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Self Improvement > Positive Attitude > It Gets Dark Before You See The Stars
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Penny Phang
Today, I woke up to phone calls from friends and family
wishing me happy birthday. And for some reason the first
thing that entered my mind was the topic for this article. So
much has happened since my last article, Great Things
Cannot Happen Without Change. Many of you even wrote to
me to share your stories on the much-needed changes that
may or may not be happening in your lives. Most of you
expressed your fear of change, the unknown, and not
knowing what to do. I must tell you that you’re not alone.
Everyone goes through this process in life, time and time
again; it’s really about striving to grow and be better than you
use to be. This notion never ends as long as you’re
breathing. You are, after all, perfection in progress.
The more you practice embracing the process of change,
though it doesn’t get easier, you will, however, get better at it
— and be able to consistently improve the quality of your life
to a new and higher level of self-respect and fulfillment. At
this moment, even I, myself, am going through this process,
again. Whether I like it or not, I have to be honest with
myself about what isn’t working and why. If I choose to
ignore the truth of the matter because it seems easier to do
so, I may be turning down a truly valuable lesson that could
have been the stepping stone to take me to a better place.
Understand that the right thing to do is almost never the
easiest thing to do. Sometimes life has a better plan for you
than your own — so to serve a much greater purpose. Even
when you try to take the easy way out, life never fails to pinch
your nerves with its own sense of humor to try and get you
back on track.
Let me share some examples of incidents that happened
for me this month as a way to describe some of life’s
(not-so-funny) sense of humor: My much needed cell phone
broke in half; my Palm Pilot’s writing pad started to wear out;
my living and working space both need to be relocated; my
very important email address decided to stop working for
reasons my web guy is still trying to figure out; and the list
really does go on and on — believe me. Almost everything
seems to not work smoothly or fit nicely as they would
normally. Although fear was the first thing to enter my mind,
I made sure it was also the first thing to leave. Fear freezes
the mind, erases possibilities and clouds opportunities;
and it makes most matters we’re fearful about seem
disproportionately greater than our ability to deal with them.
Remember — fear exists in your life only when you choose
to just exist, however, fear cannot exist when you choose to
live your life!
There’s a big difference between living and just existing.
Existing is instinctual; it is involuntary, reactive
self-preservation, with the primary goal of just getting from
one day to the next, without regard to quality. Living, on the
other hand, is the exercise of certain learned attitudes,
skills, and abilities that you have acquired to add substance
to the quality of every moment of your life. Let’s face it, no
matter how much you know or how smart you are — as silly
as this may sound — if you haven’t learned how to speak
Chinese, you can’t expect to know just how to speak it. Just
as it is in life — in order to succeed at the game of life,
nobody ever taught you the rules, let alone how to play the
game. Since we do not get formal training from society,
we’ve been relying on the role models in our lives. Even so,
it goes back to trial and error that they got it right, but it’s a
safe bet that training and preparation had nothing to do with
it. Simply put, this means not only that you may lack certain
crucial information, but the information you do have may be
wrong. So when making changes in your life, you must be
careful about where and from whom you accept input. Not
so that you can substitute their thinking for your own, but so
you can add to your personal knowledge.
Whatever your case may be, ultimately, you’re the one who
makes the final call on how your life should be. You can
look at your life like pieces of a puzzle that doesn’t come
with a photo of the picture you have to construct. You and I
know that nobody can provide us with a true picture of how
our own life is suppose to look like. Therefore, we must
learn to assemble the puzzle together as we earn our
pieces. This is simply divine because you can strategize to
obtain the puzzle pieces you choose to include in your life,
and watch the mystery picture of your life unfold as you put
the pieces together. It doesn’t just stop here; the puzzle
pieces you earn keep adding to form and create a bigger
and more complete picture as your life journey continues.
So enjoy every moment of your journey and remember —
whatever you do, do it with all your heart.
Copyright © 2005 Penny Phang Enterprises Inc. All rights
reserved.
Penny Phang is one of Canada's nominated Top 40 Under
40 business leaders, recognized for her commitment to
provide strategic business communication and marketing
services with inspiring enthusiasm, creativity, and elegance.
She is also well known as the Producer for Playboy Special
Editions for Western Canada. In addition, she remains
involved in full-service business communications with her
founded Simplex Communications Group, and continues to
write for her monthly inspirational lifestyle column, Moments
of Inspiration with Penny on http://www.pennyphang.com/.
For further information please go to:
http://www.phangenterprises.com/.
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