Day #1000 & 1001:I need Your Help: To Close or to Continue?

Yesterday was exactly 1000 days since I started writing this blog and today makes it day 1001.

I have thought hard about what to do next with the blog. Should I close this blog and move on to other projects? Should I continue this blog and write day 1001? What should I do?

I don’t know to be honest.

Maybe if the point was to prove that I can do this for 1000 days consistently, then the objective has been reached and now I can move on to something else. Or perhaps if the objective was to find something daily and share with people, perhaps I might still continue writing this blog since I will continue to observe and notice inspiring things everyday.

So I want to turn to you, the readers of this blog. If you have ever read this blog,and you found it helpful one way or another help me make a decision on what to do next. You can write a comment on this post or write me an email at iyiola.abraham@gmail.com.

I will forever be grateful.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me for the past 1000 days.

Day #999:Merely begin.

Just one day to go to close this 1000 days challenge.

I just though it would be nice to say hello to the cult of ‘it nearly happened’. You know they have an association for all those things you want to do but never got to do. Those projects you almost completed but never shipped.

Those ideas you let rotten away while you were waiting for the stars to align and time to get all the resources you need to make it the best thing that happened since slice bread.

While you waited for perfect, you’ve permitted magical to walk on by. Not to mention good enough, amazing and wonderful.

There is a quote that goes something like if we acted on all our ideas, we will amaze ourselves by how much we can achieve.

Waiting for the thing that cannot be improved (and cannot be criticized) keeps us from beginning.

Merely begin.

Day #998:The Story of Two Bricklayers

Two bricklayers were approached by a reporter.

The reporter asked the first bricklayer, “What are you doing?”

His response was to complain that he was virtually a slave.  An underpaid labourer who spent his days wasting his time, placing one brick on top of another for hours on end.

The reporter ask the second worker the same question.

His response, however, was quite different.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. “I get to be a part of important, useful and beautiful pieces of architecture.  I turn simple pieces of brick into exquisite masterpieces.”

Of course, they were both right, but it was their mindset that mattered.

In everything that we do, we can see it as a chore or an opportunity to do something remarkable.

Think about your life.

Is it a drudgery?

Or is it full of exciting moments?

If it’s more of the former, don’t look to change the external factors, look to change how you view the world.

It could make all the difference!

Day #997:Building Brick By Brick

If you’re building a house, you need to lay the first brick.

Of course, one brick doesn’t make a house, but you can’t build something without laying that first brick.

Then comes brick number two, but it still doesn’t look like a house.

Then number three, four and so on, until finally the house is complete.

To do anything significant in life requires us to start with a single brick.

Too often, we want the finished product immediately, but life doesn’t work that way.

The successful career, the long-lasting relationship and the thriving business all require an initial action that doesn’t look like the end product.

But step by step, brick by brick, moment by moment you get closer to your goal.

So stop staring at the vacant land and get started.Stop thinking about nice blog design and just pick a wordpress template and start writing.

Lay the first brick and build your house.

Day #996:Failure is a very real option!!

Are you nervous?

Is there a little bit of uncertainty about the future?

And if so, is that really such a bad thing?

We can’t be totally sure that everyone will appreciate your speech or sermon.

Your boss may not like the quality of presentation you put forward.

And that business idea may or may not work.

If you’re doing anything important, failure is a very real option, so to feel nervous every now and then is OK.

Doesn’t that just mean that you’re doing something that matters?

Doesn’t that just mean that you care?

Success doesn’t come to those who thrust their chest out in false bravado.

It comes to those who take action in spite of their feelings of insecurity and uncertainty.

You could go through life entirely sure of what happens next.

Or you could live a life that makes a difference in the world.

Your choice!

Day #995:Chasing Two Foxes. A story about Focus.

Someone asked me for advice on how to start a blog like this one and write for 100 days non stop. Well, I thought, there are a lot of tips I can share to help. But the most important one is this story I read somewhere.

As the story goes:

A student of martial arts said to his teacher:

‘I would like to be a great aikido fighter,’ he said. ‘But I think I should also devote myself to judo, so that I am familiar with many different styles of fighting. That is the only way I can become the best.’

His teacher replied: ‘If a man goes into a field and starts running after two foxes at the same time, there will come a moment when the foxes will go their separate ways, and the man will be left not knowing which one to pursue. While he is pondering the problem, the foxes will be far away and he will have wasted both his time and his energy.

 

Anyone who wants to become a master must choose just ONE thing in which to become an expert.

I am not good at focusing on more than one thing at a time. So if I really want to do something, I make sure it’s the only thing I focus on. Once I get it sorted and I think I have it figured out, then I can start exploring other things.

I think this works not only for starting a blog but for anything that needs devotion, time and attention. Don’t try to do more than one thing at a time.

Day #994:It’s Hard to Start. But To do It, You Have to Start

This is not exactly earth shattering revelation. But it’s very easy to over look. As I count down to the final days of this project, I keep asking myself what would have happened if I never started this project. The answer, nothing. The 1000 days will pass anyway. Did I know where I would be on day 984 when I started this project 2 and half years ago? Nope.

Today I am sitting in an airport lounge in Cairo. Waiting for my connecting flight to Toronto in about 4 hours and I could help but imagine how easy it it seems to write everyday only because I started this project.

I am not sure what I am going to next as many people have asked me. But whatever it is, I hope I can just start and deal with the details later. To do great things, we have to start with the little things. It’s always hard, but we have to start.

Day #993:Tomorrow…

No one can go back, but everyone can go forward.

And tomorrow, when the sun rises, all you have to say to yourselves is:
I am going to think of this year as the first year of my life.

I will look on the members of my family with surprise and amazement, glad to discover that they are by my side, silently sharing that much-talked-about, but little understood thing called love.

I will pass a beggar, who will ask me for money. I might give it to him or I might walk past thinking that he will only spend it on drink, and as I do, I will hear his insults and know that it is simply his way of communicating with me.

I will pass someone trying to destroy a bridge. I might try to stop him or I might realise that he is doing it because he has no one waiting for him on the other side and this is his way of trying to fend off his own loneliness.

I will look at everything and everyone as if for the first time, especially the small things that I have grown used to, quite forgetting the magic surrounding them. The desert sands, for example, which are moved by an energy I cannot understand – because I cannot see the wind.

Instead of noting down things I’m unlikely to forget on the notebook I always carry with me, I will write a poem. Even if I have never written one before and even if I never do so again, I will at least know that I once had the courage to put my feelings into words.

When I reach a small village that I know well, I will enter it by a different route. I will be smiling, and the inhabitants will say to each other: ‘He must be mad, because war and destruction have left the soil barren.’

But I will keep smiling, because it pleases me to know that they think I am mad. My smile is my way of saying: ‘You can destroy my body, but not my soul.’

Tonight, before leaving, I’m going to spend time sorting through the pile of things I never had the patience to put in order. And I will find that a little of my history is there.
All the letters, the notes, cuttings and receipts will take on their own life and have strange stories to tell me – about the past and about the future. All the different things in the world, all the roads travelled, all the entrances and exits of my life.

I am going to put on a shirt I often wear and, for the first time, I am going to notice how it was made. I am going to imagine the hands that wove the cotton and the river where the fibres of the plant were born. I will understand that all those now invisible things are a part of the history of my shirt.

And even the things I am accustomed to – like the sandals which, after long use, have become an extension of my feet – will be clothed in the mystery of discovery.
Since I am heading off into the future, I will be helped by the scuff marks left on my sandals from when I stumbled in the past.

May everything my hand touches and my eyes see and my mouth tastes be different, but the same. That way, all those things will cease to be a still life and instead will explain to me why they have been with me for such a long time; and they will reveal to me the miracle of re-encountering emotions worn smooth by routine.

taken from THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN ACCRA

Day #992: When is The Best Time to Quit?

Just this morning on my commute to work I was reading the story of Ellen Chisa and how she made the decision to quit Harvard Business School. In today’s world of positive thinking, work hard, hang in there till you succeed, talking about quitting is not only counter intuitive, it goes against the general idea of success. We all know too well the quote : “quitters never win and winners never quit” often attributed to legendary American coach Vince Lombardi and to Napoleon Hill.

While this has some element of truth in it, it doesn’t tell a complete story. Winners do quit sometimes to good measure and quitters do win.

In their book Mastering the Art of Quitting, bestselling author Peg Streep and psychotherapist Alan Bernstein demonstrate that persistence alone isn’t always the answer. We also need to be able to quit to get the most out of life. Most times quitting promotes growth and learning, as well as the ability to frame new goals. Without the ability to give up, most people will end up in a discouraging loop. The most satisfied people know when it’s time to stop persisting and start quitting. Quitting is a healthy, adaptive response when a goal can’t be reached.

In the Business Insider story on Ellen Chisa, Ellen used a simple system to determine why she needed to quit Harvard Business School. She used a framework to think through it:

• She didn’t know what she wanted to get out of the Harvard experience, so she didn’t know how to prioritize her classes. There was missing context.
• She would’ve definitely chosen the Lola opportunity ( a job opportunity she got after her 1st year in HBS) over HBS had it arrived earlier. This she knew stone cold.
• The Lola role would give her an experience she had prioritized for a long time — the ability to grow a product team.
• She could always go back to HBS. There would be no chance to join Lola at such an early stage again.

It can be tricky to determine when is the best time to quit. Quitting a job, a relationship, a goal you set for yourself or something you have put so much into.

We waste time and effort trying to stay in touch with people who have no interest in keeping their friendship with us.We hold on to jobs  and relationships where we are not happy, making ourselves physically and emotionally ill.

So how do you know when it’s time to give up? Here is what I think:

If you feel that you’re not enjoying life to the fullest because you can’t stop thinking about your situation, it might be time to reconsider the reasons you continue trying.

Working toward a worthwhile goal should be elating and exciting. Lack of excitement about achieving what you think you want probably means that you’ve become used to striving and never arriving. It’s “what you do,” and this routine doesn’t serve you.

Also, you may be justifying a painful situation in the name of psychological comfort. Fear of the unknown or of upsetting other people could be the true driver of your efforts because perceived safety and popularity are comforting.

What would your life be like if you stopped trying? Notice the first feeling that arrives when you ask this question. A feeling of freedom or exhilaration is a sign you are ready to give up.

Day #991:The Butterfly Effect

In 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science. His theory, stated simply, was:

A butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air–eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet.

Lorenz and his ideas were literally laughed out of the conference. What he had proposed was ridiculous. It was preposterous. But it was fascinating!

Therefore, because of the idea’s charm and intrigue, the so-called “butterfly effect” became a staple of science fiction, remaining for decades a combination of myth and legend spread only by comic books and bad movies.

So imagine the scientific community’s shock and surprise when, more than thirty years after the possibility was introduced, physics professors working from colleges and universities worldwide came to the conclusion that the butterfly effect was authentic, accurate, and viable.

Soon after, it was accorded the status of a “law.” Now known as The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions, this principle has proven to be a force encompassing more than mere butterfly wings.It basically means that everything you do—and don’t do—matters. It has a bigger impact on the world than you can possibly imagine.