Inspiration: Good Ol' Jim Beam

Happy Friday, all.  Hopefully everyone's had a solid week and is looking forward to the good times that the weekend brings.  As we mentally withdraw from work, school, or whatever daily task should technically have our attention now, I want to bring your attention to a tv spot from Jim Beam that I saw a while back which deals with the choices that we make or don't make and the impact that they have on our lives.

Check out the ad below, featuring Willem Dafoe:

Great ending line: "All choices lead you somewhere, bold choices take you where you're supposed to be".    There's a fine line between providing a memorable message and just coming off as trying to hard and Jim Beam nailed it.  Plus, combining whiskey with a positive message (or anything else) is my idea of a winning combination.

Have a great weekend, good people.

Cheers,

JIP

JIP's Ramblings: In Defense of the word "Cool"

Good morning, good people. Let me pose a question: what does being cool mean to you? How is it that when we first meet someone we normally decide after a few words whether or not we consider a person “cool”? Taking it a step further, is this even a fair assessment for us to make?

Personally, I think that being cool has gotten a bad rap due to the surface-level connotation that’s become associated with it, so humor me and allow me to play defense attorney for the word “cool” here.

After discussing this question with some friends (more on them later), we came up with this: cool is the unapologetic approach for being who you are. So, I’m not talking about your exterior presence; that’s not who you actually are. Being cool is not about fitting into some mold of what society has deemed to be popular. That’s a trend. Trends come and go all the time and leave a trail of untagged Facebook pictures that we hope disappear from existence.

When I discuss being cool, I'm talking about what’s inside of you. This does not come and go. The person that you are when you’re all alone and forced to face yourself is the essence of your cool. The person who has a firm understanding of this and lets that individual shine through is the person who is truly cool.

Being cool is being true to who you are at all times, knowing that this might not always be the popular thing to do. You’re not a party person? That’s fine, go find what gets you excited in life. We all have our individual preferences, so never let anyone tell you what yours should be. The bottom-line is that you have to be yourself.

Finding this person is definitely a journey. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’m the same person that I was when I was 16 (thank God). As you go through life, the goal is to grow and evolve into a better, more complete person. Just to reiterate, though, be careful not to confuse your exterior person as what makes you cool. That person is going to change as the years go by. The person you are on the inside, however, isn’t going anywhere. You’re pretty much stuck with him/her, so you might as well make him/her the best that he/she can be.

Alright, that’s probably enough from me, so I’ll let the defense rest at this point. As I take my seat (and ponder whether or not I should take my awesomeness to law school), let me just add that I would love to hear your individual perspectives on what is cool to you. My ramblings aren’t the end all, be all, so feel free to join the conversation.

I don't say this enough, but thanks for visiting and I hope you come back soon.

Cheers,

JIP

JIP's Ramblings: The Fighters

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”- President Abraham Lincoln

What I’m starting to realize more and more over time is that you have to fight for your happiness in life. For those of us who are fortunate, there is an initial period of happiness that we are granted through the innocence of our adolescence. At some point along the way, however, our innocence is taken away from us. This process can be gradual or it can be a dramatic, life-changing, experience; in either case, at this point we begin to realize the complexities of the world and the people within it and that things aren’t as simple as we once thought. Through these realizations, the world becomes a colder, less familiar place than the one we thought we knew. This is when it is most important for us to realize that we have a fight on our hands.

The reality of it all is that we all will experience moments of sadness and disappointment. Things will not always go our way. That’s why we have to have some fight within us to carry us through these moments of hardship. It’s the rare individual that happiness is handed to without any trials or tribulations. The true question is are we willing to fight for our happiness or do we let life get the best of us? Are we willing to take a couple of bumps and bruises in pursuit of something greater or does fear of more hurt and pain cause us to shy away from our God-given right to be happy?

And when our good times do come, we must not get full of ourselves, especially knowing how quickly things can change and how fragile life is. The humble person appreciates life’s blessings for however long that we have them. We know that we will have our ups and downs. We have to have the fight and the strength within ourselves to make sure that our good times are more frequent visitors to our lives than our bad times are. I hope that we all are ready for a hell of a fight because our happiness is out there.

Cheers,

JIP

Inspiration: "Go Forth"

Happy Friday, good people.  So is it just me, or are TV ads becoming deeper than they were before?  Perfect example, this Levi's commercial which features the poem "The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski.  Check it out:

See also the actual poem below:

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

I've found some other good ones that I've found out there, but this is a good one that gives us something to think about as we head into the weekend.  I hope you enjoy it...the poem and the weekend...both are good times.

Cheers,

JIP

Monday Morning Inspiration: The True Meaning of Life

"We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life." -H. H. The 14th Dalai Lama

JIP's Ramblings: I Can't Complain

Happy Wednesday, good people.

Oftentimes when I speak to someone and they ask how I am, I respond with, "I can't complain". The beauty of this phrase is how true it is...I really can't complain. Are there things in life that I wish were different? Sure. Am I perfectly content with my life? Not exactly. But you have to put life into perspective: when I look around and see how things actually are compared to how much worse they could be, it's extremely humbling.

It's so easy to get wrapped up in our struggles and lose sight of the larger picture: life can always be worse. If we spend our time worried about how much is wrong with our current situations, we miss out on the blessings that we currently have. How's that saying go? If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's we'd grab ours back. Yeah we would.

Speaking of everyone else, the success of others is no reason for us to complain. We often only see the good things that happen to/for other people and either don't know or ignore the struggle and hard work that it took for them to get their reward. My favorite part of the Desiderata (which everybody should read) states, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself". The goal here is to improve your own life, not be concerned with someone else's good fortune. Like Diddy said, "Don't be mad...be motivated"*.

*I swear to you that this will be the only time that Diddy will ever be quoted on this blog.

The reality of life is that everything will never be perfect; that's not a realistic situation. But the goal here is to have the good in life outweigh the bad, and that's largely within our control. So despite life's imperfections, you'd be hard-pressed to hear any complaining from this guy.

Cheers,

JIP