Life is a journey of growth, of taking it all in, then letting it all go.
2017 was a challenging year for me, because I had to come closer and closer, face to face, with my greatest obstacle in life.
Myself.
What were 3 insights I gained this year, that I will forever carry into the future of my life?
Health is wealth
This year became a year of health for me. In terms of health and fitness, 2017 might be my best year ever.
It hasn’t all been that easy. There were weeks where I didn’t go to the gym, I overexerted myself, I wasn’t eating healthier than usual, and that I felt tired and worn-out.
But in the past 4 years since my major back problem surfaced, this year was the year that I felt the least pain and discomfort.
I was more confident that I could walk longer distances, and somehow, stay seated for long periods of time when traveling without any lasting adverse effects.
I was willing to spend more money, time, and energy, to be healthy and fit, and along with that, all the benefits.
I feel more confident in myself, in my abilities, and as a result, I’m less stressed and worried when I have to speak in front of people.
I no longer have to be constantly worrying about my back, and I have more energy to do more of the important things.
Catching myself looking back at the past, I feel thankful for the effort that I put into my health and fitness.
The lowest point was me thinking that I’d be willing to trade all that I have, for the ability to be able to walk, stand, and sit normally again.
Health, is wealth, which can be directly seen in the quality of the life that you have. And the more fit and healthy that you are, the better quality of life that you experience.
I did miss workouts and messed up on my meals, but the effort was still there. I’m not perfect, and the results may not be perfect, but the consistency, and the aim to put in perfect effort was still there.
Being fit and healthy is something that I’d like to be, and I’d like to commit to being and working towards, for the rest of my life, because it gives me the ability and capacity to go beyond and to do things that I normally would not be able to do.
We wear our lenses, and our life, our mirrors
So much of my daily life is based around my perception of my world around me, and the meanings that I attach to what is happening all around me, including, the feelings and thoughts that I have inside.
One thing that has been stressed upon me the past year of my life is this:
It is what it is. Things are what they are.
It is I who assign the meanings and feelings to what happens to me.
My life is guided by the experiences that I have, and the conditioning that I received throughout my life.
And that influences how I see what happens around me, and what I do.
It can be helpful, or it can be harmful.
Last night, my Uber driver took a wrong turn, costing me 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. I was furious. I must have sent around 20 messages to Uber, to tell them my complaint.
I was unhappy, frustrated, and people felt it too. I wasn’t happy, and that sucked.
What did I get for that? More hours of wasted time, lost chances for happiness, and a 100 bucks worth of credit. What. the. hell.
What made me do that?
Because I felt that my time was important. I believed that people should at least apologize when making a mistake, which he did.
I believed that his ineptitude robbed me of opportunities, and that people shouldn’t be making stupid mistakes like that.
Just like what I expect from others, I expect from myself, and vice versa.
I didn’t become forgiving, and peaceful, and caused myself a lot of unnecessary anger and stress.
Because I felt what he did was unfair.
But, the basic truth, is that things are what they are. It’s up to us to condition ourselves to create more meaningful and more helpful perceptions to our lives.
Know, be, do.
This was a concept that I had been struggling to put into words for some time, until I heard it from Coach May in one of her workshops.
When you know something, it’s not enough to give you results. You have to take action, to do something, to get the results that you want.
Turns out, it’s not as easy as that, and that’s not entirely true.
If it were that easy, then everyone would be lean and muscular, in perfect health, with perfect teeth, earning what they want to be earning, and in perfect relationships, living out the lives that they want to live.
But as I know, that’s not always the case.
If you want to be consistent, and if you want the effective habits and mindsets to stick, it’s not enough to just know, and then to act on it.
You have to be. To become that which you know and believe.
Put another way, people don’t really follow through on what they say or do, but they follow through on who they believe they are.
In my head, I knew that it was important to be healthy, but I couldn’t get any exercise activity to stick and become a habit.
That was because I used to believe that I would never be fit, and being a fit and healthy person wasn’t for me.
I knew what I had to do, and I could do it, but it wouldn’t stick, and I found it challenging to do, because I was not becoming that which the knowledge would help me become.
Ultimately, that middle part, is the journey of life.
It’s easy to encounter knowledge. It’s harder to integrate wisdom, that drives your actions.
Be. Become the person you want to be.
Take control, and determine your identity, and with it, your destiny.
Another year, out of the calendar.
Here in the Philippines, the joke when you get older, is that you’re no longer “on the calendar”. Meaning, your age is older than 31 (which is the largest number on the calendar anyway).
Now, that’s me. No longer in the calendar.
But, so what?
Thank you for another year, and another chance.
For the year that was, thank you.
For the year that will be, thanks.
I’m curious, what did you learn from me that helped you the past year? Let me know in the comments below!
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