Trying too hard

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Sometimes in life, we try too hard to make something happen.

We get so fixed on achieving a particular outcome and in doing so, we end up trying to control things that we can’t.

The only thing that we have control of is ourselves. We control our thoughts, our beliefs, our actions, everything to do with us.

Beyond that, everything else is controlled by others. Others that we can inspire or influence, but ultimately they will decide, not us.

None of us like to be controlled by others, or feel that others are trying to manipulate us. We do however respond to something inspiring, something that reaches out to our values, that matches our feelings.

When we listen to a person who is talking genuinely about something, with passion, and that person is not selling something, but instead sharing their thoughts, their story and without an agenda, then that is when we feel we have chosen, we have the freedom.

So in business, it is more important to communicate your message and then make it easy for people to buy, rather than trying to control others through manipulation. Essentially marketing rather than selling. Sharing rather than coercing. Giving instead of taking.

The harder we try, the more we have to control and the more we control, the more we erode the freedom of others and push them away.

You are nearing the end of the escalator

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Today, as I was walking up the escalator at Euston Station, which I do most weekdays, I noticed that TFL had invested in some swanky new signs, yet more health & safety overload, that informed passengers of the various ‘hazards’ of using an escalator!!!

Such useful tips as ‘hold the hand rail’ and ‘you are nearing the end of the escalator’. What made me laugh, was just how much we have been conditioned to accept this kind of stuff. We see it as so normal that we are being programmed to believe, that without all this ‘protection’ and information, we would be unable to think for ourselves, unable to travel around without injuring ourselves on escalators.

How has the human race survived this long. Perhaps, inventing escalators, without such warnings, might have led to our eventual demise. ‘Mass carnage at escalators, threatens humankind’ could have been the headline if it wasn’t for the intervention of TFL.

The thing is, we are now creating a world, where we do not have to think for ourselves. That is exactly what the establishment wants, total compliance, and not to question or think on our own.

So be careful out there, risks are everywhere!! Perhaps, in future we will have removed all chance and what a dull, pointless world it will be. A world where the masses shuffle like drones, to and from the ‘factory’, eking out an existence, safely following instructions and rules.

For me, I’m happy to trip on an escalator, if that means there is the risk of something exciting in life.

Perhaps, it could be changed to ‘you are nearing the end of your life, take a risk turn around and walk back down the escalator.’