Quotable Quotes

Most everyone has their own set of favourite quotes, and I thought I'd go ahead and share some of the ones that I have so far. None of these are mine, by the way. Some are by unknown authors; I found them online. If anyone knows who those are by, please do share!

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.-Kahlil Gibran 

Of all the things that can be stolen from you – your possessions, your youth, your health, your words, your rights – what no one can ever take from you is your freedom to choose what you will believe in, and who and what your heart will love.-Unknown

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.- Howard Thurman

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have, and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught how to fly.-Patrick Overton

Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. -Neil Gailman

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and we reach it. -Michelangelo

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.-Unknown

Are you being the best you can be or the worst that has happened to you? -Brian Vaszily

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.-Charles F. Kettering

Do you give as much energy to your dreams as you do to your fears?  -Unknown

Think outside of the box, create your own path in life. “You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh because you are all the same.”-Daniel Knode

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Bill Gates, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -Unknown

May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being, may you walk gently through the world and know it's beauty all the days of your life.-Apache Blessing

Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.-Unknown

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.-Buddha

Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Your life may change, but your dream doesn’t have to. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Your spouse and children need not get in its way, because the dream is within you. No one can take your dream away.-Tom Clancy

When you find yourself cocooned in isolation and despair and cannot find your way out of the darkness, remember that this is similar to the place where caterpillars go to grow their wings.-Unknown

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
-Maya Angelou

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Chasing Happiness

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely guilty of assuming that happiness depends on change. These changes can be big or small, but a lot of the time, I look for happiness in future situations, instead of realising that happiness should not be conditional upon what can or will or should happen; rather, we should learn to find happiness in what actually IS.

I know for a fact that there are many other people who think this way. There is a wide array of literature instructing us on how to better our lives so that we can 'be happy'. Maybe the focus of such writing should change slightly, and be able to instruct us to build up on the happiness that we already feel, and do not give enough importance to. I know that in the past, I've thought that I'd be happy if I got a certain grade on an exam, or travelled to a certain place, or did a certain thing, or interacted with a certain group of people. Sure, those acts would have made me happy. But what I failed to recognise at the time is that by living in and worrying about the future so much, I was passing up so many opportunities that life gave me to be happy right where I was. Of course, I did try, as much as so many others do, to be 'mindful and aware', to 'live in the moment', to try and realise that 'the present is a gift'. Yet, I don't think I fully realised just how fulfilling it can be to actually be happy in the moment until very recently.

I'm definitely not saying that we shouldn't plan ahead, or dream about the future (read my previous post about the same http://meandmine-r.blogspot.com/2014/08/freedom-to-dream.html). I think it's definitely vital to give importance to the future, to plan and to improve so that our lives don't become stagnant, but I think we need to be able to do this while simultaneously appreciating the present that we are in. Personally, I've spent a large amount of the previous months worrying about my future; where am I going to be, what am I going to be doing, blah blah blah. Finally, I had a realisation sometime within the past week or so that made me want to kick myself. It didn't matter where I was going to be, not really. Nor did it matter what I was going to be doing. Because I've had moments of uncertainty in the past, but no matter where I ended up, I was able to be happy, to make the best of my circumstances. 

AHA! There. That was it. I really couldn't believe that it could be so simple; just being able to trust that we will be able to make the best of our futures really puts things in perspective and helps us be happy here and now. Of course, I still wonder what life is going to throw my way... who doesn't? But now I'm confident that no matter what it is, I'll tackle it as it comes. And I can also take time to enjoy my life right where I am (whether that involves jamming out in a car to 'Eye of the Tiger' on a backroad in the middle of nowhere or just enjoying the company of those around me).

We all have it within us to be able to inspire ourselves; we just need to be able to look at our situations with a little more perspective, and we'll realise that the happiness we think has been eluding us so long has been right here with us all along. 

Have a happy Friday, won't you! 

Freedom to Dream

Recently, a singer that I follow on Facebook posted a quote that read "If people aren't laughing at your dreams, your dreams aren't big enough". And that definitely got me thinking about how we dream. Not the strange, crazy dreams that we have while we're asleep, but dreams that we control while we're awake. I'm here to argue that the way most of us dream is flawed.

We limit ourselves based on an ideal of what is realistic, and fail to realise that the only thing that should restrict our ability to dream is our imagination.
If we do dream, we fail to realise that dreams do not (most of the time) magically come true. Most of the time, they take time (lots), work (even more), and require belief in ourselves that surpasses the belief others have in us.

Why do these fundamental flaws in our ways of dreaming exist? Why is it that many of us restrict ourselves in what we aim for or expect whatever we aim for to happen instantaneously? Strangely enough, sometimes children are the biggest believers out of all of us. Ask any child what they want to be when they 'grow up', and many of them will aim ('unrealistically') high. Doctor, astronaut, scientist, millionaire, etc. But if we ask the same children what they want a few years later, they will have toned down their dreams, and will probably scoff at their earlier aspirations.

It's scary, isn't it, that we've created a culture of contradiction as opposed to support that tells us to dream small? Imagine what we could do if people believed in each other and themselves a little bit more, if they had the courage to believe in their dreams and their ability to achieve these dreams, and if they were able to appreciate the hard work and commitment it takes to get there?

Dream big today, won't you?

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Efficiency in Wedding Organisation

Efficiency is a goal that firms and individuals have tried to achieve in most, if not all aspects of day-to-day life. Employers look for ways to increase productivity at work, individuals try and find ways to cut down on time spent on chores at home and we are all constantly exploring apps that will make our lives faster and easier. Wedding planners, website designers and soon-to-be wedded couples have also started to catch up in the efficiency race, with the introduction of DIY wedding websites, where engaged couples and their families can buy templates and then use them to plan and organise their weddings.  

One service however, has taken a different approach to wedding websites. Wedeze, a new premium wedding website service founded by Gurdeep Sembi, Managing Director of SembiSoft, aims to provide an easy to use, yet fully managed service to engaged couples. Sembi says "A lot of the DIY solutions for wedding websites end up looking exactly like that, DIY. In order to have a great looking website, a lot of thought and expertise needs to go into the layout of the content, how it is presented and how user friendly it is. Even with the best designed templates, if the content is not structured correctly, the website will end up looking average.”

Wed​eze gets basic information about the wedding from the couple (or whoever else is helping to organise the wedding), and then set up a wedding website that is easily accessible from all devices. The difference between Wedeze and other DIY websites is that Wedeze set up and manage the website for you with unlimited support for a year; meaning that the couple and their family can ask for help for anything regarding their website at no additional cost, leaving them more time and resources to dedicate to other aspects of their special day (or week, depending on the type of wedding being held). 

Efficiency does not have to mean a compromise on quality, and that is exactly the sort of service that Wedeze delivers; efficiency while still being of high-quality. In terms of helping wedding planners, couples, and families looking to plan a painless and enjoyable wedding, this service definitely seems to be ahead in the game.  

Feel free to check out Wedeze right here!

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Supermoon

Got a chance to pull out my camera today after a long time, and it felt great! I did get some interesting pictures, but none compare to the real thing... it was incredibly beautiful. It feels like I've seen the moon thousands of times, and yet, moments like these never fail to take my breath away. It's the simple things, really.

To Move and To Stay

Recently, I've had to tell myself that soon (hopefully), I'll be settled down in some (as yet unknown) place. I'll relax into some sort of routine, and most of my time will be spent in the city that I choose to live and work in. One city, one home, one room. For an extended period of time. Sure, many of us make big moves in our lives; moving to different cities, states, or even countries. Yet, I've heard of a lot of people who've lived in the same 50-kilometre radius for their whole lives (which does confound me just a little bit). From my perspective, I'm one of the lucky/unlucky (take your pick) ones who has done quite a bit of moving in 22 years. Big city in East Africa, to small town in India. Small town in India, to small town in Western Kenya. Small town in Western Kenya back to big city Nairobi. Big city Nairobi to Tennessee (exactly four years ago). And most recently? A move from Tennessee, with my destination yet to be decided. And at this grown up destination, there is sure to be some sort of routine that I will fall into.

Most humans have evolved into creatures of habit. We can rarely be defined as nomads, and travel is often done with the aim of getting back to where we started from. From being something that was important and undertaken quite often by our ancestors, travel has taken on a leisurely tone, and is rarely a regular necessity.
Do I want to be forced by circumstances to have to move my home every few weeks or even days? Absolutely not. But I do want to be able to remember, when my 'life routine' has set into place, to make travel a priority. Not just travel for the sake of relaxation and exploration, but travel for the sake of learning and growing and appreciating that we live in a very big place indeed.

On that note, I've been thinking of making a travel bucket list. Of course, I have no idea where to start. There's so much diversity of place to be found a mere one hundred miles away; how do I expect myself to pick from an entire globe? But pick I must, and sooner rather than later, so that as time goes on I have something to use should I try make excuses for myself later on. Ireland would be great to start, wouldn't it?