Tag: Meaning

2025 Theme – Choose

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One thing that I have found very easy to do is to feel sorry for myself. It’s almost a natural reflex. When something happens, (and it could be anything), I can find a way for it to seem like a rough experience for me.

Working for an organisation that empowers people to work their way out of poverty, I have firsthand experience in seeing just how challenging life can be for those living in developing countries. This gives me a unique perspective on how good my life is, how easy, how untroubled, how safe. So, how can I possibly feel sorry for myself?

Well, I can still find a way to do just that. The weather is too hot, or too cold. My air-conditioned office is too hot, or too cold. My coffee is too hot, or too cold. I’m so tired today. My kids are too loud. The tv is too loud, or too soft. There is too much to do. There is not enough to do. I’m bored. I’m over stimulated. There’s nothing to watch on my numerous streaming services. I don’t have enough time in the day.

I find myself living in a cognitive dissonance, of knowing that I have a great deal, more than most, to be grateful for, but sulking about how life is hard.

James Clear is one of my favourite authors and this quote is helping me to adjust my thinking for this coming year:

“Different meanings can be assigned to the same events. Look for evidence of how the world is encouraging you, and you will find it. Look for evidence of how the world is burdening you, and you will find it. Choose an explanation that empowers you.”

You find what you look for in life. You get to choose what you look for, and therefore you get to choose what you find.

For me, in 2025 I will choose to look for the encouraging things, for the good things, for the generosity. I will let you know if I find it.

Numbers are just numbers, very few mean anything.

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Bigger does not necessarily mean better. More does not always mean more. Especially if you are measuring something that is not worthwhile keeping track of. How many eye-balls you get on something is a pointless measurement if the right people aren’t seeing it.

How many people consume content is useless if the content is unhelpful or no positive outcome occurs or no action is taken.

Content does not exist for content’s sake, there should be a purpose behind the creation. And, in my mind, that purpose is on a sliding scale:

  • Lowest quality purpose: People need to see this so that I am well known
  • Middle quality purpose: People need to see this so that my organisation/company is well known
  • High quality purpose: People need to see this so that they can get the benefit of what we are offering
  • Best quality purpose: People need to see this because it will make the world a better place

All of the above are quality purposes, and whilst I have a specific partiality for the best quality purpose, it is possible to achieve them all at the same time.

Measuring outreach and connection with people en masse creates a false economy if there is no quality purpose that comes of it. Don’t measure the number of people that see your content, measure the number of people that are impacted by it. It is harder to gauge, but worth more than just the total number.

Happiness Comes

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“You need to give him some space.” I don’t know how many times I have said that to my kids over the last couple of years. They love our dog so much. Too much sometimes. They smother him with their affection and occasionally it will get too much for him and he will stand up and move away. He never gets upset with them, but in his patient, caring way, he communicates that he has had enough of their love and requires some space.

The kids don’t really understand and get upset about it, to which I reply, “Just wait. He will come back when he is ready, and when you have settled down a bit. But the more you chase him the more he will avoid you”.

It got me thinking about happiness and a quote from Viktor Frankl:

“Happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy”.

What I think he is saying is that happiness is not the goal of life. The pursuit of happiness is folly. If we pursue meaning, that will bring about happiness. Happiness will come after we find our meaning.

Meaning, for most of us, is usually based around the people in our life. Our families, friends, people we serve in our career, or in the community. If we can find it, then happy moments will appear, even if there are challenges and difficulties.

The more we chase after happiness, the more it will avoid us. Once we find our meaning, and have settled down a bit, happiness will come to us.

Which Ladder?

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If you think about, we do some weird things for money.

We put ourselves through years of gruelling study, after choosing a course, a university, specific subjects, work part time at the same time as writing assignments, actually writing assignments the night before they are due, find a job and then work in that job to make money.

Then we realise we don’t like that job and find another job that makes more money.

Then work more hours than necessary to progress our way up in the organisation to another job, that pays even more money with even longer hours.

This is a career. It could lead us to spend our entire working life climbing our way up the ladder only to discover that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

But what if there is another way?

What if, instead of a career, we searched for a vocation, which is almost a calling, something that you can find significant fulfillment in. You can still climb the ladder, but it is leaning up against a more meaningful wall.

To tell the difference between a career and a vocation comes down to our motivation. If money is the main thing that you are aiming for then you could be happy with a career, but if a sense of purpose in your work is important then a vocation may be what you are after.

The real test to see if you are working in a career or a vocation is this…

If you didn’t need the salary anymore, would you still work in that job?

If so, then it is probably a vocation.

Sometimes the cost of a vocation is a lower wage, but if you are willing to sacrifice that then it is all worth it.

In all of this, I find myself wondering about how this philosophy works in developing countries. For someone living on less than $2.50 a day, is this even something that they have the opportunity to think about?

Make 2020 Great Again

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Sure, you may have had some challenges this year. It may have been one of the most difficult, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t finish it in a way that makes it still one of the best.

It’s all about stress.

We have a negative relationship with stress but stress is neither good nor bad, it is what we do with it that gives it meaning. We can either experience it as distress or eustress.

Stress that creates distress, manifests in extreme anxiety, sorrow or pain – this is the stress that we try to avoid because it is uncomfortable. Examples of things that people often refer to as distress are things like a failing grade, or a family illness or a global pandemic.  

On the other hand, stress that creates eustress comes from seeing situations or experiences as a challenge to be met and an opportunity to grow. It is a positive response to the stressor. Often people give examples of this happening through travelling somewhere new, significant life changes like getting married or moving house, or learning something new like a language or an instrument.

The remarkable thing is that it is not the event that dictates whether we experience it as distress or eustress, but it is how the event is perceived. If an experience is seen as a threat, this it will create distress, if it is seen as a challenge then it will create eustress.

The key to making something eustressful, is finding a way to create meaning, hope and energy out of the challenge.

If you have had too many distressful experiences in 2020, let me help you create a eustressful one, through finding meaning, hope and energy through a generous act. This is one of the simplest and most effective way to create that positive experience that 2020 needs.

Make a donation to Opportunity International Australia, and help end poverty one family and one community at a time,

…or some other organisation that you like. It will make your 2020 great again.

Purpose

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I am sure it doesn’t just happen to me. Other people must think the same questions that seem to come out of the blue, in idle moments, and shock you.

Mostly it’s:

‘what is the point of all this?’

‘What does it all mean anyway?’

‘Isn’t it just a waste of time, we are all going to die anyway?’

Maybe that last one is just my own darkness, but it drives me to find the purpose in my actions. It drives me to take the things that I do daily and connect with them with a greater purpose outside of myself, otherwise I would just stop doing the little things that I consider important. (Although these questions can help you re-define what is considered ‘important’).

As I have refined my thinking over the last few years, each time these questions come, I add a little more to my philosophical outlook on life and create more of my purpose.

Historically, my purpose is to “speak words that bring life”. It has been for 15 years. But what else, what does that actually mean?

Lately my thinking has been along the lines of “creating a better world through creating better people”.

This isn’t the final edit though. There is more refining to come, but the theme is clear. I find my purpose in bringing life and growth. I find my purpose in giving. I find my purpose in generosity.

I don’t have the language nailed yet, but aren’t we all just a work in progress?

Finding Purpose

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What gets you up in the morning?

The excitement of a new day filled with possibilities, the sound of children waking up and destroying things, or the desire for caffeine? Perhaps all of the above.

We all have at least one motivating factor that keeps us going day in and day out – and the most difficult time in life comes when we lose that connection with what motivates us. Which brings about a sense of hopelessness and can make everything we do seem mundane.

The key that I have discovered is to connect with a purpose that is bigger than just me. Something greater which reaches beyond what I am capable of and impacts the world positively.

I recently came across a guy who was working for a corporation for 25 years. Not long ago this business partnered with a group who were freeing slaves in Cambodia – now they are putting money in to making the world a better place, providing hope for people, and at the same time creating a purpose that is bigger than themselves.

The employee said,

“…for 25 years I never told anyone where I worked, now I will tell everyone, I am so proud of what we do.”

Finding purpose can take the mundane and transform it into a world changing event.

What is your purpose? What do you connect with that reaches beyond what you can do by yourself?