Tag: effort

What It Really Means to Be a True Friend

“Having a true friend is hard to come by and it’s important to get better at distinguish who is a ‘true’ or ‘real’ friend and who should deserve that kind of title in your mind.”

People tend to throw the word ‘friend’ around a lot especially when you may be desperate or wanting to have a new ‘friend’ come into your life. It is natural to want to build rapport with someone and to do so quickly. It is good to have someone want to spend time with you and get to know you are. When you are short on friends or when friends you know have moved on to a different town, city, or country, you want to work on replacing those lost or far away friendships that you used to have.

Especially as you get older, friends move away, get married, have children, and it can be hard to keep those friendships the same or keep them alive in a meaningful away. Having a true friend is hard to come by and it’s important to get better at distinguish who is a ‘true’ or ‘real’ friend and who should deserve that kind of title in your mind.

Unless the bonds you have are broken or ruptured due to any kind of factor, which does happen in life, you will still have your friends to pick up the connection again despite factor of distance or life circumstances. A friendship that has been established for years or decades doesn’t ever fully go away but you both must work to keep in touch to keep the flame alive into the future. Friendships do fade away, and you or the other person may not be getting what you need to keep it going. It can be sad to let go of a friendship especially when you invest the time, the emotions, and the money spent to keep it alive, but that is just part of life.

We have a tendency in American culture to form friendships at a dizzying pace or want to have someone as a friend quickly to ensure our own need for popularity or for social status. Other cultures tend to be slower in establishing those tight social connections or friendships, but once you do, you have a friend for life, or you have a true friend under a separate kind of category that should be reserved for a few friends and not for many connections or acquaintances.

Yes, we do throw around the word ‘friend’ a lot and too quickly. However, you should be wary of entrusting people who you consider ‘friends’ without feeling out how much that friendship entails. When I think of the meaning of a ‘true friend’, it is deeper than getting drinks every now and then or meeting up to play a sport or do an activity, it is someone who you can share both the good and the bad in your life and they can do the same with you. You don’t have to reveal your whole life story or be exhaustive about it, but a true friend is someone for whom you can be vulnerable with. A true friend won’t judge you for looking for their help, advice, or let you vent to them every now and then.

There are also several kind and thoughtful gestures a friend would do for you whereas an acquaintance or social connection would not. When you need to move and you’re free to lend a helping hand with the furniture, that is a true friend in action. If you need a ride to and from the airport and they don’t mind it even when it’s a little out of the way, that is a true friend. If you need a place to sleep or ‘crash’, and you would rather not splurge for a hotel room, a true friend will offer you their coach or a spare bedroom.

Now, there are two sides to any friendship so keep in mind that if they are willing to do that for you, you should try to do the same for them if the need arises. It is not being transactional but it’s remembering that any true friendship needs effort from both people, and it is good to look out for another especially in an increasingly isolated and technologically driven world. Our phone or our computer or our AI chat tool will never be a replacement for a true friend who is a real person, one whom you can share stories with, help each other with advice, and lend a hand to you when you are in need. Now, you can still drink, eat, play sports, or hang out with a ‘friend’, but if that friend isn’t someone who you can confide in, discuss life and its happenings, or be there for each other, it’s not a deep friendship or can be a bit shallow.

True friendships in my view take years or even decades to foster so while it’s good to try to make new friends, don’t neglect the older friendships you have that can be revived or don’t be too quick to trust someone without giving the friendship time to bloom and see if you both are compatible in the long-run. I would rather have five ‘true friends’ than a hundred or more ‘friends’ who don’t really know me, care about me, or for whom we are close enough to help each other out or just look out for each other.

Friendships are like relationships, though platonic in nature, they are just as important to foster in a healthy manner and that both people are contributing to it. You can start off just as acquaintances but if you’re putting in the time, trying on each side, and growing deeper as friends over the months and years, instead of staying in the shallow subjects, you really are building the ‘true friendships’ that survive time, distance, and other challenges.

Even if you’re married, or have children, or are busy at work, you also need friends and healthy friendships so keep trying to create them, build them, and be a good friend to others in your life. Remember to have quality friendships over the quantity of them as having a few friends for life is much better than have 100 friends who will drop you in a few months because you couldn’t keep up with their lifestyle or their demands or their ‘image.’ True friendship is missing someone when they’re gone and looking forward to the day when you can rekindle the friendship anew.

Be Bold and Take Chances in Life

“Nothing will ever be given to you on a plate whether that’s a new job, a pay raise, acceptance to your preferred college, or achieving a new professional certificate. You have more say over your life than you think with the effort you put into it.”

I want everyone reading this article to succeed in life. I want you to make good choices and not be to rash in your decision making as well. However, to foster new opportunities, you have to take the initiative, be bold, and take chances to really get ahead in this world. Nothing will ever be given to you on a plate whether that’s a new job, a pay raise, acceptance to your preferred college, or achieving a new professional certificate. You have more say over your life than you think with the effort you put into it.

Nowadays, you can’t be too complacent especially with the pace at which we are going through life. Time speeds up the older you get, and you have to make the most with the time given to you. You must be bold, take some chances, and see if it pays off. You don’t want to go all-in per say and take too much risk on to achieve a goal, but you also don’t want to never try at all so be sure to balance your desire to take chances with your need to preserve your livelihood. Going all-in without doing your research, not knowing your limits, or being unprepared is a recipe for disaster and that is the opposite of being bold, it is being foolhardy instead.

Calculated risk-taking is what you should be striving for in your life and to prepare yourself to succeed in whatever you choose to pursue to give yourself the best shot at success. Being bold is not about going all-in with no resources or preparation but it’s rather about taking a shot where you feel as if you have a realistic chance of succeeding. You should always think about what I am getting out of this pursuit, is it worth the risk, and what happens if I succeed or fail? You want to make sure that you can bounce back if it doesn’t turn out well and you still have the means to try again.

To cite a personal example from my own life, I prepared myself for the project management professional (PMP) certification for months, took multiple preparatory exams, enrolled in an intensive course, and took evenings and weekends to study the exam material. It was a good strategy because I didn’t go all-in without preparing myself first and reminding myself that if I fail, it’s not the end of the world and I can try again.

I also thought if it was worth the investment and if passing the exam and getting certified would benefit me in my own professional pursuits. I did the analysis before spending the money and the time to get ready for the certification exam and to go through the steps also to qualify to sit for the exam. Was it easy? No, not at all, but I’m glad I took the time to take and pass the exam because I knew that this kind of chance was worth it and would benefit me in the long run.

You will find that to be bold in life, you may have to suffer to achieve or do something truly great. Whether that is starting your first business, applying for that dream job, moving to a new city, or just asking that girl or guy out who you’ve been meaning to talk to but haven’t yet. Doing anything worthwhile in life is far from easy and often will be painful and difficult. However, the alternative of doing nothing, never trying at anything you want to do, and going through your life thinking of ‘what if?’ is no way to live your life.

I am so adamant about this topic because I’ve been through a lot of these situations I’m describing, and it required a lot of boldness to do it. You have to be bold often to get what you want out of life, especially since nothing is going to be handed to you. Make sure you take measured risks and think before you take upon a challenge as well. Boldness isn’t thoughtlessness or recklessness. Rather, it’s about thinking about what challenges you wish to take on, being realistic about your success chances, and coming up with a plan to give yourself the best shot at being successful.

Whatever dreams, goals, or ambitions you currently have, think about what it would take to make them a reality. Come up with a few steps on how to achieve your goal(s), eventually formulate a plan with further details, and then execute to the best of your ability. Sometimes, your bold decisions will be more instantaneous such as networking on the fly, asking someone out by introducing yourself and being vulnerable, or pitching your supervisor at your job about why you deserve that promotion in a one-on-one conversation.

It’s better to look back on your life and think of ‘how it happened’ rather than ‘why didn’t it happen?’ You want to live life with fewer regrets as you get older and avoid ‘what if?’ in your thoughts as much as possible. That is why I stress to you about the importance of being bold, taking an action, and working hard on what you really want out of life. If you fail, at least you gave it the best effort that you could, and the next time you try, it will be less painful, you’ll have more confidence and you’ll likely have a better chance of success the more times you take the initiative. Good luck and remember to be bold!

Avoiding Analysis Paralysis

“We also often must think if the choice or decision we make is ‘perfect’ but to put it bluntly, no choice or decision is ever perfect.”

With the rapid pace of change and constant streams of information coming at us each day, it leads a lot of us to overthink decisions and choices to the point of inaction. There are too many choices we have to make, sometimes big and sometimes small, but we can easily get overwhelmed by the fear of making the wrong decision or if it’s better to avoid deciding altogether. We also often must think if the choice or decision we make is ‘perfect’ but to put it bluntly, no choice or decision is ever perfect.

Everyday, we are faced with hundreds or even thousands of choices such as choosing what to eat, what to wear, to what to do with your life, career, or school choices. Major life decisions should always take precedence in terms of your focus and your analysis, but you have to make the decision at some point regarding career, school, investments, and relationships. You must be able to prioritize effectively the decisions you have to make in the order of what’s more urgent and what’s most important. Smaller choices should deserve some time, but they should take away from the big choices we have to make day in and day out. Prioritization, knowing when to limit the time spent on a choice, and embracing choices or decisions that are ‘good enough’ over ‘perfect’ will help prevent you from falling into an ‘analysis paralysis.’

I believe that ‘analysis paralysis’ is more common than ever due to several factors. We have too much information and it’s overloading our thought process because it’s seemingly endless with regards to the Internet and it’s harder than ever to filter out good information from bad. The fear of missing out (FOMO) has us thinking that we have endless choices in life rather than a few immediate choices we should focus on that affect our lives.

Social media makes it seem like we have endless time or endless options to consider but we must reframe it as these are the choices I can make that are within my control and for which directly impact me. Society tends to reward those people who seem to have made the best decisions even when we know we don’t know the full story behind the choice because social media and the Internet don’t give us everything regarding how a person decided or made a choice to begin with.

Too many choices each day of life, which society can thrust upon us all at once, is a modern problem especially regarding how many streaming services, career paths, educational options, and other non-essential choices that flood our attention spans. While it’s important to make choices, you should not waste more time than you need analyzing every option out there because it would be a waste of your time.

As I mentioned earlier, to avoid analysis paralysis, you have to choose only on what you can control or have an impact on your life to decide upon immediately. You got to set time limits on these decisions you can make and are relevant to your life at the time. There is also no such thing as a ‘perfect’ choice or decision and every decision we make has positives and negatives to it as well as unknown factors that we cannot foresee upon making the choice.

You should be identifying the key factors of the choice and what impacts it’ll have from making one choice or the other, but for which truly matters rather than analyzing what could be or should be without knowing what those unknowns may lead to. Identifying what truly matters and really impacts you day to day should be priority in your decision making and should be based on relevant information that is creditable and trustworthy too.

Taking small choices or decisions can make it easier as well to handle bigger decisions but both need to be happening in your life. You can’t ignore the big choices or the small choices and often they will need to be made at the same time or same day. Breaking down your decisions and the steps that lead to them will reduce the chances of you being overwhelmed by making them. Take the decision-making process one step at a time, especially for the big decisions, will make it less daunting and give you more confidence in how you analyze the choices you have.

Limit the amount of information you expose yourself to and make sure the information you get is trustworthy before making your choice or decision. There is too much information out there for every choice we could make in this information age so make sure you trust your sources, limit them to a handful, and try to analyze both sides of the choice without delaying it too much.

By recognizing what ‘analysis paralysis’ is, how often it can affect us in our daily lives due to living through the ‘information age’ and taking steps to overcoming this paralysis one choice or decision at a time, you can improve the quality of your life immensely. Go easy on yourself and try to make the best decisions you can with the best information you can get. We all make mistakes in our choices and our decisions because we’re human but it’s important also to learn from past mistakes and do the best we can each day we make a choice or decision.

What Is Your Spice of Life?

“You may be able to find this in your studies, your daily vocation, or even your career, but for many of us, what you do to earn a living may not make up what you are excited most about in the act of living. We often must look elsewhere outside what we do day to day to find our ‘spice of life.’”

How do we explore the full richness of life? This is the kind of age-old question that philosophers and writers have asked for many centuries. What truly fulfills us and makes us enjoy what life has to offer? I would argue that it’s more important than ever to find the ‘spice’ in life that makes you excited, engaged, and fulfilled. You may be able to find this in your studies, your daily vocation, or even your career, but for many of us, what you do to earn a living may not make up what you are excited most about in the act of living. We often must look elsewhere outside what we do day to day to find our ‘spice of life.’

To get your ‘spice of life’ these days, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and try different things. What gets you excited, motivated, and fulfills you today may not be what motivates you years or decades down the line. You should remember that you won’t enjoy everything you do or try forever so it’s important to stay open minded about other possibilities and to not be tethered to one hobby or interest only. Some people have lifelong loves for different activities, hobbies, or sports, which is great, but you may not be able to do it for the rest of your life so keep it in mind that you don’t get attached to one single activity, hobby, or sport because you may not be able to commit to it forever or be as productive or successful at it in the long term.

I think it is wise to keep your identity pliable not just for one job or one academic calling but to be open to learning new things, to experimenting with new ideas, and to trying out different activities that you have some basic interest in. You won’t love everything you do, and you may only do it for a few months or a few years, but it is much better than the alternative of not having done anything at all. Our collective attention spans have become so short due to modern technology that we don’t even try new things or are patient with it because we are too distracted by the latest gadget or technological development.

True fulfillment and satisfaction can come from mastery of a subject or an activity for which you pored countless hours into and never gave up at it. You can also find the ‘spice of life’ from having fun with it and doing it just for enjoyment alone and not to master it completely. Life has a lot to offer and it’s important to keep that in mind beyond our careers and our education. We may have limited time to do what we want to do but we must prioritize that time because without our own choice(s) in what we want to do, we will not find any fulfillment at all. We can find fulfillment both in our day-to-day pursuits but also in those pursuits we do each week or each month without a set schedule in mind.

To find consistent joy in life is not easy, but it can be done by not giving up, by trying out new things, and by doing those things consistently for a little while to see if it is giving you happiness or fulfillment. Being able to give an activity or a hobby at least a few weeks or a month to try it out is key. If you find you are getting bored with something and don’t enjoy it as much or as often, it is okay to put it on the back burner, but don’t be afraid to try something else. Our likes and dislikes change as we go through life, but it is important to keep finding that ‘spice’ in our lives that gets us excited, keeps us motivated, and brings us joy.

Remember to never completely giving up on finding your own passions and fulfillment in life. It is not easy and is something you must continually motivate yourself to do but it can help your life satisfaction out to have something that you enjoy outside of what you have to do each day. Having nothing to enjoy or have fun doing could remove all the ‘spice’ or ‘zest’ that makes life worth living and you want to avoid getting into that kind of scenario. Be ready to try new things, find activities to do by yourself or with others, and be open minded in what you think you would enjoy.

It helps to make a list of activities or things that you have done that you would like to do again as well as those activities or things you’ve never done before but would like to try. There are tons of activities, hobbies, sports, or things to do in this world and you just have to try a few at a time to retain the ‘spice of life.’ Make sure you live life to the fullest in this way and I promise that you will not be disappointed by making the conscious choice to try new things.

Get Used to Rejection

“Rather than hide from a rejection, be ready to embrace and learn from it. Rejections should serve to motivate you to be better, do better, and keep striving forwards to reaching your goals and not letting rejection stop you in your tracks. Get used to rejection because it’s a part of life, but it’s not our whole life.”

Rejection is never enjoyable nor is it pleasant. It is something you always want to forget immediately and to bury it in the recesses of your brain, never to be thought of or remembered again. However, like death and taxes, I truly believe rejection is an inevitable part of life and it happens to everyone. We can never go through life being accepted for everything or being accepted by everyone. Because rejection is so much a part of our life, it is better to face it head on rather than try to hide from it or ignore it completely.

We never really like to address rejection or talk about when they happen. We often feel that reflects who we are rather than what the other person or job or opportunity is looking for. Sure, there are times where maybe we didn’t put the best foot forward or ace the interview or be able to show the best of ourselves to the person(s) considering us, but often, the rejection itself may be a factor of other circumstances beyond what kind of effort you put in or who you are as a person. Even if you get rejected, it’s not a wholesale rejection of who you are but rather there is incompatibility there to begin with or it just wasn’t going to work out in the long run.

It is very hard for us to predict what we will be accepted or rejected for. That fact makes it even more important for us to put ourselves out there even more because the more no’s you get, the likelier it is you’ll eventually get to the ‘yes.’ As the popular expression goes, “Practice makes perfect,” and I do believe it is necessary to face your rejections head on rather than to just get rejected once and then call it quits, never to go through it again. Giving up entirely should not be an option if you want it that badly and you should not be afraid to try again. Yes, rejection hurts and it stings for a while, but it is better for you to build your self-confidence up and shore up your self-esteem by trying than to go through life being afraid of it.

Getting used to rejection does not mean give up after getting the rejection. No, it means you must understand that rejections will happen but the more you try, the likelier it is you’ll find that job, that relationship, that big sale, etc. that you can be proud of after getting to that ‘yes.’ Being rejected is good for one’s ego in that it both keeps it in check and keeps you humble. Maybe you need to do things differently to get that acceptance or maybe work a bit harder or try something new after getting rejected.

You don’t give up, but you keep working at it, getting better, trying again, or even asking the person(s) who rejected you politely why the rejection happened. Asking about the rejection can be a bit sensitive but it doesn’t hurt to see why it wasn’t the right fit or place for you but if an answer isn’t forthcoming, you should just move on and try your efforts elsewhere.

I’m a New York Jets American football fan but I can’t help but think of the story about former New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, when it comes to a story about rejection. Multiple NFL teams chose other quarterbacks ahead of this Hall of Fame player and 198 players went ahead of him in the draft. They essentially rejected him as a quarterback and didn’t think he had it in him to lead their team to a Super Bowl. I’m sure this would have hurt Tom Brady quite a bit waiting for his name to be called. Expecting to be drafted and waiting through 198 players before you in a draft would have that effect on anyone. I’m sure Tom was discouraged but eventually, the New England Patriots took a chance on him and drafted him 199th in the sixth round.

This kind of rejection likely lit a fire under young Tom Brady especially when New England did not consider him at the time to be the kind of NFL quarterback and legend, he turned out to be. Tom did not let the rejection get to him from the other teams, but it motivated him even more to turn those rejections against those teams who did not think he was worth drafting. He worked harder than any other player on the roster, kept his body in better shape than any other quarterback, and put more time in the film room than many NFL veteran players.

The results speak for themselves today as Tom Brady is widely considered the greatest quarterback of all-time and won seven Super Bowl championships and multiple Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards during his 22-year career. Again, I wish the New York Jets had drafted him in the 1st round so we would be talking about how great of a Jets quarterback he was but rejection by my team led to the Patriots getting him later in the sixth round.

I hope that anecdote about Tom Brady, the Patriots former quarterback, will be a lesson for us all on how rejection, while painful and disappointing, can spur us to still be successful and achieve our goals elsewhere. We all are going to get rejected for something whether it’s a job opportunity, making a sale for our company, asking that cute girl or guy for a date with you, or even not being picked to go on a work trip or getting chosen last for the local kickball team. The key is to take it in stride, move on to another opportunity, continue to work hard, improve, and prove the doubters wrong, and to never, ever give up.

Rather than hide from a rejection, be ready to embrace and learn from it. As a child, we don’t know any better when it comes to rejection because it’s so new to us and it hurts the most, but when you’re an adult or even teenager, you should be used to it by now and it should be something that you’re able to handle in a mature manner. It’s never easy but living your life in a way where you avoid it at all costs is neither productive nor healthy. Next time you get rejected, take a deep breath, ask yourself if you put your best effort forward, see where you might have gone wrong or ask for an answer if feasible, and keep moving on and don’t look back. Rejections should serve to motivate you to be better, do better, and keep striving forwards to reaching your goals and not letting rejection stop you in your tracks. Get used to rejection because it’s a part of life, but it’s not our whole life.

Anatomy of a Scene – ‘The NZT-48 Pill’

How often have you thought about the possibility of taking one pill per each day that would maximize your brain’s full potential? With the movie ‘Limitless’ with Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, this film poses the answer in the form of ‘NZT-48’, which can allow you to access everything you’ve read, heard, and learned without any true effort. This kind of wonder drug is purely fictional but many people in real life seek this kind of legal short cut nowadays whether it’s to focus, to lose weight, to improve memory, or to retain more information. In the film’s early scenes such as the one that introduce this magic pill’s effects, we get to see what kind of effects NZT-48 has on Eddie Moura, the main character.

This limitless pill is introduced as one that can improve focus, memory, knowledge retention, tidiness, and even make your intelligence that much more advanced especially after repeated usage. The scene that I would highlight shows just how effective it can be in multiple areas and how well the director shows how its daily usage turns a struggling writer into a financial tycoon and published author in just a week’s time.

The scene starts out with Eddie Moura taking the NZT-48 pill for the first time even though he knows it comes with risks and side effects. He asks, “worth the risk?” by breaking the fourth wall with the audience, and says in the narration, “what would you do?” It’s a pertinent question because due to how many months, years, or decades it takes to be successful naturally without any enhancements, supplements, or advantages, how many of us watching the scene would want to take the easy way out in life even if there were risks involved? It’s part of the reason why this scene is so powerful because we know Eddie will face consequences for using this pill eventually but as we are told, the benefits of the pill may outweigh the consequences at first making it a tempting magic pill.

Eddie’s changes start out small as his pupils dilate and he starts seeing the world much more clearly than before. He’s clear-headed, not anxious socially, able to think and act clearly, and is aware of his own personality traits that need improvement. He gets a haircut, builds his wardrobe with a stylist leather jacket, cleans up his messy apartment, and starts to exercise more frequently and seriously.

From there, Eddie, a struggling writer, finds “a surge of motivation” from the pill to finish the novel he had been failing to finish for years and writes it all in just a few days’ time. Eddie doesn’t stop at that monumental achievement as a new novelist. He learns to play the piano in just three days, becomes a master poker player knowing how to play the odds in his favor and winning a lot of money against the house, and becomes fluent in most languages just by casually listening to them as he goes on a daily run with the headphones playing different vocabulary for him to instantly memorize.

Eddie uses his newfound social and language skills to seduce a beautiful woman and begin to network and build relationships to put his newfound wealth to good use in the stock market. He explains key economic concepts to those around him, can hedge bets on the pharmaceutical industry (partly responsible for his NZT-48 usage), and flies to a far-off beach to enjoy drinks and food at a private mansion with some of his new friends.

These may be selfish desires on Eddie’s part, but he’s able to diagnose exactly what the medical issue is with his aunt and how to fix the issue. “I suddenly knew everything about everything.” He is able to not only explain complicated medical diagnoses but is able to explain complicated concepts simply enough for everybody else to agree and understand. Eddie has access to everything and a 100% capacity to do what he wishes with his life. He has no fears, no anxieties from taking the magic pill and can hold a conversation with anybody about anything.

However, towards the end of the scene, we start to see the drawbacks of this magic pill in how Eddie must keep moving forward or it’ll feel like he’s dying or suffering. We see this briefly in how he drives a Maserati at maximum speed much to the delight of his companion, but for which he has no conception of how dangerously fast he’s going and what the drawbacks can be of his new heart-stopping lifestyle. “I felt like I was going to explode…”

“Anybody ever jump?” Eddie says to his newfound friends on a massive cliff overlooking the ocean. “Are you crazy?”, one woman asks of him given it’s a few hundred meters above sea level. Eddie’s heart is pulsating and while he’s lost his fear including of heights, he’s beginning to see that he can’t pull back on the adrenaline, the curiosity, and the sheer exhilaration the pill is giving him. The pill does have a side effect and it can be a deadly one of not being able to slow down and to live life normally. Eddie constantly must be upping himself and creating bigger and bigger goals for him to accomplish.

We see this play out in the rest of the film as Eddie seeks to become more wealthy, famous, and powerful with the help of his magic pill. As much as the audience sees how exciting and fulfilling Eddie’s life had become since using NZT-48, the film is a warning against how taking the short cut of a ‘magic pill’ or a quick and easy fix can come with devastating consequences. It is a warning on how taking the easy way out may feel good in the short run, it can have side effects that can bring us down as a result.

This scene is shot very well and is rememberable because it shows just how much potential we all have and it’s not from a pill like NZT-48 as it comes instead from within us. We may not be able to write a book in a few days or learn the piano or be a star poker player like Eddie, but we do have the discipline, abilities, and motivation within us to improve ourselves even if it takes longer in the form of months, years, or decades. We can all learn to exercise more consistently, learn a new language quicker with consistent practice, and be able to improve our style, our conversational skills, and build our finances and our talents over a period of time.

Eddie Moura may have needed NZT-48 to reach the heights of human achievement, but the film’s message, especially in this scene, is that while the ‘magic pill’ is fictional, we can strive to achieve more through our own discipline, consistency, and hard work. We may not be as good as Eddie at everything or be able to be as accomplished as quickly, but this scene does show how with consistent effort, hard work, and beliefs, we can reach our own pinnacle as Eddie did.

It’s a fictional scene and movie about one man’s insatiable desire to use this ‘magic pill’ repeatedly to be the man he always dreamed of being without any regard for what this addiction can cause harm to him and others in his life. It is a cautionary story for each of us that while he was able to achieve great things much more quickly, it did cost him a lot as a result. We ourselves can achieve almost as many great things through our own natural abilities and talents, without a ‘magic pill’ needed, and not have to deal with the consequences of using the shortcut taken by Eddie Moura because of that. To be as ‘Limitless’ as possible, you need to work as hard as you can as consistently as you can to do the best that you can.

Get A Little Better Each Day

“Progress takes time and effort, and you will not see results overnight without putting the work in.”

Progress takes time and effort, and you will not see results overnight without putting the work in. You can measure progress in whatever you do by seeing if you are starting to get a little better in whatever area you are applying yourself to. If you are taking practice tests and you notice your score keeps going up, if you can swim further and faster than before while being timed, and if you are able to save more money each month than you had the previous one.

Progress is not linear in terms of growth, and it will not happen all at once. The important thing to keep in mind is that you are having more good days than bad days. You need to see if you are progressing a little bit each day or if you are at least progressing most of the time when you measure yourself. There will be days or times when no progress is being made and that’s alright. However, how you react to that and how you work to exceed your expectations next time can make all the difference. Setbacks and lack of progress are going to happen when you are striving to be better or to do better. You must persevere and not let it get to you mentally.

What you want to avoid is to ‘throw in the towel’ and to give up without doing your absolute best and pushing yourself to the limit. If you work as hard as you can as often as you can, progress is more likely to be made on that day, that week, that month, or even that year. It’s not bad to take a day or so off to give yourself a break if needed but don’t let that break become permanent or don’t throw your hopes and dreams away because something is hard. When something is hard to do, that should push you even more because you are testing the limits of what you are capable of.

There is no greater thrill than being able to usurp everybody’s expectations that they set for you including your own. The thrill of achieving or accomplishing something that you thought was previously impossible and so did everyone else. It’s important to keep in mind that kind of achievement takes days, weeks, months, or even years to accomplish so you should be consistently measuring your progress and your setbacks. If you are consistently getting a bit better each day and doing so more often than being stagnant or getting worse, you are that much closer to achieving your goal(s). The key to achieving anything is both progress and consistency because they go hand in hand with each other.

For example, if you are running to train for a marathon, there will be days where you can run 10 miles and some days where you’ll run 5 or 15 miles. The key to keep in mind is that you are running most days or even every day to train on a consistent basis. You should be striving to go from 5 to 10 to 15 to eventually 26.2 miles in a full marathon pace to train at that level to be fully ready for the race. What you want to avoid in this scenario is running less miles as you get closer to race day or running less miles over time. You want to be building consistent habits and practices to be truly ready for this kind of accomplishment.

An impressive goal like running a marathon is an excellent way to show just how key consistency can lead to progress but it’s also about setting goals such as reaching a new number of miles each week for training purposes. If you go in a training like this case from 5 miles to 25 miles in a few months to train for the race six days a week, you’ll be much more likely to reach that goal of running a full marathon. You’ll ensure that you are as ready as can be when you step to the start line on that race day because you became a little better each day.  

The key is to go from 0 to 26.2 miles during that training and not 26.2 miles to 0 miles ran. There is a clear distinction there on how to get a little better each day and that involves both consistent progress each day and knowing how to measure yourself in terms of that progress with the amount of running you do to train. Getting better at anything in life is like running a marathon in that you won’t achieve it overnight, it takes consistency at a high level, and you have to set measurable goals to show that your progress is sustainable so that you are ready to claim that achievement.

Life is a marathon in itself so make sure you count the days you made progress in your goal(s), note how you can get better, be consistent about what you want to achieve, how you’re going to do it, why it’s important to you, and you’ll be well on your way to being successful. Getting a little better each day is what I hope for all of us in whatever we set our minds and our hearts to. Be sure to treat life as a marathon and not as a sprint, and you’ll be on the right track.

It Feels Good to Do Good

“The good work we do whether it’s volunteering, donating, or contributing to society in our job or a non-paid effort can not only improve the state of the world in a measurable way but also make us feel good in the process.”

It can be disconcerting to make sense of how little is within our control and how much we would like to have the world be different than it is. Whether its politics, culture, the environment, or society in general, our lack of control over these forces that have a massive impact on our lives can be difficult to make sense of. Even when we do our best to make positive change in the world, it may only cause what I have previously referred to as a ‘ripple effect.’ However, we don’t realize that not only does the good we do ripple out in the world in a small yet powerful way, but we become the better for it as a result.

The good work we do whether it’s volunteering, donating, or contributing to society in our job or a non-paid effort can not only improve the state of the world in a measurable way but also make us feel good in the process. Other people in our lives may or may not know about these contributions that we make whether it’s with our physical labor, our financial resources, or just a caring thought or gesture but if we are the ones making the effort, we should take the time to recognize its significance and the beauty of the act itself.

It does not hurt to pat yourself on the back metaphorically for showing up and doing your part. I don’t believe it is egotistical or detrimental to your self-esteem to recognize that you are taking time or money to do something good in the world. While you should not expect others to be so forthcoming in their adulation or praise of what your contribution means, you should feel good about helping others or helping nature or just being kind and caring towards your fellow man or woman.

If you feel like you’re in a rut, I truly believe volunteering some time out of your busy schedule and working towards a goal in that kind of volunteer work can really cheer you up and make you feel a bit better about the world. So much these days is out of our own control in an increasingly technologically driven, lightning-fast world where we do not have as much time to slow down and focus on what really matters, which is to leave the world better than you found it.

The work can be hard, disappointing, and even cause you to question whether it is worth your time or money but hold true to the reason why you got into doing work for the betterment of others in the first place. While it is considered a selfless act to volunteer or to donate or to work for others, do not let yourself forget that it feels good to do good and you’ll often be better off for having done that work even if it was difficult, thankless, or draining to you mentally or physically.

Having that sense of control, to work hard towards a specific goal, and to feel better for having stuck with your good work to its end are all ways that can make us feel good about doing good. People all need to feel that sense of self-worth and to have that self-esteem be boosted a bit and that can come with taking the time or money or both to contribute to the betterment of the world around you. While time and money are precious resources for which we tightly hold onto at times, perhaps too much so, it is without question a good use of time and/or money to help those people out who are less fortunate than you are.

Only you can decide how much of either precious resource, time or money, that you would like to contribute as a volunteer but I promise that whatever you decide to take upon you in terms of doing good, you can guarantee that whatever effort or work you put in will pay you back in the most beautiful way in that sense of satisfaction and contentedness you can get from healing the world or helping a person or contributing to a social cause you care about a lot.

The work involved will be difficult and you will need to put in hours, days, and sometimes months or years to see the fruit of your labor lead to the good you sought to come about as a result. The blood, sweat, and the tears you put in may not seem worth it but if you work in a group or a team with other committed people who care about the same good work that you do, not only will it be easier, but it will be done quicker.

During the good work you do, make sure to keep reminding yourself that results will take time, that you have your goals clearly in mind as to why you’re contributing to do good in the first place, and to remember that you may not get praise from others but that your own satisfaction and happiness from contributing will be most powerful as it comes from within you. We only have so much time to volunteer and to do some good on our own terms so make sure you think deeply about how you want to contribute and why you’re contributing to that cause.

Other people, even friends and family, may question why you are dedicating your time and/or your money to the good work you’re doing, but you do not need their approval to go forward with reaching your goals. You only need to deeply internalize that doing good will make not only you feel good about it but the people or environment or our world, which will be better off as a result. If you have to justify why you did the work you did, don’t look to other people to confirm your righteousness but rather look within yourself in your heart to see what you contributed was needed, that you had the skills or the knowledge to help out, and that the impact you made was measurable and that it could ‘ripple’ out through the society and the entire world.

Kindness Always Matters

“One of those things is the effort taken to be kind. It does not take much to do and while it can be difficult to be kind all the time, it doesn’t cost anything, and the effort is always worth it.”

There are a few things in life that are non-negotiable. One of those things is the effort taken to be kind. It does not take much to do and while it can be difficult to be kind all the time, it doesn’t cost anything, and the effort is always worth it. Some of the issues that we experience in our world is due to a lack of kindness in our daily interactions. If more people tried to be kind towards one another, I could guarantee that a lot of conflict, irritation, and resentment would go away.

Someone who is always kind to anyone regardless of who they are or what they can or cannot do for the person will stand out even more. The smallest gestures can make all the difference in another person’s day or week. As the popular saying goes, “It costs nothing to be kind.” I would add on to that saying but highlighting that, “It costs nothing to be kind, but it means everything to be kind.” When you do kind gestures and use kind words, not only will it reflect well on you, but it will also endear you to the people around you.

When we are living in a day and age of rapid technological, social, and political change, it is even more important to stay true to the morals and values that make people trust, believe, and have faith in one another. Showing kindness and being a kind person helps make the world a little bit better in a measurable way. I have written before about the ripple effect and how your kind gesture is likely to lead to another kind gesture from the person you impact. I’ll give an example to highlight just exactly what I mean.

We open and close doors multiple times a day and usually we are in a public place when we must do this. It takes approximately three to five seconds to hold the door open for the next person. You may not think it’s a kind gesture, but I would like you to imagine that the person behind you has a bag or two bags in their hand. Maybe, they also have their dog with them, or they are on a cell phone call. Thus, when you put it like that, the simple gesture of opening the door for them so they don’t have to use their arms if they’re full or if they’re busy with another urgent task can make all the difference.

You will have to exert a little bit of physical effort to hold that door open to a complete stranger but think about if they automatically would not hold the door open for you when you are in need. It would not feel that good to you if you were the person occupied with other items or tasks and the person before you did not hold the door open for you when you need that. When it comes to kindness, we do have to think about being in someone else’s shoes and how a lack of kindness can make our day worse and not better.

I do believe that when you do a kind gesture for someone, they will likely then reciprocate by following that learned behavior. It’s similar to what we do when we are children, and someone offers us a piece of gum, or a candy and we do that to someone else as we learn that “sharing is caring.” You can have that kind of impact each day by holding the door open for someone reminding them that they themselves can do that same small act of kindness for the next time when the opportunity presents itself.

In the Post-COVID era where we were instructed to stay away from each other to prevent the pandemic from spreading, I think it’s not even more important to get back to looking out for each other in the opposite way by looking out for one another even more after a hard period of isolation, distress, and uncertainty. The world remains in a tumultuous and difficult period still but now we have the chance to make life a little easier by being kind because it is the right thing to do as we are taught since we are children.

Whether it is holding that proverbial door open or asking how someone is really doing and hearing them out if they are not doing well, or remembering to check in with friends and family from time to time and asking if they need help with anything, especially if you have elder family members in need. We truly show our humanity when we look out for one another, and it is the singular characteristic for which we will be remembered for or not remembered for when we are gone from this Earth.

While we would like to think we were remembered for having a prestigious job or for all the things we did for our own personal gain or benefit, or for what kind of impact we had in the world, which are not bad things to be remembered for, I do think it is better to be remembered as a kind person firstly. I believe it is best for others who will remember you to focus most on if you were the kind of person who endeared himself or herself to others in a selfless manner without expectation of a return for having done so.

You can bet that if you are a kind person, people who will remember you when you’re gone will focus on that quality more than anything else. If you have ignored being kind to others or have not focused on it as a character trait, it is never too late to instill more kindness to people in your life. Every effort matters and kindness always matters. If you can change your ways to a better person, being a kind person is a trait that will always be remembered long after you’re gone. Remember that people are struggling out there and the simplest kind gesture of asking how a person is doing, opening the door for someone else, and checking in on people to help them if they are in need is the greatest gift to share in this world.

Why You Should Take The Initiative

“A lot of times in life, things won’t be handed to you, opportunities won’t just present themselves to you, and relationships or friendships don’t just form out of thin air.”

A lot of times in life, things won’t be handed to you, opportunities won’t just present themselves to you, and relationships or friendships don’t just form out of thin air. You must be making the effort more often than not to take the initiative to do all those things I just mentioned. It is not easy and can cause you rejection, stress, and even heartache, but if you just expect your life to just progress on its own without putting in the work, you will be sorely mistaken.

Making that initial effort will make the difference as you devote 80-90 or even 100% to get the return you were looking for. You may expect others at work, at school, or in your personal life to meet your half-way or 50/50 after a while but you may find that it’s a running theme in that instead of finding it as being equal or meeting them halfway, it’s likely to be more 60-40 or 70-30 in terms of your effort versus theirs. Now, that does not mean you should be taking the initiative all the time to ask for that promotion, or be open to developing a friendship, or seeking a new relationship but you’ll be better off from driving the effort rather than by taking a backseat.

Having more of the effort initially won’t just make an impression on the person but it will also develop your abilities, your relationships, and your professional / educational future more so than if you had made less of the effort. You should be conscious that the initiative you are taking is worth it and that the time you are putting in gets the result(s) that you are looking for. Your hard work, effort, and perseverance should lead to the other party putting in some conscious effort after a while. If it is just a one-way street in terms of that effort months or years later, I think that relationship, job, or friendship is likely to be doomed to fail.

It would not be fair or just for you to be constantly taking the initiative especially when that person isn’t reciprocal at all or even 30-40% of the way in a friendship or relationship. If you are giving all of the effort and feel like you’re not getting anything back from it, you may be dealing with an ‘emotional vampire’, who you may enjoy their company and like them but the fact that you are putting in all the work to keep things going and them not doing anything to reciprocate is not only a form of manipulation but it is also a sign of someone who only wants to take advantage of you.

They may lack certain qualities including introspection or self-awareness so they may not think they are at fault but if you believe that nothing is going to change, your time and efforts aren’t being valued adequately, and you are not getting as much in return from them, you may need to cut them off or just take a break from being with them or working for them. I encourage proactivity, being extroverted, sociable, and wanting to take on new goals, but if it is draining you and the results professionally or the relations personally you get as a result are not satisfying from that 60-40 or 70-30 set up, it may be best to move on to another person or opportunity.

To cite some examples, if you are good at reaching out to friends or acquaintances and just checking in to see how they are doing or even making the effort to see them and spend time together, that’s a positive initiative to take and shows you care about keeping that relationship going even if it had fizzled out a bit. However, if you feel like you are constantly the one making the calls, setting up the plans, or checking in on them, and they are not doing the same to you on that 30-70 or 40-60 balance that I mentioned, then it may be best to cut back on making the initiative there. If they truly cared about you, they would seek to make plans to see you by their own initiative or they would call to check in every now and then to see how you have been doing. Again, you should not be doing that all the time and if you find that it is becoming a pattern with that person, it may be best to stop seeing them so much since it looks like more of a one-sided friendship or relationship rather than a balanced one.

Another example professionally would be if you’re looking to boost your career and would like to learn new skills, then you should take that initiative with a training or a workshop or a conference that can make you more valuable to your employer. Similarly, if you take it upon yourself at work to learn a new skill by taking courses or attending seminars or providing trainings to others, it should be recognized not only to develop your career but to also further yourself in your role with better compensation or to be promoted to a new role because of the skills / abilities you acquired. If you take the time to volunteer, to be trained, to train, and to become a better worker, your employer or company should realize that it is also not a one-way street so there should be a proper recognition of your having taken the initiative to be more valuable to the firm in question.

However, if you find that after multiple trainings, skills developed, or competencies improved upon, that you are not getting the desired career promotion or compensatory boost, it may be that your initiative, while recognized, is not being formally appreciated. You made the most of the opportunities given but the other party involved doesn’t seem to recognize the new value or abilities you can provide. In this kind of situation, it may be best to start looking elsewhere professionally with those new proficiencies in your work to find a firm, company, or organization who will do their best to meet you halfway or maybe 40-60 so that you know that they care about you staying with them into the future and that your presence is both valued and appreciated, which is actually shown in different ways, a promotion, a raise, or otherwise.

Personally or professionally, you should consistently be looking to take action or initiative to improve your life in either way. However, it should not give the other party free reign to not give anything back in return or to provide their own initiatives or actions for you to take part in after they start it up. If you invite your friend to a barbecue, hopefully they’ll reciprocate in the future by having you over for a birthday party. If you do a skills workshop for a week to improve your competency at work, maybe your company or firm can reward you with a promotion to apply those new skills you picked up. It’s not always 50-50 in life and you may have to do most of the work, especially at the beginning of a new job or friendship. However, if it is you who is giving 100% and them putting in 0% in return on a consistent basis without the other party realizing it, it’s a toxic kind of relationship and you should be cutting ties with that person or entity as soon as possible.