Self Improvement with Irinä: Motivation: We are what we choose to become

Hello to every single person here!

It's a lovely Saturday today and I found some time to post a new update about mentality's impact in our lives. To begin with, I was having my breakfast today while processing some thoughts in my mind. I made a relevant Instagram post, where I wrote down the main idea I had in mind, which will be the initial brick to compose this article. The post goes like this:

Photo taken from my latest personal self-project. Copyrights reserved.

" Amazing how do things and people change.

Amazing how you can either improve yourself or destroy your good parts just by manifesting the energy around you.

Impressive how each person's will is so strong that can either help him grow in a hostile environment or get fucked up even though everything around him is fertile and optimum. There are no boundaries after all.

There might be some, physically, but for sure the mental aspect contributes far more.

If you have the mentality of a winner, you will eventually win. If you have the mentality of mediocrity you'll always be around it.

What is more interesting here is how does the same person swing not only in between stages but also on the edges.

We are what we choose to be. "

I will stand on the last two sentences. It is true that we all, as human beings, do not have the absolute emotional stability. We get through introvertial and extrovertial phases, we elevate between cheerful days and dull ones, we make good and bad choices (referring to their outcome), we make mistakes but that's alright. That's what the journey is about. It's about to mature, learn and realize both our own selves and whatever consists our further environment (in terms of interaction). So what's the case here? It is normal and healthy to have period swaps. What I do not seem to get is how can someone swing from the one edge to the other. Of course, It is a matter of choice. Not completely a conscious , controlled one, but always a choice.

No body's born perfect and nobody has to be. The regular/positive/healthy flow of things commands that a person grows inside out, tries, experiences, in order to learn. Then as he matures, he can consciously process the valuable lessons he got through experiencing in order 1) not to repeat the same mistakes , 2) to use them on his own benefit to improve the quality of his life and 3) handle as efficiently as he can the circumstances around him.

Though, this is not the easiest thing in this world as usually this flow gets interrupted by critical facts, emotional pressure and personal factors leading to a non-grammical route. That's how the ups and downs mentioned above are justified. If we zoom out and take a pace of year(s), we can easily notice that most of these "interruptions" don't even matter after some time. The sub-periods might have ups and downs but what matters most is the general progress you make overall. Each time you hit your pick, you are able to observe everything clearly, you get stronger to overcome the next puddle you will face. Every time you work your ass off to pass through the puddle you get wiser, your mind state rises, your conscious mind gets bolder and more efficient to handle everything better and better, serving your own well being. Every individual is different and as a result the time required to proceed to the next, higher level mentally can not be the same for everyone, which is completely fine. What is not fine is the lack of progress. Not the pompous one. Even the slightest step of improvement is progress. That is where mentality plays it's role on this multidimensional show we call "LIFE".

We can not avoid sadness, we can not avoid tiredness, we can not avoid negative people, bad luck, traumatic experiences, despair or anything unpleasant forever. All these are a part of life, all these have a purpose and it is all a matter of how we choose to respond. Gradually, we observe and understand the scars all these leave, we understand the dynamic between ourselves and them, we realize that things -and most importantly inner peace and happiness- , are more a matter of our own conscious choice rather than a sum of unstable factors. Our feelings, our daily routine, our moments are all a result of the choices we make with what we have. The longterm attitude we develop is who we ARE.

As I mentioned above, there are indeed people who are in the least beneficial state, however, they take charge of themselves. They don't live an illusion, they know how to evaluate the circumstances and then they CHOOSE wisely to use everything, even the negative parts, to gain something valuable for their journey. These people are the same who survived the worst and when they meet the best, they 1) appreciate everything a thousand times more, 2) ENJOY all the goodness they have around, 3) flourish- as they do not consume as much energy to struggle and fix everything anymore. Since things are fine they enjoy them and use all this spare energy to do whatever refills their energy tank and uplifts their soul. In simple terms, they ALLOW themselves to be happy, work hard and GET BETTER. This didn't happen overnight, they suffered, they got through fire and flames but they chose to become this. These are the WINNERS.

On the other side of the coin, there are persons who might have the most possibly fertile soil and all the optimal conditions to grow but they don't. This does not cover the little periods in between peaks, -in fact- these are rarely friendly and easy to deal with. The persons I am talking about are those who refuse to take a step forward despite the fact that the road is smooth and clean. They are those who have always been this way or they have suffered, been traumatized but never really overcame their pain. The trickiest part here is that they usually swear they got over what stained their hearts, they might even got over the particular facts, but the sad truth is that something remained. The energy, the way they felt about themselves, the impression of themselves and eventually, what really got stained is their eyes.

When you are really done with your past, it has no single power on you anymore. In other words, it does not cause any negative effect in your present life. For sure, a significantly negative fact will never be a pleasant topic to discuss but this is far different from carrying the fear, preoccupation, judgement and arrogance of it with you today. Whether they realize it or not, they live an illusion. They have the privilege of a clear sunny sky above and instead of going out to enjoy the precious sunlight they craved for so long, they stay in - just in case it rains. They go out fully covered, carrying two umbrellas and they remain static under a shelter instead of going out and run freely on the clear sunny field. In case it rains. This extreme precaution is a result of fear not only of the possible traumatic fact of their lives (= the rain, used in our metaphorical example) to take place again but also caused due to the lack of self confidence that they will be able to make it through. They hide themselves behind the "safety" of their so called "foresight" to justify their inability to just deal with this system which includes a percentage of rain. So what do we have here? Individuals who swear they got over the pain but still act like they are afraid and sure they will crush in case they face it. If they had really been free from all these, they would run outside, seize this sunny and rare day, enjoy it at the maximum possible degree, appreciate every single ray of light touching their skin in a multiple level. They would rise up themselves, they would be hopeful, energized and uplifted. They would be WINNERS. Instead, they don't.

They prefer to shrink in their virtual "comfort zone", miss all the fun out there, choosing not to enjoy what they lacked for so long and eventually be miserable in a mediocre sterilized routine. But you know what? The more "sterilized" the environment you stay longterm, the more your immunity weakens. What does this mean is simple words? The more you accept mediocrity in your life and the more you cage yourself in your "safety" walls, not really taking risks out of your safe zone, the more your ability to understand and enjoy happiness and life itself, weakens. Then comes a day, you have all you ever wanted but you are not happy. You have more than you could ask for, but you don't really appreciate them in your heart. You might be able to recognize them and even acknowledge your luck to have them but they mean nothing to you. You might have a thousand reasons to feel bold feelings, get a crazy heartbeat, experience the greatest of moments and all the conditions to shape all of your dreams but instead you stay still. You don't feel it. You don't really work for it. You are not letting it happen. Why? Because you forgot how to live. You just exist. You encircled yourself in a safe environment without critical ups and downs, not letting yourself free of doubts, fear, preoccupation, insecurities when you had the best conditions to do so, you didn't live it. You just missed one more sunny day, no matter if it's the only one or the first of a row. And you are fine with it. This is the mentality of mediocrity.

Don't settle with this. Stand up.
It's your life and you are the
only one who can let the sunlight in again.
You can make it.

For sure a mediocrity oriented person can finally end up as a winner through maturing process and most importantly after his own will to evolve so. How can a winner end up like a miserable mediocre person in long terms? No matter the disappointment, the pain or suffering he always had features which he gained through fighting that made him a winner by a long term applied attitude. They have always been here. Why did he accept this state? Why did he ruin them? It was a choice. A choice not always clear, even to his own eyes, frequently camouflaged behind exhaustion and emotional frost. Such people think that this is the reason they are stuck in this state. A state which they even view as a short phase, something definitely not true considering the already excessive part of it in their life's timeline, talking on a wider scale. Do you know why? It is wrong because if it was a temporary puddle, their mentality wouldn't allow them to be neutral around it, accept it for so long, missing the entire point, missing life. This would be the strongest push to overcome it. Waking up one day, been missing all the blessing around because they let them go, they didn't charge to enjoy, mentain and evolve them.

It is finally a choice. Not always an absolutely conscious and controlled one, but still, always a choice. What do you choose to become?