My baby is a little bit more than 3 months now. I look back to what has happened, and I can say that a lot of things has hapened without me realizing it. Well, it’s not like I forget, but it just that i can feel time flies. Seems like what I heard in Andy Stanley podcast. “The days are long, the years are short” for my case, “the days are long, but the months are short”

I’m sure you might have different activities and priorities in your life. Now since we have just start 2016, I have some questions for you. Although about 20 days has passed in 2016. Did you make a goal in the beginning of the year? How is it so far? Do you stumble over some of your goal? Or most of it? It’s great if you can fulfill all your goals. As for me, I stumble quite a lot. I want to say that I think that I start quite strong. But in the middle when I found out that my wife pregnant, it took some shifts on my priorities and scramble on things for preparing to be a parent. At near the end, I look back and I wish i can do more, but i didn’t. Time has become my enemy. It keeps going without waiting for me.

Nearing the end of the year, I learn one common theme which is about life. Just like to mine gold, where you need to shake the impurities to get he gold, i need to filter through the noises of my rambling thoughts to get the best nuggets on the highlight of the year. You should do it too if you haven’t done that. Here are some nuggets I’ve collected so far.
1. No one else is responsible with your life
It is easier to just blame on others. But at the end of the days, I found that nothing changed when I do that. If there’s issue, it’s still become unresolve and I need to handle it anyway. It takes more energy and time to handle that.How about you? Do you feel that way too? I learnt that although it affects my life, it doesn’t have control over me, unless I let it be. It’s still hard, but at least you spend less time and more energy towards overcoming the challenges

2. Life will only get harder, do not delay
I believe that people are nostalgic. Maybe it’s only me. When I look back, I have the common theme in life, which is “when it’s…” ‘i’ll read more when i have become better parents”, “i’ll invest more when the economy is better”, “I’ll look at my finances, when the time is right” etc. Just like what you expected, that time never come. And I’m sure it will never come because as time goes on, there always another hindrances comes in our way. It is an obvious thing, yet most people, including me fall in the same trap. Instead of later, think of what can you do now? Think that you don’t need to everything, but what is the important things to do at this period?

3. Prepare/plan when you are sober
When life is smooth, I’m sure you can think of a lot of things that you want to do. But sometimes it stop at that. Thinking. When life goes auto pilot, there might be something that surprise us. No one can predict what happen in the future, but everyone can prepare something now. I learn that it’s more probable for me to exercise when i’ve prepare the training clothes a day before. It doesn’t have to be about exercise, what do you have in mind? What do you want to be? What can you prepare at this moment? It doesn’t have to be big, but it has to start.

4. Don’t beat yourself up for the failures
People make mistake. That’s human. I never see anyone that never does any mistake. Don’t give up. I know you and I can’t control how people react to our mistake, but we need to get up and do what we need to do. It doesn’t mean you are license to make deliberate mistake. It means you and I need to prepare and do the best. When we do mistake in the process, that is fine. Most of the time, we have a chance to fix the issue. Unless you are a surgeon and by making a tiny mistake makes somebody died.

5. Don’t forget to stop and be grateful
In the city life, mostly we are so called running to finish one more things. To complete one more project, etc. There’s always one more thing need to be done today. We forget to stop and be grateful with what we have. I got sense that most of the time you envy with what other people have. Try to look at what you have. Have you notice your loved ones that keep supporting you all the way? Or you notice how your love ones angry with you because of some small issues? If I tell you that you’ll get more of the stuff that you focus on, how will you change your perspective? By this, i mean that if you focus on the mistake of your loved ones, you’ll get more of that. As in more mistake. Do you want that?

6. Find time for maximum impact.
As you know, we only have 24 hours. But why other people can do more things done but you and me can’t? I might just say things for me, but I learn that time is not created equal. What works for you, might not works for other people. So find your timing. If you find morning is important, make the most of it. By that, you’ll get and use time for the maximum impact for your life and others. Since you and I only have 24 hours, and whatever we do, we will need to use it anyway, what are you going to use with it?

What are your aspirations for this year? What are some lessons learned from last year? Since it is still early in the new year, why don’t you and me maximize what we have so that we’re not slipping in our life. You wouldn’t want to let slipping, would you?

Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” – Eric Roth