Ashley Rice on being true

As long as you are true to the strength within your own heart...you can never go wrong. 

-- Ashley Rice 

Author's take on regrets

Don't live with regrets, live with lessons. 

- Julie.C

Saint Augustine on life

Do you wish to be great?  Then begin by being.  Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility.  The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. 

- Saint Augustine

Van Gogh on confidence

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.

- Vincent Van Gogh

Good Reads-The Alchemist

The Alchemist is an inspiring novel by acclaimed author Paulo Coelho.  

I was so moved by this novel.  I felt my entire being uplifted and infused with the hope and faith captured within the story.

If you ever lose faith; if you ever feel lost; The Alchemist can help you find the path to the destiny that is hidden within your heart.  

"The darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn."  I chant it like a mantra whenever I struggle to go on, and I am filled with peace again.  

Blog's author on honesty

A fool is truer to himself and his friends 

-- blog's author 

Bob Dylan on success

What's money?  A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. 

-- Bob Dylan

What is love?

"Love," perhaps the single greatest element in human nature that makes us human.  Great tragedies have been written about it; songs have sang about its mythical powers; the greatest and humblest of men have been free to partake in its sweetness, but in all its glory, love is a mystery.  People are still baffled, confused, heartbroken, inspired, reborn, made whole, and brought to their knees by it.  

LOVE IS NOT A MATERIAL POSSESSION

To this day I am still in awe of the power of love; I do not profess to know its many secrets, but I have realized what it is not.  I think the one mistake people make is think of love as a material possession, i.e., it is something to own and once you have it, you get to keep it forever like the house that you've paid your mortgage on.  Not so at all!  Love instead is like a living, growing being such as a tree that requires continued nourishment, water, sunshine, patience, and tender loving care.  And like a tree, should you ever stop providing these things, the tree would wither and slowly die.  Of course, the stronger and bigger the tree, the more resilient it would be to the harshness of neglect, but the younger it is the easier it will perish in the face of any neglect.    

I realized this when reflecting on my personal life and those of the people around me.  I treated love like a material possession.  I had tried to be someone else so that I could satisfy the man that I wanted to marry.  I got what I wanted; we got married because I was very good at making promises that I only halfheartedly committed to.  I thought, "just be like this for a bit longer until we get married, then everything would be fine once I have him totally to myself."  Well, four stormy years later filled with tears, heartbreak, and disappointment on both sides, all that is left is our pending divorce.  I have no regrets only the sadness that I was not truer to myself and him from the beginning, and in the end both of us were badly hurt.  It took four long years to realize this.  If I had been truer to myself from the beginning I would have realized that he was not the right person for me.  And we would never have gotten married.

The secret to happiness?

This seems to be an ageless question explored by the greatest of minds and the humblest of souls.  It seems to be a question I've been asking all my life, to no avail.  It is only now I am starting to understand what it means to be happy.  I think the reason why this question is so hard to answer is because most people view happiness as something external to us. It's not something we can provide for ourselves, but instead something that needs to be possessed like a car or something.  "I will be happy when I land that 6-figure salary job; when I get my million dollar house; when I find my prince charming; when I win the lottery!"

But Marie Curie once said, "We must believe that we are all gifted for something, and this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."  This "thing," whatever you want to call it, perhaps your destiny, perhaps your soul, perhaps your inner voice; it is the realization of this destiny or the fullest expression of this inner voice that one achieves true happiness in life.

Perhaps you don't know what is your destiny?  I certainly don't.  It's not so concrete or simple as "I want to have a million dollars."  Instead, I think that in all of us there is a inner voice waiting to be heard.  I certainly feel it in myself.  Recently, I just finished reading a deeply moving book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  The novel beautifully weaves a story of a young shepherd on a journey that takes him into distant lands where he discovers his destiny and the secret to happiness.  On the journey the boy learns that "change through love" is the means to find your destiny.  

"Change through love." When I read this verse it was as though a flash went off, as though everything I have been feeling coalesced and became so clear and obvious.  These few words reveal that when you do something out of love, you are listening to your heart and you come one step closer to your destiny, you come one step closer to finding true happiness.  "Change" is the personal growth that one undergoes.  Change through self-improvement, through personal growth, through your personal enlightenment driven by the love of the thing you are pursuing, is the act of fulfilling your destiny.  I repeat, "We must believe that we are all gifted for something, and this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained." This "gift" that is within all of us is only fully manifested when we pursue it through love.  Love is the only force powerful enough that will reveal the hidden potential within all of us.

People can be motivated by many things-fear, insecurity, anger, hatred, envy, revenge, even a sense of inferiority, and being motivated in this fashion may also help you attain your personal goals.  But I believe only driven through love can a person fully express that inner voice we all have within ourselves.  It's a voice that tells me when I haven't been true to myself; that I've made decisions for the wrong reasons; that I haven't been living up to my potential; that I'm allowing others to control my life because I'm too scared to be heard; that I've traded up something important within myself.  It's that gnawing restlessness you feel in your heart.  It happens when you know you're staying at a job because you're too scared to leave; when you sit at a conference table and choose to agree because you want to please your boss; when you befriend others because of what they own instead of who they are; when you drown your soul in mindless distractions such as TV, food, and pursuit of material goods.  For a short time during those mindless distractions you will experience a great high, perhaps like taking drugs, but then you'll crash and be left with an emptiness so devoid of life that it would suffocate you.  The suffocation would be so unbearable that it'll just drive you towards these distractions again, sinking yourself deeper into a dark abyss.   

We all have an inner voice, those who have the courage to listen will hear it loud and clear, but those who don't will only hear it softly.  They will hear it crying softly in the dark recesses of their hearts on silent nights when they have temporarily sobered, and be filled with a deep sense of regret.  But the next day as they fill their lives with the normal hustle and bustle of things "they have to do," that voice will disappear in the clamor of everything else.  But that gnawing feeling will always resurface again in your moments of sobriety.  But as you continue to ignore this voice, it would eventually grow so soft that you would barely notice it.

But we must always remember, that voice is there, we need only to have the courage and faith to listen to it.  

The Alchemist on Personal Growth

Treat a man as he is, and he will be as he is.  Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be 

--The Alchemist

Quote on faith

The darkest hour comes just before the dawn 

--The Alchemist 

Finding One's Destiny

Change through love brings us closer to our destiny 

--Julie.C

Clement Stone on achievement

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement 

--Clement Stone 

Les Brown on fear

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. 

-- Les Brown

Marie Curie on life

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. 

-- Marie Curie

Aristotle on excellence

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. 

-- Aristotle 

T.S. Eliot on life

We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. 

-- T.S. Eliot

Quote on Success

People who succeed don't want to be at the top, they want to be the strongest 

-- blog's author

Jules Ranard on life

As I grow to understand life less and less, I grow to love it more and more 

-- Jules Ranard 

Bruce Lee on strength

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one 

-- Bruce Lee

Quote on opportunity

The opportunities you give up are just as important as the opportunities you take. 

-- the blog's author

Quote: Arthur Ashe

Start where you are.  Use what you have.  Do what you can. 

--Arthur Ashe

Quote: Lao Tzu on life

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. 

--Lao Tzu

Quote--Plato on fear

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. 

--Plato

Our Own Prison Cells

Prison is not a four-walled cell but instead a limitation of one's mind.  We view people in jail as having lost their freedom but in reality most of us are living in our own prison cell; it may not be a physical prison, but nonetheless we build a prison around our fears, insecurities, biases, and refusal to go beyond our comfort zones.

As humans, most of us mistake the pursuit of physical freedom as achieving freedom, but in reality, true freedom is the unshackling of one's mind.  Buddha once said, "The mind is everything.  What you think you become."  And so too, what you do not think will be your lost opportunities.  How is our habitual scheduled lives really that different from a prisoner in jail; he has his "room", he can go to the bathroom, cafeteria, gym, even outside.  Albeit, he lives in a much more dangerous environment and he has less "variety" in landscape, but nonetheless the difference is merely in one's mind.   We may believe we are free to go anywhere we please, but in reality, most of us travel on very set and limited routes: home, school, work, grocery, shopping mall, kitchen, flopping down in front of your 50 inch flat screen?  A prisoner is a prisoner because of his faults, while most of us are prisoners because of our habits.  We are merely shuffling from one familiar room to the next in a seemingly endless cycle.

And so the value of freedom is not physical emancipation but mental. Because most of us already have physical freedom; we can climb the tallest mountains, we can sore across the skies, we can see the great oceans and the expanse of human diversity throughout the world but yet most of us do not, instead we continue to be shackled to our safe and familiar routes.  

And so what is true freedom?  I believe we all have an inner voice; a creative voice that yearns to be heard but yet we suppress because of our fears and insecurities, and we dull through our gluttonous consumption of aimless amusements, distractions and mundane errands.  We fill our lives with distractions that we tell ourselves we have to do; "I've got to get my hair done," "I have to pick up my dry cleaning," "I have to go shopping," "I have to try out that new restaurant."  We bombard our lives with a never ending string of "I have tos" without realizing that they are instead "I want to distract myself with..."  Would the world truly come to a screeching halt if we simply said "no more!" 

There is always something to learn, something to create, something to improve, in which these activities tap into that inner creative voice that we are all born with.  But it is sometimes terrifying to hear that voice; it is almost like being naked in front of the world for all to see your many defects and flaws.  But then, is it not better to express the full potential of who you can be, even with all its flaws and defects, than to never do so at all?  Even so, I still struggle with hearing my inner voice and letting it be heard.  I still find myself easily giving into the "clamor" of aimless activities such as surfing the Internet mindlessly, drowning my soul in food, filling my eyes with movies, allowing my mind to go numb like a blinking cursor.    

But I know to achieve true freedom, I must listen to that inner creative voice.  And when you do, the world will dramatically change; it will no longer be hierarchical but horizontal because you will realize that the only barrier to your freedom will be yourself.  It will no longer be your boss, your job title, your station in life, your family, your friends, your misfortune of being born with an overactive hypothalamus!  Instead it will only be you and your fear in listening to your inner compass.  You are the only one keeping yourself from achieving your dreams.  

When you achieve true freedom, i.e., freedom from your fears and insecurities, the clamor of your petty wants magically vanish to be replaced by an inner glow of your true self.   

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right." -- Henry Ford 

Quote: George Addair on fear

Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear 

--George Addair 

Wise Chinese Proverb

A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials. 

--Chinese Proverb

Quote: Dalai Lama on happiness

Happiness is not something ready made.  It comes from your own actions. 

-- Dalai Lama

Quote: Indian Proverb

Certain things capture the eyes, but only pursue the things that capture the heart. 

--Ancient Indian Proverb

Quote: Buddha on life

The mind is everything.  What you think you become. 

--Buddha

Quote by blog author

To be free is to dare to be. 

-- Blog's author  

Quote: John Gough on success

If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time coming. 

--John Gough

Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson on destiny

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote: Chinese proverb

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce. 

--Chinese wisdom

Quote: Walt Disney on adversity

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me...You may not realize when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. 

--Walt Disney

Quote: Booker T. Washington on responsibility

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him. 

-- Booker T. Washington

Quote: Cinderella in believing

                                 A dream is a wish your heart makes
                                           When you're fast asleep.
                                In dreams you will lose your heartaches
                                      Whatever you wish for, you keep.
                                Have faith and believe that someday,
                               Your rainbow will come smiling through.
                               No matter how your heart is grieving
                                         If you keep on believing
                               The dream that you wish will come true. 

                                                                                   -- Cinderella  

Never lose faith in your dreams

Quote: Machiavelli

 Others will help you if you help yourself

--Machiavelli

Quote: Anais Nin

Anais Nin

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

-- Anais Nin

Quote: Master Yoda on the impossible

No, no different, only different in your mind.  You must unlearn what you have learned. 

--Master Yoda

In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Master Yoda responds with these words when Luke Skywalker cries, "Now we'll never get it out.  Moving stones is one thing, but this is totally different," referring to his downed fighter jet that had sunk deeper into the swamp. 

Yoda's words teaches us an important lesson, that everything is truly all in the mind.  What you believe you can do, what you believe you cannot do is not a consequence of birth, destiny, genetics, social standing or even your zodiac sign!  

Instead, it simply comes down to the mental perspective you have of yourself.  If you think you're a eagle, then you'll soar like an eagle; if you think you're a chicken, then don't be surprised if your greatest accomplishment is ending up on McDonald's value menu.  

Most people go through life having a fixed mental image of themselves, believing that their capabilities are predestined as oppose to self willed.  But if the countless self-made million and billionaires, such as Oprah Winfrey or JK Rowling  have taught us anything, it is that, whatever your mind can believe AND set itself to do, is what you are destined to be.  

Therefore, it is more appropriate to say that, you must unlearn the limitations of what you have learned.  

Fighting for your life: the enemy from within

Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.--Tony Hsieh 

I'm learning in life that you have to fight for your vision. Everyday is a battle, not between you and the rest of the world, but ironically against yourself, i.e., the skeletons that haunt your closets.  Everyone has these phantoms in the darkest recesses of their minds, they are your fears of failure, of being criticized, of facing rejection, of even trying sashimi and that green stuff!

How many of us have not spoken up for fear of being ridiculed; how many of us have failed to try for fear of rejection; how many of us go home and sink into the comfortable routine of entertainment TV, Online games, facebook, sugary foods and drinks where we consume the products created by other people as we watch on enviously those few who became players, while we sit on the sidelines, forever spectators.  

I always have to remind myself the meaning behind my blog's title, Julie's chopping block; the title reflects a fundamental belief that to find meaning in your life, you have to put yourself out there without fear of ridicule, criticism, rejection or failure.  In fact, it is embracing these "phantoms" that one is able to learn and excel, avoiding them only makes you into a deluded fool.   

Aristotle once said:

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

 Of course, this is easier said than done, and "putting yourself on the chopping block" can be psychologically debilitating, but in retrospect, the pain is truly all in your mind.  Most of the time, there is no real bodily harm unless you live in an authoritarian regime, but that's getting off topic.  Assuming you live in a democratic society like the United States, then putting yourself out there to express your creativity has never been easier.

The Internet has made information virtually free and accessible to all, and never has it been easier to learn and be heard.  But yet so many of us continue to live as though in an authoritarian regime, keeping silent and passive for fear of reprisal.  But what reprisal is there?   Reflecting on my own life, there is only the reprisal of emotional discomfort that comes from fear of failure, and the big scary "unknoooown."  But is that really worth giving up your dreams?  Everyone has to answer that for themselves, but for me, I think not.

And so, everyday is a battleground where you have to fight for your vision, i.e., the vision you have for your life, the vision you have for the world you want to create. It will not be easy because you will face a great wall of resistance, which will shake your confidence, your faith, the very core of your identity, because in the beginning you will be laughable, you will be foolish, and you will "suck".  But your greatest enemy won't be the audience laughing at you, instead it will be you.  Because it will be your choice to give-up or persevere.  And should you persevere and learn from your experiences, you will in fact be building your foundations on solid rock.  Even the greatest pros were amateurs once.

I remember going to a local artist joint where a young musician was playing.  He definitely had raw talent but he was kind of weird, he had on thick glasses (Harry Potter's double?), was obviously nervous and kept on saying the dumbest things, quite a dork!  But later on, I was ashamed of myself because he at least had the balls to pursue his dreams, whereas I was sitting in the dark amongst a sea of faceless spectators, merely pointing and snickering but having no more of a spine than a jellyfish.

So if ever you find the courage to climb "onstage" and see people snickering instead of applauding, find comfort in the fact that you, at least, are no longer a faceless, nameless spectator, but a real player on the way to transforming your vision into a reality.   

Quote: Vincent Van Gogh on overcoming yourself

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. 

-- Vincent Van Gogh

Quote: Aristotle on criticism

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. 

-- Aristotle 

Quote: Gordon Graham on decisiveness

Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. 

-- Gordon Graham

Quote: Maya Angelou

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. 

-- Maya Angelou