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Category: self help

When you wished your dog could talk…

Two days ago, we took our beloved girl, Dana, a golden retriever, to the vet for surgery. She had developed a tumor in her chest and we were told that it needed to be removed before it grew too much and went inside her body to attack other organs. My girl behaved heavenly all the time, as always, but I was disheartened when I saw her scar, it was huge, and could only tell how much pain she was on after the surgery. Besides, the anesthesia did a number on her, when we brought her home, more than 8 hours passed before she could actually sit down, but couldn´t walk yet. I was concerned that she couldn´t walk and wanted to pee but couldn´t. It was the first time where I felt impotent, and couldn´t avoid to look into her eyes and beg that I wish she could talk, so I knew exactly if she wanted to pee, if she was in too much pain, etc. Fortunately, she managed to get on her feet and pee. She was still walking dizzily.

I really hated myself for putting her through so much pain and promised her that I would never do that again. This is her second surgery, she had another tumor extracted before, but this time it was too hard on her. According to the vet it´s because of her age, she´s nine, but I feel these problems are just taking a huge take on her. Through her eyes, I felt as if she was trying to tell me: Why are you doing this to me again? And I really couldn´t help but to feel miserable.

People´s eyes are supposed to be their windows to their souls (I don´t remember who said this, sorry), but this also happens on animals, and so intensively on dogs. Her eyes were so full of feelings, pain, and still so much love, I wonder if humans are able to ever express those eyes. And when we exchange looks with my girl, I can´t help but to feel terrified of losing her…

This post may seem a little bit different from others, but I just felt I needed to write it.

And you, how do you feel regarding your beloved pets?

October 10, 2014
Feeling empowered…

I´ve never felt more empowered, let me tell you how this happened:

I was discussing with my family about the reasons of why I had desisted to go to an end-of-the-year trip to Istanbul and Dubai (personal reasons nothing to do with the beauty of these cities which I will visit but in another opportunity) and why I should consider other possible destinations instead. I came with the same strong opinions from my family: why do I waste money on trips instead of saving to buy a house, a car, or anything? And I my answer was more or less like this one:

“Because I don´t want to get a loan to buy something that is going to torment me for years until I pay my debt. I don´t want to live like that, I want to be able to enjoy life as if I was going to die tomorrow. I don´t have personal obligations yet, children or other dependents and I want to be able to take advantage of that while I can.”

It was more or less like that, and it is not the first time I use a similar answer to the members of my family but to friends as well. It seems that I´m surrounded by what I call: “negative traveling souls” and I really hate that!

Then we discussed with my family about my way of thinking, etc., etc. and I won´t tell you the details but let’s say that my way of thinking is miles different from them.

But I felt empowered, because I love the way I am, and I feel so proud that I´m able to think like I do, even if I mistaken, because it just feels right in my heart. And at the end, it is all about being content with your heart, right? Would I be happy being a slave of my work knowing that I have to work for years in order to pay a mortgage? No, definitely no.

I don’t want to think that much in any financial difficulties that could come when I´m old (as my mother points out), because maybe I won´t get that far!!! And I know many of you will say “how irresponsible way of thinking”. But I think that I´m actually very realistic, I know life is a gift meant to be lived as it were the last you were going to receive, and that people is realistic!

I don´t dream of living forever, I don´t dream of saving until one day I become wealthy and then can travel the world. Even if you become wealthy with your savings in years from now, who guarantees that you´re going to be physical able to travel?.

I feel more real than ever, doing what I like, living how I want. How many people can say that? I feel empowered by accepting and being who I am…. Damn I feel so good!

July 3, 2014
So what is it with young-adult fiction novels? I’m no teenager yet I can’t seem to drop Divergent from my hands….

Yes, when you hear about young-adult fiction novels, images of Twilight and other similar stories come to my mind. I know they are supposed to be directed to an audience of teenagers and young adults in general (say around 20 the most?), I don´t know.

However, I went eagerly to watch all the Twilight series and the same with the Hunger Games. I remembered going to the premier of one of the Twilight movies in my city (I think it was the last part) and being impressed by fifteen year old’s sighing when they either saw R. Pattinson or T. Lautner (well, let´s assume it, it was justified, but me in my early 30s was very far from being in their type of public, yet I was enjoying it very much).

But apart from the movies and all the fuzz that comes with the actors, etc. I really didn´t picture myself buying the books for these movies. I didn´t know very much about Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins, except that they were the authors responsible for these stories (Twilight and The Hunger Games respectively).

But the story with Veronica Roth (author of Divergent) was different. You see I was making a list of the books I may want to shop while I was in the UK for holidays. I knew I had to the take this opportunity to buy me some nice books written in English since they are very difficult to get them in my country. I don´t know how I came across with Divergent and the story of its author, I think she was only 22 or something like that when she first wrote Divergent. I read an interview about her online. It was supposed to be the next big thing, the next Hunger Games, but what came to my attention was that the author was so young to be so extremely accomplished. I decided to put the book in my list, just in case.

Image source: www.business2community.com

Well, due to my endless activities in my trip, I only got the chance to look for books while I was at London Gatwick airport. I didn´t have my list with me in that particular moment, but the moment I stepped in WHSmith, the best sellers and the most popular books came to my encounter, and guess what? the most visible one was Divergent. The edition I ended buying already had the cover with the Hollywood actors on it and already said “now a major motion picture”.

Since I had no idea when the movie was going to be released (I hadn´t been able to watch TV or any internet site while travelling), I thought I was going to have plenty of time to read it before the movie came out. But when I got home, the first thing I saw on TV was the trailer of its release in 5 days.

I read a lot, but I´m not that fast when it comes to finishing books. I usually take between 3 weeks or even a month to finish a book with an average of 500 pages. Of course, I only read one hour per day, approximately and even less, and not every day, usually I forget about the book I´m reading in the weekends.

Image source: en.wikipedia.org

Friends were already telling me about their plans to go to see the movie next week (that is tomorrow). I was thinking that I would have liked to have read it first before going to see the movie. I decided to give it a try and see how much I could move forward with the book before I went to the movies, guess what? I´m about to finish it, surely this night I will finish it. Just on time.

I can´t seem to drop the book, I have been reading past midnight and even more these days. I dream and wake up thinking about the characters and the story. It´s unbelievable. I have read plenty of page-turner books, but this one can´t take my mind of it. The narration in itself is simple, and the plot once you get to understand is very easy to follow, so what is it then? An author so young capable of doing this? It´s actually very motivating for any person who wants to be writer.

The truth is simple, she knows how NOT to get people bored and she knows how to engage people to keep reading. I couldn´t seem to find a part in the book where I could put a halt and say “well that´s it for tonight, let´s continue tomorrow”. You couldn´t, it was like a crime to close the book when it was getting more and more interesting. For such an age, extraordinary, my sincere reverences to her…

May 2, 2014
Time is so slow that is driving me crazy!!!

Seriously, how slow can days pass when you are so excited for a date to arrive? Well for those who have read previous posts, you may have known that I´ve been planning a trip for almost 6 months. There was also the time when I had to wait for the UK visa decision, which kept me biting my nails and having nightmares, but luckily it came with a very positive outcome.

When the good news from the visa came, I remember being very happy but at the same time wishing it was already time to travel. So now, it´s more or less six weeks to go before I can actually do this trip, a dreamed trip for a long time that is finally going to be accomplished. But these waiting days are driving me crazy, it seems that they pass too slowly, and whenever I start counting the days I feel quite desperate.

Image source: www.gizmodo.com.au

This situation made me think of people complaining about time passing too fast, but for me right now is quite the opposite… too slow!. Maybe it is because I´m afraid that bad things could come out from one moment to the other and ruin the traveling plans (very improbable but you never know) so I just want to reach the date and be 100% sure that the trip will be real.

So what happens when you suddenly feel that time is too slow? You realize that it´s actually always like that; it is just a matter of perspective. These weeks for example, since we got the visa decision, have been so slow that I´ve never noticed that by being so acutely aware of time I could actually fill it with lots of activities, and guess what? There is actually time for everything.

So maybe it´s good to have this perspective, of time going so slow, but in order to do that you have to be able to focus on goals and deadlines and get excited by them, like I think is what happened in my case, my trip being the goal and having a deadline for starting the trip. So I think I could take this as a lesson, maybe after the trip is gone, I may need to think of another very tangible goal and deadline and get excited about it, so I can start counting the days again and feeling that time passes slow and that many things can be fulfilled on the way. I hope I make good use of this new learning. And you what do you think of this new time perspective?

Image source: www.bubblews.com

February 21, 2014
What’s not to love in this year!

Third day of 2014 and I already love this year! At first I was thinking, maybe I was just lucky, but then when I look to the day before, I realize that today´s outcomes are only the result of yesterday´s effort.

You see, like almost all other past years I made a list of resolutions. Buy my resolutions were so empty hearted or so superficial, like losing weight, eating healthy which are good actually good resolutions in themselves, but were not really my main ambitions in my life. This year´s resolution list was a little bit different, and I got inspired by a friend in this subject. Instead of writing the resolutions in my notebook or in a piece of paper that I would put in a drawer of my night table or somewhere I would not remember later, I did it “big” this time.

Image source: www.health.com

You see, I was always a little bit embarrassed of having this piece of paper in sight for everybody, and most of this embarrassment was because the resolutions were not that awesome to be widely public. I didn´t want everybody to know that I just wanted to lose weight or go to the gym; it just felt so trivial and superficial in some ways. But 2013 taught me what I really wanted to do with my life.

When my friend told me that she just read the resolutions she made last year and she realized that she almost fulfilled most of them, she felt like 2013 had been a complete success. I immediately thought that my problem was not in assessing 2013, which had been a pretty good year, but it was in comparing my last year resolutions with my status today; merely because of a simple reason: I didn´t know where the piece of paper I wrote last year was anymore and even more lame, I didn´t know what was written there anymore… probably something about diet, gym… in few words BS…

Image source: www.industryleadersmagazine.com

So this year, I sat down the 31^st of December, I wouldn´t let the 1^st of January come without having this settled down. I clearly wrote down my goals, very specific ones for my dreams and the sort of life I want to have, on a piece of cardboard and glued it to the most visible place in my room. You see I would never do this in my room, you know I´m all about decoration and my room is proudly one of the most beautiful rooms that exist in the world, yes! I feel very proud about that… (I will post some pictures later… I promise). I also assigned every day of the week for a specific purpose, like today for example is “Friday Blog Day”.

I never started a year like this one before, I feel so determined, well driven, and I constantly smile whenever I remember that this is 2014, my year! This is the first year ever that I haven´t made a mistake when writing down my first year date; you know how you tend to make mistakes the first days of the year and you still write last year ‘year? Well not this time! because I´m completely conscious of this year.

On the third year, I´ve already got very good results for one of my goals for this year, So 2014 you are about to witness my success!!!

January 3, 2014
What you should know before 2013 ends…

So here I am, approaching 2014, and believe it or not, I´ve never been more excited to start a new year. Usually, I would feel a little bit sad for the year almost gone, and I would wonder why it has gone so fast and if I took good advantage of that year, but now I don´t care, I really want 2014 to start! And I still think this has been a good year, productive and full of good achievements. But I feel like the results of 2013 will still be shown in 2014, so that´s what I´m so excited about.

This has been one of weirdest years; I have lost touch with many people and for some reason my closest friends have become distant. But believe it or not, it has been good for me, because this sort of loneliness has made me realize lots of things, from the things I want to do with my life and what sort of person I want to be. Maybe the people who were surrounding me were pulling me back in some way. I now believe I have to find other people, with similar hopes, dreams and pursuits in life, so that they will drag me with them in their journey. I haven´t found anybody yet, so maybe that´s why I chose to start this happy loner blog, but I believe I will find them eventually. On the meantime, the social networks are a good place to find people who are on the same train as you.

Image source: www.pradasims.com

So what do I want to achieve in 2014? Happiness. As simple as that? Yes, and what is happiness then? Happiness is just living everyday with love, enthusiasm and hope. There is no recipe for this, nothing assures you that if you win 1 billion dollars, or if you marry, or if you have a kid, you will reach happiness. Happiness is just there, in the everyday living. I believe that all of us are here on this earth with a great purpose on our shoulders. I don´t believe in simple lives, we must make sure; we make ours as exciting and risk-taking as possible. Risks are really good and a bit of craziness as well. And when I mean craziness, I´m not talking about mental illnesses, I´m talking about those little moments in our daily routines, when we feel free, when we decide sing high aloud a song while driving, when we decide to dance in the shower, or just when we decide to take classes of Bulgarian, learn to play the trombone, or decide to travel to Indonesia. Happiness is just beside us, we just need to make it part of our lives! Happy holidays for everybody and the happiest 2014 ever!

December 18, 2013
THE TRUTH OF A LONER THAT WRITES BLOGS…

Image source: www.pernilleripp.com

I actually had more trouble this time to come up with a topic for a post this week. I’ve been kind of absorbed and focused with my “virtual store” entrepreneurship, for those who have read my previous blog where I commented a little bit of a personal business…

Anyway, I´ve been bombarded with emails and webinars on how to make profits from your blog and how to attract thousands of followers to it, by curiosity I read a couple of them and actually attended to one good webinar. It all seemed great, but today while I was trying to come up with an idea for a post for this week, I actually realized that, besides “how to make your blog profitable”, most of the people who write blogs, do it because “they love to write”; they love to tell their stories, they love to tell their experiences, their thoughts, their advices. The true bloggers actually feel like this and they seek to know other bloggers, read their blogs, share their thoughts, and comment on their posts, because at the end, we love the idea of sharing with others, advising others, feeling like we know those bloggers in some way, and feeling like maybe we have gained some friends out there.

Most of the blogs I follow, I do, because I love how they write, and I am very interested in what they have to say. I love to give advice when I can, and I feel excited when they take into account that advice.

So where is the money in it? I’m not saying that making money from blogs is wrong, but if there is no sentiment in your blog or in your blogging life style, then it’s just an empty URL full of ads and traps for getting money from people. There has to be something more than just profits… So for all these webinars and emails that I have received, you missed the “passion and sentiment of writing blogs” section, that first! and then you could think of income opportunities… but you can´t miss the first part!

Image source: nycprgirls.com

And for the loners out there like me, this is more important, do blogging because you like it and because you feel a connection with your followers. There is nothing more joyful than sharing ideas and thoughts with our “virtual friends”… It keeps us centered and energized to follow our goals, and in some way a sense of belongness (I made up that word 🙂 )

July 31, 2013
How brave are you?

This post is going to be a little bit different from others…

Some time ago there was an incident in a city near mine; some guy was killed on the streets through gunshot in the middle of the day in a not so dangerous neighborhood due to some “business settlement vendetta”. The incident was on all the local news and a security video from the street showed exactly what happened. The guy could have been saved, because you can see how the assailant starts shooting from the other side of the street first, the victim goes down to the floor without being hit first and then runs to the car of a woman and begs for her to let him in. The woman got scared and pressed on the accelerator of her car as fast as she could and disappeared. A couple of seconds later, the shooter arrived to where the guy was laying and shot him to death.

Would you have done the same thing as the woman? Would you have let the guy inside the car to save him? I’ve always said that I would have tried to help him, opened the door and then accelerated as fast as I could. Maybe I would have gotten myself into trouble. I imagine myself already in a persecution, with the guy in the car, and the bad guys’ cars trying to intercept me. Then, I hear some close friends saying that the woman did the best, and I can’t help but to imagine that If I were the woman I would feel so guilty that I could have saved one life, and that I was so “chicken” that I left the poor guy to die.

I don’t know, I would have had to be there, in the “moment”, in the “situation”, maybe given the time I would have reacted equally to the woman, maybe I would have paralyzed or maybe I would have gotten the “guts” to save him. I’ve always considered myself more courageous than the average, but I’ve never been in situations where I could actually prove myself how brave am I.

But apart from this type of “hero braveness”, how courageous or brave am I in my ordinary life? Because there is another type of “courageousness”, the one that make us go through our believes, no matter the difficulties we may found on the road, the one that makes us continue and gather our strengths to defeat our most simple fears.

Was I ever fearful of leaving my routine, leaving jobs, leaving cities, leaving countries, changing my paths, or changing everything around me? Luckily I can answer that with a No. And I know maybe I may not be the most courageous person in the world but I know that I’m brave enough to face my fears, risks, changes and the unknown…

And you, how brave are you? I think we must always make this analysis….

Until next post…

Image source: taraburner.com

July 14, 2013
HOW HARD IS IT TO BE PERSISTENT?
So, PERSISTENCE, what is the definition of PERSISTENCE?

The Oxford dictionary says

“the fact of continuing in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition”

Well, we can understand this meaning, it is simple, and everybody knows it, but can we understand it well enough to apply it in our lives?

Since I remember, I use to make plans for improving my life; I would make things like these ones:
1. Make a written, signed contract where I compromise myself with improving in all aspects: losing weight, going to the gym, learning mandarin or Italian (whatever was I felt I needed to learn at that time), read 3 books per month, learn this or that, etc.I would get to do this for a couple of days, maybe a week and then I would get weaker and I would just forget it.
2. I would also do more detailed plans, I would write my resolutions in a paper, make detailed plans to achieve them and even set daily goals. I would buy a diary or notebook, just specifically for this purpose. I would start with all my enthusiasm and then the same would happen, I would forget it or just get consumed with the daily routine.
So this is the summary of the dozens of times that I have tried different approaches. Some methods would work better than others, but always at the end I was swallowed with the everyday routine.

Image source: www.empowernetwork.com

At this very moment, I´m with one method, I have a little notebook at work where I write the hours of the day and try to assess every hour I let pass, so I just put a happy or sad face next to it when I feel an hour has been productive or not. Until now, it´s been lasting more than any method. But, I must admit it, there are hours, even days, where I forget about this thing and I find myself filling hours with sad faces trying to remember what I had done before. I hope this method lasts….

But, besides this, I have actually realized the following: I´ve been persisting in improving my life, trying different methods but with the same idea: improving. So I have accused myself many times of not being persistent enough and it´s is true, in some ways… after all, the most difficult thing to achieve in life for me has being persistence.

But the idea is to persist right? And I have persisted in figuring it out these methods, even when they didn´t work, I would look for another one… little step by little step, mistake by mistake, and at the end NEVER SURRENDER…

And more than anything never stop persisting in trying to achieve our dreams, no matter how our methods are, but never give up on our dreams, never forget them….

I would like to finish with this quote:

“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of Persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked seventy times and get up off the floor saying, Here comes Seventy One!”

DeVos, Richard

Image source: www.empowernetwork.com
July 8, 2013
FIND THE “RIGHT PEOPLE” TO BE WITH YOU

So this post may be a continuation or probably a contradiction of the one called “You are the result of the 5 people that hang out with you the most: WRONG”, but don’t be disappointed, this won’t be more ramblings about the same topic but rather a different and more interesting point of view.

So in that previous blog, in summary, we said:

– One has to fight to find their uniqueness and not engage in the same behaviour as the people surrounding them.

– One should define its own character so well, that we’re not influenced by those traits we don’t believe in, especially from our friends or family.

Don’t worry, I still agree with this and I’m not going to argue it, BUT – always the big BUT – there is some true in the fact that you must look forward to be surrounded by people like you; and I don’t mean people that think, act or behave exactly like you, but people that intrinsically have the same BELIEFS as you. Yep, that’s the word I was struggling to find when I was thinking, this afternoon, about writing this blog.

If you are a true believer that with perseverance you can make your dreams come true, no matter what dreams are; then it’s actually discouraging to be with people who think that you are such a dreamer, or don’t get your point in focusing in something that you probably won’t achieve according to them.

Well, I know sometimes our closer friends and relatives will be this crashing- dreamer types and that we won’t able to get far away from them. But we must look for and try to find those people (or at least internet contacts) that have our same BELIEFS, so that we feel energized, and motivated. Because sometimes it’s not enough to be our own drivers and motivators, sometimes we need a hand or a little push.

So if you just spotted somebody that is a BELIEVER like you, get the chance to know that person, you may find a good friend in him or her, and who knows, maybe the path to achieving everything you always wanted to will be easier with some support by your side.

You noticed that I mentioned “Internet contacts” before, well actually as a loner, I´m not the “expert” in giving advice of how to make friends, but I found that the least I could do was engage on online communities, or blogs with people that help me feel encouraged to follow my dreams (I may explore this topic deeper in a future post) but If I spot some positive thinker and believer like me in my neighborhood, I may introduce myself…

So what do you think? Do you think it is good to find BELIEVERS like you?

June 28, 2013