Tag: self help

# 31 which type of river are you?

There are only so many ways that people wander through life, here are three and at the end I will tell you why I wander the way that I do.

1) The first person is a winding river that hollows out the landscape and finds the easiest routes around the softest ground curling on itself and eventually making it to its destination. The winder, or wanderer, does not let any occurance divide its path, it may not know where it ends up but it knows it is a river and its one job is to deliver what is at the source, to the final destination.

2) The mountan creek. This person is always trickling along as snow, ice, water runs off higher surfaces into its depths. The creek though, may sound like a pussy, it has its strength. When torrential rains occur, or when the spring ice melt happens the creek can turn into a carnivourous maniac wiping out everything in its path. The creek or brook most of the time is calm and steady it becomes overwhelmed and if you are in its path there is not light for you, yet.

3) The damned river. Water has many excellent properties that make it useful, and one of its uses is power generation. Stopping the winding river, or creek can swell the banks of the flowing river, flooding landscapes and creating reservoirs to satsify the needs of the population. What the river loses is its power as a result, only a minute amount of energy is left over on the other side of the dam. Do you let other people dam your energy? For use by themselves?

I say, there is a time and place for all of these rivers; but do not be afraid of your power in the mighty landscape of life.

Your Canadian Brother

#17 the grass is always greener

A fantasy, of green grass or maybe a description of the American dream. A now cliche form of symbolism can be defined as comparing yourself to your neighbors. Commonplace to North America the comparison of your neighbors values has expanded to the ether, you can now compare your life to literally anyone with an internet connection. You can witness disparate abundant wealth and utter poverty at a few keystrokes. Now, what you do as a witness to the visual assault of people that are not you will mean the difference between a successful life and that not.

  1. Who are you. I mean what are your values, without a set of values that you live by, imagine a compass turning wildly as it is attracted to North. Except your compass does not land, and each action you make involves a revolution of the compass, you end up back at the first square.
  2. Precision. So you have discovered your true North, now what. With lethal precision pursue your goals, you cannot pop a balloon with another balloon, sharpen yourself into an arrowhead or at the very least a needle.
  3. Trudge. Now that you’ve popped your opposition with instinct sharpening your moves, pick up each muddy foot and put it down again, you will be better off after every step and before long your drudgery will be recognized, your ability to lead will improve. The “I have been in that situation before” is a powerful educational ability only you can give yourself.

Who are ya?

Your Canadian brother.

That’s your grass

#11 redefine what you must do – the specialist vs the generalist

In the past you would die if you were not a generalist, and that lead to a millennia of people being generalists. Why would you die? Well, if you lived and couldn’t provide for your family and community completely, as a general husband, spouse, and beacon for the community like a hunter or a farmer, you could reason that your life was incomplete. However, now where so much of that auxiliary work can and is accomplished by far fewer people, in a managed and logical process-driven society. You have the opportunity to be a specialist like at no other time in history.

The fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame.

Miriam-Webster Dictionary

To break it down there are three things you must accomplish to become a revered specialist.

  1. Choose specialty. Special is a definition worth looking at being distinguished in some unusual quality. If someone says they are a painter you may assume that it is a specialty, is your specialty in painting, or an alcoholic that is oil-painting on canvas of mountainside landscapes in northern Italy from June to August in the golden hour? Sometimes life does not give you a chance to be anything but a generalist and to an extent you must be, to live, but in other cases people have their surroundings so well suited for their specialty, so build your environment to work for you, even when you are asleep.
  2. I can’t relate. You will constantly be bombarded with what other people think that you should be doing so that you fit the image of you they have in their mind. It is a dangerous game, and one that will undoubtedly lead you away from the path of specialist. If you are confronted with individuals or groups telling you that they do things this way or that way, you can’t relate, they don’t write your biography.
  3. Focus. The world is becoming more and more attention grabbing like standing in the middle of times square. Focus on your craft, your art, and you will get there. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.

Your CDN brother.