It’s hard to tell who’s truly self-disciplined, especially as everyone claims to be. Perhaps to impress.

In recent times, however, I’ve learned an almost accurate detector of self-discipline.

To estimate a person’s level of self-discipline, I use the “Book Measure.”

I strongly believe that it takes a subtle level of self-discipline to finish reading a book that you voluntarily started, especially nonfiction.

A person’s ability to hold a book through expresses their ability to see a quest goal through, one bite at a time.

Have you been in a space where two or three people beside you are fussing about a problem that you have its solution at your fingertips?

Sometimes, it could be as trivial as fixing a broken URL.

Yet, as they brainstorm or, as I’d like to say, debate a way around the problem, their fuss distorts your focus on a creative task.

Helping them navigate their problem will take you a bit of time and that’s your most valued asset at that point, especially when working on a deadline.

On second thought, their frustration is contagious and until you help them navigate, you become increasingly frustrated and unproductive.

Whether you’re selling, you bought, or you anticipated buying a commodity, you’ve been faced with this question more often than you know.

Is it your new Nike sneakers, new Apple watch, or a new foot mat in the rear seats of your car?

Someone will always come around with that penetrative question.

Sometimes, it’s a harmless reflex for us to ask it. Some other times, that is us unconsciously measuring the worth and spending habits of the person being asked.

Whether or not the cost of the item is outrageous, it doesn’t change the actual value of the person. Instead, beyond our conscious understanding, it influences our perception of their worth.

As harmless as this may seem, it’s an unconscious way for us to choose who to respect and admire, envy and compete against, or disregard and avoid.

Unfortunately, using the answer to this question as a metric is irrational and woefully inaccurate.

Even on a one-way street, it’s hard to assume that nothing is happening in the other direction.

Our lives are typically moving in one direction, yet we can’t resist the urge to look in the other direction, ensuring that things aren’t unusual.

That’s understandable.

The more experience you have, the less trust you have on humanity. So, you have a reason to look both ways as you move through life’s one-way road.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that the next person journeying with you is looking both ways too. And to be one of humanity’s trusted, you must find a reason to trust humanity.

Our happiness in life depends greatly on our level of financial and emotional intelligence.

We all have dreams, great ones.

Almost all these plans require money or some sort of financial engagement.

One of the biggest mistakes that we make is hoping that the next gift funds would be enough to either put that plan to rest or, in the least, set it rolling.

This is barely the case.

Gift funds are meant to be treated as spares to be invested in a risky endeavor, recreation, charity, or some other stuff that resonates with your personality.

Whenever we have a plan that needs financing, we must learn to make plans for raising the money required to get things rolling.

Gifts and giveaways are least likely going to help you create a resounding success story.

For a while now, Blockchain is a rave, and it’s hard to believe that it will ever die. Countries are embracing DeFi, and the world is stunned by the apparent limitlessness of Nakamoto’s invention.

The future of the seemingly unending project, however, remains questionable. As Blockchain engineers emerge daily to fuel the nerve-wracking hypes, we are dazzled by the complexity of this ‘crypto’ universe.

Notwithstanding, my position is that behind this hype-decorated facade, the future is gloomy for the world’s most disruptive technology. The Blockchain feature that permits every entity to create its own currency without regulatory approval will, sooner or later, be the cause of its eventual loss of value.

Mark Cuban, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, and a host of other successful people out there have a thing in common. They all wake up to exercise intensively in the morning.

Starting the day with a smooth workout; an exploration of your physical limits, cause a rush of adrenaline and cortisol in your system that inspires a sense of urgency. Hence, you begin the day’s tasks with an energy and pace that’s quite admirable and unparalleled.

The morning workouts, on its own, may not be the reason why these people are successful but the fact that it helps them get things done, early and on time, says a lot about its effect on productivity. And, I kid you not, productivity is what reserves a space for you in the Hall of Fame.

The “Dream Big” ideology has faintened the line between wishes and goals. We can’t tell when we are making wishes and when we are setting high goals. Our world, as it appears, is currently enveloping great dreamers, moving around with a truckload of wishes, and no actual goals.

Our wishes are mere desires. Although desire is believed to be an emotion with a high motivational tendency, our wishes remain packs of inert motivations. Our goals, on the other hand, require a concrete action-backed plan. This is what jolts us from our slumbers and drives into the dark alley, chasing accomplishments.

Our tendency to make wishes is inane but we must strive to create action-forcing plans that can help us activate the energy hidden within the desires that we carry through our daily lives.

In a world where deception is a widely accepted act, honesty has become discomforting to both the listener and speaker.

As we continuously tell the truth, people are drawn from us. The more striking our candor is, the fewer people we’ll have around us. Soon, our minds grow tough and our hearts become lonely because only a small fraction of the world’s population is willing to hear the truth.

If you’re one of the honest persons on the planet, you’re a rare gem that must be valued. You’re the true source of clarity when it’s needed and you must not take yourself for granted. Be used to the fact that only a few people will be attracted to you. However, those who are will be blessed to have and you to have them.

#Peace #Honesty #Sanity

Here on Earth, many are in great suffering for no reason of theirs. On the same Earth, some are in Heaven, not by their own conscious doing. What, then, are the criteria for being born into paradise?

Permit my bland proposition that this is the Afterlife, where, for those who believe in them, we are born into Heaven or Hell based on the quality of the lives we lived in our prior existence.

In the next lives, as Earth becomes progressively austere, more people will be dwelling in an unwelcoming part of their ‘Afterlives’ with no clue of what brought them into it. And that could be our Hell or our Heaven.

More often than none, through our weekly or monthly lives, we meet random and familiar people that ask us the same question: “Which of these should I choose?”

Whether they are shopping or choosing an outfit for a ‘non-uniform’ event, we still are required to express our opinion on the matter.

Most of the time, the ‘askers’ have chosen from the available options within themselves, especially when the decision is mutually exclusive. What they need from us, instead, is an opinion that reinforces their preconceived decisions.

Your opinion is actually not as valuable as you may think it is. Give it, nonetheless, only if you feel obligated to do so.

Patience is a virtue, they say. What then is hidden between the fine lines of impatience? Doom?

No doubt, “good things come to those who wait.” The question, however, is: where do the BEST things go?

In thoughts, how much patience did the great men of this world have? The great innovators and leaders of the world; for how long did they wait for the good things?

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the long list of high achievers of our time all ventured into their careers with impatience and aggression. Oh, how outstanding a virtue does impatience carry!

Pardon my subconscious should it shanghai me into exploring, with all enthusiasm and injurious perseverance, my impatience because deep in its own subconscious, it knows that “good things come to those who wait” but, it yearns for the best; only those things that come to those who persevere… adamantly.

No matter the amount of effort we put in our crafts, we still are not good fits for some clients, albeit some will walk through fire to have us.

Receiving feedback from happy clients elates and inspires us to do more. Somewhere along the line, however, negative feedback from angry, unsatisfied clients forces us to question our proficiencies.

Frequent ‘belittling’ feedbacks can make us give up on the goal of being the best at what we do. On the other hand, incessant positive feedback from happy clients creates a comfort zone within which we get entrapped.

Hence, having a favorable mix of happy and angry clients, as I’ve learned, is crucial to our growth. Hence, we’re to ensure happy clients remain so. Then, find others that could be pains in our bottoms.

For ages, fast-paced decision-making has been a requisite for competitiveness. The digital age has, more intensely, made it essential for survival. And although we are quick-pacing creatures, we are clogged and slowed.

70% of all clothes and shoes. 70% of our contact list and call logs. 70% of our worries. And the list goes on.

Most of our lives are clogs, giving us too many options that never get chosen albeit, some are endlessly considered. The fewer the options that you have, the faster decisions are made. Unclog and soar.

Living through days packed with unpredictable events can present us with a challenge of choices. The complexity of this challenge increases with the options available, consequently, putting us in a cycle of dilemmas and hunger for even more options.

Most times, we experience this when we are invited to events. We struggle to choose dresses or clothes from our floor-to-ceiling filled wardrobes. The numerous options available, although supposed to make choosing easier, presents a tougher challenge that leaves us wanting more options added to the available options.

Humans. We are fickle.

Embracing the strength of our fickle nature, as opposed to its exploitation, is a game-changer.

Social media has brought irrefutable fame to even the ignoble, as well as a chance for our inaudible voices to be heard across the horizon. Yet, when staggering life challenges call, we scamper off, disengaging from our primary source of fame.

It is the right thing to do. There’s more to our lives than the insatiable virtual audiences that we’ve garnered. Take the break that you need, deal with your life’s challenges, optimize your time away, and return to them when it best suits you.

Between the depth of oceans and the peak of Mount Everest lies the solutions to all of humanity’s problems, but our brief lifetime limits us from searching all of Earth’s alleys to find the one perfect solution.

What we do with our tight deadline, however, defines the level of our resourcefulness and, our limits, as nature’s finest, are better explored than surrendered to.