The Surfer

[Random thoughts & underlines from a book...]

I live my life moment to moment. I'm dedicated to living in a state of continuous grace. I try to stay completely present to everything that unfolds for me. The past is over - long gone. So my philosophy works like this: I never let my yesterdays take up much of my todays.

The future? The future isn't real, man. It's just an illusion as far as I'm concerned. The only thing that I really focus on is the enchantment of each minute. I live in the flow and take things as they come. I follow my heart. And I love it!

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow or stretch myself taut or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." - Mary Jean Iron

We all have a stained glass window we view the world through. My whole stained glass window is transforming, so to speak.

You're getting out of your head and moving into your heart, which is where all your answers live. Living in your head is playing it safe with your life. You try to figure things out. You plan and worry and fret about your past, your present, and your future. You spend so much time analyzing what could be and what would be that you miss out on living the life that you need to live. The ideal way to learn from life is to be present to every moment presented to you - and you can't do that if you're caught up in your thoughts.

"Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar" - Emerson

No matter how much we collect, nothing-nothing-can ever make up for any incompleteness we feel within ourselves. As human beings, we all have these holes within us that crave to be filled. Some of us have holes created by parents who didn't care for our emotional needs as children; others of us have holes created by uncaring schoolmates who couldn't see our true worth. Still others of us have holes created by educators who taught us that we were never good enough, no matter how much we achieved. And as we grow into adults, we unconsciously look for other people and things to fill our holes - to complete us. And when they don't, we move on in search of the next solution. It's an endless pursuit, and it empties us - as human beings-of our inner peace.
Go within.

"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit" - Helen Keller

When you see things from a higher perspective, you can see that seemingly unrelated things are actually related. And to me, that's a miracle.

The key is to trust.

Stop living in your head, you've tried that method of operating your whole life, and where has it gotten you.

Yes, his approach was unconventional. But if we all only lived according to the conventional thinking of the masses, our society would have remained in the Dark Ages. It's only due to the novel and bold thinking of the visionaries of our world that any progress has been made.

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." - Emily Dickinson

"Life is too short to be little" - Benjamin Disraeli

Life is a beach in so many ways. It reflects a journey that has its sandy parts as well as its rocky areas, and it has its curves and its straightaways. Sometimes you see the crashing waves when you wake up in the morning and feel the fury of the ocean; other times there's a blissful calm and not a thing stirs.

It never ceases to amaze me how the brightness of the dawn always comes immediately after the darkest part of the night. Each and every one of us has to endure darkness - but it always passes, and the light always returns.

Acceptance is the key here.

But feel those fears, and then do it anyway. Just stand with your fears and let them wash through you. Eventually they'll pass. For your life to be great, your faith must be bigger than your fears.

Stop trying to analyze every event as good or bad and just experience it. That's the path to mastery: detachment from outcomes.

Stop trying so hard to get what you want in life. That's one of the paradoxes of the world: Those things that you run toward will run away from you. The more you stop worrying about the way your life should turn out, the more your life will turn out just fine.

Your life, my life, every life is so beautiful. We just fail to make the time to take that in. That's why it's so important to slow down. Why are you always rushing? Where are you running to?

Life is a great mystery novel that contains the story of your life. What fun would it be if you knew how it all unfolded and how it ended before you got to the final chapter?

Pay more attention to the way you treat people. Spend more time focusing on their strengths rather than noticing their weaknesses, man.

To breathe properly is to live properly.

The easiest things to do are also the things that are easiest not to do.

"Real love begins where nothing is expected in return." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Please, remember that the hand that gives is the hand that gathers.

You know that forgiving is something you do for yourself, don't you?

"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it." - Mark Twain

Forgiveness isn't about condoning what someone did to you in the past - it's about accepting it and realizing that they only hurt you because they were in some form of fear.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the thing I can, and wisdom to know the difference." - Serenity Prayer

"Before you set out to seek revenge, it is best you dig two graves." - Confucius

And by appreciating what's good in your lives, those good things will grow. Think in terms of economics: When something appreciates in value, what happens to it? It becomes worth more.

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know" - Henry David Thoreau

I don't want to get too technical here, but we live in what physicist have called a holographic universe, which means that what we send out comes back in kind.

"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet" - Mahatma Gandhi

Once you've completed a feeling to its endpoint, which every feeling has, then there's certainly nothing wrong with looking for the good in the circumstances. Actually, that's the only smart thing to do.

Out-picturing. The internal will always become the external because all things are created twice: first in the mind and then in reality.

A mistake is only a mistake if you repeat it.

A life without setbacks is a shallow life. To fully experience your life, you must experience the highs as well as the lows- then you'll know what being alive is really about. Pain isn't such a bad thing, you know. Actually, I believe that pain comes to us to raise our lives to the next level.

"Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with." - Thomas Carlyle

"The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them but because he is a man of high and heroic temper." - Aristotle

"I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their chamber." - Blaise Pascal

"Those who don't make time for exercise must eventually make times for illness, you know.

Thanks for being great.


[Robin Sharma]