ClydeStyle

Tag: Determination

  • Determination is our strength; guess where it comes from?

    Determination is the firmness of purpose. Resoluteness. Whenever we see success, determination showed up first. To live life knowing where you’re supposed to go is a beautiful thing. It allows you to step with assurity and act expeditiously.

    Obviously, this state is not so easily attained. Many get paralyzed in their desires and crumble at the stress. When there is no “handout” in sight, can you get the job done alone? Ignorance, prejudice, stupidity, pressure, and focus are always against us. It’s a battle whether you have succeeded or failed we all will have these struggles.

    Then, our upbringing at times is a hindrance to our future because either someone loved us too much or not enough. Perverted things happened that affected our lives forever or we had a loved one missing which left an empty space in our hearts. We were bullied, discouraged, cheated, lied to, and hurt.

    Finally, we lacked the proper examples, we never saw someone else do what we desired to do and we lost our sense of well-being. It was as if there was a conspiracy set against us. But deep down in our souls is a glimmer of hope.

    Now hope is commonly used to mean a wish: its strength is the strength of the person’s desire. This would be fine if there had been no challenges or disappointments in your life. But in the Bible hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. This means that you have a blessed assurance of trusting in God to bless your efforts according to his will.

    Watch how this works: This would mean that you would never trust a man, you would never even blame a man for his folly. Everything that would happen to you would be viewed as part of a grand scheme by God that ends in your benefit. Completely trusting God and living a life to please him is the greatest thing for a man. The Bible teaches us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. It then promises that everything else we need would be given to us.

    When you read about God’s people in scripture try counting all the rich people. Adam was rich — he was the only man on earth. Noah would have experienced this as well being the head of his household. Abraham and Isaac were rich. We literally saw Jacob obtain his wealth. Job and countless others lived extremely well and I believe they were blessed in this way because God saw their heart and knew that wealth would not ruin them.

    The point here is that determination begats success but believing in God begats determination. We come into this world being memorized by what we see. I want you to ignore what you see and live life knowing.

  • Defining self: Hello 2023

    We are now at the conclusion of 2022 and hopefully this has been a prosperous year for all. With all that has happened in this year, there was much to learn about life, love, liberty and our pursuit of happiness.

    We saw much corruption on display in our government. We saw a few billionaires fold. We saw what great lengths people would go through to deceive the masses and we saw many people die, including in Hollywood.

    We were also exposed to a real fact about people: With all the wonderful things that should come from the internet, we coveted cancel culture. People’s lives are being forever changed because of mistakes they make. We are allowing for one moment in time to define a lifetime of who we are.

    There are many examples of this but the most memorable is probably the slap heard around the world during the Oscars. Will Smith versus Chris Rock — the battle that shouldn’t have happened.

    Both aides of this coin were hurt, but Will’s hurt seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. From threats of violence to Smith and his family to derogatory things said about his wife, the former box office sensation is being defined and punished for his actions that night.

    Of course he’s not above the law and his broad appeal becomes dangerous because everyone has an opinion. And because of those ongoing opinions his livelihood will take a huge hit! And the work and life he lived before the incident no longer matters.

    The message here is simple: Never allow a single incident to make or break the life you have been living. The value you have aquired over the years does not change with one simple moment in time.

    Rumors about Jesus got him killed just a week after he came to town and was celebrated for the work he was doing. Don’t allow mankind’s opinion of you to be the main thing that defines you — whether you have made a huge mistake or found a cure for cancer. We are all human and there is nothing else we can be. So just be the best human you can and be thankful for another year! If you get to see 2023, it means you have more time to do good things or over come the bad.

  • We need another labor movement

    So Labor Day is coming and many will be off work, probably barbecuing and just simply relax. We deserve a day. We work hard. There was a time in our history where people worked 12-hour days for very low wages and even kids were working dangerous jobs for even lower wages. They worked on farms, mines and in factories.

    Labor day began as a huge protest for better wages and an 8-hour work day. They wanted restrictions on child labor and wanted to be able we to work hard and take part in the American dream.

    During an election year in the 1800s, then President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a national holiday for fear of losing the election due to alienating the working class. More regulations followed and conditions got better over time.

    Remember this was the reason slavery was ended. Not so much because it was inhumane but because that free labor kept many without work because if you can get free labor, why would you want to pay a fair wage if you didn’t have to.

    Fast forward to the 21st century and we are still fighting for fair wages. There is still a huge gap in wealth and one percent still has waaaaaay more money and assests than the 99 percent. As a result, American went from being the No. 1 country to live in (1950s) to No. 17 today. Can you believe that there are 16 countries that live better than we do in America? We are delusional.

    The countries that are in front of us are all in the top 5 in multiple categories like wages, science, math, lifestyle, better climate, technology and mortality. We lead the world in 3 categories: Prison population, weapons of war and belief in Angels.

    Our problem is that we are not trying to be the best. We are not even trying to be fair. We are trying to maintain our current status where the rich get richer and the poor, stay poor.

    We are no where near the top 10 in wages, working conditions, lifestyle or income equality. We don’t even have the best social programs to help change generational curses and poverty among the poor. Sweden holds that title. Australia and Canada seem to alternate from No. 1 or No. 2 in many categories with Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand rounding out the top 5.

    We can do much better than we are doing. If you googled the best places to live you would shocked at what other places offer that we don’t. And it’s not that we can’t. We have a government that is self serving and won’t.

    This is why we need a new Labor Day protest to finish the job where the first left off. Labor Day started as a massive protest where everyone stopped working for a day. What if we stopped working a pay period? It would shutdown the country and Congress would respond immediately. Definitely something to think about while your working the grill this holiday.

  • Getting your God complex under control

    We all have this inner God complex. It’s where we get some of our best ideas, it’s where our compassion grows, it’s where forgiveness begins and it’s where our unconditional love comes from. With this complex, when things are going well, we achieve and flourish in various areas. We create, lead, influence, edify and develop ideas. When things are at their worst, we tend to lack forgiveness for ourselves.

    We being to accept blame, sometimes too much blame because in our complex we think we should have known, seen, anticipated, figured out or controlled people, places and things — and that’s impossible.

    The feeling is amplified when other people are injured by our actions. It happens. What should take place is that we should release all negativity, deal with the facts and be reflective about moving forward. Learn the lessons and forgive yourself. We need to begin to see the truth about these ill- feelings.

    God doesn’t want us punishing ourselves because something fell through the cracks or we proved that we are not perfect. I started out calling it a God complex because when something happens some of us will take full responsibility as if we were God and could control everything.

    Nobody is perfect. Most people who dare to lead want to do their best. It doesn’t always happen like that and you need to forgive yourself. Now! And move forward a better person!

  • I can’t?

    Isn’t it funny how the mind works? I remember when I was in grade school and instead of attempting to master math, I spent the most productive hours convincing myself that math was “too hard” and that it “made no sense” and that it was “stupid to do.”

    I really convinced myself of that. Imagine that? I discovered years later that I could totally get my mind to buy into something. Today, it makes me take inventory of my life experiences to see what else I have talked myself into.

    Some of us have talked ourselves into marriage. Some of us had to convince ourselves that the things are parents did were not wrong, it was just the way they expressed their love. Some of us had to convince ourselves that we are worthless and have no value. Still others have convinced themselves that they are the problem and not the other person. Some are convinced that their spiritual leader must be right, or he wouldn’t be a spiritual leader.  All of this convincing causes us to live in pain – whether emotional, spiritual, mental or physical – we’re hurting … real bad!

    It seems we have forgotten the simple lessons when someone is trying to sell us something. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. If it takes some convincing, then it was probably the wrong thing. There is always a reason why we have our reservations. But it seems we have a soft spot for ourselves. We want to believe that we care enough about ourselves to never lead US astray.

    Unfortunately we do it often.

    I can convince myself to love, hate, fight, hold a grudge, spend money, be comfortable with being wrong, gossip, mistreat people and settle. There is no end to what I can convince my mind to do.

    Did you catch what I just said?

    All of us have the ability to convince ourselves of anything. What if we were to convince ourselves to seek positive change, be honest with ourselves and those around us. What if we convinced ourselves to save money, love one another, glorify God or even resist the devil.

    We need to take a self inventory of what we believe and how we came to believe it. Were we convinced by someone or self? Is what we believe true? To search ourselves and answer these questions is another way we can be free.

    We could totally eliminate the words “I can’t” from our lives.

    Then what would our reality be? What would it be like for us to exercise this over ourselves for the betterment of self. Is it too late for a situation or circumstance to be effected by this? Will we let fear stop us from doing what the rest of our being already knew to do?

    Let’s not waste our minds on “I can’t.”

  • A little bit more

    Every time I watch any of the Rocky series, I always seem to get caught up in the outcome. Saying I get caught up is an understatement. I even get quite emotional. The reason is because I can really relate. I haven’t boxed in years and I’m not talking about relating to boxing. I’m talking about being able to relate to struggle.

    Of all the things that have been written about determination, I like this quote the best: “Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more. They did all that was expected of them and a little bit more.” Now I’m not sure who said this quote or where I originally read it, but it has been something that I often think about or focus on during difficult times.

    I believe all successful people would at some point credit self determination as a catalyst to their success. Success of course is relative to what you want out of live and your decision to get it. We have to decide to be successful.

    I don’t intend to make success seem like rocket science. I believe everyone is living the life they planned. I realize that this may be hard for some to take, but whether you planned to succeed or didn’t make a plan at all, your life is following a course. You determine whether it’s good or bad.

    Determination is defined as the act of deciding definitely and firmly. Former President Abe Lincoln said, “Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.”

    If you haven’t heard it before, let me tell you that whoever you are and it doesn’t matter where you are from, success is yours. All you have to do is first decide that you want it. Once you firmly decide to want something, this is the key to doing everything. I’ve often said that the only thing different between someone who has succeeded and someone who has failed is the fact that the successful one believed they could be successful. That’s it. Not education, not who they knew, not anything else but belief.

    So I gotta ask you. What do you believe?