One saying that is so real and yet, so rarely put to use is: “Control the controllable.” This post by Ralph Marston covers factors beyond our control and is a recommended read. Partake:

There are many influential factors in our day-to-day lives over which we have no control. These things can serve as very reasonable and acceptable excuses. Take the weather for example. If it’s pouring down rain, that’s an excellent excuse for arriving late to an appointment or not arriving at all. In a big city, traffic conditions offer a similar excuse. During the last few years, one very common excuse has been “the economy.” Because of difficult and uncertain conditions in the overall economy, people and businesses delay or avoid all sorts of activities. This, of course, makes economic conditions even worse. People don’t spend, businesses don’t invest in new ideas, and economic activity contracts even further. And the thing is, it’s all perfectly understandable because of factors beyond our control.

It’s important to keep in mind, though, that there have always been, and will always be, all sorts of factors over which we have little or no control. If we had always waited until things were perfect before moving forward, no one would have ever accomplished anything. Yes, the weather, the traffic, the economy, and a whole lot of other things make great excuses. But excuses accomplish nothing.

Everything that’s ever been accomplished has been done in spite of all the perfectly understandable and valid reasons that argue against moving forward. Instead of blaming factors beyond our control, we always have the option of finding a way to achieve anyway. No matter what things are beyond our control, there are still a lot of powerful, effective factors we can control. We can think, adjust, imagine, respond, learn, act, move, and collaborate, just to name a few. We can look realistically at the situation, including the factors beyond our control, and figure out a way to do it anyway.

From the greatest challenges come the greatest achievements. Even though there will always be factors beyond our control, we can always find a way to successfully deal with them.

“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

- Maya Angelou, an American Poet

“If you observe your life very closely, you will discover that you don’t necessarily get what you deserve. Rather, you get no more and no less than what you believe you deserve. Only to the degree that you appreciate your innate human worthiness will your subconscious mind open up to life’s bounty. Success involves talent, effort, and creativity, but first of all, it requires a willingness to receive.” – Dan Millman

Love seems so different at this time for some reason
As if somehow it changes from season to season
If we let old habits die and new one’s begin
Relationships will become what we intend
Today, we reflect on how great they have been
Not trying our best to resurrect them
See, being at your finest for twenty four hours
Does not sweeten up that which you have made sour
What is not possessed is a good clear perspective
About the effort and time that you have invested
True love isn’t shown external on just the fourteenth
It’s in the milli of seconds, every day, every week
Today’s not the day to go out of your way
To do something special or have nice words to say
It’s simply to look back on what’s shared between lovers
Cause Valentine’s Day should look no different from any other

Will Smith is one of the greatest examples of human beings we have on this earth. I share in his beliefs and thus I must share this with you.

“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

Nothing. Your life situations don’t change, your power of choice doesn’t change, and your limitless ability to do anything is left unchanged. What you can/will/should do in the new year, you could/would/should have done in the previous year. If you treat the new year in the same respect as you did the previous one, you will get the same result out of the new one as you did the old. I do not say this to shoot down the optimism that may come with your “New Year’s Resolution” but merely to say that the greatest thing you can do is to do now. There will always be another year approaching to put off to and therefore you will always have an excuse to not do now. Embrace what you have now, what you are now, and what you can be now and you will find that no matter the time of year you will be the best version of yourself that you can be. Leaving yourself happy not simply due to the dawn of the new year but for reasons you shall only understand once you’ve arrived at that point.

LXD performance on So You Think You Can Dance