This just came by on the radio and I felt compelled to share it with you:

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience… I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind;
you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing!
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either –
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
Dance… even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander,
you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40,
it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

…But trust me on the sunscreen…
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Taken from the following song: Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

I’ve heard it quite some times in the past but never truely paid attention to the message it held. I’m glad I did today!

Living life can be tough at times, we’ve all been there at a certain time. Sometimes it’s a little setback, other times it just seems like you’re fighting an up-hill battle. You’ve got tons of things to keep in mind and take care of in order to make your life run smoothly. And let’s be honest, we always get through the tough times and navigate our way back into calmer waters. And this is just your life, one life. Imagine how tough it would be if you’d be living two lives!?

You might say: “Two lives, that’s rediculous. Nobody does that”. But actually you may pretty well be doing so without even noticing it anymore.

Multiple lives?

You know how people always tell you to “just be yourself”? Do we even know what “being yourself” means to begin with? Some us play so many roles that it’s easy to get lost in realising who you really are. You can behave one way around your highschool buddies and behave another way around they people working with you at the office. You can act like father or a child, a friend or a lover. It’s easy to let these roles drift apart and having them develop into lives of their own. The roles you play in life start turning into different personalities of you that are no longer compatible with the others. (Imagine mixing a night with your college buddies and your collegues; you’re used to act in two completely different ways)

The birthday dillema

I remember a couple of years ago I wanted to celebrate my birthday. At the time I had several groups of friends that were just “different” from one-another. I got along great with all of ‘m, a part of me felt comfortable with each of the groups but putting them together in one room wouldn’t be the best idea. So, in order to celebrate with all of them I ended up celebrating my birthday 4 times that year, three nights with different groups of friends and one day with my family. In retrospect, it was rediculous! I liked all these people yet I wasn’t showing each of them the complete picture of me, I was just showing them one side of me.

Putting your personal puzzle back together

The birthday-issue was a real eye-opener for me at the time. I realised how much time, energy and even money I was putting into playing these different roles. I was trying to juggle the different pieces of me instead of putting together the pieces and “being” them as a collective. Using a metaphore: “A completed jigsaw puzzle is much nicer to look at then a heap of its pieces”.  So why not show people the pieces after you put them together, the complete you. Even though it will take a bit of courage to show them something you fear may put them off, they payoff will be much greater. You can focus your energy on living just one life instead of splitting it. Focus all that power into the one life and prepare for some amazing things to happen to you, enjoying your reclaimed freedom to express yourself as you are.

Now go out, complete your puzzle and focus your power to enhance your life!
(And follow me on Twitter)

Doesn’t that sound familiar? I bet many of your parents told you this when you were kids. You should be happy that you were born into a society that has all these conveniences because there were so many people around the world that had it so much worse then you did. And it makes sense right? Why the h*ck should you be complaining about “needing” a new mobile phone when someone across the globe is struggling for food and clean water.

Nevertheless, I’m going to go out on a limb here now by saying that perhaps your parents weren’t completely right with their statement. Maybe you did choose where you were born after all. For the ones born into considerable wealth (as compared to third-world standards) it’s a giant stretch to even consider that someone would choose to live a life of hunger and poverty. But just try to let that go a minute and consider the following:

Experience
If you are here to experience things, learn and grow from them to become a more complete being, wouldn’t scarcity be an experience you would need to have had to consider yourself a complete being?
I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t wish people a better life and try to help them achieve this. What I’m saying is that you should realize that everything is a choice. The place you are, but also the place you are going. You can decide to live in poverty and experience that, or face the challenges that come with climbing out of poverty. The experience is for every human being to choose.

Just decide!
So take the important part from your parents’ message: “Do not complain”. Complaining doesn’t change anything. If you are not satisfied with something, just choose something else; just decide! But don’t be afraid to face the challenges that that decision brings. You don’t manifest things, you manifest opportunities to obtain them; it is up to you to reach out and grab ‘m!

I hope you enjoyed this spiritual growth snack and until next time!
Follow me on twitter!

Yesterday I watched the movie “The pursuit of happyness” featuring Will Smith on the television. It’s not every day there’s something decent on tv these days and I really wanted to see the movie after a scene that was included in “Will’s Wisdom“. (which is a great youtube movie about Will Smiths views on life and spiritual development. I’d say it’s a must-see.) I won’t go into the movie in detail but the reason I’m mentioning it is because it reminded me of a saying I had heard (or actually read) years before.

When I was still in highschool I bought an agenda for keep track of my classes and homework assignments. Since I was really into extreme sports at the time, I bought myself a “No Fear” agenda featuring all sorts of extreme sports athletes. It contained a lot of photo’s with inspiring quotes like: “Face your fears, Live your dreams“.
But the one I want to hand to you today is another that came back to me after watching the movie last night.

“It’s not how good you are,… It’s how bad you want it.”

In retrospect, at the time I was using the agenda for school work, I didn’t really get it. After all, when you’re in school it’s all about how good and-/or popular you are. Wanting an A+ on a math test didn’t get you an A+. Studying hard and making sure you were “good at it” got you what you wanted. There must have been at least 20-30 quotes in that agenda but the only two I remember vividly are the two I just shared with you. Pretty strange to remember something that didn’t make sense at the time.

While watching the movie yesterday I saw Will Smith playing Chris Gartner, a salesman that was losing everything; His money, his house, his wife and even coming close to losing his son. Even though all odds were against him he kept going; doing whatever it took to keep himself and his son afloat while doing a non-paying traineeship at a investment-firm during the day. He was so committed and persistent going about his internship that he eventually got a job as a stockbroker. Even though all his competitors had far more time and money he still managed to outshine them. It wasn’t all about how good he was, it was how bad he wanted to be a stockbroker that got him the internship and the job in the end.

For those of you that are working with the law of attraction, I don’t even have to explain how “wanting something bad” works. But I’d just thought I’d mention this side of the quote.

It’s all about focus. It’s all about defining a goal for yourself and wanting it so bad that it doesn’t even matter what gets in your way, you’ll deal with it.
Or, from another perspective: Wanting something very badly and are willing to take the opportunities that are presented to you, even though they may seem far less then ideal.

However, realising, knowing and defining what you really want is something entirely different. But that I’ll save that for another post. For now just remember, as Chris Gartner said in the movie:

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something… not even me. If you’ve got a dream, you’ve gotta protect it. If people can’t do something themselves they want to tell you you can’t do it. If you want something,… go get it… period!”

Until your next P.G. Snack craving

“Hey mate, are you up for a game of pool this saturday?”…
“Do you want to come shopping with me Dear?”…
“Can you get me that image for our new marketing campain today?”…

a) Yes
b) No
c) Maybe

How often do you find yourself picking “c” these days? Just because you’re not sure what you want? Or perhaps you actually don’t want to do something, but rather avoid a painful situation? A well-place ” maybe”  usually buys you some extra time in those situations.
But that’s actually all it does, it postpones the question. It will come back for you…. if you’re lucky.

What do you mean, “If you’re lucky”?!?

Did you ever stop to think what your maybe could mean to the one asking the question? Just to clear; I don’t mean just the exact word “maybe” but any term that resembles this. Like “I’ll try” or “If I have time”. Or the worst one… “Probably”. All of them have a degree of uncertainty in it that provide you with the possibility to pull out, you didn’t promise anything right?! Or did you? To you, it might sound like a “get-out-of-jail-free-card”. You didn’t promise right?! There’s no commitment to keep so you’re home free without acting like an ass. (at least, you think so)

Let’s take a look on the other side shall we? Whoever is asking you something would like you to be somewhere, or needs your help by doing something for them. What good does a “maybe” do them? You may think that just saying “No” is a horrible thing to do because it makes you look like a selfish person who doesn’t care. But ask yourself this; Is a definite no really worse then keeping the other person in uncertainty?
In the best of circumstances the person asking you is not expecting you to say yes. But since you didn’t give them a definite “No” they will consider the opening for a “Yes”. And now you are making them wait in expectation for you, for what?
They asked you because they wanted YOU to come somewhere with them, or do something, not someone else. So as long as you do not answer them, they won’t go to someone else and ask them. Regardless if your final answer is Yes or No you are putting the other person in an uncomfortable position. Either they start worrying for no reason because you might say no, or they will have less time left to arrange an alternative.

So next time someone asks you something, be clear about what you mean. Clear on either what you want, feel or just that you don’t know because of external circumstances. If the last is the case, be sure to agree on a time for you to tell them your final decision. At least then they know what to expect and enable to them to reserve time for a contingency plan if needed.

The worst thing is not telling someone “no”, it’s not telling them the “no” you actually mean.
Or from a different perspective, as Paulo Coelho phrased it: “To say “no” is painful, but much better than a “yes” that brings regrets.”