Monthly Archives: July 2017

Baby Steps or Giant Leaps . .

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Commitment, goals, Life, Patience, Persistence, Positivity, Success

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Often times, the person we’re hardest on in this life is ourselves! We set high goals or we have lofty expectations, which can lead us to feel disappointed when we come in with lesser achievements and accomplishments. Perhaps we’re in the process of reaching for more, of going for grander distances, pursuits, and for more overall. We might have wanted to hit some higher mark or reach some bigger result, but we mustn’t forget what baby steps or giant leaps we did take in pursuit of those goals! 

Yesterday, I was wanting to swim a significant distance. I planned on doing a distance swim which would have kept me moving towards an end goal I have for this season’s accomplishments. Last Summer, I had worked up to slightly over two miles of non-stop lap swimming in my pool by the end of the swimming season. I was thrilled to have reached that significant measured distance without stopping! So, this Summer, when the swimming season began back in May, I set out to beat my distance of last year. As of July 4th, just a few days ago, I reached the two-mile mark for non-stop lap swimming in my backyard pool! Pleased as punch with hitting that measurement, I will now endeavor to exceed that goal in my swimming for the remainder of the Summer. In pursuit of that goal though, yesterday’s swim was not as rewarding! I had to stop at 60 lengths of non-stop swimming, as I just ran out of steam before even hitting half a mile! I surely hadn’t fueled my body with proper nutrition for a longer swim. 

With such a brief swim in comparison to my two-mile swim just days ago, I felt disappointed and discouraged afterward. How was it that I could only do so few lengths of the pool just two days later? Well, in hindsight, I realize I am being really hard on myself for disparaging the swim I did yesterday. After all, those lengths I did swim without stopping still are significant! Yes, I wanted to do more, but I just couldn’t. However, I did swim anyway, which was better than not swimming at all! And I pushed myself during those 60 lengths of the pool, so I did give myself a workout in the process, although an abbreviated one compared to the longer swim I had planned on doing! Each swim does contribute to my overall conditioning and my training goals, after all. I just need to accept each day’s efforts as being worthwhile! Going easier on myself is key.  

It’s so easy to be hard on ourselves for not doing more or for not reaching interim goals we’ve set for ourselves. We forget to look at those interim steps we’re taking as being meaningful to the overall end goal. Every single step, no matter the size, is still getting us closer to something bigger. Every single time we participate in our pursuits, we’re developing literal or figurative muscles, which do help us perform more the next time! In my example, I am developing those literal swimming muscles and building my endurance, even if the distances I want to do aren’t always exceeding the last swim I actually did. And, each swim I take keeps me fit and ready for more, as my muscles remember the efforts both greater and lesser. 

We must remember to look at all the steps we’re taking as being successful, in that we’re moving consistently towards a goal ahead, even if some steps are baby-size and others are giant leaps! Each is a contribution towards reaching a goal we deem important for our lives overall! Remember to assess your progress in a way which is more accepting of the baby steps as well as the giant leaps. In doing that, you will be better able to contain your disappointment, to manage your progress, and to preserve your sense of encouragement along the way! Goals are always something we’re working towards, and in my case, even though I hit the goal of swimming non-stop consistently for two miles, I will want to see how much further I can swim non-stop anyway! My goal is inevitably a sliding one, and so my progress should be measured in turn – via sliding steps and flexible efforts! As long as I don’t give up because I don’t always hit my mark, I’m still moving forward towards reaching some end! Baby steps or giant leaps, I’m still making progress!    

Advertisement

Hope Is the Beating Heart . .

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Choices, Contentment, Faith, God, Hope, Joy, Peace, Purpose

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Something sorely lacking from our society today is hope. Hope, the promise of something more than this life, something better tomorrow than today, is the fulfillment of God’s Word as truth. Hope is the beating heart which refuses to quit when every single impulse screams otherwise! Hope is looking through, beyond, and with your heart filled with promise because there is actually more than this, more than this one moment of pain, discomfort, failure, loss, and brokenness. Hope leads us each new day with faith into all the unknowns, beyond all our negativity, past our own emotions, and through all that seems to weaken our will. Hope. Hope in something more than this! Never cease in hoping, regardless those “realists” who insist that being hopeful is a weak man’s game played with no prize or victory in the end! There is always a reason to hope, and in spite of those intellectuals who insist otherwise, hope compels us to live with more joy, peace of mind, and contentment within. Hope is a reward in and of itself! A hopeful attitude keeps us afloat when others around us are drowning in uncertainty, despair, worry, or other temporary states of being! Hope within keeps us from letting our current emotions color our life for all time!

 

Sure, someone reading this may speak to the triteness of these expressions and adages regarding hope. They may have their own personal experiences to prove me wrong! They may have tried consistently to be hopeful, yet things never reversed or turned out otherwise! Perhaps they just let the world and their temporary circumstances define their lives in total. Letting others in this world, or even the present state of the world as you perceive it, dictate your emotions is like giving the keys to your home and car to another for safe keeping! Your emotions are in your control, they’re not contingent upon the actions, words, beliefs, or even emotions of others. Sure we may empathize or sympathize with others, we may share in many emotions such as joy. But we are the only ones who decide whether or not we are joyful, peaceful, content and hopeful about our lives now and in whatever time we face ahead! Hope is our choice to believe that this life is purposeful, meaningful, and even with momentary hardships, failures, or despair, that this life is worth living!  

A lot of what our lives become is in our will and hands to decide! Our emotions surely are, even if circumstances, events, and the state of the world overall are not. We could just go with the flow, allowing our lives to become purely reactionary in response, rather than purposefully choosing to be hopeful in spite of whatever happens to us or around us! Hope is God’s promises for our lives realized in our faithful perseverance through everything, knowing that we are ultimately here for His purposes! Things are not promised to us, our lives will not always be pain-free, happy-go-lucky, or even seen constantly through rose-colored lenses! Life happens, our duty is to learn, develop, change, grow, choose, and to move forward with hope. That is our chosen role. Hope for our own lives is not something we should leave to others who have their own lives to live. Hope is not a far-fetched concept only the lucky can master! Hope is merely a choice we make every single day to not just exist in our current state of being, but rather to look forward, through, beyond, and into the future with joyful expectancy as well as contented faith in God’s plans for us! Hope promises us that this is not all there is. Hope assures us that today’s events and our present emotions are not the sole markers of our lives overall. Hope affirms to us that life is uncertain, but the choice is always ours to be content, to stay peaceful, to stay joyful within, to feel what emotions we must for a time but then to heal and move forward. We owe it to ourselves to keep hope ever-present within, as it provides the comfort, compass, and blanket of rest over everything we experience and feel! 

The Benefits Far Outweigh Anything Negative!

03 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Beauty, Choices, Gardening, God, Lessons, Life, Nature, Outdoors, Peace, Positivity, Seasons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I’m enjoying all the nature sightings of recent weeks and months, the benefits of these creature sightings far outweigh anything negative! There is nothing like experiencing wild animals among us when we’re in our own yards or visiting other locations! And although I have had a few inopportune moments with critters and bugs recently too, I focus on the positive impact the sightings of less pesky creatures have upon my life rather than the imperfections we can often face when human beings meet the wild! Just last month, I had a scare when I found a live scorpion in the upstairs guest room in which I was staying at my sister’s house! It was not pleasant whacking it with a shoe and praying there were no others for the few days I was visiting! But, it was a one-time sighting in a slew of visits, so I let it go and enjoyed my visit. And on that particular visit, I went whale watching on a trip in which I experienced seeing humpback and minke whales, as well as seeing a super pod of common dolphins! That and several other nature-oriented experiences made the scorpion sighting less memorable for sure!

Just yesterday, I saw a family with sixteen baby quail in my front yard! It was delightful to watch the brood scurry and scamper beside their parents. Quail are common visitors to my yard, but their families are not often that numerous! They’re so tiny when newborn, yet so proficient in their quail duties! This sighting came just hours after I had to remove the rather stinky rotting carcass of some poor dead creature laying in the backyard. Perhaps it had fallen prey to some other animal’s attack. Again, the benefit of the large quail family sighting far outweighed the nastiness of removing the stinky corpse! I’ve also recently had numerous rabbit sightings, with plentiful baby bunnies being born in the last few months. The sightings of the tinier babies more than make up for the nibbling older rabbits which insist upon gnawing my plants to stubs or to dust! Babies in my yard are always welcome, even when I realize how voracious they’ll be as adults one day soon!  

With Summer in the desert, we get an influx of several types of bugs which aren’t prevalent the rest of the year. Those include pesky mosquitoes which seem to thrive in the heat, big 2 – 3″ paloverde beetles and cicadas which buzz incessantly from their perches in trees throughout the landscape. The presence of these bugs is a nuisance often, as they creep around in places which are unexpected and the mosquitoes bite all the uncovered flesh which is more prevalent with the heat of Summer! I’ve even been bitten by mosquitoes while swimming in the pool! Short of swimming underwater only, I’m not sure I know how to evade those pests entirely! And everywhere I look in the yard, ants are busy doing whatever it is ants do! They’re usually not an issue, until I stop in their pathway in my sandals, often getting bitten for my error in judgment.

 

It’s always the case in Summer that I wish for a bit of relief when it comes to nature’s more pesky creatures. Bugs and creepy crawlers, snakes and lizards are not my favorite things. But this morning I was overjoyed to return a tiny gecko to the outdoors after finding it indoors on the carpeting by my front door! Those little things are cute, but they’re not meant to live indoors! I’ve already seen enough cuteness watching the common species of birds, the lovebirds which have naturalized, the lizards, squirrels and the bunnies running around while I watered this morning! Anything which seems negative at first with the creatures around me is always balanced out by something wondrous and fascinating to observe! Nature is a diverse, fantastical showcase of God’s miraculous handiwork and design! It’s both uplifting and at times, overwhelming and/or scary! It is just a part of living in this magical world which God has created!