A watchful eyes over oneself is a great asset to have....

Excellence has to become the prevailing attitude in your life. It actually does have to become a habit, and, as with everything else in life, you have to start from where you are.

Start small and continue to build this attitude in your life. You don’t decide to start martial arts training one day, and enter the ring with experts the next week. It takes time, it takes work and it takes consistent training.
The same principle applies to anything you do in life. Nobody becomes an expert at anything overnight.
 

Colin Powell stated,
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception it is a prevailing attitude.”
I discussed earlier that you have to take control of your thoughts. This is an important part of developing excellence in your life.
Your thoughts are the beginning of your actions; therefore it is vital that you get your mind straight first.
If your mind is not right, you will never be able to become a man of excellence.
 

Excellence is not something that you fake in order to build your reputation; it is an attitude and a way of life. Chung Yung wrote,
“The superior man is watchful over himself even when alone.”

This is the attitude of excellence. It doesn’t matter what he is doing or who is around him at the time, the man of excellence will seek to do everything to the best of his abilities. He agrees with the quote from Emerson that,
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.”

Excellence is the way of the warrior. Each of the essential traits of the warrior lifestyle can be traced back to living a life of excellence.

The normal, everyday, common life is void of the majority of these traits. The common man lives mainly for his own comfort and gives little attention to pushing himself to go the “extra mile” in order to live a life of excellence.

Simply put, he is satisfied living an average life.

 

 

ps/smoh

The Japanese say you have three faces.

The first face, you show to the world.
The second face, you show to your friends and family.
The third face you never show anyone.
It is the truest reflection of who you are.
 

While it is true that you should be careful not to reveal too much about yourself, especially to those who may want to do you harm, the warrior should feel secure enough in who he is to be himself.

Being secure enough to be yourself is a form of sincerity and comes from having good self-confidence, good self-esteem, and living as you should.

Be who you are and be sincere. Have confidence in the person that you are, and the person that you are becoming.

There is no need to put on false faces to try to impress those who you feel may not approve of the real you. Their approval isn't needed. Just be yourself.

If you are living the warrior lifestyle, being yourself will be a form of helping those around you. People need good role models who live with honour, character, and integrity.

Don't hide that from them.

Show them what a man or woman of character acts like.

Be a shining example of honour and integrity, and don't be shy about it.

Show them a man or woman that actually lives by high standards.

This Japanese saying is for the average person that doesn't have enough self-confidence to just be who they are, which covers the majority of the population.

They think that they have to change to impress people; but if you are living as you should, there is no reason to change depending on who you are with.

Let the truest reflection of yourself, who you truly are, be the face that you show to everyone.

And live in such a way that you are not ashamed for all to know the real you - the man or woman who lives the morally right or justifiable lifestyle with honour and integrity.

 

 

 

ps/smoh

Kill the spider and you will destroy the cobweb....

Everything in life is governed by the principle of cause and effect.

Nothing happens without a reason, even if you don’t know what that reason may happen to be.

Whether you call it karma or the law of reciprocity, one thing always leads to another.

Everything in your life has some cause behind it which brought it about. There is nothing that you can do which does not have some accompanying effect.
 

If you don’t like the results that you have been getting, change the actions that brought about those results.

This is the wisdom behind this Maltese Proverb.
 

If you don’t like cobwebs, get rid of the spider. When you kill the spider, there will be no more cobwebs, at least not from that specific spider.
 

If you simply remove the cobweb itself, the spider will only spin more of them, and the cycle will continue endlessly, until you finally address the underlying cause – the spider.
 

When you remove the primary cause, the effect will cease to exist.
 

This same principle applies to any problem that you may have in your life.
If you can figure out what the underlying cause is for that specific problem, you can make a rational decision concerning how to eliminate that cause, therefore getting rid of the problem.
 

Remove the root and the weed will cease to exist.

If you don’t like the results that you have been getting, change what you have been doing and do something different.
 

Different actions bring about different results.

 

ps/smoh

Your actions and words should always agree with each other. Don't say one thing and do another.

Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk. In fact, it is even better to walk the walk, and leave the talk to others. You don't need to constantly talk about what you will or will not do; just live your life as it should be lived, and leave other people to their chit chat.

Be a man or woman of your word.
That is integrity.
 
Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It's not your parents, your past relationships, your job, the economy, the weather, an argument or your age that is to blame.
YOU and ONLY YOU are responsible for every decision and choice YOU make.
Period.

People love to justify their actions. They are experts at coming up with excuses for their actions, blaming their own choices on anyone or anything other than themselves. I can tell you that people become experts at this at a very early age.

Well, I have news for you, every excuse that you come up with concerning your behaviour is bogus. That make be harsh, but it is absolutely true.

You, and only you, are responsible for your own choices, decisions, and actions. Blaming someone else is merely trying to justify your actions because you are too weak to take responsibility for your own choices.

It doesn't matter what you have been through,

what anyone else has done to you, or how terrible your life has been, you are still the only person on the face of this earth that is responsible for your actions.

Be man enough, or woman enough, to take the responsibility for what you do.

If it is something that you are ashamed to take responsibility for, then don't do it - period.

Own up and quit blaming others for what you do!

 

ps/smoh

 

 

   

Whatever the attitude, so the response.

This teaching can be read in two different ways.

First, your response should be appropriate to the attitude of your attacker. If you think that you can de-escalate the situation, then do so.

If it is an all out attack on you, you should respond accordingly. Your opponent's attitude will alert you to the appropriate response.

The second way to look at this teaching is that your response will follow YOUR attitude. This means that you should maintain the proper attitude in order to be able to respond in the right manner.

For example, if you are so angry that you can't think straight, and someone crosses you, your response may be more severe than it should be. Because of this fact, it is important to maintain the correct attitude daily and not allow your emotions to run a muck.

I think that both of these are important considerations for us. You must maintain the right attitude, and at the same time, you must be ready and able to respond to whatever the situation requires of you, with a balanced, rational mind.

And, it is important to respond, not react. When you respond, you are in control; when you react, you have allowed the other person to dictate your actions.

 

 

 

ps.smoh

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

As long as you allow things or people, outside of your control, to push your buttons, your inner peace will be like a roller coaster ride.

You will feel great and at peace one moment, and completely blown out the next.

This cycle will repeat itself over and over again, until it starts to drain you mentally, physically, and emotionally.

So, how do you prevent this mental and emotional roller coaster ride?

You don't give external things control over your emotions.

Yes, I know, this is much easier said than done. People can be very trying. This is especially true of people who are close to you or who you care for deeply. But, we can learn to care for someone without allowing them to destroy our inner peace.

Inner peace starts with a conscious decision to not allow other people or events to affect us emotionally. Deal with issues rationally.

Don't take them personally.

See them as an observer would, watching how things unfold, thinking about them with a calm, rational mind, and then addressing them as you need to, from a deliberately calm, peaceful mind. This takes discipline, practice, and a lot of patience, but it can be done.

You have to take care of yourself first. If you are in constant turmoil, always getting upset over someone else's actions, or events that you have no control over, it will drain you.

You will have nothing left to give to those you care for, as all of your energy will be spent just treading water to maintain your sanity.

That is no way to live!

Take care of yourself; maintain your inner peace and your life will never be the same again.

 

 

 

ps/smoh

I like playing with 'can I see what the eyes in the mirror might be looking at?

When I look at myself in the mirror, I think I don’t know her.
Who is she?
Familiar self thinks it's because she looks old. True nature knows…….whoever “I” am, that’s not it. But then......there is someone......looking back. Smiling when I smile.......puzzled when I am, leaving when I walk away without getting involved with any thought at all while looking in the mirror, there's no puzzlement, just the clarity of knowingness itself.

Yeah, but there's a being there, a creature, someone you've lived with your entire life, know entirely EVERYTHING about, all its thoughts, everything it's ever done, every fart, every kiss; you've wiped its ass thousands of times and bathed it as many; made love to it as only a person can make love to oneself; were there for every embarrassment, every accomplishment, all the disappointments, all the love that didn't work out quite the way it was supposed to.
So, for me, to stand there gazing into its eyes and see how much it feels like a stranger to me, this one whose happiness I am totally devoted to, well, it helps me to understand what a daunting task it might be to take on "getting to know" another.
It’s kind of absurd actually.

For me, knowingness is only knowingness insofar as it surrounds itself with content to know, were there no one in the mirror, there would be no knowingness.

Change with time I am, I exist inside an old body which is aging Body .I am me who lived inside a monsters mask. I and Sayang who lived inside the body of a pretty young girl, I exist with or without Image.

Only my inner self exist. I was taught this by a dog. You are Sayang; I know you and have known you in all your many costumes since as long as I can remember having had thought. You Sayang have existed for me in many many forms and when you no longer exist in the form you now see in the mirror I will still know you. You are Sayang and shall always be and I shall always recognize you. We may just half to look a little harder…

We only live inside these rubbery mask and they change as time goes by just as who we all are our inner selves living the beneath the masks

If one is able to not get involved "with any thought at all while looking in the mirror." And I believe that is possible for some......for you, I trust. But thoughts do come for me as I look at the changing face of this intimate stranger who looks back at me. Thoughts that begin with...."How......why......who.....when..." and then start to morph, dissolve into....."

Thank you.......thank you.....however did you manage? Thank you....thank you...poor, beautiful, kind, frightened, sweet, hurt, mended, wonderful old girl."

 

Peek-a-Boo Peek-a-Boo Peek-a-Boo who loves you? I do I do....  ps/smoh