The Elegant Secret to Self-Discipline: My Present and Future Self ...

I just read two great articles by David Cain ..."the pursuit of happiness" and "the elegant secret to self-discipline.." To say that "the elegant secret to self-discipline..." put my life in perspective is to sell it short of its amazingness. I have struggled with self discipline and self control all of my life ... My impulse is probably the strongest desire known to self and my need for instant gratification is so  apparent that it need not be explained.

The article talks about how caring for your current self is caring for your future self.. basically stating every action taken now has a direct consequence to what happens to you in the future... i.e., making very bad decisions now for instant gratification and pleasure affects your future self...

I never cared for my future self because I couldn't even draw up an image of what my future self looked like.. I could not for the life of me see me in the future. This realization was scary and at the same time it made perfect sense. I had always done things for "the now..." .. instant gratification.. always self indulged ..allowing my impulse to consume me because there was no reason to preserve my future self; it was practically non existent in my mind. Also, to double the "whammy" .. my innate desire for self control or rather control in general.. derailed any ounce of  self discipline I could have had. Because the need to control things created this urge for everything to be perfect and if things weren't perfect ... it needed to be corrected right there and then to make it perfect with no further thought of future consequence to self.. These combinations... impulsive ... no sense of a future self and my innate desire to control was a dire and deadly mixture to my mind and self. My urge to control and create perfection was in direct conflict with self discipline... it negated the principle.

Now the instant gratification and pleasure is what we are all familiar with... It correlates directly with control... it enables control.. and disables self-discipline. Impulse and Instant gratification are like Siamese twins ... and impulse and self discipline is like oil and water ... I for one know for a fact that my impulse is faster than a lightning bolt... it overcomes me and the emotion that comes along with it never cease until I have acted on that impulse whether it is bad or worse than bad.. lol.. Impulse along side instant gratification never is or rather I would say rarely is for something good.. So how does one restrain this unfamiliar drug called impulse/instant gratification... ?? well read David's Cane "the elegant secret to self discipline .." his present self and future self dichotomy will give you just the thinking and action bolt you need ..It did for me :)

http://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/the-elegant-secret-to-self-discipline/

A Colloquy of Fantastic Truth

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Cheryl Strayed - Tiny Beautiful Things 

 

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more

Erica Jong (via ohlili)

 

I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel.
Life is art.

(via ceremonyviolence) 

 

Style

Picture this ...

Red stained lipstick…withered progeny

Slithered silhouettes… Fiery sun rays

Couture shades

Crop tops.. Wilted shorts

Thigh high hoses ….with countless holes  ..  

Broken moon on carved abs

Soft tan highlights … Cropped style hair

Angled checkered hat… lit cigarette between purple polished fingers

Swirling Merlot  …6 piercing holes

Hazel brown orbits …

Charlatan circles…

Snow like fur… 

Pale tiresome life form ….

Salon pressed cuticles… red dust loafers

Stick like frame’

Smooth ginger bread coat

My Style

 Amaka.

I crave ....

I crave obstinacy  ... 

Rather loud music within closed doors

Shutters painted shut

White walls plastered with great art

Nomadic thoughts amidst daydreams

I crave the soothing effect of bliss

Brutish conversations

Scantily clothed with hems of politically wrong phrases

I want my own thoughts

Rather to own my own thoughts

To think without human shame

I crave to be without being

Lost in beautiful words or art.. or maybe music

 -Amaka

The Happiest People:)

 If this doesn't describe my life ....i don't know what does... Simplicity at its finest...

"The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others."

-William Lyon Phelps

Nigerian-American

This little blurb from -Michelle Byamugisha absolutely describes my identity...

“‘We are going home,’ I often hear my parents announce before our family of five departs for Nigeria. Yet in this home, the cadence of my “hello” declares me foreign. The grins as I attempt to speak the local language mark me an amateur. My self-scrutiny in conversation distracts from the reality of my selfhood. Fortunately, the otherness drifting on the surface of my presence in Nigeria has never been internalized. I am ultimately a Nigerian-American. I am a niece embracing my uncle’s reminder to visit my motherland without my parents. I am a student that detests the savior mentality printed in the books before me. I am a consumer craving the truth of a beautiful, innovative Africa radiating from my television screen. I am an individual pursuing and resisting diasporic detachment. I am a citizen of America and child of Nigeria.”

Time Heals ....

Losing the love you have painstakingly treasured is like losing a limb, the phantom pain flourishing in your mind again and again and again even when you recognized that it is a lost cause; more like picking on the scab on your skin, digging underneath only to unearth the wounds, reliving the pain, the sadness, the misery all over again. The healing process, all the art of moving on, is factored into the sands of time. Hopefully, they are right when they said, “time heals all wounds”.

Perfection

This… text…this beautifully written piece of art..says it all:).....This is all that I live for…if nothing else… 

 

"Hot showers that are eight degrees away from scalding the skin in winter morns. Comforters and hot coco on a dreary day, the first few notes of my favorite song emanating from the radio’s battered speakers and the sound of rain hitting gently against the window pane. Differently hued pens, clean papers and journals filled with horribly written thoughts under my pillow. Messily piled novels on my bedside, a worn out bookmark inched between one of the books’ yellowed pages and reliving my favorite moments of the book, enraptured in its the aftertaste. Munching on my favorite desserts without feeling guilty about sinning against my waistline, cold malt or cold chocolate milk on an especially scorching day and air conditioner turned on at just the right Fahrenheit. Serial killer movies and novels and television shows, a hearty guffaw or two and spending hours to no end with family and friends. Sleeping till noon, the sight of thousands of books in a public library and dreaming of creating the impeccable library of my own. Sincere compliments, gentle kisses and tightest hugs. Coming across attractive guys and soul-stirring paintings and thought-provoking prose. Tears fraught with joy or relief, the art of winning and floating in water, submerging into a new world free from noise and worries. Perfection is the little things, the insignificant moments you remember the most when circumstances no longer go your way, those ephemeral seconds that take your breath away."
Enjoy them<3

100 books to read before I die

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag others and tag me as well so I can see your responses!

Before the challenge: 12/100 

Current: 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo