Archives for April 2013

Many people spend their entire lives searching for the answer to happiness. Everyone wants to know how to be happy and yet you probably don’t know many people who actually are happy.

It is easy to buy into the idea that there are a lot of happy people just running around. Then you tell yourself that’s who you need to be too! There has to be a secret. Why am I not happy but X and Y are? What do they have that I don’t?

This makes you go on a wild chase for happiness. You want to learn how to be happy, but you’re not!

Then you start asking yourself the wrong questions.

Growing up sucks. I think everyone would tell you the same. I’m not sure why I was so excited as a kid when I thought about growing up. Maybe it’s because I thought there’d be a lot of freedom and that happiness would fall from trees. Money too.

When I was a kid, my friends and I used to love strong winds that would create chaos in our hair. We would run around and pretend we were superheroes. We tied the arm of our jackets around ourselves, pretending the jackets were capes and the wind would make us feel like we were flying at supersonic speeds.

Sometimes we’d pretend we were characters from Dragon Ball Z. Ah, how the strong winds meant a lot to us.

Fast forward to last week when Arizona was experiencing incredibly heavy winds. I couldn’t help but go “Damn it, are you serious?”, as I rushed to the nearest building. I’m an adult now and I don’t have the same sense of excitement towards the elements anymore.

How could I go from someone who flew around in the wind with his super-powered buddies to a person who absolutely hates the wind? Oh, I know! It’s because I’m afraid it’ll ruin my perfectly sculpted hairdo for the day.

When I was a kid, I didn’t care how my hair looked. In fact, I didn’t care how my hair looked until last year!

When I was a kid, all I cared about was living life and enjoying every second with those I loved. What happened to that kid? Where did this Vincent who cares about his hair or what other people think of him come from? Growing up did nothing but weaken my sense of enjoyment.

Spouting “profound” life quotes on a daily basis gets old, but you hear it everywhere. So why am I writing an article called “10 Life Quotes and Lessons to Live By?”, if I’m so anti-quote?

The issue is the fact that some people just quote all day and repeat them without internalizing the message behind it. It doesn’t feel genuine when and I’m not convinced that they really believe in it.

Instead, you need to use life quotes to internalize the ideas. Once you do that, you can move on from the quote.

To me, profound life quotes serve as a reminder when we’ve forgotten the concepts. We shouldn’t rely on quotes for repetition’s sake.

Use the amazing quotes and live by the meaning, not just the words.

With that said, here are some quotes with ideas that I’ve internalized and live by. These quotes focus on different aspects of life and I expand on them to get you pumped and excited for personal development. Focus on the message and begin to implement the life lessons.

Last week I wrote a letter to my future self with several key points. In the letter, I listed out a few traits that I’m working on in 2013 and outlined the person I would hope to be by the year 2030. It included the present struggles that I face today and it was a reminder to myself that I can look back on anytime I want.

Now I’m opening up a question to all my readers: Who do you want to be in 2030?

We often hear the advice of picturing WHERE you want to be, but rarely is the question asked of who do you want to be in the future.

Keep in mind this is a personal development question, but it can be interpreted in any other way that you feel fits.

What are you like, Vincent? I am still working on improving myself every day through daily self-reflection. Here are some of the things I hope you’ve fully internalized by 2030; the traits of who I want to be.

Don’t be afraid of being different
Back in 2010 and even earlier than that, you cared a lot about what others thought. You weren’t yourself because you were so scared of not being accepted.

Then you met great mentors, you established strong bonds, and you found that being different is not so bad. You were living life happily and it didn’t matter if you were different.

You learned that being different makes life more interesting and that people are drawn to genuine personalities. Continue to be genuine and be interested in others, because I know you LOVE learning about other people. Most people aren’t like that, so keep being different.

Besides, it’s no fun being a fake. Too many people are fake, not enough people are genuine, and you are the only one out of millions who aren’t afraid of who they really are. Keep at it.