Happiness

A Conviction For Freedom

Garth Beyer

Forbidden love hovers over the City,
a pink cloud of cherry-kissed sunshine
warming faces who dare glance up
setting themselves free of doom, gloom
dictated lives
lived in dismal corners.

 The speaker of this poem clearly understands that dictated lives carried out in fear make people live in a very dark place, a place absent of happiness, love, sunshine and positivity.

I believe freedom is essential to our lives, it may even be the key to happiness, and is surely the shortcut to success for any individual willing to take the risk for freedom.  But what is freedom? Freedom is the ability to give your love to anything. The ability to see shapes in the clouds and notice the underside of leaves in the wind. The realization of your chance to not be anyone else but yourself. Freedom is the act of becoming more of your self. It is a flexible mind and a heart that never sleeps. Although, to our own demise, there are three things in life holding us back from entering a state of freedom: Traditions, fear, and love. All play large roles holding us back  in our individual paths to sovereignty.

Traditions: They dictate the majority of young people and encompass completely the lives of the elderly. Such as the live to work ethic, ones father worked to live, so he expects that to be passed down his generation. Families seem to force their children into taking their traditions and their lives instead of creating their own path. The other form of the live to work ethic is when ones parents force the life you should live based off the lessons they have learned. In reality, this action is only 5% beneficial because it is vital to take knowledge from those who have more experience but not when it revokes ones ability to choose. The third type of tradition that plays a harsh role in the containment of freedom is religious traditions. They create strict guidelines for the supposedly “proper way of living” which, ironically, are also passed down from parents. It seems that every form of so-called “togetherness” has been in place to force upon traditions that are destroying art, soul, peace and happiness.

Fear: We grow up fearing things, resenting them, avoiding opportunities, avoiding people, and social events. We lose sight of life and at times missing out on it completely. Although it is a long thought on subject, fear often shuts the brain down, turns your shoulder to the best in life and makes you forget why your heart is beating. Everything in life that you do, think, and say, can be narrowed down to either love or fear. Of course, you know which is more common – nearly everything you do is derived from fear. Think about it the next time you do anything in the middle of the day. Ask yourself why you are doing it and continue asking why until you either end up saying that you love it or that you fear something else. After doing this, you will then have a new goal and challenge in life – more love, less fear.

Love: There is a lack of love in everything we do and to who we hold dear. It’s clear by now that it is love that will give you freedom and with freedom, you will be brought happiness through every experience and interaction in life. However, it takes a special minded person to find love in their job and even a more special minded person to find a job they love. Unless you can overcome tradition and fear, you will never find your passion or your freedom. The other form of love that is lacking is the love we have for one another. For example, I was in Barnes & Noble one evening during the winter season. While searching for a book, I heard a mother tell a child to wear his jacket as they were about to leave. The young boy, probably the age of 5 or 6, said he did not want to wear it. “Put your jacket on!” the mother had screamed at him. After further yelling, she forced it on him. There are two options of love and care she could have taken rather than expressing all the negative emotion and resentment towards her son. First, she could have helped the kid into his jacket or could have told him to wear it just until they got to the car. She could have given him options to choose from and build his decision-making skills. The other option was to let a kid be a kid; young and free-spirited. If he doesn’t want to wear it then let him experience the cold. Once he is cold enough he will try to put it on and he will be successful. Of course, this way you will laugh at him because it is inside out and then help him. Isn’t that a greater experience then to just yell at him and chastise him for not doing it right? Pity. The world is deprived of unconditional love, in family, in work and in our selves.

Releasing oneself from tradition, letting go of fear, and creating a flow of unconditional love is the set course for true freedom, and takes us one step closer to world happiness.

 

Stay Positive & Ah Kuta Matata

Garth E. Beyer

To read the full poem of “Breaking Tradition”, click here

.

Reach For Your Goals

Garth Beyer

Ever realize that just by properly stretching, your able to reach further? But so few stretch.

So many people stop before they reach their goal. More often than not, one easy stretch before they achieve it.

How To Reach Further

There are two types of reachers in this world. Those who don’t reach and those who don’t reach far enough.

And there is a single method that can improve the reach, the possibilities and the rewards of both types of people.

The simple method: make huge ridiculously unreasonable goals.

People Who Don’t Reach

Whoever said to do the hardest thing on your to-do list first, was wrong. Every small goal you complete adds to the length of your reach. The next goal you can reach a bit further and get a bit bigger of an award. The trouble with non-stretchers is that they have the choice to either do small reaches (small goals) or not reach at all (no goals). As it was expressed, it’s in our nature to do the easy thing first. In this case, for a non-stretcher, that would be doing nothing. (Yes, from time to time we may read something and be inspired to tackle the biggest baddest item on the to-do list first, but tomorrow is a new day and a new list and a new BIG thing. Is it rewarding to do the BIG thing first, yes. Does it last, no.) Non-stretchers never try hard, they will reach, but only for the easy things. They do the minimum. As a result,  if you make a non-stretcher create enormous and outrageous goals, their options are to do the BIG goals, or the small goals. And folks, you have to agree with me, small goals are better than no goals.

When you get to that point, if you are not already there, you are considered a person who doesn’t reach far enough.

People Who Don’t Reach Far Enough

 People who don’t reach far enough are those that stop running at 5k when they know they can run another kilometer. They will complete their goals but not take it further. It’s like the story of training fleas. You can put a handful of fleas in a jar and close the lid. They will keep jumping and hitting the lid. Eventually you can remove the lid and they won’t jump out, they will keep stopping at the height that they hit their heads at. People who don’t reach far enough are those fleas.  They reach the goals they set, but stop themselves from jumping any higher.

Don’t get me wrong, people who don’t reach far enough do plenty of good in the world. They get a good education. They get a good job. They get a good home and car. They get a good family and personal relationship. Reasonably, they get a good future.

But “good” is not enough.

When have you ever heard a person getting hired as the new CEO for being good enough? When have you seen a President get chosen just for being good enough? When has the noble peace award been given to someone who was just “good”? What author has gone down into history for just being “good”?

Good, just isn’t enough. You have to do more, go the extra kilometer. The only way to do this is to create massive goals and when you have done all of those goals, make bigger ones. You know the saying there is always someone somewhere better than you or their soon will be? There is always a bigger goal that you can achieve and as you stretch further and further you will end up in a successful life, not one just good enough.

Reach and Take The Universe From My Hand, It Is Yours

Stay Positive & Stretch Every Day In Every Way

Garth E. Beyer

The Success Journey With Views That Never Cease

Garth Beyer

I constantly strive for success, whatever “success” may be. I typically leave it up to the reader to decide what “success” means since we all have a different personal definition for it. Although, I bet that we can all agree that success is a journey, it’s never a destination we will reach.

Unfortunately, just as you would burn out repeatedly going after the same thing in life, the “same thing” in this case is the success journey.

So why would you go after something so universal that can never be achieved and that clearly is not oblivious to frequent spasms of exhaustion?

Happiness.

Too often people ask what happiness is and think that as soon as one feels truly happy, that happiness disappears. Well, let me share with you a little secret, or rather a big secret… actually it’s the biggest secret about the success journey and happiness.

Happiness is the periodic result of your journey to success. The more you succeed in the journey of success, the longer the happiness lasts. That realization you have that you are happy and after, when you no longer are, that is the universe telling you to get going on your success journey again.

My Personal Story: I strive for success, constantly, and I go as hard as I can at it. I’m often criticized for it too because (and I agree with) the word success is too broad. It has no definition. What exactly do you want to succeed in? Regardless, I go at it, whatever “success” is to me. Well, after I go on my success journey for a long enough period, instead of continuing and burning out, I pull back and reap the reward for my work: happiness. And when my true happiness expires, the success journey begins again.

 

Stay Positive and Take The Long Road, You’ll Be More Happy You Did

Garth E. Beyer