by Unknown

As Maria Robinson once said, "nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." nothing could be closer to the truth. but before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back. here are some ideas to get you started:

• Stop spending time with the wrong people.: life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. if someone wants you in their life, they'll make room for you. you shouldn't have to fight for a spot. never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. and remember, it's not the people that stand by your side when you're at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you're at your worst that are your true friends.

• Stop running from your problems.: face them head on. no, it won't be easy. there is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. we aren't supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. that's not how we're made. in fact, we're made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. because that's the whole purpose of living: to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. this is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.

• Stop lying to yourself.: you can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can't lie to yourself. our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

• Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.: the most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. yes, help others; but help yourself too. if there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.

• Stop trying to be someone you're not.: one of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that's trying to make you like everyone else. someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. don't change so people will like you. be yourself and the right people will love the real you.

• Stop trying to hold onto the past.: you can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.

• Stop being scared to make a mistake.: doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. you end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.

• Stop berating yourself for old mistakes.: we may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. we all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. but you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.

• Stop trying to buy happiness.: many of the things we desire are expensive. but the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free: love, laughter and working on our passions.

• Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness.: if you're not happy with who you are on the inside, you won't be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. you have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.

• Stop being idle.: don't think too much or you'll create a problem that wasn't even there in the first place. evaluate situations and take decisive action. you cannot change what you refuse to confront. making progress involves risk. period! you can't make it to second base with your foot on first.

• Stop thinking you're not ready.: nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won't feel totally comfortable at first.

• Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons.: relationships must be chosen wisely. it's better to be alone than to be in bad company. there's no need to rush. if something is meant to be, it will happen: in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. fall in love when you're ready, not when you're lonely.

• Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn't work.: in life you'll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. but most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.

• Stop trying to compete against everyone else.: don't worry about what others doing better than you. concentrate on beating your own records every day. success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.

• Stop being jealous of others.: jealousy is the art of counting someone else's blessings instead of your own. ask yourself this: "what's something i have that everyone wants?"

• Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself.: life's curveballs are thrown for a reason: to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. you may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. but reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. you'll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. so smile! let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.

• Stop holding grudges.: don't live your life with hate in your heart. you will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. forgiveness is not saying, "what you did to me is okay." it is saying, "i'm not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever." forgiveness is the answer"¦ let go, find peace, liberate yourself! and remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it's for you too. if you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.

• Stop letting others bring you down to their level.: refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.

• Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others.: your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it anyway. just do what you know in your heart is right.

• Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break.: the time to take a deep breath is when you don't have time for it. if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.

• Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments.: enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. the best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.

• Stop trying to make things perfect.: the real world doesn't reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.

• Stop following the path of least resistance.: life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. don't take the easy way out. do something extraordinary.

• Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn't.: it's okay to fall apart for a little while. you don't always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. you shouldn't be concerned with what other people are thinking either: cry if you need to: it's healthy to shed your tears. the sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.

• Stop blaming others for your troubles.: the extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. when you blame others for what you're going through, you deny responsibility: you give others power over that part of your life.

• Stop trying to be everything to everyone.: doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. but making one person smile CAN change the world. maybe not the whole world, but their world. so narrow your focus.

• Stop worrying so much.: worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. one way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: "will this matter in one year's time? three years? five years?" if not, then it's not worth worrying about.

• Stop focusing on what you don't want to happen.: focus on what you do want to happen. positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. if you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you'll often find that you're right.

• Stop being ungrateful.: no matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. instead of thinking about what you're missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

keshialee:

I think depending on what you're doing, and what you're going through throughout your life, you have sets of friends.

You have friends for this particular sport you do, because of a hobby you have whether it be music, dance, or anything like that. And your friends are really different, all of them. and you go through a stage when all you do is be with them everyday, then all of a sudden you find yourself hanging around another set of friends.

but that doesn't mean you've forgotten anything that you've been through with them. After being with someone or a group of people everyday you pretty much know their insides and outs. Just because you stop hanging out with someone for a while doesn't mean you don't want to be around them, it just means life is throwing you in a different direction, and the next stage in life.

We learn the most by growing from others. The people we surround ourselves with will make a huge impact on our lives.

I miss so many people, it's inevitable to say “i miss you.” i've met some of the most amazing people in my life.

and people have been in and out, but that doesn't mean they're out forever. it means they're out living their lives and living their dreams. everyone goes through stages of friends, but throughout those stages, i'll keep and remember all of the friendships and memories i've made throughout my lifetime.

THIS.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially of everyone I've met since Summer 2008.

I miss those endless hours on BlogTV. I miss those all-night Skype calls and Tokbox slumber parties. I miss seeing the same friendly faces at JAG every week. I miss driving to NorCal or San Diego on back-to-back-to-back weekends. I miss having a FB invite every week to a show that EVERYONE will be at. I miss flying all over the place so I could spend time with friends and meet more amazing people.

But I'm forcing myself to keep a low-profile. I have to do what's best for me, and at the moment, that means focusing on getting my career back on track.

I know that life is pulling you all into different directions too, whether it's for school, work, music or your relationship with your significant other. Whatever it is you're focusing on, I fully support you doing whatever is best for you.

I miss you all dearly. And even though we don't hang out as much as we used to, I know the next time we do, it'll be like we never skipped a beat.

Love you all. Always. <3

-Mel

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

-- Steve Jobs

I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

—Achilles, played by Brad Pitt in the movie, "Troy"

I love love love this scene. Not because of the religious stuff or cuz Brad Pitt gets half-naked...but cuz it reinforces the idea of cherishing what you have like there is no tomorrow.

Like the final months of each major chapter in my life:

• My final year of middle school before going off to boarding school.

• My senior year of boarding school

• My last summer vacation in Saudi Arabia before moving to the states permanently.

• My final year of college.

I remember those times better than any other. I knew those moments would be my last, so I really savored every bit of it.

Unfortunately for most of those years in between, I somewhat took for granted. I kinda lived through those years by just going through the motions of things. It's just too easy to fall into that kinda trap when you have that overoptimistic mentality of "forever."

But when you realize that all things in your life could be pulled from right under you at any moment...you learn to truly appreciate everything.

Unknown:

throughout my life, i have seen numerous guy friends get whooped. whooped by some girl who isn't going to mean much to him in the long run. but during that short period of time when the relationship is rolling, the guy tends to forget about his other responsibilities. this is where i come in to set everything straight.

bros before hoes. that's the one and only rule. well, don't cheat on the gal...i guess that's another rule. but anyways, i'm not saying that all girls are hoes or anything, so ladies, don't get offended. it's just a generalized term used to describe all the women out there who mess with a guy and take him away from his friends.

a lot of times, it's necessary to take a step back and look at the big picture. if all your life you grew up with a group of guys, then you must place them higher than any short term girlfriend. it makes sense b/c the longer you know someone, the more you should trust them and the more they should mean to you. the problem with guys is that we always think with our hormones and not our heads, so when you meet this girl, you are willing to drop everything for her b/c you think she is perfect. (which goes back to my other point in the other plan that guys tend to think they know the girl well when they really don't). so they drop everything for this girl and he loses all contact with his other friends...but after the relationship ends, he finds himself with no friends to turn to, since he betrayed them all. hahaha. who you gonna turn to now, boy??? IDIOT!

but there is also a lot of misconception as to when or how a guy disses his boy by choosing the girl over his boys. scenario: you promise the girl you'd have lunch with her and then later the guys ask if you want to join THEM for lunch. you say no b/c you're supposed to eat with your girl. are you a diss? NO, you're just trying to be a man of your word. guys who consider that to be a diss are a bunch of morons. but if the girl messes with your previously arranged plans with your guy friends, then there's a prob. or when all you ever talk about with your guy friends is your girlfriend, then there is also another prob. or when the guy is willing to do much bigger favors for the girl than for his boys, then there is a HUGE problem. i know guys who'd drive the girl practically anywhere but would have a fit if you asked him for a ride home. bitter? nah...it just makes decisions about how much you wanna invest in the friendship a lot more easier. actually, to be honest, i haven't been dissed a lot by guy friends...but that's only b/c my friends and i are all losers who can't get any girls anyways. But you can still be a diss even if you never have a girl...lots of guys drop their friends in PURSUIT of a girl...and they end up empty handed. haha.

the true character of a guy is revealed by how he treats his guy friends. anyone can be sweet to a girl that he likes, but it takes a lot more character to be generous and understanding to another guy. why? because close guy friends have nothing to offer unless you're a flaming homosexual with overpowering strength (tom kim) and also b/c since the guys are so close, you can observe how he acts around those who he feels comfortable around. so if he treats his close friends like crap, then be ready to expect the same from him later down the line when he feels comfortable around you. that's why i hate guys who are nice to girls and only girls. girls justify it by saying "well, you just gotta get to KNOW him and his sensitive side...he's just misunderstood..." i say that it's a bunch of BS. a jerk is a jerk is a jerk. they just show no character or class.

girls tend not to ever realize that they are taking their "man" away from his guy friends. so girls, try to be more aware of everything. understand that a guy needs his guy friends, just as a girl needs her girl friends. be understanding if he needs to sacrifice time with you to be with the friends he grew up with. a hoe ain't gonna understand and will demand that the guy give her all of his attention 24/7. a real woman is secure enough in the relationship to loosen that leash a little so that he can live a halfway normal life.

guys, don't lose sight of what's important. don't put all your eggs in one basket, cuz if it falls, then not only do you lose all your eggs, but you feel like a loser for dropping the basket, too. but if you want the girl to understand your need to be with your boys, then make sure you can make her secure in the relationship, otherwise you aren't doing your job as a man. don't be with the guys and neglect the girl, either. but all in all, girls come and go, but friends...well, friends come and go, too. but it just looks better to drop a hoe than to drop your friends. remember, she may be sweet, she may be wonderful, but if she tries to take you away from what made you YOU, then she ain't nuthin' but a HOE. =)

some guys seem to forget...

Original Post

on the flight to new york i was flipping thru those lame Sky Mall catalogs. normally the products they sell are pretty lame but i found a few pages dedicated to those Inspirational Posters that you see around. there was this one poster in particular that caught my eye:

The Power of Attitude

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens; not by what life brings us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst....a spark that creates extraordinary results.

daaamn, that was deep; and its so true.

if you remember my Energy & Emotions deep thought, i talked about how positive and negative emotions are just like energy -- than can not be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form or another. if you think about it, your attitude is what determines whether outside forces are converted to positive or negative emotions.

i'm sure you can think of a few people that are pessimists. you can mention just one word to them and they could go on for hours just bitching about it.

i remember in highschool i was talking to this one girl...

Girl #2: hey, i like your shirt!!
Girl #1: thanks!!
Girl #1: (bitch...)

instead of being happy for the compliment, the girl i was talking to started bitching.

Girl #1: she's jealous of me.
Girl #1:she's supposed to say 'you look great in that shirt.'
Girl #1:the way she said it, it implies that the shirt looks good but i don't.

you see what i mean? clearly, Girl #2 was just giving a compliment but Girl #1 managed to twist the whole situation and turn it into negative feelings. crazy, eh? that's the way pessimistic people work -- everything that happens becomes personal in a negative way.

okay, so that's the pessimistic side; that's one end of the spectrum of attitude. but lets not forget that there are two sides of every spectrum. if there's someone that can always find something to bitch about, then at the opposite end of the spectrum there has to be the person that can always find the light in any situation. this person is the optimist. (duh)

you see, the optimist understands that life will have its ups and downs. the optimist understands failure and learning from mistakes. the optimist understands imperfection.

so why is it that we find so many pessimists in our lives and not enough optimists? why is it that we can easily scroll down our buddylists and find at least one person saying something negative in their profile or away message?

all it takes is changing the way we think. and when we do that, life becomes a whole lot more pleasant.

having said that, i'd like to leave you with one last quote (which is a personl favorite of mine):

Stress is not caused by others; its caused by our reaction to others.