Live near the ocean. Walk under the rain. Buy flowers. Buy flowers often for yourself and for others. Smile at people. Go to cafes and work from there. Look around. Look people in the eyes. Travel a lot. Travel to the end of the world.

Life is just that. It is now. Do not think about what you did wrong. Do not analyze your errors. Do not try to “learn” anything from your mistakes. We never learn from analyzing logically our past. Our past is us. Our future decisions will include our past experiences. Those decisions will be made in less than a second. What we did before will be used on the subconscious level, without us even knowing it.

Our life is defined by decisions we make. By our ability to make decisions. And our body and mind are the ones that make the decisions. Take care of your body, take care of your mind. Train them, keep them strong. Every day invest in your body and mind.

Do not think about your mistakes in the past. It will only make you a sour and resentful person. It will make you lose your faith in people, it will make you be small, and it will not help you build anything new. It will not make you love more, trust more, enjoy your life more.

Your day is today. Right now. Love the person you are when you wake up in the morning. Love the person you are when you go to sleep at night. You will build great things if you look towards the future.

Enjoy the sun on your skin. Love the sound of the waves. Walk on the border of the ocean. Feel the cold water. Step on the shells. Play music. Play music every day, for yourself. Always have fresh flowers at home. Look at the sky. Notice the rain on your face. Tell people you love them. Not just tell, show them. Hug longer than usual. Do small things that matter. Travel, love, build, smile, laugh.

And live near the ocean…

I need to play a song at least 100 times on the violin to make it sound “ok”. I need to practice more than 100 times any jiu-jitsu or kick-boxing move, and this just to get it a little bit right. Not even close to perfection.

When I hear a great talk that I want to incorporate in my work or when I read a page of a business book that will be groundbreaking for what I do, why do I just read it once? My mind probably needs to hear it more than 100 times to make it mine.

I will listen this TED talk by Simon Sinek around 100 times in the next 3 or 4 months to make it part of my performance.  I will see if this helps building the technique.

Today there was absolutely no traffic on our way from kids’ school to MMA. Thus, we arrived one hour earlier. I had one extra hour of training and it felt like a gift. It was a gift. We are not entitled to anything. Everything we take for granted is such a gift.

Being able to play violin is a gift. Because I only started doing it a year ago and I have been practicing almost every day since. This time, this ability to practice, this motivation are a gift. Desire to play is a gift. I love that I take the violin and listen to the sounds it makes and it still enchants me. It is like having my head on somebody’s shoulder and listening to beautiful stories from the insider point of view.

Being able to practice jiu-jitsu and kick-boxing is a gift too. None of us is entitled to it. It is great to have people around who want to practice with you, to have the arms and the legs and the body that is so akin to sport. It is great to be able to come here every day. Because it builds you up, it gives you energy, willpower and it helps you to work on your goals in all areas in life.  Still, it is not granted to all of us and I appreciate every hour I can train.

It is a gift to be able to see and meet people every day. Some of them we meet daily, at work, at school, some of them not so often. It is a gift to see them, to hug them, to see them smile, to talk to them. Their time and words are a gift to us. Nobody owes us anything. We do not owe anything to anybody. Everything that we make happen is a gift.

To work at our jobs and on our projects is a gift. To have problems and to solve them is a gift too.

I was in the changing room at MMA and I told somebody after training, “There was no traffic, so I arrived one hour earlier and it feels like a gift.” Because this is exactly how it felt.

I walked on the wet sand towards the beach and I instantly thought about music. The water with its white foam and the reflection of the sky looked like a musical universe. Notes have been written. Thousands, millions of notes. Music was everywhere. I could hear it in every wave, in every gulp of the wind, in my own steps on the sand. I only had to listen.

If beauty existed, it was here. Now.

It kissed you on the forehead. Untouchable soft kiss of beauty. Light as the air, and you remember it forever. When everything else fails it remains. Love is a blessing.

Life.

What if real love is the ability to love somebody who does not live up to your moral standards?

We are human. But how akin we are to compassion?

Yesterday driving to a lunch with a friend I thought to myself, “What if I am able to love, to truly unconditionally love, a person who acts like I never would?”

Could I put all the judgments aside and love somebody whose nature is different from mine. Very different.

It would require time. It would require faith. It would require strength. It is accepting that you can, and probably will, be hurt. And letting your faith prevail. Believing in certain goodness of people.

Forgiving (not forgetting). Accepting (not condescending). How many of us have felt real compassion? Towards ourselves? And towards others?

Silence…

One of the most difficult questions: Can you love somebody whose standards are different from yours in most important life matters?

I do not have the answer now. I think I will know in years to come.

The road not taken.

What if we can love like this? What would it feel like?

Unabridged edition of love?

Many times I do not like how my shoes look. It is not that they look bad, but there is something unnatural about most of the shoes. They make you feel uncomfortable and at times concerned about your own look.

It was raining heavily this morning and when I was getting out of the kids’ school I silently observed the shoes of other parents. It was not done on purpose, I just stopped for a few seconds under the roof and looked at the rain puddles on the school patio and then saw the shoes. There were all kinds of shoes: rain-boots, leather shoes, very modern sport shoes, tennis shoes, tall leather boots with heels, leather boots without heels, grey snickers, black man boots, blue and orange artist shoes.

And all of the shoes looked out of place. Like if the pair of shoes and the person wearing them did not agree on something earlier in the day but still decided to pursue this bit of road together. There was some pain in the way the shoes related to its’ owners. One sensed that at times the person will be embarrassed about the shoes, at times the shoes will feel uncomfortable and even hurt the feet lightly, at times the shoes will not coordinate with the rest of the clothing. At times the shoes will look plainly ugly.

And at the same time we will still be okey with our shoes.

I always feel the awkwardness of the shoes. Barefoot is the best way to walk on the grass, the sand, the ocean. But I love the shoes too, even if they feel unnatural and make me insecure at times. They make you feel present. I like looking at the shoes. In the cafes. Some shoes look ugly and I like it too. The ugliness of the shoes makes the other person real. And you smile. The incompatibility takes all the pain away for a few moments. You feel the warmth. Then you sit quietly and drink your hot tea on a very rainy day. And listen to the sound of the rain drops.

I do not like words when they have been too thought through and neutralized by expectance of being understood. The best words are the ones that come to our minds in its uneven and raw shape. When we still have doubts about how those will be taken, but before we know we have said them out load to the person in front of us. Spontaneously.

Here is the new year. 2016. And I am spending more time than ever in the cafes. Reading. Observing people. Sometimes I think that past never happened and I have this idiotic (=unearthly) feeling of lightness in my body. And I am happy because I feel love for people around me. They are part of this space. Part of this cafe. Part of this human animal that has million hearts and million eyes and million minds. And it has grace. And the search of meaning of existence.

The only goal is to do my best. Not to give up what my life will be in 2 or 3 years from now. My goals have been set up in summer. Now… To show up and focus on whatever thing I am doing at that moment. Be it fighting, playing music, reading, or building a business. Or be it simply laughing with a friend or walking barefoot on the beach. Throwing shells into the ocean foam…

One thing at a time. Fully in it.