Self Challenge Wins!

 

Winning over a disability

Laura's arthritis limits her physical mobility, but she diligently manages her daily chores by rising an hour earlier to prepare breakfast and pack lunches for her family. Her swollen joints make movement difficult, yet she realizes that, with time, they yield to her patience. Each day is a test, as her body presents a new obstacle every morning; sometimes her knee, hip, or shoulder demands special attention. She knows how to adapt, but requires time to train herself for each challenge. Fortunately, she gives herself the time needed to accomplish her tasks.

She waves a jubilant goodbye to her family as they go about their day. Her happiness isn’t just wishing them well, but also the thrill of conquering her morning ordeal.

She triumphed over rebellious joints that rarely cooperate with her will. She managed to prepare nutritious snacks and meals for her family.

Winning is more than a word; it is a state that brings her pride and happiness. She tries to pat herself on the back for her efforts—though even that requires effort—but she knows she has prevailed despite her physical limitations.

Winning is a desire

Lavanya, just 16, fights Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with brave resolve. She faces countless medications meant to destroy diseased cells. Her smile lights her face and lifts her parents' spirits as they watch her endure. As the long, grueling chemotherapy comes to an end, she raises her arms in triumph.

She defeated the stubborn cells that wouldn’t divide properly.

Who could have guessed that a simple, normal life is so vital to survival? Yet she won it—breathing through treatment, expelling toxicity with steady positivity and persistent vigor.

Her victory affirms her place with family and friends who treasure her. The win is sweet, though the path was dark and lined with painful side effects. Her fierce desire to live inspires her to look forward to graduation.

Winning a competition

Leon stretches before the big game, aware of his racing thoughts. He works to steady his mind. His body responds well to the warm-up. “I will lead my team to victory!” he reminds himself, quietly. “Leon can do it!” he murmurs.

Self-encouragement lifts his spirits, like a mother’s gentle touch. When his name is called, he breathes deeply, enters the field with his cricket bat, and strides confidently to the pitch, waving to the crowd as he clears his mind of doubt.

He wants to just do it!

He aims to act decisively—swift and focused on his goal.

Within minutes, he’s in action, racking up runs with his teammate. The score climbs, and in an hour, he secures the win for his team.

Such victory, earned through effort, is sweet—the fruit of labor, called triumph.

Success may be owed to hard work, luck, or fate. Studies suggest Lady Luck can play a key part.

Lady Luck often appears when someone pursues a dream job, competes in sports, or performs on stage. Clarity, focus, confidence, and composure matter, along with skill. With so much involved, luck often becomes a deciding factor.

What does Winning mean?

The examples given above are Laura’s perseverance, Lavanya’s will to live, and Leon’s self-talk to boost his confidence.

Winning personal challenges, more than external competitions, leads to self-discovery, growth, humility, and lasting fulfillment. This process reveals true capacity and opens new opportunities for a richer life.

Victories in competition are never guaranteed. Today’s win can turn to tomorrow’s loss.

But if you keep winning personal challenges, defeat in competition won’t trouble you. Growth is so rewarding that external noise loses power, leaving you in a meditative state regardless of the chaos around you.

This winning spirit leads to true fulfillment as a human being.

Aim for the win inside yourself rather than the win outside, because that personal win will push you to go further in life, while a win in a competition will be outshined by someone else next time.

Self-Introspection and Compassion

Love, Care, Affection, Honesty, Compassion.
These are some of the nouns that are wired into living creatures.
These names hold a special place at the bottom of the heart in every breathing creature, but it's the environment, the setting the circumstances that can either make an individual mute these attributes or can hone it.


When an infant is born, the terms such as sharing, helping his/her sibling, use of the magic words are inculcated. All of them learn it, but as they tread upon the journey of schooling from elementary to middle school, most of them forget all about it. Call it the race to the finish line or just darn lack of time or the choice of priorities.

Adults sure play a significant role in their molding but at times they too are lost in this game thus, choosing to pinpoint only when necessary. The yearning is all within, but unfortunately, the materialistic world blows dust over it thus, allowing this attribute that actually distinguishes man from an animal to bury deep within.

The household is sprinting along the journey called Life. The child is busy with his academics, set of friends and a shield established by his parents with regards to exposure to the wild world. Until a calamity strikes, and this family starts to limp instead of walking with steady steps. All shields are broken. The slow walk makes them see around themselves. Makes them ponder over the pain their neighbor or a passerby is withstanding over a certain issue. That pain can be felt by all in the family. They choose empathy and extend their hand towards them, which is followed by compassion.

Compassion is an essential part of human personality. All of us have it. Some are more aware of it than others. Some of us have buried it under cynicism and some beneath skepticism.

Sickness, Tragedy, Loss, Sorrow make us halt in our rat race, and ponder over the essence of life.

Self-introspection makes us extend our hands to the community dealing with similar concerns since we realize the genuine joy in sharing and caring along the way.

The choice of giving back such as Volunteering of time and money, Gratitude, Exchange of smiles, Lending an ear to the distressed are some of the ways the society can usually be tendered upon when in distress.

What pace we choose to walk upon is the choice that we have to make!

Mantra for today: A Mindful life is the key to Nirvana!

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The Circle of Life #1000Speak

Adam and Eve were the first man and woman according to the creation myths, and that was the seed of the broad population we have today.

Nature has designed a baby to be born from the union of two adults, thus making sure he is surrounded by family.

Alas! Not all are fortunate to be brought up in a cosy scenario. Circumstances are one such issue that comes forward.

Although the man is surrounded by his fellow men yet he feels alone and depressed.

He could attribute to the surroundings, the circumstances that he is breathing in...the survival of the fittest mantra when competition reaches out to the neck, that makes an individual feel suffocated, that could either choke himself out, or he has the survival instincts and grabs an oxygen mask to be able to fight it out!

We all have been in that situation.
What breed are you?

“One love, one heart, one destiny.” 
― Bob Marley

The present world is full of suffering and injustice, and every soul goes through hardships, thus making them shine like a diamond in the end.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” 
― Plato



When each of us reflect on our lives spent so far, our eyes will get moist over some individuals who held our hands when our legs were shaky to walk even a single step, our tongues were stirring out of nervousness, our hands were trembling and sweaty due to anxiety and fear. There were some people and sometimes too many people who came in our lives who gave us the confidence to walk that extra step, to understand what was on our mind, to hold our hands steady, and provide us with the boost to come out of that situation, and today as we stand surrounded by the lush green of success or happiness we can feel the effect of compassion. The empathy of another human to understand us especially when we were in a plight, and he extended a lending hand. This hand not only comprised of a physical support, but it also dressed up our spirits emotionally and subjectively.



Today, as I stand at the junction of my life where I have breathed in 40+ years of my life, I stand in gratitude to all my teachers, friends, family, neighbors, strangers who helped in the oddest of way, by either lending me a helping hand, or speaking a kind word or two, or just stretching those muscles around their lips by giving out a gentle smile. This gave me the jump start and helped ignite the engine within to keep moving in the direction of my goal.

Thus, making me believe in this high attribute as it created ripples in my life. I intend to pass the baton of compassion, empathy, tenderness, and kindness around so that I can complete the circle of life, with the satisfaction to touch "n" number of lives.

Compassion is essential, and it is all about giving what you have received so far. It is also a reminder to stay grounded, since we all will wear the shoes of sorrow in our lifetime.

The source for morality is within us. We can either just follow our peers who are annoyed with the system of life or we could choose to make our own!


Mantra for today: Showing tolerance, and compassion towards the suffering helps to tap your inner self, which in return is a boon to your existence.


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Visit the 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion Facebook page. Sign up to add your blog post to the effort. Ask to join the Facebook group. Use the hashtag #1000Speak.

This is the link-up for 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion; on February 20th, 2015, over 1000 of us will raise our voices and our writing, and flood the internet (and our real worlds) with GOOD and COMPASSION.

It started with an understanding that even though we might get older, we still all need the metaphorical village around us, and the compassion of others in our lives. Then the sudden thought happened - what if 1000 of us wrote about compassion all at once? From there, the movement has taken on its own life; has burgeoned and grown and spread a whole lot of love and connection and 'villageyness'.

Every voice matters - together we're stronger - let's BE the Village.

Join the 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion group on Facebook

Love in Crisis

Distant sirens wake Sandra up. She is quick to jolt herself up on her bed, and her instantaneous reaction is reaching out to the other side of the mattress. But immediately something inside beckons her, and it takes a couple of seconds for her to register. She nods as if somebody whispered the reality to her.

Earlier these kinds of alarms used to make her alert and help her focus on her goal, i.e., to reach out to the victims that have been wheeled into the ER. But, after a nightmare, things have changed. Her body tends to tremble giving her spasms that make her stand upright in a very peculiar way. The knowledge and sharpness that would seep in when she would see a patient on a stretcher seem to have faded away. She now stares at them, which makes the conscious individuals being wheeled into the ER the palpitations and the apprehension whether they will make it alive or not.

What fizzled the enthusiasm from her job was an ordeal when her friend was wheeled in unconscious. Sandra was done with her duty for the evening and passed by the stretcher, which was holding her consort. She did not pay attention since the face was covered with the red body fluid and her thoughts were giving her company. 

She drove home with that extravagant thinking and started implementing it by putting up a fancy meal for the couple. Amidst the action, she muted her cell phone to avoid any hindrance especially after a long day, which was full of bandaging, stitching and compression of wounds and body parts.

The meal prepared table set. She stepped in for a quick shower.

Minutes were ticking, and even the music was being replayed again. She pulled out her phone to reach out her mate and saw her screen full of texts, missed calls from a known number along with voicemail. Her heart fluttered and she dialed the missed call and had to plop down when listening to the other end. Her eyes were moist, and hands started to tremble when she disconnected the phone while promising to be there as soon as possible.

Her driving was chaotic cause her mind was playing a riot as her body was fighting the tears and agonizing over her companion being in pain.

She reached the hospital and dashed through the hallway into the emergency ward as she was eyeing other individuals for permission to see their beloveds. She breathes a sigh of relief as she could avoid the ordeal.

Sandra was quick to find her mate’s bed and within a few seconds, she found herself parked next to her bandaged face and frail body.

The nurse on duty updated her condition to which she could not resist herself and came out as an outburst. 

The nurses helped Sandra with her shifts as she sat through Roth’s recovery.

Then one morning when the bandages were off, doctors came in to examine. Sandra saw the expressions amidst their professionalism and sneaked out to hear it from their mouth. They described the symptoms of losing sight and becoming hearing impaired as short-lived, thus giving her hope. She was shattered, but she gained composure and helped Roth with the discharge procedure and was happy to bring her home. 

Silence has become their roommate but yet there is this extraordinary closeness between Sandra and Roth as they sip their coffee on a Sunday Morning. Roth is speaking the language of love via her sign dialect while Sandra is seeing through the eyes of compassion and their love is listening with the ears of tolerance.

Mantra for today: Crisis is just a temporary phase of life.

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WriteTribe is celebrating kindness and love this week with a proverb of Rumi. Join in the fun!