10 Lies You Will Hear Before You Pursue Your Dreams

Unfortunately, just before you take your first step on the righteous journey to pursue your dreams, people around you, even the ones who deeply care for you, will give you awful advice.  It’s not because they have evil intentions.  It’s because they don’t understand the big picture – what your dreams, passions, and life goals mean to you.  They don’t understand that, to you, the reward is worth the risk.

So they try to protect you by shielding you from the possibility of failure, which, in effect, also shields you from the possibility of making your dreams a reality.

As our friend Steve Jobs says:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.”

Here are 10 ill-advised tips (lies) people will likely tell you when you decide to pursue your dreams, and why they are dreadfully mistaken.

1.            You can follow your dreams someday, but right now you need to buckle down and be responsible. – Someday?  When is ‘someday?’  Someday is not a day at all.  It’s a foggy generalization of a time that will likely never come.  Today is the only day guaranteed to you.  Today is the only day you can begin to make a difference in your life.  And pursuing your dreams is what life is all about.  So don’t be irresponsible.  Don’t wait until ‘someday.’  Make today the first day of the rest of your new life.

2.            You’re totally screwed if it doesn’t work out. – Wrong!  This is a giant, lame load of BS.  You’re not even close to being screwed.  In fact, the worst case scenario is that things don’t work out and you have to go back to doing exactly what you are doing right now.

3.            It’s safer to stay at your day job. – Sure, I suppose.  But you know what’s even safer than that?  Going home, locking yourself in your bedroom, and never, ever coming out.  And just like that you will have flushed your entire life and your dreams down the toilet.  Remember, safer doesn’t always mean better.

4.            That’s impossible! – It’s only impossible if you never do anything about it.  The reason certain things seem impossible is simply because nobody has achieved them yet.  But this doesn’t mean that with your help these things won’t become possible in the future.  If you truly dedicate yourself to an end result, almost anything is possible.  You just have to want it bad enough.

5.            Only a lucky few “make it.” – That’s because those lucky few got off their rear ends and did something about it!  They had the drive, determination, and willpower that you have right now.  You can be one of them.  It’s up to you, and only you.

6.            You might fail.  And failing is bad. – Failures are simply stepping stones to success.  No matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be.  Either you succeed or you learn something.  Win-Win.  The biggest mistake you can make is doing nothing because you’re too scared to make a mistake.  If you can’t handle failure, then you can’t handle success either.

7.            You don’t have access to the right resources. – It’s not about having the right resources; it’s about exploiting the resources you do have access to.  Stevie Wonder couldn’t see, so he exploited his sense of hearing into a passion for music, and he now has 25 Grammy Awards to prove it.  Get it?

8.            You need more money saved before you can take the first step. – You don’t need more money.  You need a plan.  You need a budget.  Eliminate ALL the nonessential costs in your life.  If pursuing your dream requires you to leave your day job, figure out the absolute minimum amount of income that you require to realistically live.  Studying those who have succeeded with similar ventures also helps.  But above all, take baby steps.  Don’t be foolish and assume that you must have a certain amount of money saved right now, or that you must quit your day job today in order to pursue your dreams.  Instead, ask yourself, “What actions can I take right now with the money and resources I have right now that will bring me closer to desired goal?”

9.            You don’t need any help.  It’s smarter to go after it alone. – You are the sum of the people you spend the most time with.  If you hang with the wrong people, they will negatively affect you.  But if you hang with the right people, you will be far more capable and powerful than you ever could have been alone.  Find your tribe and work together to make a difference in all of your lives.

10.          That sounds like a lot of hard work. – You’re darn right it does!  But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.  I think success in life hinges on one key point: Finding hard work you love doing.  As long as you remain true to yourself and follow your own interests, values and dreams, you can find success through passion.  Perhaps most importantly, you won’t wake up a few years from now working in a career field you despise, wondering “How the heck am I going to do this for the next 30 years?”  So if you catch yourself working hard and loving every minute of it, don’t stop.  You’re on to something big.  Because hard work ain’t hard when you concentrate on your passions and dreams.

Disregard these misguided bits of nonsense and you’ll be well on your way to fulfilling your dreams.

Now get out there and make a splash!

(COURTESY: http://www.marcandangel.com)

Why You Look Different in Photos Than You Do in the Mirror?

        Yesterday morning, you looked good. Yesterday evening, before you went out, you're pretty sure you looked real good. So who the hell is this schlub in the Facebook album from last night, tagged with your name?

         It's a phenomenon nestled somewhere between universal annoyance and urban legend: People see something different in the mirror than they do in photographs. More often than not, the former is controlled, predictable and palatable, while the latter is an endless source of nasty little surprises.

So, why the disparity? The answer is complicated, but it boils down to this: Your eyes, your brain, your mirror and your camera are all conspiring to sabotage your body image.

It's the camera

         The camera adds ten pounds! At a certain point, this obscure TV adage became folk wisdom. While this particular effect probably refers specifically to television, and in particular the distorting effect of the convex curvature of older TV sets, it seems to hold true for regular folks, sometimes in still pictures as well as video.

          Cameras sensors may be absorbing the same photons as our eyes, but they're doing so through a complex lens that can actually change the way you look. Most cameras, from the dumpiest point-and-shoots to high-end DSLRs, ship with lenses capable of adjusting to wide, zoom-ed out perspective, and tight, zoomed-in views. At both extremes, the lens plays weird—and potentially ugli-fying tricks.

        A wide angle lens does as its name suggests, capturing an image spread over a wide angle. The field of view in a wide-angle shot is wide—wider than that of your own eyes. In pulling this off, some lenses create a sort of fisheye effect, which can bloat subjects in the middle, and stretch those on the outside. This, however, is instantly recognizable, and probably won't cause too much anxiety. In other words, If the shot looks like a still from an episode of Jackass, you probably shouldn't let it figure into your self-image too much.

        But there's a subtler effect of wide lenses called wide-angle distortion: Since the field of view is super-wide, objects close to the camera will seem large, while objects just a bit further away will seem very small. Here's a scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels that illustrates the effect, starting a 4:18. (NSFW, sorta.)

        The net effect is an illusion of size, both width and height. Subtle, sure, but it's there.

Telephoto lenses are usually seen as more flattering, giving the impression that the subject is flattened, and slightly compressing the width of your foremost features, like your nose or breasts. So you might want to think twice before fleeing the pesky paparazzi and their fancy zoom lenses; it's the tourist with the pocket cam whose snaps will make you look fat on the Internet.

       Lens distortion isn't the only way a camera can screw with your visage. Flash illuminates subjects harshly, turning elegant faces normally accented by soft shadows into a flat, shadowless, cadaveric horror shows.

      Whether these effects are annoying or used to advantage, they mean that what you see in photos is different than what you see in the mirror.

It's the Mirror

          I don't mean to imply that the camera is the only liar, here, because mirrors are just as guilty. For one, they flip your image. The You you're most familiar with, then, is actually an exact opposite of how you look to others. Granted, it's an intuitive reversal, so it doesn't bother us when we see it, but it implants a self-image that's intrinsically wrong.

       On top of that, there's the problem of perspective. People stand close to mirrors, but see their whole selves. This provides a reasonable perspective, but a unique one: it's the perspective of a person standing near to you, eyes proportionately closer to your head than to your feet. This is the perspective of a partner in conversation, not a photographer. Looking a certain way from three feet away doesn't mean you'll look the same from 15.

It's you

      The physics of lenses and mirrors offer solutions to specific problems, i.e. OH MY GOD SO THAT'S WHY MY WONDERFUL BUTT LOOKS SO FAT ON FILM! However, these explanations don't speak to a more relatable weirdness about photography. It's a feeling of uncanniness. It's a sense that something about the photographed self seems unquantifiably different than the mirrored self. It's in your head.

       Think about the act of looking on a mirror. It's incredibly limited You pretty much need to be facing forward, or else you can't see. You will always be looking slightly down at the rest of your body. You will pose for yourself, to achieve the most flattering look. You will hide fat behind folds of clothes, or minimize a strange facial feature with a tilt of the head.

        Other people, including photographers, don't see this version of you. They see a version that you are rarely privy to, and that can seem wildly foreign to our ingrained sensibilities. As Slate explains, it's a bit like how people hate their own voices on tape, doubly so because we know that those foreign, goofball intonations represent that way that everyone else hears us. In photos, we see ourselves in various states of motion, in different contortions and from uncaring, neutral perspectives. Lenses may distort, sure, but in a powerful way, these uncomfortable photographs are closer to reality than our carefully images in the mirror.  (J. Herrman, gizmodo.com)

What Are Your Standards Of Success?

Different people have different standards for success. For one person it might be the amount of salary he gets and for another it might be the satisfaction he receives from the kind of work he does. Success is being happy. If material thing brings you happiness, then you're successful. Awards by the company; the level of authority a person has etc. They say that the standards of success will be achieved by maintaining an HMT Formula; H-Health Management, M-Money Management and T-Time management. Some other factors could be the comfortable relationship one has with his/her peers/seniors, the high amount of recognition and good performance.

For me, the standard of success in life isn’t the things. It isn’t the money or the stuff — it is absolutely the amount of happiness and joy you feel while doing your job. It's you who has to decide what is more important to you to be able to evaluate your level of success at your job. 

I would say success is having a job that you enjoy doing enough that you don't mind going to work every day. If you want a personal example then I can safely say that the company I worked for previously didn't pay me much but it gave me a lot of opportunities to grow in my field and I was recognized for all the good work I did. I always remember the word from Colossians 3:17, that whatever I do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him, most likely to do my duty well because I go to it with a heart overflowing with gratitude to God for his mercies, and likely to perform my duties with the most cheerful fidelity. For me that was my standard of how successful I am.

Find a job that matches your morals and goals in life. Good Luck with finding out your standard! :)

Dream BIG

Dreams. Dreams come a size too big so that we may grow into them. They’re more powerful than we’d like to believe. God has a big dream for you. What you have to do is to see that dream.  Those dreams are more powerful than we could ever imagine. They guide us through life, they help us set goals and ultimately achieve them. They are often the reason for heart break, but also the reason for soaring hearts.

Everyone has dreams, whether they are big or small. Everyone wants their dreams to come true and dreamers take small steps, to achieve the greater goal. They never give up, They NEVER fail. They do everything they must do to achieve. Someday, if you try hard, dreams would become reality. But you have to realize that God hasn't give up on those dreams and you don't have to either. You've got to dream it, then believe it, before you can live it.

“My dream is big and I will reach it just to prove everyone I can. It’s never too late."

 DREAM BIG ☮