HIT

Singapore

[piavalesca]

rosehip galore

[lastvictorylapse]

[wnq-quoteoftheday]

Rachel C Lewis | @wnq-quoteoftheday | @wordsnquotes-online

[wnq-psychology]

if you want to get better, you have to find out what you’re avoiding and what you’re afraid of. and maybe what you’re disgusted by. you have to expose yourself to that voluntarily, and you have to let that change you. it’s not a pleasant process. it’s a voluntary confrontation of things that make up life’s horrors.

Dr. Jordan Peterson | @wnq-psychology (via wnq-writers)

[ok-norm-interiors]

Never enough plants

[wnq-philosophy]

Alan Watts | @wnq-philosophy

[photography-cnl]

Did you know,  you can quit your job,  you can leave university?  You aren’t legally required to have a degree,  it’s a social pressure and expectation, not the law,  and no one is holding a gun to your head.  You can sell your house,  you can give up your apartment,  you can even sell your vehicle,  and your things that are mostly unnecessary.  You can see the world on a minimum wage salary,  despite the persisting myth, you do not need a high paying job.  You can leave your friends  (if they’re true friends they’ll forgive you, and you’ll still be friends)  and make new ones on the road.  You can leave your family.  You can depart from your hometown,  your country, your culture, and everything you know.  You can sacrifice.  You can give up your $5.00 a cup morning coffee,  you can give up air conditioning,  frequent consumption of new products.  You can give up eating out at restaurants  and prepare affordable meals at home,  and eat the leftovers too,  instead of throwing them away.  You can give up cable TV,  Internet even.  This list is endless.  You can sacrifice climbing up in the hierarchy of careers.  You can buck tradition and others’ expectations of you.  You can triumph over your fears,  by conquering your mind.  You can take risks.  And most of all,  you can travel.  You just don’t want it enough.  You want a degree or a well-paying job or to stay in your comfort zone more.  This is fine, if it’s what your heart desires most,  but please don’t envy me and tell me you can’t travel.  You’re not in a famine, in a desert, in a third world country,  with five malnourished children to feed.  You probably live in a first world country.  You have a roof over your head,  and food on your plate.  You probably own luxuries like a cellphone and a computer.  You can afford the $3.00 a night guest houses of India,  the $0.10 fresh baked breakfasts of Morocco,  because if you can afford to live in a first world country,  you can certainly afford to travel in third world countries,  you can probably even afford to travel in a first world country.  So please say to me,  “I want to travel, but other things are more important to me and I’m putting them first”,  not, “I’m dying to travel, but I can’t”,  because I have yet to have someone say they can’t, who truly can’t.  You can, however, only live once, and for me,  the enrichment of the soul that comes from seeing the world  is worth more than a degree that could bring me in a bigger paycheck,  or material wealth, or pleasing society.  Of course, you must choose for yourself, follow your heart’s truest desires,  but know that you can travel,  you’re only making excuses for why you can’t.  And if it makes any difference,  I have never met anyone who has quit their job,  left school, given up their life at home, to see the world, and regretted it.  None.  Only people who have grown old and regretted never traveling,  who have regretted focusing too much on money and superficial success,  who have realized too late that there is so much more to living than this.

— Susanna-Cole King

[jspark3000]

You Can Do The Thing: And It Starts With This One Phrase

[jspark3000]

You can really do the thing. You can really achieve the dream and pursue your goal and make progress and find recovery. 

But it has to start with one thing.

It has to begin with letting go of the old things.

There’s an ancient Greek word, ouketi, which means, “No longer.” The word is often used as, “I’m no longer who I was before.” It’s a sweeping decision to move forward into something new. It starts with knowing you cannot live as you were. 

A focused person naturally turns down the volume on distractions. When you have a goal, you find out what’s most important. Priorities are prioritized; the things that don’t matter get dimmer and less attractive; there is intentional movement.

A big vision always begins with a singular, passionate, pin-point accuracy that requires closing the door behind you. Nothing good was ever achieved by looking forward and backward at the same time.

The problem is that we try to have the best of everything. We have our hands stretched between the old and the new. We’re scared of discipline or we despise self-control, because we think it infringes upon our “freedom.” We hate change; we drift to complacency, laziness, easiness, the path of least resistance. We cling to that draining relationship or unrestricted internet usage or that crowd of so-called friends or our unwillingness for accountability and messy community. The irony, perhaps, is that in wanting everything, we end up with even less than what we had.

We are limited finite beings and we do not have endless resources. There is only so much room in our souls. If you really want to do the thing, it requires cutting off a few things. I know that no one wants to hear about it, because it sounds like I’m telling you what to do. I get that. I hate it too. We naturally push back against authority. We’re individualistic creatures who want total autonomy – but autonomy is a process of depositing your choices in the right places in a consecutive momentum, so that later, you will have the unhindered ability to live the life you actually wanted. It’s like learning the notes on a keyboard, at first clumsy and restricted, but later being able to play the most beautiful of compositions and even making your own. We invest our first choices in the soil so that we may bloom for better choices in the sun.

I don’t meet many people who want to do this. I know it’s hard. I’m just as stubborn. I wish I could tell you it was easier. But real joy is carved from the best of who we are, and that means plowing in the un-glamorous, unsung work of bruised hands and a steady, beating heart.

Being inspired will only take you so far; emotions can only last so long. Eventually, we must exchange those initial rush of feelings into an ocean-deep passion that presses on, regardless of the voices around us.

It’s not a one-time decision. It means saying ouketi each and every day. Some days, it’ll feel like you’ve moved only an inch. You’ll relapse sometimes. You’ll be tempted to go back. But inch by inch, you’ll have moved miles without hardly knowing it. You will look back on those old things and wonder how you got so wrapped up in them. You’ll look into a future that you’ll finally be excited for.

You get to thank yourself later, after the long nights of wondering if this is worth it all. It turns out, it is. By God, it really is.

You can do the thing. Turn away, and don’t look back.

– J.S.

[jspark3000]

Trust that God is working something in you now, something you can’t imagine, a miracle beyond proportion. Look beyond circumstances, long nights, broken trophies, mental arguments, the swirl of gossip, the false self-talk that you’ve rehearsed over and over. Leave yesterday where it belongs. Don’t cave in to what has happened to you. God says you are more than that – because you are His. As hard as it sounds: you are loved, you are treasured, you are written on the heart and mind of your Creator. Rejoice and revel in what He has done, is doing, will do.

J.S. Park (via jspark3000)

[ponderation]

Exploring Evans Canyon by Jonathan Knepper

[jspark3000]

Christmas Is for You, Too.

I know that for many of us, the Christmas season is a painful time. The festive celebration is in stark contrast to your own history.

It could be a dysfunctional family. Grief from loss. A lonely time. The heartache of a hard year. Or it could just be you dislike the whole affair. You can’t stand the egg nog, mistletoes, and holiday radio.

But that’s okay. Please know: You are not obligated to pretend happiness just because a certain calendar date has fallen on you. You have permission to be a Scrooge, a Grinch, a “downer.” No one else has to live through what you’re going through, and they will be long gone after telling you how to feel.

I believe that God can handle that. He receives you. He validates your grief. No one else can, not fully. He does.

And more, God’s invitation to rejoice still stands. Always. He won’t stop inviting you to joy. Through tears, even for brief moments, laughter can still bubble up and surprise you. Jesus broke in the same way: through dirt, grief, a lonely manger, he was light pushing through the dark. A surprise.

Merry Christmas, to Scrooges and celebrators. However you spend this time and through all you’re going through, I hope you know: you are loved.

— J.S.

[heyfiki]

Jankapampa by erwannf on Flickr.

[thewordfortheday]

Sometimes situations and people can cause us to feel unloved and even rejected. The enemy wants us to feel isolated, dejected and depressed. But look what the Lord says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 No matter what it looks like or feels like, He loves you and is always thinking of you. Remember He died to make you His child. His death on the cross is proof enough that you are worth more than anything in His eyes.

THEWORDFORTHEDAY (via thewordfortheday)

[benjaminhardman]

First light over a frozen peninsula. #iceland (at Snæfellsnes)

[upknorth]

Geared up for everything September has to offer.

[soundmindsoundbodyforlifee]

Tomorrow when you’re running, remember to be thankful. Thankful that you have strong legs and lungs and arms and a crazy strong heart and a strong willpower to move and challenge yourself in this beautiful, insane way.

[quiet-nymph]

Photography by Konsta Punkka