…and decided to give it a try.

It took me approximately 30 minutes to come up with a combination of 36 statements and questions. The questions seemed to revolve around self-doubt — but I think it was necessary to write them down for progression. The more that I spent time and wrote down random thoughts, the more I made a breaking. There was a natural theme progression around people, relationships, being valuable, and being myself.

I don’t feel completely satisfied with my cumulative collection of thoughts, as I feel like its too vague to really be measurable in results, but this is what I came up with (and will have to do for now).

My purpose in life is to:

Be helpful, considerate, valuable, and trusted. When I am such, I can be happy, right, and free to do things knowing I am making the right decision. Build cohesion, community, unity, and promote ownership and responsibility with others. Stay grounded and true in my principals and what makes me happy, short term and long term. My overall purpose in life is to be me — rather than transforming into other peoples persona, lifestyles, and how they want to see me.

My next step is to begin filling out: http://weekplan.net/

Hopefully the website will help me evolve some of my thoughts — painting a clearer and more detailed picture.

This is what I need to do to be effective at overcoming my greatest challenges and attaining aspirations.

This is what is important to me.

4 Dimensions of Human Nature

• Physical – exercise, nutrition, stress management
• Mental – Reading, visualizing, planning, writing
• Spiritual – Value clarification, commitment, study, meditation
• Social/Emotional – service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security.

In order to be an effective person, I have to have a balance in all four dimensions.

They are intertwined and affect each other at the core.

My daily goal, for the rest of my life, is to be cognizant of when I have not fulfilled the 4 dimensions of human nature. This is a lot to commit to, but I can only see good things happening as a result.

On top of the 4 dimensions, I must be principle-centered.

And I must start now.

While a lot of people might think it’s common sense, it’s not all that common practice.

I don’t think the majority of households really understand the significance of teaching correct principles, otherwise they’d do it and we’d all be on similar pages…. They may instill some principles, but to effectively practice and nurture it is a different story.

Sooo…I may be behind the crowd, perhaps — but starting now is better than “later.”

And I’m going to be honest, like I always am: I wasn’t brought up with all the unchanging, permanent, self-evident and fundamental principles I would have hoped for — to this day — I feel like I’m lacking the majority. My family taught by the “right” or “wrong,” “don’t do that” methodology. That methodology does not provide proper, self-evident truths that can be applied to all circumstances.

In this day and age, I’ve become sucked into the “personality ethic” — where I buy into having the “right” attitude, behavior, techniques and communication skills… But this is not enough. This, as Stephen Covey calls it in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is “lubrication” for human interaction. It is “social mileage.” We play the game, we manipulate the rules — all for social recognition. However, life is not about social recognition — it’s about influence, impact and how we affect others and society.

This is why something like volunteering my time actually feels good — I never think twice about where I want to be or where I should be because where I am at the time, is all of the above. It’s what needs to happen.  I get to fulfill all 4 dimensions for my personal balance and then execute a a few basic, but again, fundamental principles such as service, humility, patience and human dignity.

I think that it is important to recognize that life is a process, a development, a growing; therefore, there are no shortcuts in life  — and quick-fixes are just that. They don’t fix the root of the problem, which is likely to occur again.

It is important for me to slow down, take time and begin with baby steps — to correct what needs to be corrected, instead of looking for a band-aid.

It may feel uncomfortable, awkward or painful, but it needs to happen, because the outcome is so great. To have the end in mind and understand that if I spend time to correct and fix things — where it stems — then only good can result.

An example of this is asking my mom if she is willing to commit 15 minutes a day to practice dialogue and discourse.

She agreed.

Tonight we talked for nearly 2 hours — and it was because she wanted to, after she understood my intent. I told her that I want to build a relationship with her where we have an open, honest and a trusting mother-daughter relationship. So there’s a potential for having synergy. I want her to listen emphatically, understand me and provide affirmation. That means, no talking over me, no handing me her “prescriptive glasses”/autobiography — no unsolicited “advice.” I told her if I wanted to hear it, I would ask her, “What would you do if you were in my situation? What did you do?” I told her that she just “prescribes” me her “glasses” without even “diagnosing.” She interrupts and never hears my full situation — always looking for a way to “reply” or provide a quick fix — which in turn just makes me angry at her and halts all communication. This is something that I’m going to start doing next week with my sister, if she’ll agree to it too. We’ll see how it goes…

I must always be aware of my paradigms and how I see the world. My paradigms are based on my experience; therefore, they are true for me and I must be responsible for them. I need to examine and test them against reality and listen with an open mind to others’ paradigms and perceptions – their world. If I maintain this awareness, I will have a more objective view and be a fairer, less judgmental person.

I must not remain guarded — because if I do, I will never take risks, never truly conquer my fears nor allow myself to have any options. If I close off people and say, “I don’t want to hear it,” whether it be for comfort sake, difference of paradigms, or something else — I am not being open-minded. I have not even begun to try and understand them, so how could I ever seek to be understood by them? I am being selfish by coddling myself! This happens with my mom all the time…

Other things to consider working on: patience, pro-activeness, having hope, balance, art of “we” — not just “what’s in it for me?”, to understand and then to be understood, and valuing and embracing differences.

It’s been over a year that I’ve been transforming from dependent -> independent. I think I’ve come a long way, but I still have more work to be done. I need to believe and work on being principle-centered instead of pleasure and work-centered.

Once I have done this, I will be able to move toward interdependency, and perhaps stumble upon an affirming, loving, and complementing person to be in a relationship — someone who is principle-centered and believes in honesty, integrity, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, modesty, service, quality, excellence, potential, growth, nurturing, simplicity and encouragement.

And then, it will be working toward synergy — “we not me” — husband and kids of my own! O_O

Okay, that’s far into the future, but something to consider when the time comes…

Right now, I am beginning with the end in mind, prioritizing and demonstrating pro-activity in everything that I’m too scared to do.

No excuses.

Read more >> Options >>

I made a resolution to “go green” this past year.

I had forgotten all about these written statements until Haze had reminded me.

I went through them and realized that I had done just about everything.

After a successful year, I thought I should try for another.

2009 – To gradually work on:

• Bring my own grocery bag to the grocery store. I haven’t really grocery shopped since I graduated college and moved back home so it makes it a bit more challenging to practice. I will have to just stick the bags in my trunk as a reminder.
• Invest in non-toxic candles, soaps, shampoos and what our society calls, “beauty” products. Expensive, organic, all-natural, blah blah blah. Everything comes at a price, right? I need to do more research on these items.
• Recycle. I don’t know how much more I should recycle before I become a recycling-nazi. I pretty much only do this at home.

2009 – New goals (more important):

• Define concrete principles and practice them. Utilize role models, have discussions and critically reflect on my actions and how they affect others.
• *Exercise, relax and practice meditating.* I’ve had some pain near the lowest disc on my spine for awhile now — I’ve even slept in an “r” shape for a couple of months. Thought it was weird. Turns out the disc was twisted and disjointed causing a pinched nerve. I had my uncle re-align my spine — brought me to tears — it was quite painful during some moments, but it was needed. I then had some tension near my neck. He worked on it a bit and told me it’s from stress. Throughout the night, my brother and uncle would point out when I had my shoulders lifted. I became more cognizant of when I was doing it and realized that I am constantly contracting my shoulder and back muscles. I’m even doing it as I type now. Ugh. So when I tell myself, “relax,” I take a deep breath and exhale, allowing myself to release tension. And what I’ve realized is this “non-tensed” state is so foreign and unusual to me, that I go back to tensing! So now it is my goal to be more aware so that I can stop this damn habit. It’s a sad and happy realization/epiphany. If I become an awareness-nazi on myself, I’m pretty sure I can break the habit and it’ll become natural to just…relax. God, it’s so weird not knowing what that’s like for the majority of the day. I never even thought I was stressed! Ultimately, I need to move more — I need to exercise. But I also need to be careful with Yoga, since I’ve messed up one of my legs by overstretching. Exercising, relaxing and meditating is my main focus this next year and will be the basis for why I may choose to do one thing over another. This is priority!
• Invest money. I need to do more research to figure out where to put my money (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.). I’m not very savvy on this because I hate dealing with money and numbers and that which I don’t understand in relation to them, so I’m going to go out of my comfort zone and figure out what I need to do with it for whatever sake I need to do it for… which I also need to figure out. If I’m going to buy less “stuff,” then I don’t need very much money to live, so why bother saving it — just “in case…?” There’s a huge disconnect between why I should invest my money (besides it being the smart thing to do) and what I’m going to use it for in the future. This needs to be figured out a.s.a.p. because I don’t want money to define my actions or who I am — but I also need to be smart with it, right?
• Have a better sense of my career. Whatever that means. Base this on what I want and like to do…short-term, long-term and in the-bigger-picture sense. This needs a lot of working on.
• Travel where I say I want to travel. I think I kind of already do this…so then I just want to continue doing this. But this is my advanced reminder for when I get caught up with other things in life (i.e. work), I will have something to refer back to. This year I have traveled the most I have ever: NY, Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Canada, all over China, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Places I’m pretty sure I’m going to travel to next year: Chicago (February), Japan (end of May, beginning of June) and Boston (perhaps summertime). I also want to get in at least one more place — either Peru or some place in Europe (gotta factor in how much vacation time I get).
• Focus on my relationships with others. Spend more quality time with friends and family and utilize this as a principle for actions. Does this mean to force myself to socialize when I don’t want to? I don’t really know yet. I don’t know where I would draw the line… While they may get the “poopy LC” — does that really give them quality? I don’t think so… But with family, I definitely need to work on making my relationships stronger and more effective rather than efficient, a misnomer. “ Be efficient with things, be effective with people.” – Stephen Covey
• Begin writing my mission statement. Keeping the end in mind.

These are significantly different than this past year’s, focusing more so on concrete goals to help modify and improve my overall lifestyle. As usual, this list is non-exhaustive and I may be apt to add more later…if I don’t forget about the existence of this post!

And then there are some people that I’m not as close with, but still think I should show compassion towards — it’s just that I don’t know how to simulate and stimulate those kinds of emotions towards them.

I feel awkward in doing so.

So how do I solve this problem of not caring enough for people who aren’t as close to me?

I think that it comes naturally to some people — to just care without thought.  But when I am not emotionally tied to the person, and not feeling every wound that they endure, I just don’t know…

So the problem is that I am not emotionally tied to the person.  Does that mean I should work towards being so?  I think there’s only so much I can give to so many people.

Otherwise it just becomes exhausting to emotionally invest in everyone.

How can I reach out to someone like my sister when all I have are the negative thoughts of every wrong thing she has done and how stupid she behaves?  How can I stay level-headed and actually take interest in her life when I don’t agree with what she does?  Why is this so different from supporting my friends?  Perhaps because my friends are more mature and can reason… whereas with my sister, there is no logical reasoning going on at all.  How do I start that conversation, “Hey, what are you up to?  How’s school?  What’s new with your friends?” without it being awkward?  Even writing that sounds awkward.

Everything is so forced.

I hate when I have to force things from my mouth.  It feels like I’m vomiting words that have no meaning to me.  In turn, I feel that the other person can see right through me.  They can see how uncomfortable and how awkward it is for me to say things that I’m not used to saying.

I don’t know how to show I care about something I don’t really care about.  And when I mean care about — it has to be something that strikes me emotionally.  That’s what it means to me to care about it.

And today, I will be attending a memorial service for a friend who’s grandmother just passed away.

Death is such a sensitive topic for me.  I will hate when I have to go through with losing someone because of death.  It is never easy.  So on that level, I can relate.  But I never knew his grandmother, so it makes it difficult to relate in the way that he feels.  All I can do is be present to let him know that I am supporting him through this process.  And that’s all I can do…or is it?

So the question is: How can a demonstrate compassion, not just because it is in good form and a generous act of kindness, but to strongly feel it with emotion?  How do I make it personal without getting exhausted?

I feel that if I subject myself to anything enough, it becomes a habit.

It becomes comfortable.

It becomes part of me.

So maybe all I need is more practice.

Perhaps all this volunteer work I have and will be doing will make me more sensitive to people that aren’t as close to me.  And through these experiences, I will learn how to care about them without becoming emotionally exhausted.

Thanks for excusing the circumlocution if you’ve made it this far.

I’m losing patience –

watching how dysfunctional,

pathetic, and defeated they have become.

I am frustrated that they don’t change their methods.

I am disappointed that she has learned no form of respect,

has no regard for her safety,

and believes that what she says is rational and excusable.

She can be the most talented athlete,

and the most intelligent in class,

but none of that accounts for her demeanor.

Lip service.  That’s all she does.  Says what you want to hear.

She lacks discipline.

She can’t get discipline in this environment

because no one is respected enough to be her role model.

She needs to lose everything

before she can realize what she has lost –

family. friends. lifestyle.

Only then,

will she be able to appreciate,

respect, and honor –

the most valuable “things”

she will ever have.