Alysse Aallyn

Tag: success

  • Purrsiflage – Your Daily Cat Zen with Alysse Aallyn

    Feb 10

    The Universe Wants You to Know You’ve Been Looking at This Wrong – Maybe it’s time to upgrade your concept of success. 

    Do you dream of adulation? Applause?  You need to remember that it’s the journey, not the arrival that matters, because it’s all we have.  The successful life is one long journey. The tired and footsore Purrson needs heartwarming visions to sustain joy for the voyage.

    Success Is a Worse Hazard for Purrsons Than Failure – Battle-hardened Purrsons threaten to collapse on reaching Road’s End.  Success requires us to see ourselves through others’ imagined eyes (and their specious and self-serving statements) – thus risking loss of self and a derailment of energy.  Future plans will be torpedoed in pursuit of the momentary fix of another’s apparent approbation. Isn’t the very idea of “success” something of a mirage?

    Success Is How You Define It – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation and approval by others, haven’t we given away the ultimate power over our lives? Many people define success in material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while they freely admit nobody “needs” that much money. (They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I would judge them as “unsuccessful.”) If the most important standards are your own personal ones then the only person to please is yourself and those you love.  Let’s rephrase the challenge:  are you content?

    Purrson Challenge – When success is “arrival”, a “finish line” is implied. Do you really want to be finished? As we desire constant progress, then reaching a goal is death. But the opposite  – endless striving – is just  a treadmill. A “rat race”, in point of fact. So, the ultimate success must be “contentment with the journey”. To be content we assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps.  Many times we discovered something even more wonderful that we didn’t even know we were searching for.

    Purrson Danger – Success is a drug: so be careful. Don’t get addicted. Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You can see that’s nonsensical.  We don’t visualize each other’s sadness, emptiness and pain, only display, swagger and showmanship.

    Purrson Opportunity – is to feel compassion for another’s hurt and struggle. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take stock of how far you’ve come and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing.  Retired, I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.

    Models & Mentors – “without continual growth & progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning” – Benjamin Franklin

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe

    “There is always light – if we’re brave enough to see it, we’re brave enough to be it “ – Amanda Gorman

    “Rules for success: 1. Believe in your ideas 2. Pick good people  3. Earn Respect 4. Always be a student 5. Enjoy what you do 6. Ask for advice 7. Learn to say No 8. Create the best products 9. Don’t take things personally 10. Create the future”

    – Bill Gates

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Rainbow – Serendipity

      If This Card Chooses You – You Were Born Lucky! What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

      How lucky do you need to be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s really just our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop gratitude thinking.

      Warrior Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

      Warrior Danger – Now that you’re committed to the warrior path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

      Warrior Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

      How Did We Get Here? Turns out your map was only a suggestion.
      We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more interesting, it turns out, than our imaginations.

      After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?

      List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Training Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?

      The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!

      Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult” – Erin McKean

      “Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

      “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

      “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

      “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

      #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

      Happenstance –
      Fortuitous
      Chance; we’re
      Born lucky
      We just don’t know it.