The fact is, it is not just the eagle that falls. We likewise, all have our good times and bad times. There are moments in life that make us, moments in life that break us. There are times which we felt we lost control over everything and that the future looks so bleak. When adversity and challenges set in, we fear to face them. I am sure all of us in one way or another would have felt something like this. This is exactly normal. However, we must learn to awaken the ‘eagle spirit’ in us. That is what that matters. When an eagle gets worn out, it will remain in solitude on a high cliff and renew its strength.

There are several lessons we can learn from the eagles. Unlike others birds that seek for shelter during approaching storms, eagles face the storm head on. Eagles gather among the clouds and fly high when the storm rolls in. Eagles do not run for cover during the high winds of the storm but would use it as a stepping stone to soar even higher. Just like the eagles, we must have the courage and strength to fight the storms in our lives. The strong winds may weaken us momentarily, but we must press on. Defy all odds. Define your odds.

It does not matter how severe the storm is. All is a matter of your perception and determination. In the bible, when Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldier all thought, “He’s so big that we can never kill him.” But David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big that I can’t miss.” What happens outside of us are small matters compared to what happens within us. Similarly, eagles dare to take on mammals much larger than themselves and they will not lose sight of their prey till they are captured. They are absolutely determined to accomplish what they set out for.

Prepare yourself for what is to come after overcoming this challenge. Take the time to reflect what you have done well and not so right. This is your chance to move on to an even higher level. When you prepare yourself adequately, the opportunity would just present itself. Eagles, unlike other birds, do not simply just use their own strength and keep on flapping their wings to gain flight. Instead, the eagles will sit on a rock and read the wind. When the moment is perfect, the eagles soar upwards rapidly with ease by spreading the wings. The key thing is, only a combination of adequate preparation and opportunity will make things happen for you. No wind is favorable until you know which direction you want in your life. Overcoming adversity is not just about having courage to struggle among the strong winds where you are right now, but the courage to move out from your current situation to a higher level. It is only through this, that we would renew our strength and go on to greater heights.

Let us all soar like an eagle.

Article written by
Keith Ng
270910

Cancer does not and will not define who you are. It is just a part of life. Everyone of us have our own trials and obstacles. But it does not define who you are. If you have goals and dreams that you want to pursue, don’t stop. Go ahead and accomplish what you want. Just because you are restricted in some ways, it does not mean you’re restricted completely. Don’t stop living. Set your goals. This is just your particular journey, your particular experience. You may have to modify the way you can achieve them, but complete them in the best way that you can. Just be realistic as well.

Keep going, while knowing what your limitations are. Having cancer, of course, it is inevitable that you have days which you don’t feel comfortable and needs more rest. Get ready for this. Have as much right nutrition as you can and ask as much questions from your doctor and fellow fighters who have been through what you will be going through. In any case, even the average person falls sick on certain days. It just simply means that you have to learn to adapt to some changes into your life.

Addressing cancer may be a difficult issue, because even if you choose to ignore it, it is still there and it still changes things. But at the same time, it also doesn’t change things. It’s hard to explain. Most survivors would still be the same person as they were in many ways, but at the same time also not. They may appear different, feel different and think a little different. But then again, even if for someone without cancer, he would also probably look, feel and think differently after a few years as well.

The first thing that you have to do is to get yourself as educated as possible on your situation. I know that with the prognosis, it can be quite hard to get your thoughts clear, but you got to make an informed course of decision to see how you can get yourself treated with the best possible options. Life gains a certain urgency when you have cancer but it will focus your mind on what’s really important in your life.

There are a lot of things you can learn from having cancer. It’s kind of bad that we have to have a disease like this to learn so much. We would have wished that we could have learned the things we know now without having to go through it. But that is part and parcel of life.

Everyone knows that you never know how many tomorrows you have left. But it changes you somehow when you are actually being told that you have something that you can die from. It changes the way you look at things. It changes the way you approach things. It changes the way you feel about everything. But those are not bad changes. Cancer is not good, but sometimes the things that evolve from it can be very positive.

Having that realization would make us reevaluate and prioritize the things that are really important to us. Whenever events or specials occasions have been planned for, go ahead and realize it. Don’t put off vacations or any other time with your family if you would like to.

Being a cancer warrior gives you something that the average person doesn’t have. You learn to value and love life more. You appreciate friends and family more. It helped you to not sweat about the small stuff anymore, which the average person can be so miserable about. You will have a greater understanding of what it means to be alive and to appreciate the suffering that other patients have been going thru.

And when you finally come to the point whereby you can proudly say that you have been through something really horrible and you overcome it, you might want to spread the light. There are two ways to spread the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Be a source of inspiration to other warriors. Everyone who got to where he is had to start from where he was. Now that you have come a long way to learn how to manage cancer, you might want to guide others and bring them through this the way that others have done so for you. Share your experiences to fellow warriors who might need your knowledge on certain issues that comes along. Alternatively, simply introduce fellow warriors to people whom you know can be of great help to them. Every small act that you do will be critical to their recovery phase.

Nevertheless, uncertainty is an issue that you will have to learn how to grapple with. It can cause a lot of frustration and anger. That is normal. You might be wondering if you are going to live to an old age. But then again, think about it. Even if you have not been diagnosed with cancer, there is also no guarantee that you would live to an old age. Life itself simply has too many uncertainties and cancer is just one of them that are made known to you for now. There are people out there unaware of the illness that’s within them, but are still living lives to the fullest. The same should go for us. It is those people that live with the false sense of illusion that they are going to live forever, that are going to have a lot of regrets in their life. One day, you life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.

Humans have a strength that cannot be measured. This is Keith Ng. By reading this, you are the resistance. The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Never stop fighting. The battle has just begun.

Leap of Faith

Live Strong,

Keith Ng

I have been asked to write an article on ‘How To Get What You Want In Life’ by several of my readers, colleagues, relatives and friends. It is kind of overdue but I do hope that some of the points that I will be about to share would be relevant to you guys and play a part in your journey towards achieving what you want.

Firstly, we must know that everyone in this world who got to where he is had to start from where he was. No one is born a winner or loser. How much we want to win in our lives depends on how ‘hungry’ or responsible we want to be for it. But before you can even really win anything, you got to know what you want in your life.

Many a times, most people are seeking what most people out there are seeking. By normative social pressures, most people skipped the process of thinking through what they really want in their lives and conform to what most people out there are pursuing. And when they finally get what they think they want, they finally realized they were actually looking for something else. Therefore, you got to really know what you value in your life. If one does not know which port he is sailing, there is always no favorable wind. Without knowing your objectives, you will also miss out on opportunities that come along because you can’t see it as one to begin with.

By knowing what matters to you, it is also very easy to make seemingly difficult decisions. Most decisions in our lives involve accepting something while rejecting something else. There is an opportunity cost to every choice we make. It is only by being very clear on your own set of values and beliefs, that we would be able to act decisively upon them.

Now that you have uncovered what truly matters to you, you got to start asking yourself questions like, ‘where am I now?’, ‘where do I want to go to’ and ‘how do I get there?’

Your questions however, should not be just the average questions. If you just ask the average question, you will get the average answer. The key thing is, do you, want to be just the average?

If you simply prefer to be the average, you may stop reading this article at this point. If you desire to go beyond your current situation, the following points might help you to get to where you want.

Ask yourself, what are the critical questions that will help you to uncover the ways that will get you where you want to arrive. It could be anything that you define it to be. To a student, it might mean getting a high GPA. To a salesperson, it could be exceeding his quota. To a father, it could be how to enrich the lives of his family. To a patient, it could be how to recuperate in the best possible way and quickest time. It doesn’t matter how you define it to be. Find out, from those people who have been through it. Learn from their experience to cut short your learning curve. To know the way ahead, ask those coming back.

Challenge yourself as well. Instead of asking what is the average income that a university graduate makes after you graduate, ask how much are the top graduates are making. Instead of asking how long is the expected duration to finish an academic course, ask what is the fastest possible time to complete the course. Instead of asking what is the average time span life you are looking at after being diagnosed a terminal illness, ask so what are the methods that has allowed similar patients to recover and have beaten the odds totally.

Never be satisfied with what you are told or what the expected result is. You are you. If you anchor yourself to the average population out there, you are certainly not doing a justice to yourself. In essence, the quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and others.

When you start to challenge yourself and ask why not, you open yourself to a whole world of possibilities. You have redefined your winning chances. Awareness would then give you additional power because awareness gives you choice.

There is always this thing call unconscious competency. When we start to limit ourselves by other people’s standards, we are compromising our strengths. Every athlete who has broken the world records will tell you that the importance of tapping on your unconscious competency cannot be over emphasized. Ask not what we are, but what we may be. It is more important to not know what one can’t do, than to know what one can do, when it comes to achieving personal feats. Remember, miracles are not a contradiction of nature. They are only in contradiction of what we humans know of nature.

After seeking the answers from the questions you asked, you would then be able to make an informed decision on the various choices you have. The right knowledge will help lead you to the right path. But still, we are only halfway there.

You may have heard that knowledge is power. But I totally disagree. It only gives you the potential to get towards what you desire. Knowledge itself has no power. It is the application of your knowledge in the right manner that manifests results.

After knowing your options you got to make a firm decision. At this point in time, procrastination will be your greatest enemy. There is absolutely no point asking intelligent questions, knowing your available options and then not doing anything about it. But sadly, this is the stage where many people stops. They are simply happy enough to know a lot of things without realizing they are in no way better off than someone else who knows nothing at all. You need to decide and act upon it.

Having made an informed choice, it does not stop here. You need to be persistently fighting towards your goal. More likely than not, you will have to go thru a fair share of setbacks before you can get to where you want. Persistence inevitably comes with it that you would have to have a great deal of faith in yourself and what you do. Faith is the evidence of things not (yet) seen.

However, what keeps most people from getting what they want is because of the habit of wanting instant gratification. That is, wanting to enjoy now and not having the patience to wait for future benefits. By spending on that new car or designer watch, they get instant gratification. When it comes to investing on self-improvement books, courses or seminars, they will think twice as they have to wait for future benefits. When they do not get what they want from the first few attempts, they give up. It is not success that they desire. It is comfort and a life without failures that they want.

Perhaps, these people might want to learn something from the Chinese bamboo tree. After planting the seed of this amazing tree, you see nothing, absolutely nothing, for four years except for a tiny shoot coming out of its bulb. During those four years, all the growth takes place underground. But then in the fifth year the Chinese bamboo tree suddenly starts to grow above the ground level up to eighty feet tall.

Most things in our life are akin to the Chinese bamboo tree. You strive hard, you invest time, money and effort, doing everything you can, but most of the time, do you see the results? Yes or no? Yes, you’ll always see results. It’s either results you want, or results you don’t want. However, sometimes you don’t see anything for weeks, months, or even years. But if you have the faith and keep on moving, that “fifth year” will eventually come, and you would be astonished at the growth and change that takes place.

But take heed, perseverance is not the only prerequisite to success. It is perseverance with intelligence that really brings you to the top. When you fail and you do the same thing over and over again, you will keep on getting the same results. If you do not learn how to evaluate and improve on your current situation, to search and try out ways of doing things better, determination would get you nowhere except to exhaust you further. In summary, we can see that the process of getting what you want, may not be seemingly easy, but it is definitely achievable with the right mindset, attitude, knowledge and wisdom. Lastly, acknowledge that not everything is worth your time. Personally, I believe that what is not worth doing is worth not doing well. If you spend equal amount of time on everything, you will not be able to maximize your own strengths and realize your fullest potential. When you spend equal amounts of time on tasks that you are both competent and incompetent in, you end up getting the average. That is, aim to do what you want most and best in.

“At 211 degrees [fahrenheit] water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And with steam, you can power a train. One degree. Applying one extra degree of temperature to water means the difference between something that is simply very hot and something that generates enough force to power a machine- a beautifully uncomplicated metaphor that should feed our every endeavour, consistently pushing us to make the extra effort in every task, action and effort we undertake.”-Samuel Walker , 212 degrees”

One extra degree of effort in life separates the good and the great. One degree is the difference between a winner and an also-ran. The difference between achieving your goals and missing them. The difference between being just hot water – and being able to move a train.

How do we know, though, if we’re already at our limit, or just think that we are? The sad thing is that we impose our own scale of limits on ourselves. We decide what our own boiling points are. If we could just push it a little higher, how great could we be? How much further could we go?

Next time you feel you’ve done your bit, or you feel like giving up, stretch yourself. For just one degree more. Remember that the highest fences we need to climb are those in our minds.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was
full. They agreed it was.

The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of
course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar
was full. The students responded with an unanimous “Yes.”

The Professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and
poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty
space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the Professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – your family, your children, your
health, your friends, your favorite passions – things that if everything
else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house,
your car. The sand is everything else – the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first”, he continued, “there is no room
for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all
your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the
things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are
critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get
medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There
will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. Take care of
the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.”

When he had finished, there was a profound silence. Then one of the
students raised her hand and with a puzzled expression, inquired what the
beer represented.

The Professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no
matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of
beers.”

Lesson: When things in your life seem almost to much to handle, when 24 hours in a
day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar……and the beer.

Once in a while, we should stop and be thankful for what we don’t have. Some people out there are doing great despite heavier burdens than you yourself carry. And of course, there are also people out there with lighter burdens than you carry, and some of them have turned their lives into one long whine. Those are the saddest stories of all.

People are amazing. Whatever we focus on, it becomes our reality. Most of us are convinced that our problems are greater than anyone else’s. They aren’t. So quit asking for fairness and stop letting limitations depress you.

Take what you’ve got and get what you want with it. If that means not paying the price for success, be happy with unsuccess. You were born to be happy, but no one else can make you happy for long. Only you can do that. Being happy is a personal responsibility; it’s a duty you can’t delegate. The only way you can keep happiness is to accept that reality.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.