Discussing Some Topics

[Rick(amateur)]

-Purpose 2-

We all want to find our purpose but we wonder how we can do so. One method that usually doesn't work is searching on the internet for answers. There might be a lot of information on the internet but it's just so easy for us to experience information overload. We also become overwhelmed as we see so many opportunities out there. We start dreaming about what we can do and dreams don't come true by dreaming alone.

I believe people must see more of the world if they want to find their purpose. If you lack the budget to see other parts of the world or another part of your country, you should explore you own city or town. There are rich histories that probably isn't well known. Go to a library and look at older newspapers to see what sort of secrets are hidden from much of the public.

Doing something out of your comfort zone is another method. If you haven't found your purpose from your immediate environment, it might not be available from where you are at. Be bold and, when you succeed, you build more confidence. Too often, people lack confidence to pursue their dreams even when they know this dream is what's needed to make them happy. Start building confidence so that, when you discover your dream, you can pursue it without hesitation.

Therefore, you shouldn't always remain indoors when there's so much to see outdoors. Don't always sit in front of your computer unless your purpose and dream involves game designing or software programmer or anything requiring a computer. We don't experience by reading things on a monitor. We only experience by doing something, talking to people and making mistakes that teach us valuable lessons. Go out there and know that opportunities and special people are there waiting to meet you.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Purpose 3-

We define purpose differently and here's how I define it. There are a few requirements before you know you found your purpose. First, a purpose is tough and doesn't become a reality until time and effort had been invested into it. We all know the saying of easy come easy go. The same applies to purpose where, if you lower the bar and it comes true very quickly, you began to wonder if there's more to life.

Secondly, a purpose must be something you enjoy and are passionate about. It must be something you truly believe in and no one could convince you otherwise. If this isn't the case, then you will likely give up when the going gets tough. If life taught us anything, it's that things don't normally go our way and our resolve and determination are tested often. You shouldn't be dissuaded from your purpose ever regardless of the situation.

Thirdly, our purpose should affect a lot more people. We see people with goals like being rich so they can afford all the bells and whistles. There's a lot more to life than wealth. If you can do something that helps other people like getting them out of poverty or give them hope during their darkest moments, you will find those moments much more fulfilling than having more money than you know how to spend.

Purpose also doesn't have to be something incredible. Our society portray people who found their purpose as those millionaires or billionaires or people who are fighting things like poverty. Yet, purpose doesn't have to be at such an enormous scale. It could be something small but impactful. One example I can think of is creating a stronger community where you live.

There are communities out there where people don't necessarily know their neighbors. Other than exchanges of a few greetings, neighbors don't interact with one another. Someone could change that by ways like organizing a barbecue and inviting all the neighbors. You are letting them know one another more and create stronger bonds. This results in a stronger community where people will support each other during the tough moments in life.

Now, this won't show up in the news or be well-known across the world but it can be impactful. We shouldn't underestimate how small gestures can change the world. A better community see people more positive and positivity can spread further at workplaces or other locations outside the community. If we have a million of these small changes, we can see a larger impact on the world as a whole. Remember that our purpose might not make us famous but it can improve the world in ways we cannot imagine!

[Rick(amateur)]

-Sleep-

Sleep is sort of a weird topic but I can see it tie closely with success, purpose and how we live our lives. There are many people who watch motivational videos like me and we no doubt come across some videos where the speaker tell us that we should sacrifice sleep for a dream. They say that, if it's big enough of a dream, we should put more time and effort into it.

I personally can run off five to six hours of sleep a day where I remain somewhat productive. There are definitely people out there who can run on less sleep. For me, I don't see myself able to function with less sleep than five hours. I just start dozing off as my body complains and no amount of willpower, at least none I have discovered, can gets me to overcome dozing off.

I believe that, at the very least, we should try to avoid oversleeping. During the weekends, we might be tempted to remain in bed, especially during the dark winter days where it's warmer in bed. However, the extra sleep doesn't necessarily help us. I find myself becoming more drowsy when I oversleep and don't even feel rested. Therefore, we don't need to sleep in as seven to eight hours is about the most we need. Anymore and we will be cutting into time we can use to pursue other things in life.

Now, we must find a balance between sleep and work. When we are young, we can stay up late studying for exams. If we do this regularly and even later when we are working, we get into a habit that will affect our physical health. When we get older, we'll develop various problems because we didn't take better care of ourselves when we were younger. After all, we feel invincible when we are younger.

The reason why we sought out our purpose and pursue our dreams is to achieve happiness. Yet, we cannot find happiness when we are sick all the time. How positive can we be when we have a terrible headache and struggling to recover? If you can push yourself when you are young, you should do so. Yet, keep in mind that the body shouldn't be neglected. We shouldn't be so focused on making our dream come sooner that we lose sight of how we still need our bodies to enjoy the bright future we create for ourselves.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Motivation-

Here I want to talk about my thoughts on motivation including their pros and cons. Yes, there are cons for motivation but I will be covering that for a later entry. Motivation is generally the drive or passion people have which sees them start or continue doing a certain task regardless of how difficulty it made be. If we ask a lot of people why they aren't pursuing their dreams or why they aren't changing certain habits, chances are they will answer that they lack motivation.

Motivation comes in many forms and I'll be discuss one of them for this entry. Let's use the scenario of someone who had gone to school, got a degree and have been working at a job for ten years. He or she might suddenly wonder if there's more to his or her life. Essentially, life seems mundane and not necessarily what these people had in mind. It's also quite possible that they thought back to the dreams they had in the past like singer, writer and game developer to name a few examples.

What happens is these people desire more in life whether it's a better job to afford more stuff or more exciting life. This motivates them to change what's happening in their life and habits or ideas could be changed. Maybe a change in budget sees more saved up for vacations or trying out new hobbies when the person normally sits in front of a television. The desire gets the person to change because he or she doesn't want everything to be practically the same every single day.

We all know that, often, starting something is the most difficult. We all have great ideas but we often need a good reason to do it. Sometimes, we wait for encouragements from other people. Other times, we need something to happen in our lives. In the scenario above, it's the fact that nothing is happening in our lives that makes us want to do something about it. The motivation simply gives us the reason to do and, for some people, that's all they needed. A push in the right direction and they would do the rest.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Motivation 2-

Motivation is also great when we are already pursuing our dreams. In the early stages, we will encounter difficulties which is normal in life. We, after all, don't find success instantly. Even the small victories we need won't show up until we have been pursuing a dream for awhile. I will be using a business as an example for illustrate this.

At the start of a business, there's a good chance that there is very little, if any, revenue. The only customers might be your family members but this isn't how your business will grow. You need to reach out to the wider market and other people to buy. Naturally, you do marketing and advertising to get attentions but, as a new and small business, time is needed before you really find a loyal customer base to make the business grow.

After a few months, your business might be losing money and your family members along with friends suggest you quit and cut your losses. This is one of the tougher moments regardless of what your dream is. You had all this drive to start your dream but it does disappear after awhile. This is when we are tested in how determined we are to make our dreams come true and this is also when motivation can be quite helpful.

Before any victories, we will be discouraged by the lack of success. Motivation can help by rekindling the fire we had when we first started. We all need a few pushes along the way to get back our momentum and not lose hope. Listening to successful person, especially someone who is your role model and have done what you wish to accomplish, is vital in that they will share their experiences, some of which being quite similar to what you are experiencing at the time.

It's not smart to underestimate what motivation can do. They can get you to do something you always wanted but maybe hesitate to do. They can continue fueling the fire inside you so you can persevere and move forward without ever giving up. Yet, motivation do have their cons as they aren't perfect and I'll be discussing those in the upcoming entries.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Motivation 3-

We'll be starting with the cons of motivation which seems like rather odd. After all, I did mention how motivation can spark us into doing something or give us the push to keep doing what we started. Know that I'm not saying motivation is bad. I'm just saying that motivation comes in all forms and sizes and isn't always necessarily the only way to find success so we shouldn't rely solely on it.

One of our motivation is fear. People afraid of losing job or being homeless will be motivated by fear. It's not great motivation but it's motivation nonetheless. There are a few issues with fear being your motivation. First, it's never a good idea to stress out about life all the time. We have all been there where we have some exam and we stress out on whether we did well or not. This is not a healthy lifestyle at all.

Secondly, fear is only motivating us when it's there. We no longer found the drive to keep going when the fear is gone. Let's say you work at a company and heard news of possible downsizing. Fearing you might be one of those people to be let go, you decided to work extra hard and your performance improves dramatically. The downsizing then happens and you keep your job. No longer fearing the loss of a job, you stopped working hard and go back to your old routines. It's quite possible that, if you kept working hard, you would have moved up the company much faster.

Another sort of motivations can be illustrated with the example of a guy wanting a girl but the girl doesn't want an overweight guy. Therefore, he went to the gym daily and dropped a lot of weight until he got the girl's hand. Now that he got the girl as his wife, what's motivating him to keep going to the gym? Therefore, there are motivations that are terrible and aren't worth the trouble. When we are driven by fear or goals that are short term, we are only temporarily motivated before we return to our mediocre self.

Motivation can be great but we must be very careful with what motivation we use. Temporary motivation won't get us anywhere since anything great or meaningful takes time. Fear is also something we don't want running our lives. We must focus on what's important and not let negative emotions control us or our every single day would be miserable as we never see the positives of our future.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Motivation 4-

Another con for motivation is the reliance of people on it. When these people are asked why they aren't pursuing their dreams or do something they know is good for them, they respond by saying they don't feel like it or feel inspired enough to do it. Things, unfortunately, don't go that way since we generally have as many lows and the highs in our lives. I was definitely like that when I was depressed as I never felt like do anything other than stay in my room and do nothing. No bit of motivation could've changed that.

As someone who watches motivational videos quite often, I can say from my experience that these videos are very powerful. Yet, one issue I've noticed is how they only work temporarily. In other words, the inspiration and motivation might last an hour or so before they dissipate. The words felt more like a brief inject of "drug" to make me feel great. Motivation appear to be a temporary measure but it shouldn't be the dominant force for why you are doing something.

We must always figure out why we are doing a certain action or pursuing a certain dream. If people are doing certain actions due to motivation they got from a certain talk or video, they will likely give up the moment the motivation wears off. Motivation is there to spark something inside us and/or make the fire brighter if it's already lit. Yet, we cannot expect it to maintain the fire for the entire duration of a dream that takes years, if not decades, to come true.

As for this why, we need focus on more than ourselves. For instance, we might want to accomplish a certain goal to make our life easier. When the journey to reach this goal becomes tough, we might not see this as worth it so we give it up. When we are doing this to help other people, there's some strange strength that we acquire. There might be something you can relate to those people so something is triggered within you to keep going. When more than ourselves are at stake, we are more likely to persevere.

Don't be too reliant on motivation. We cannot always feel like it so we must push ourselves and discipline ourselves to do a certain task regardless how we feel. Life is filled with ups and downs so those who succeed are those who kept chasing their dreams during their downs as well. In the end, what truly motivates us isn't what other people can say. It's really what we feel about a certain dream and the why we justify for our dream in the first place.

[Rick(amateur)]

-Motivation 5-

I'll be focusing solely on motivational videos this entry. I myself watch a fair bit of motivational videos and will be discussing the cons on what I've watched. What makes videos so powerful is that we have pictures and clips that go along with the audio. With the right combination, these videos can essentially change lives which is naturally the goal of these videos.

There are videos where we have multiple speakers and the clips shows the speakers their respective accomplishments. For an athlete, this might be a moment when the person competes in the Olympics and broke a world record. Essentially, we are seeing the highlight reel of a person as they reached the peak of their career and their dreams became a reality.

My main issue is that this seems very motivating. We feel pumped watching these highlight reel and find some fire burning inside us. Yet, these videos can accomplish the opposite. Let's use the scenario of person wanting to be a professional athlete. He or she got pumped from watching the video and headed into practice the next day. There's a possibility that, after a poor performance at practice, this person feels discouraged and wondered if he or she could achieve the next level.

I personally feel these videos would be a lot more powerful without showing the success of the people. We have enough exposure with news outlets and magazine. Instead, the videos should focus on the training regime. What most people must understand is that much of the work is done outside of the competition. These professionals work harder than other people and, even when they reached their peak, they disciplined themselves to continue working hard.

People nowadays don't need to see what success is. Instead, they need to see what is needed to get to that success. Maybe a clip of an athlete's daily training regime could be enough to tell our youths what they have to do to find success. People got to see what happens behind the scene because they would otherwise get the impression that success can be reached easily as showcased by the video. They get distracted by what was shown and don't necessary hear what was being said.

As a content creator, I know it's not easy to make those videos. I commend those people who make motivational videos but that doesn't meant they all accomplish the goal they aim for. We must get through to people how perseverance and hard work are needed for success. With videos being such powerful tools, we can do exactly that if we don't create illusions that fool people, especially many of our young people who have yet to experience things in real life.

[clauds1]

yes

[Rick(amateur)]

yes

-Change-

Change will always happen in our lives regardless if we want it or not. We might move to a new country or a new technology has been introduced changing the ways of how we live. Maybe a new member enter the family like a new baby or an adopted child. With change, we must learn to adapt to it to continue thriving in our environment and minimize the negative impact of change.

With school not going well along with other things in my life not optimal, I'm also in the process of adapting to change. These changes were largely things I didn't want happening to me at the time and, as a result, I get really stressed out and anxious. The biggest thing I'm working on is my mindset which I learned is so vital in these sort of situations.

A lot of people can working on their mindset like me. It's something that seems insignificant but it can be such a large impact on our lives without changing anything else. Essentially, we need to adjust our mindset to accept the changes and be open-minded. Since change is unavoidable, we must make the best of it and, from what appears as chaos, find what we need to get further ahead in life. In the process, we also learn a bit about ourselves to better know our strengths.

Many people are, unfortunately, afraid of change. It's an interesting perspective where people like me with unfavorable situations want change while those with acceptable lives reject change. What we must remember is that change helps us grow, mature and find opportunities that had never existed before. When people fight change, they will find themselves struggling. For instance, those who couldn't embrace internet when it was picking up soon found themselves replaced in the job market by those who took advantage of the change.

The world is constantly changing without us doing anything. We can stay in our room and just do our hobbies but the changes will still come. Change isn't a bad thing and is more of something that's natural in this world of ours. It's normal to fear it but rejecting it outright without giving it a chance usually ends poorly.