Your power

 

In a time when everybody is competing with everyone else, sometimes we find people who seem to have everything we haven’t got, people who know everything we ignore, and people who can do everything we are unable to do.

There are times when we feel inferior, suddenly you find yourself in a group of people with higher experience, knowledge and strength, and it is then when you begin to underestimate yourself. Comparisons are never good, they are totally unnecessary.

Most times it is a good practice to take advantage of that situation and learn as much as you can from them. That is a great way to get experience and increase your knowledge.

In my case, it took me some time to learn and appreciate the opportunity to be in a team with the best of the best. Even when I was the youngest and most inexperienced person in that group, I never allowed myself to feel intimidated by the others, and in the end, I can say for sure that it has been one of the best lessons In my life.

I learned a very important lesson: “Being you, is your real power.”

You must

 

The other day I was commenting that knowledge is a precious gift.  Not everyone is entitled to receive the same knowledge that you now have.  And you know what? That is OK.

We all have different life experiences, different paths and we all receive different gifts when we are born and different gifts during our life time.

So, you can consider yourself very lucky, a chosen one. No one else possess your skills, feelings, thoughts and wisdom.

Have you ever tried to make a list of all the things you have learnt so far? No? you should, you would be surprised to see an extensive set of things you have been learning since your day one in this Earth.

Knowledge

 

I remember that day when a friend of mine was teaching me how to repair an oil filter in his car. I was about 10 years old, he was much older than me but he was very patient.

The hours passed unnoticed and I was dazzled with all the little bits and pieces inside an engine.

My friend was so surprised of my commitment to learn more about engines, that he invited me on a different occasion to ensemble a whole engine for a car he was reconstructing.

Go out and help

I had no idea how to repair a scratch on the paint of a metallic surface and I was going mad trying to find some video online that showed me how to do it.

I tried some suggestions but they were not what I needed. There are not many answers online for my particular problem.

So, I was about to quit and accept to live with that scratch when, while walking in a busy street, I saw an old man creating real masterpieces on metallic plates with his fingers and a few other handmade tools.

I stood there for a few minutes contemplating in awe the ability of that man and the wonderful paintings he was creating in a few minutes, right before an admired crowd.

After a while, he began to pick up his belongings and his unsold paintings, so I decided to approach him and ask for his advice on how to solve my problem.

Mirroring

Do you take yourself very seriously?

Don’t, actually, nobody else does.

We usually think other people “see us” as we see ourselves.

The truth is, every person who knows you has a different impression of you and their perspective could be totally opposite to yours, therefore, their “image” of you could be completely different to your own.

I believe we all know someone who seems to live in a very “isolated bubble”, especially, regarding to the energy they “send out” to the world.

I know a person who believes he is very handsome, humble, loved and liked by all his community.  If you ask him, everybody adore him, respect him and admire him.  According to him, everybody is his friend, especially famous and powerful people and he loves to brag about his photographs with them, with his family and friends.

Decide

I was listening to a friend who vehemently expressed his ideas on politics. A group of people around him listened to his view with interest, but some of them did not agree with his ideas and they began to refute his points.

The whole thing became a mess while I sat there watching the theory of chaos developing right in front of my eyes.

The group then got divided in two sections (maybe more), one defending my friend’s opinions and the other aggressively attacking them.

I decided to keep my opinions to myself and remained in silence watching the furious debate and enjoying a cup of tea.

The test

When you study a particular subject you are aware that after a certain period of time your teacher will try to evaluate your learning level by applying an exam.

Most educational systems have this habit of doing exams weekly, monthly some even more often and then at the end of the school period.

Nobody object this.  We all accept it, if not willingly at least we don´t make a big fuss about it.

Teach

Yes, I have talked about this before, but I have seen so many more examples of this lately that I felt compelled to talk about it once more.

Yesterday I went to the market to see if I could find some fruits of the season, but first of all, I realised I didn’t really know what were the fruits of this season but, then I was able to learn a lot about fruits and their care from a pro.

Concepts

It is amazing when you compare the differences between several concepts that I thought were a little more “standardise” like “success”, “beauty”, “good”, “evil” and so on.

For some strange reason I always thought we all shared the same concepts on many subjects, like the notion of “good” for instance. It was years later when having to interact with people from different countries as a visitor and observer, that I had my first “cultural shock”.

So maybe the ideas are not that different, but our interpretations are. What my community considers a crime, a different culture considers it as something normal, even logical.

Inner wisdom II

Inner wisdom comes not only in the form of theory or intellectual knowledge. It is a more profound concept.

We can say it is a part of our inner baggage, a set of tools that travel with us all our life and constantly updates with the help or our experiences and tests in life.

It means to be true to our inner being and apply those tools in our daily life.