Being appreciated

“The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” – William James

Is this true in your life?  It is true in others as well.  How do you leave people feeling?  Do they feel you appreciate them?  The fastest way to be appreciated is to appreciate others.

Try it.

Say the words “I appreciate you” with sincerity and a smile.  Go around all day today telling people “I appreciate you”.  Give hugs, or a touch on the shoulder, and tell people you are glad they are in your life.  

See what happens….

Playing the part you assigned yourself

Each one of us wakes up and plays the role of “me” each day.  We keep acting our part, one day a continuation of the last.  But it’s all an identity we made up and then accepted.  Each day, we accept it yet again.

That is a choice.  We may not think so, which is part of the “trap”.  When we realize it is a choice, then we can make a new one if we wish.

What role are you playing in the world right now?

Your lens of the world

Our assessment of good or bad, successful or failure, fair or unfair; it all depends on our beliefs and expectations.  If something doesn’t go well, ask yourself about why it bothers you, and why that is, and what part of the identity you made up for yourself it is at odds with.  Then question that.  Why?  Is it true?    

“Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.” – Adrienne Rich

Freedom

Victor Frankl, who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning”, was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp and experienced the horrors that came with it.  While they took everything from him, he decided that he would not let him take the one thing they couldn’t – his attitude.

There are lots of things out there we can not control – in fact, most things fall into this category.  Other people, events, how things are… 

This is by no means a call to accept everything and not try to mold it for the better.  But when we let what we can not control harden our attitude and suppress our happiness, it is unhealthy for us.

“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life.  It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” -Epictetus

Don’t give up your freedom.  Seize it.

Do it now

“We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve.”  – Walter Porter

In the meltwaters of doubt

When you start believing in yourself more, you’ll live up to your true potential.

Stop doubting you, and start believing in you instead.

Chance favors those in motion.

Are you in active pursuit?

I pledge allegiance to the flag…

We no longer teach or encourage patriotism in American classrooms, and this omission is being felt in our society.  Often, American history is seen as a long series of missteps and bad decisions. 

Yet, America stands as a place that people of much of the world would trade their citizenship for ours and feel they hit the lottery.  Clearly, America’s presence has transformed the world by example and policy.

The American story is an effort to live up to lofty and demanding ideals.  There are always things we could have done better, or things we could have got right years earlier, but the good obviously outweighs the bad – by far.

I’m staying.  I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Show up!

Get in the game.  Put your name in the hat.  Be there just to learn.  

Most people won’t.

But then again, you aren’t like most people….are you?

Nothing to lose

Why do we not go for it and be our best selves and live our best lives?

Fear.  Fear that by not fitting into and going along with a mediocre world that we will be ridiculed, or that we may fail.

But the reality is we have nothing to lose.  Nothing at all.

When we live for the experience of being the person we were meant to be, we realize the greatest risk is that we run out of time, and never went for it.