Because you’ve settled for mediocrity...
You’re failing because you’ve grown comfortable with mediocrity; because you’ve stopped trying your best, and have accepted being “good enough”.
Because, somewhere along the line, you just gave up and accepted a life far below your potential and expectations.
Because, instead of chasing your dreams, you took the easy way out; You settled for that boring, but safe job. You settled for the first girl to show up because you were afraid of being alone. You settled for spending your entire life in the same corner of the world you were born, because traveling seemed too scary.
Because you’re terrified of sticking your neck out and actually trying to reach your dreams. Instead you chose the comfortable route of hiding within the safety of mediocrity...
#Jt
Gratitude. Appreciation. Giving thanks. No matter what words you use, it all means the same thing. Happy. We’re supposed to be happy. Grateful for friends, family, happy to just be alive… whether we like it or not.
Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude… has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human.
Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know.
At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing… is reason enough to celebrate...
#Jt
Because we don’t know how to handle negativity. We can identify it. But we don’t handle it well. And continually striving for ultimate satisfaction with
abandon and disregard of the reality of what that will entail leaves us inevitably and ultimately disappointed.
Because we struggle to see a hard time or negative feeling as a natural process that doesn’t necessarily detract from our overall satisfaction, but meaning allows us to. If we’re gauging by only happiness however, every negative feeling is a strike against our overall fulfillment, so to say.
Working for meaning as opposed to happiness keeps us aware of the fact that having and processing different emotions isn’t just normal, it’s healthy. It keeps us in tune with the fact that great things do indeed usually require some suffering, and that our lives wouldn’t be what they are
without that...
#Jt
You can’t stop people from talking about you.
People are mean. They will make judgments about you right off the bat without any prior knowledge and they will try to mold you into a character
they deem worthy of respect. If you construct your identity around the criticism of others, you will end up being a very boring person.
It is not until you’ve stripped yourself of your personal opinions, only to have someone find fault with your new identity, that you realize how little other people’s opinions matter. Someone will build you up only to tell you that you’re doing everything entirely wrong and sometimes, that’s the only way to realize that people will talk about you no matter
what you do.
Long story short: you won’t satisfy everyone, and if you try, you’ll either end up dull or crazy...
#Jt
The thing about life is that whatever you conceal is what owns you. It becomes the only thing about who you are, because it is the only thing that you will not let out into the world.
When you say your life is great when it’s not great, when you’re hurting, when you’re on the downswing, you subtly give yourself permission to lie about who you are, to allow what other people think of your life to mean more to you than what you think about your life.
There’s only one reason people lie about the state of their life: for the benefit of others...
#Jt
You never meet the right people at the wrong time because the right people are timeless. The right people make you want to throw away the plans you originally had for one and follow them into the hazy, unknown future without a glance backwards.
The right people don’t make you hmm and haw about whether or not you want to be with them; you just know. You know that any adventure you had originally planned out for your future isn’t going to be half as incredible as the adventures you could have by their side.
That no matter what you thought you wanted before, this is better. Everything is better since they came along.
#Jt
Not everything is as it seems.
once on a farm there was a bird. The bird would follow a cow around, and when the cow took a dump, the bird would eat the seeds out of the poop. One day the bird got too close and the cow shit all over him. An old barn cat saw this and came over and cleaned off the bird. As soon as the bird was nice and clean the cat ate him. Not everyone that craps on you is your enemy, not everything that cleans you off is your friend...
#Jt
Yourself:
Probably the most important redefinition of all- YOU. As you grow older, you will realize that you
will have to do a lot of things alone. You
will have to be your own hero and you
will have to pick yourself up sometimes.
You will redefine what you care about,
what you are chasing, what you are
believing in, what you are looking
forward to and what you want to
achieve. You will redefine how you see
yourself and how you want to be seen.
You will redefine how you want to
spend the rest of your life, and you will
redefine whether or not you want your
life to have meaning and if you want
the world to understand it...
#Jt
Stop comparing where you’re at with where everyone else is. It doesn’t move you farther ahead, improve your situation, or help you find peace. It just feeds your shame, fuels your
feelings of inadequacy, and ultimately, it keeps
you stuck. The reality is that there is no one
correct path in life. Everyone has their own unique
journey.
A path that’s right for someone else won’t necessarily be a path that’s right for you. And that’s okay. Your journey isn’t right or wrong, or good or bad. It’s just different. Your life isn’t meant to look like anyone else’s because you aren’t like anyone else. You’re a person all your own with a unique set of goals, obstacles, dreams, and needs. So stop comparing, and start living.
You may not have ended up where you intended to go. But trust, for once, that you have ended up where you needed to be. Trust that you are in the right place at the right time. Trust that your life is enough. Trust that you are enough... #Jt
You cannot avoid risk without avoiding life.
As Henry David Thoreau once said, “When it’s time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.”
Living is a risk. Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared sometimes, then you’re not doing it right. Don’t worry about mistakes and failures,
worry about what you’re giving up when you don’t even try. Worry about the life you’re not living and the happiness you’re forgoing, as you merely exist in the safety of your comfort zone. Give yourself permission to be one of the people who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them and grew into your truest self... #Jt
Be Kind
Yes, it seems obvious, but it’s easy to get frustrated with someone you love, who doesn’t seem to be getting over “it,” whatever “it” may be. It’s natural to feel yourself losing your temper, when this is something you think you could handle so much better.
Everyone goes through those times, and the best way to ride the rough waves is to endure them. It can be done; your loved one will survive, but he also needs to know it’s okay for him to let himself hurt. He can’t be in such a rush to “get over it” that he tamps the hurt down, where it can fester and make the future even worse.
So remember: Be kind when you’re looking for the
right words of encouragement to one you love. You will find the right thing to say. Just put yourself in their place, and imagine how you’d feel if you were on the receiving end of your words... #Jt
With real joy comes real pain.
Any time we fully experience true joy or feel the
preciousness of life on an emotional level, we can
expect to feel a great amount of sadness. Many
of us shy away from the things that would make
us happiest, because they also make us feel pain.
The opposite is also true. We cannot selectively
numb ourselves to sadness without numbing
ourselves to joy. When it comes to falling in love,
we may be hesitant to go “all in,” for fear of the
sadness it would stir up in us.
JJTau143 Blog (22)