What Is Your Disposition

dis·po·si·tion: the predominant or prevailing tendency of one's spirits; natural mental and emotional outlook or mood; characteristic attitude

I used to often find myself in a place in life where I didn't want to be, with no recollection of how I got there. I woke up each morning with a feeling of anxiety and no motivation to start the day. All I could do is force myself to move and go through the motions as if nothing was wrong. Sometimes that simple act was enough to change the course of my day, week, month, other times it only exacerbated the problem. I would go through my day wishing nothing more than for it to be over. I would day dream about what I could be doing with my time, what fun I could be having, what movie I could be curled up on the couch watching. I would lull myself into a state of pity and blame the world around me for the place I was in. Of course I wasn't going to take any responsibility for things, it couldn't be my own fault.

Then one day when I unexpectedly found myself examining and reflecting on who I was. I realized that it was indeed me who was digging myself into these ruts. I was dismayed with the world but I was passively participating in the process. I was reacting, not acting, and I was watching rather than playing. The world was doing its thing and I was acting powerless to interject. However, the world around me was of my own creation. I was choosing to view the world through pitiful, angry, depressed eyes. While I chose not to see it this way, it was only because I didn't know how to change things.

Then I learned the power of thinking positively about the world. I learned that I could create and live my disposition in a way that gave me power to enjoy life. To be happy could be of my own doing and not because someone handed it to me or because I bought it off the shelf. If you could, and you can, choose to live the life you want or the one that you have been dealt, what would you choose? You aren't a powerless person. If you find yourself in a place, doing or being someone you don't want to be then you can choose to be somewhere or someone else. If you think of yourself as an ever evolving painting, the painter is you. You get to choose what to portray, the colors you want to use, the angle of the brush. If you can wrap your head around this simple, yet extremely difficult, idea, then you can immediately make an impact on the world around you.

We can all choose to see what is wrong in the world or we can choose to see what is right and what is possible. We can react or we can act. What disposition will you choose today?

The Beauty of Life

Today we have an excellent guest post from a friend mine, Tyler. We both just finished the International Project Management Program and while I have yet to go anywhere, his path has taken him to Uganda. He has recently started blogging of his new adventures while working in Uganda and he and I both thought his latest post would be a fitting addition to this blog. I encourage you to check out his blog if you are interested in working abroad and want to know the inner thoughts and emotions of someone who is already there. Tyler is an excellent writer and puts my writing to shame in comparison. If you want to check out his blog it is here at Seeds of Hope Uganda.

The Beauty of Life

My heart feels like an open canvas, letting the random strokes and colours of life paint the canvas as it progresses, each day revealing a little bit more vibrancy and detail to the larger picture of life. Each stroke coming with a different purpose, some much deeper and darker, representing the subtle hardships that we go through on a day to day basis, and other lighter strokes, rich in wholesome colour signifying the onset of a lesson learned or a passionate truth discovered, or the depth of having an engaging, somewhat enlightening conversation with a fellow human being. This canvas is endless, continuously evolving, and forever becoming more and more beautiful as we sail ourselves down the river of life.

A river greatly represents oneself, and ones path here on Earth. A river is formless, moving in one general direction, but able to branch off into streams and tributaries, each lending itself to new directions, new possibilities, unbounded and undiscovered territory where ANYTHING is possible. This shapeless, formless, open-directional reality is what makes living so amazing. It's what makes this very moment in time so special. I am now discovering that when we place a dam on our life, a point in the river where we harbour future directions from freely developing, we find ourselves in a state of stillness, of motionless life, where the amazement of the world becomes ordinary, where excitement turns to drab, where ones ability to look outside oneself becomes crippled. I am excited to break free of my subconscious dams that have kept me in a state of clingy comfort, and to go boundless into the open, hoping that my river leads me to the vast depths of the limitless ocean of life and the universe beyond.

As I sit here, sniffling away my flu, chugging back copious amounts of cough syrup, bails of Kleenex stretching the landscape of my room, I pause in great thanks for the world around us. The intricacy of life is mind boggling. Take a moment to look inside yourself, look around the room where you currently are, peer outside a window, take a long heartfelt gander at the world in your presence. Think just how intricate, detailed and in clockwork everything is. It is a constant wonder how any of this is possible. How humanity has come so far in innovation that I can sit here in Africa with my thoughts, and relate them to the rest of the world with a click of a button. It is an ever fascinating time to be alive and an extremely significant time to take what we have been given and truly shape ourselves and the world around us into the most caring, collaborative, humble place we can create.

Random Thought!!!!
I was thinking that what we truly believe is the world that is shaped in reality. It has been said by Darwin that the survival of the fittest is the reality of nature and is inherent in all aspects of life. This universally shared notion of reality maintains us being pegged against one another, lacking a sense of cooperative sharing on a universal scale. Humanity is constantly plagued by unending self interest, by a burning desire to benefit oneself over the needs of all those around us. Is this inherent, or has this become reality because of a universally share notion that we have all come to accept? What would the world be like if we all stepped back and gave collaboration, cooperation and sharing a chance. A place where we consistently step outside ourselves and into the lives and needs of others. People may say, "then my own needs wont be met". But if we were all reaching out to one another, other peoples kind efforts would be meeting our relative needs. It is also important for us to define need in this case. Do we really need all the false illusions that championed marketing campaigns tell us we need to live life? How often do you see people slaving away to make a top notch income, so that they can go buy things that they don't need in the first place. Does it bring happiness, fulfilment, a greater sense of meaning? We are all part of this vicious cycle, and it is deeply engrained in our minds. No doubt the world would become a brighter place if we rebuilt communities in our midst, placed focus on sharing with one another rather then the fear that has been fabricated to separate us apart. People may say this is extreme idealism, but what is a future without having a positive vision of what we want to become as citizens of this Earth.

May we all begin to wake up,
May we all begin to cooperate,
May we all see the shared benefit of one another,
May we all see that this planet is for ALL, not a select few,
May we all just be…

Tyler

Thoughts on Leadership - Round 1

Many of you will have heard this story in one form or another. It is one of my favorite passages and I felt it would be the perfect first addition to the Thoughts on Leadership. Without further ado...

The Young Man and the Starfish
A story inspired by Loren Eiseley

A wise man was taking a sunrise walk along the beach. In the distance he caught sight of a young man who seemed to be dancing along the waves. As he got closer he saw the young man was picking up starfish from the sand and tossing them gently back into the ocean. "What are you doing?" the wise man asked. "The sun is coming up and the tide is going out; if I don't throw them in they'll die." "But young man, there are miles and miles of beach with starfish all along it, you can't possibly make a difference." The young man bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it lovingly back into the ocean, past the breaking waves. "It made a difference for that one," he replied.

This story illustrates an important point for all of us. Every little bit, every small action, makes a difference. It sends repercussions and reverberations around the world. If we each do a part, small or large, we make a difference. If we choose only to focus on the large picture and how many 'starfish' or people in the world need our help, and how can we possibly help them all, then the task becomes daunting. If we focus instead on making a difference for just one person or 'starfish' then the task becomes far more manageable. Each of us are blessed with the gift and ability to make a difference. It is upon each one of us to recognize and exercise this ability.

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world." - Joel Arthur Barker

New Blog Features

I have decided to add a couple of new features to the blog, one you may have already seen, and the other I will start today. You may have seen my "Thought of the Day" feature in the right sidebar. If you use Twitter you can follow my feed by adding CoreyNorman, or you can just add my blog feed and check it out that way. The "Thought of the Day" will be a quote, followed by a simple question. If you have a particular quote you would like to see me add, then by all mean send me an email or leave a comment on one of my posts and I will see that it is added.

Starting today, I will also be adding a new feature on Fridays called "Thoughts on Leadership". This feature will include famous peoples thoughts on leadership, quotes by famous leaders, activities you can do to help you discover your own thoughts on leadership, book revues, as well as my own ideas on leadership. I think it is an important area of personal growth to continually challenge our thoughts and actions as it pertains to leadership. I also think that for people to change the world they must be strong leaders, and since many of you may be reading my blog for insight in this area, I felt it would be a good thing to open up for discussion. If you have anything you would like to add to this feature, again, please contact me or leave a comment.

With that said, here is the first ever Thoughts on Leadership...

Update On My Dietary Changes

So it has now been a few months since I changed my diet with the help of a Naturopath. As I said before I ran into some health problems and instead of going on any medications I thought it would be good to first try changing my diet. I had also gained an undisclosed amount of weight over the past year that I want to lose so I figured this would also be the time for that. So the first step with the Naturopath was to fill out a questionnaire detailing all the changes in my life, dreams (which I thought was odd), what you eat, what you like/dislike eating, and really everything else under the moon. The first appointment took close to 2 hours in total!

I was then told I couldn't eat wheat, dairy, red meat or pork, mushrooms, and vinegar. So essentially everything! It was really hard the first few weeks because I really had to pay attention to everything I was putting into my system. Grocery shopping took me hours because I had to read every label and check it against my list of don'ts. But I figured out what worked for me and found some meals that I liked and could make quite easily. I got in a groove. It is really surprising how many chemicals and preservatives and overall junk I was putting in my system. You just don't realize it until you are forced to take notice!

I also started a regimen of vitamins, minerals, and supplements to help me get to a level where my energy was normalized and I could start to see some of the changes both physically and mentally that my new program was supposed to show. Over the last few months, prior to the changes, I had noticed a sharp drop in my energy and the overall felling of malaise. Without telling you exactly what I am on, I will say I have 3 extra large pill containers to hold them all!

I am pleased to say that after 2 and a half months I have lost 22 pounds and seen many other benefits of the diet. I have made it my goal to lose 9 more in the month of August and 29 more before the end of the year. It is a lofty goal that would see me far below my regular weight (or at least since I hit puberty!). I think I can do it and do it without being unhealthy, but it will take some effort.

If you have any questions about going to a Naturopath please let me know. I am a firm believer in healing the body naturally without the intervention of medication. There are some things and times that medication is necessary, but if you feel comfortable with giving your body the changes it needs without drugs then it is worth the effort.

The Point

I came across this interesting website because someone had shamelessly used Bono's name to garner publicity. The ruse is completely unrelated to the website, but it has brought The Point.com some nice attention. I will profile the website in a second but first I would like to address this person's efforts on making the world a better place and how it in fact just added to what is already wrong in the world.

The so called 'campaign' was started to raise money to get Bono to stop doing his philanthropic activities with the funds raised going to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The argument the person (and you can see his/her name if you log onto the website)is that the RED campaign that Bono created has spent more on advertising and marketing than it has donated to the Global Fund.

The ignorance is deplorable. If, and I hope you choose to do better things with your time, you decide to put something or someone else down for their efforts to make the world a better place, then please make sure you understand what you are saying negative things about. The fact that this person could not understand the business model that RED supports just makes him look bad but also brings unnecessary negative publicity and criticism from others who also know no better and do not take the time to find out the truth. The world needs more positive actions, not negative.

On that note, I just finished reading The Audacity of Hope by Barak Obama and near the end of the book one passage stuck out to me;

I wonder if Sasha will remember that moment when she is grown. Probably not; it seems as if I can retrieve only the barest fragments of memory from when I was five. But I suspect that the happiness she felt on that parachute registers permanently in her; that such moments accumulate and embed themselves in a child's character, becoming a part of their soul.

I think that this passage and the 'campaign' have something in common that we should all take heed of. Our lives are an accumulation of thoughts, feelings, and events. The more we can add positives to the equation the more that the answer will also be positive. The world is filled with negatives, every where we turn, so start outputting some positives and watch the world change for the better.

As promised I wanted to talk briefly about the website The Point. Here is what The Point has to say about its purpose:

What is The Point? The Point is a website where anyone can start a campaign to organize group action or raise money. We help people congregate around the issues they care about and combine forces to make things happen. Here’s The Point’s big idea: campaign members only act when the conditions exist for them to have the greatest possible impact. For example, donating one dollar toward a one-thousand dollar goal is a waste of a dollar if you’re the only one. But if 999 others are willing, then the goal is reached and that dollar makes sense. The Point allows communities to use the Web to do more than talk it helps them coordinate each person’s small contribution to make big things happen. It’s an entirely new approach to collective action.

How does it work? You can start a campaign on The Point to do anything a group of people might do: gather enough people for a softball game; raise money for a charity; or boycott a company to force change, to name a few. All you need to know is your goal, and what you want people to do to reach it.

Another great spot to explore and share your social conscious. There are lots of great campaigns currently going on (one's with a positive purpose) that you can check out and join. You can even start your own if you feel so inclined.

Remember, do what you do for the better and worry about yourself and how you can contribute to a better world. Focus your energy on the positives that you can share and let the rest take care of itself. There is a time and a place to speak out against the things that make the world worse off, but make a greater effort to understand the subject of your efforts or else risk doing the opposite of what you hope to achieve.

Social Vibe

I just signed up for an interesting new social network called Social Vibe. If you scroll down a bit you will see a badge with Apples logo as well as who it benefits, Invisible Children. It works where sponsors, like Apple, pay a fee to have there logo put on your blog or social network and the money goes to the charity or cause that you choose (there is a whole list of them). So by signing up and putting the badge on one or all of your social media hangouts you earn points that support your cause. Periodically whatever money has been made is split according to how many points each cause has earned. It is an interesting new service and I thought it was worth a try. If Invisible Children earns a few extra dollars because of a badge I put on my blog, then why not? If you are interested in checking it out further I encourage you to do so.