As I Began to Love Myself by Charlie Chaplin

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is AUTHENTICITY.

As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody as I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it RESPECT.

As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it MATURITY.

As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment, so I could be calm. Today I call it SELF-CONFIDENCE.

As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it SIMPLICITY.

As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything the drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is LOVE OF ONESELF.

As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is MODESTY.

As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it FULFILLMENT.

As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection WISDOM OF THE HEART.

As the saying goes, ‘As we sow, so shall we reap’ … and this is the same truth of the thoughts we put in our minds. The mind doesn’t care what we put inside, it is our choices what we choose to put inside. But what we put into our mind, it must return back to us. If we constantly put negative thoughts into our mind, we will get negative results in our life and if we put positive thoughts into our mind, yes, we get positive results. And thus the ‘possibility’ when we look at a seed; some will see the becoming of a forest and some will just hold on to that one precious seed. In the end, the seed doesn’t even get a chance to be planted.

I hope this poem by Ralph Marston will inspire to see the possibility in life too.

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Possibility by Ralph Marston

No one might have known it better than Daniel Eugene “Rudy” Ruettiger about acting for oneself and facing the truth. Rudy harboured a dream to play for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, despite being merely 5’6″ and 165 pounds – an undersized player, and lacking the grades – because he was dyslexic – and also lacking the money necessary to attend Notre Dame. He prepared to settle down with a job at a local steel mill like his father, but when his best friend Pete was killed in an explosion at the mill, Rudy decided to follow his dream of attending Notre Dame and playing for the Fighting Irish.

He went on to fulfill his dream to attend Notre Dame and to play for the Fighting Irish at home as defensive end against Georgia Tech on November 8, 1975, in his final senior season; achieving all these despite being constantly mocked at, disbelief from even people who are closest to him – his family, and numerous rejection from Notre Dame. Not only had Rudy achieved his dreams, he had also gone on to achieve the dreams of his father and to inspire the people around him.

Haven’t we received countless advises from family and friends when we voiced out what we want to do? That we cannot do this or do that. No doubt they are concerned about our well-being and yet these well-meaning advises can kill our dreams even before we start. After all the wet blankets that were thrown to us, we were somehow convinced, “Yes, they are right, we could’t do it. It wouldn’t work.” As much as we must not become overly stubborn and persistent towards the pursue of our dreams, we must be prepared to stand up and believe in our dreams.

However, in the pursue of our dreams, we must be mentally prepared to go on the journey alone at times and it will be a bonus if we happen to have anyone walking with us. We must be determined to do the only thing we could do – determined to save the only life we could save.

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Journey by Mary Oliver

Indeed, ‘Why not?’ Two simple words with a question mark, open up a whole new world of possibilities – if we will only take a moment to look deeply within ourselves. The first and foremost reaction of most, including myself at times, is to shoot off a idea and to deem it not possible on the first time we hear it. Negativity kicks in for most people and the pessimist in us said, “It couldn’t be done.” Really? Or to be honest with ourselves, are we fearing the hidden growth or the butterflies in the stomach? The nervousness that speaks to us, “Hey, I haven’t done this before.” Tune in to the optimist inside us and let us ask ourselves, ‘Why not?’

Lessons come to us in the most unspeakable hours; they hit you when the time is right and it sure doesn’t matter whether we are expecting them. That, I called it ‘Moment of realisation’ – a moment of lesson learns in life. This particular lesson came to me when I was lying on my bed last night, fiddling my Xperia P, and checking on my page in Facebook when I read the poetry ‘It Couldn’t be Done’ by Edgar Albert Guest.

Whenever we have an idea and we are all excited to share it with the people around us, guess what? We are being shot off, fall flatly on our face, and the next moment the doubt will creep in to claim its land. We told ourselves, “Maybe it is not such a brilliant idea after all.” We trust the opinion of people around us instead of ourselves. They have successfully ‘killed’ our idea with one shot. Remember the ‘crab mentality?’

Love the doubt that creeps in. Yes, love it, as it may be true sometimes. However, we should be trusting our own intuition more. Ask ourselves this, “How many times we had great ideas, and we shared with people closest to us about these ideas and suddenly they made us feel like they are not such great ideas after all.” Then one day, we overheard that someone else had made great use of our idea! ‘If only,’ we told ourselves. Let us face this, a lot of time, the people who are closest to us, they are the greatest ideas ‘killers.’

However, we have to take full responsibility for that as we chose to ask them in the first place; we can’t expect people around us to know everything especially with things they have not done before. We chose to listen to their well-meaning opinions. Sometimes, we have to take the road less travelled or even to create new trails for others who follow after us.

The next time when someone told us, “It couldn’t be Done,” let us answer them with a smile, and say, “Why not?” We’ll do it anyway and let our action doing the talking for us.

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It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “Maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.