Category Archives: Humanity

A-Z Challenge: P is for Potential

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee
© by Raymond Alexander Kukkee [caption id="attachment_40" align="alignleft" width="300"]Thoughts lead to Ultimate Potential Thoughts lead to Your  Ultimate Potential[/caption]   P is for Potential How's yours?  Potential, that is. everyone has a lot of potential. Surprising, isn't it? What do you do with yours?   Do you try to encourage others? Does your potential remain inactive, lazy, unexplored, untested?   Perhaps you consider yourself a dismal failure. A poor writer.  A failed scribbler dwelling in a barren attic. Perhaps you are resigned to be a follower,  a bleating sheep wandering fruitlessly, half-heartedly producing free articles for greedy word mills instead of  attempting to fend your own way amongst wolves,  write original works of merit; be a unique writer, a brave shepherd. With inaction, you might  be a poet laureate,  but more likely, remain a sweeper of streets  after parades of others more successful  visit the queen. Think about it. No matter what your status is, you can do better. The ultimate  goal is to improve,  and be better.

Developing your own Potential

Developing your potential is like any other 'self-improvement' program. Improve your own potential quickly by:
  • Evaluating your existing strengths and weaknesses realistically.  The old adage "Know thyself" comes to mind. What can you do best with what you already ARE?
  • Use your strengths appropriately.  Apply the talents you have been blessed with. Why hide wonderful talents when you could ride them to success?
  • Explore working outside of your comfort zone.  You may surprise yourself with your abilities.
  • Appraising your weaknesses with an eye to self-improvement. If you recognize weaknesses and wish to pursue goals within that field,  take appropriate steps to strengthen, fill  gaps, --learn what you need to be successful, -and with confidence, strengthen your personal resolve to achieve your goals.
  • Persist quietly with inner peace and  patience.  Keep "Patience is a virtue" in the back of your mind at all times.  Great accomplishments take time.
  • Never quit because of early failures..  Great accomplishments may take many attempts to achieve the desired goals and excellence. Practice makes perfect. No kidding.

Encouraging the Potential of Others

From a position of  success, skill and easy street, the struggles of those surrounding you are easily overlooked.  It never hurts to be kind.  You can make a huge difference and play a key role in the future success of others.  Never underestimate the power of a kind word spoken at just the right time.  Encouragement and inspiration is a positive influence in the lives of others and can spur them on to far greater accomplishments --and perhaps even fame and fortune.  You can encourage others to  their potential and learn much in the process by careful thought and progressive planning.
  • Helping others identify and  appreciate  their own strengths, skills, and possibilities. Some individuals with low self-esteem  fail to recognize good  inherent skill sets they already possess.
  • Offer sincere congratulations, assistance, and  above all,  be happy for others when they do achieve a goal. Genuine happiness encourages a positive attitude in all concerned.
  • Encourage the exploration and expansion into field of endeavor they may not have considered. For writers, as an example, encourage the exploration of other genres. Encourage self-publishing.  Critique freely without vindictiveness.
  • Let your agenda be for the concern of others; discover their potential, and in doing so, learn, develop, and discover your own.
There is much to be learned by examining  and exploring potential of your own -and others around you. That's why P is for Potential.   Is that Incoming I hear?        
Posted in Humanity, Life, Reflections, Writing Life | 2 Comments

A-Z Challenge: N is for Nostalgia

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee
© 2013  Raymond Alexander Kukkee [caption id="attachment_1010" align="alignleft" width="300"]Briton Riviere 'The Old Gardener' Briton Riviere 'The Old Gardener'[/caption] N is for Nostalgia.   The good old days. Times past.  " Back in the old days we..." How many times have you reflected, remembered better days, happier times? Nostalgia offers the poignant remembrance that social values appear to have changed. "Society is different. Civilization and humanity itself has somehow changed."

Changed for the Better? Is It Changed at All?

Today it is easy to sit back in sorrow, listening to tragic events unwinding in appalling news, -and dwell in the confines of nostalgia.   It is easy to conclude that yes, life seemed better 'in the old days', life was 'safer', and  more 'family-oriented'. People seemed more kind and more helpful to one another, society seemed gentler. White picket fences. Mom & Pop corner stores.  Happy children. Afternoon matinees with popcorn and  a soda at the ice cream shop. The illusion of 'the good life'  lived on happily-perhaps dangerously and naively  so. World War II was finished and life was 'peaceful'.   Is nostalgia itself deceiving us?

Yes, Nostalgia is Easy-But  It is also Easy to be Disillusioned and  Wrong.

Life was easy and  better then.    Easy right into into Korea.  Vietnam.  Somalia. Easing right into  Bosnia, the Gulf Wars, 9/11,  terrorism,  Iraq.  Afghanistan. Close your eyes, ignore reality, flash forward, to  better times and let's just skip those endless, terrible events.  'Life's better now."    Right. In today's world  Iran is threatening peace in the Middle East, secular unrest everywhere is rampant and unpredictable,  and North Korea's bluster  is threatening nuclear annihilation of the USA. Horrific terrorist acts by fanatics with their own deadly agenda, like yesterday's insanity of bombing of innocents at the Boston Marathon Bombing, madmen shooting children at Sandy Hook,  and Columbine, --and endless other venues keep happening. It is incredibly sad to hear of beloved, 8-year-old children being victims of fanatic terrorists in any venue.   Death, mayhem and destruction today may suddenly make the past appear more peaceful, --but in reality it was not. These cowardly and inexcusable incidents and attacks upon the innocent are unbelievably sad, terribly tragic to families of those lost, maimed and  injured--and frightening to the ever more wary, scared, and nervous public.  Our hearts and prayers go out to our American neighbours.  These incidents will never be forgotten-they are printed indelibly on the minds of children and adults alike--worldwide, all of humanity. Senseless acts such as these, regardless of venue and detail, are rooted in evil and madness. We poignantly wish to somehow distance our minds from the pain and evil of today, and slip into nostalgia, the "perfect peace of older times". We willingly disillusion ourselves. If one questions the reality that is the imaginary past --so easily contrived with the art of nostalgia --was civilization any better?  No. Is this time in history really changed for the 'better' --or worse --if at all ? No. We think not. The same elements of collective human insanity exist. Genocide, murder, war, bombings, rape, and the warmonger's disruption of peace. The venues may change but  the foolishness,  violence and insanity of humanity does not.  The same insatiable greed, stupidity, and foolishness exists.  Social problems continue to receive the same unacceptable lip service. The same brutality, animalistic behaviour, pervasive hate and racism are 'alive and well'.   Wars and mind-chilling rumors of the ultimate war persist.  The grip of perpetual and progressively worse fear is endlessly encouraged to invade the psyche, encouraging the belief that the events of today are somehow so much  worse than the past.  Instil more fear. Frightened people are easier to control by power-hungry governments.  There is nothing new under the sun. We must come to understand . Only the names of the victims change.  A quantum leap in the way society thinks and develops is required. As an aside, it seems to me that one fact of nostalgia itself remains constant.           In reality, the victims of  nostalgia are all of us. Collectively.   That is why N is for nostalgia.   Is that Incoming I hear/ Photo credit:   Briton Riviere: 'The old gardener'    Wikimedia commons +  
Posted in Humanity, Life, Major Issues, Reflections, The Unknown | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments