions. There is no such thing as comparisons between others and ourselves. What somebody else is doing with their life has zero impact on our own pursuit. We spend so much energy comparing ourselves to others that we never allow ourselves to see how amazing our own lives are, how great our own accomplishments are, and how successful we already are.

This leads us to being ungrateful for what it is we do have, what is we have accomplished, and where it is we have grown from. Being ungrateful is a quick way to failure, considering failure is all based in perspective. Where I lack in financial success, I make up in personal success. I have always been one to chase instant-gratification while making choices that delay it. In this paradoxical way of living, I have grown so much but never gave myself credit for the growth. I always chose quality over quantity but deliberated in the lack of physical results of my efforts.

Every decision I have made since the beginning of 2009 has set me up for the success that I have already had and will continue to have. It was not until 2018 that I allowed myself to believe this to be true. For the first time, I am now honing my strengths. This is alien to me. It is like having to learn how to learn all over again. I get anxiety when things happen without me really trying or struggling for I have only known struggle on my way through to achieving goals. This creates a battle inside of me.

This battle consists of this feeling that I am not working hard enough. Which I have learned that the law of diminishing returns is as much a reality in a business economy as it is in the economy of ourselves. These crazy realizations are occurring weekly where I am learning that I can work a little less hard and get even further then I had ever thought. That I can live in the moment to moment basis of everyday and still make strides towards my future. These epiphanies have created a storm of change inside of me. Where who I was is attempting to stay in control, while who I am becoming is learning how to circumnavigate this world.

At the end of the day, all of the paths we choose to traverse in this life is our own to walk. Comparing the paths that we have chosen to the results of the paths that others have chosen will lead us directly to misery. This life is for us to live how we see fit. As long as we walk our path in the light, pushing love and kindness outwards, the universe will take care of us and provide us with everything we could ever need or want.

We are living our lives exactly how we want to live them, regardless of the satisfaction we feel from them. It is only on us to create a reality for which we are fulfilled and proud to exist in. If we are not happy, that is our choice to not be happy. If we are not fulfilled, that is our choice to continue existing on a path that is unfulfilling. The world does not revolve around us, we evolve around it. Take your control, make it what you want it to be, and manifest the reality you have always wanted. It is all on us.