Feeling Lost

Coming to a point in my life where I feel that I wasn't meant for anything great.

I am now unemployed, and struggling to find odd jobs to make a means just to pay off the necessities. I've also fallen to ask for money from my parents, and in the process start to feel more depressed with each minute that passes by.

I'm 25, with a bachelor's of science degree in Kinesiology, but with low opportunity to actually finding a job.

At this point in my life, I feel that I have already lost all that I can, and in reality have nothing to lose.

My passions still stand, and have never left me.

I still care about fitness and health. I've come to the realization that I enjoy it so much that I am willing to take at chance at competing. I'm willing to devote my being into something I truly find value in.

I get a lot of negative feedback about what people think about my first passion, but in the end, I've always wanted to be able to transform my body, but not for the sake of others, but for the desire to constantly strive to better myself, physically and mentally through fitness.

People would tell me its a waste, that it won't amount to anything, but like Louis C.K said, "But why do they care?"

I've found a lot out of trying to gain muscle and better health, and that alone has bled into other aspects of my life.

I hope to one day make a name for myself, not because was hoping to find fame, but because I decided to focus on the things I truly loved.

Follow your Initial Goal

Coming back to pour out a bit more of what's going on in my head.

So many times have I always felt that listening to what my parents said would lead me to a happy future. Don't get me wrong, they teach lessons to help you stay safe, in this comfort zone, but they have never really taught me to really find out what I love to do.

Lately, all I've been getting from them are demands of going back to school, even though I have already received my bachelors degree in exercise science. As much as I find college important, I feel that it's more important to realize what it is that you want.

Elliot Hulse with more on following what you feel is right.

Don't focus on what others say leads to happiness. 

Find out for yourself, what makes you happy.

This is all I have for now, and in a few hours, I will be heading out to something that I had always kept stuck in the back of my mind when I was in college, but never acted on it due to the fact that I cared too much of what my entire family thought of it.

Just remember you will be happy knowing that you had tried, rather than thought of "what if."

Speech is Valuable Part 2

The more and more I spend time with the new friends I've made after moving to California, the more and more I see that people only live life through their phones and other forms of social media.

I have mentioned in a previous post that people take communication for granted.

Louis C.K. and his thoughts on twitter

I just feel that we are losing the human factor in our lives and care too much of what others want to think and do.

Live life by doing, and not by viewing. It's so cliche to say it, but you really get a better sense of appreciation through experience.

• Seeing nature at its finest is great through pictures is fun, but it pales in comparison to the actual feel of taking hikes and biking long trails.
• There is great eye candy to be seen with all the food posts people put up of what they've eaten, but why not learn the beauty that is cooking.
• Getting laughs from e-cards from friends is entertaining, but what about actually spending time with friends rather than artificially through social media.

I don't mean in anyway to drop any form of social media you have, but rather take time to venture and experience life.

Technology advancements were made to help make life simpler and help give us more of what we want. Time.

Go out and do more, and live life.

Define Your Passion: Technology

Linus Sebastian and one of his tech videos

Getting to my next passion, I will talk about the reasons for why I love technology.

Technology plays a major part of my life, not because of the things I do with it, but mainly with how it will contribute to the future.

Focusing on what it does for me just helps to make living a whole lot more enjoyable:

• You can be more efficient
• Organized (no more paper files)
• Ways of keeping in touch
• Creates more ways of entertainment
• but mainly to simplify living

These are a few of the smaller views of why technology is something I've grown to love. 

But truly what it is that makes technology important to me that I think others should see, is that it is a very important part of living because it is always advancing. I try my best to keep up with the latest and greatest, not because of it being the hottest thing out there, but because I don't ever want to find myself left behind.

How often do you see people slowing down or have a disruption in their workflow all because they didn't know how to use a particular piece of equipment or what something does. My parents for one are always having difficulty with payments because they refuse to learn how to do online payments. In no way is it bad, but from time to time, they find themselves sadden at the fact they do not know how to work a new blu-ray player.

Linus Sebastian

This man has incredible understanding of how several pieces of computer hardware work and the in's and out's of almost every component that I've wished to handle. And I don't mean like those youtube reviewer such as Marques Brownlee, John from TLDtoday, or those people who just talk about why they like a particular product but don't really understand how it works. I'm talking about legitimately knowing how something runs and what makes it tick.

For me technology runs most of what we do and what we have to use. 

I favor technology and learning more on it because of the fact that it is becoming more of a necessity each day.

I've built a few machines in the past, but the one I only took pictures of was the one I had build for my dad.

A simple microATX case

A quad-core AMD processor

BIOstar Motherboard

Noctua Heatsink

The heatsink and fans help keep temps at an all time low

2 solid state drives for ultra fast boot times and access

All components installed

The main reason behind even bothering to make this for him was because, I disliked the fact that he was always given a hand me down computer from his work. I wanted to give him something future proof and would run extremely fast while staying cool and quiet. He deserved something better than just outdated machines.

I love technology and what they have given us. I will strive to continue working hard so that I can keep building and keep learning about all there will be to know on tech.

Visualize Your Goals

A lot of times we tend to make goals in our minds, but never really get around to accomplishing them because we lose sight of what we wanted.

Find a way for you to see what it is you wish to accomplish so you can continue to remind yourself what it is you wanted to do.

I'm not saying its for the sake of getting tasks done, but more importantly to burn it into your mind that you have a goal to reach, and that one day you will look back at that reminder and say "I set out and did what I wanted to do."

For me, I took use of what a friend had mentioned and decided to get a dry erase board. A large one that I would pass by every morning, so I would visualize what would be in my future.

For some they might put down becoming the CEO of a company. 

Others may wish to be the next biggest thing in the music industry. 

And some may just want to live in a vineyard with a big family.

What you can take from this, is that you never want to lose sight of what is important to you. Find a way to motivate yourself to do what it is that you love.

I placed this board by the entrance to my bathroom, because I walk by it every morning and every night. It's close to my head board because I will look at it right before I go to sleep, so that I will never lose focus of my Goal.

Just remember you write what you want to achieve:

• Your Goals represent your passions
• They give you motivation to work for something
• Build you into who you want to be
• And in the end make you happy

You can use what ever you want to write on. Be sure to have it in sight so you will always be reminded that you have something to accomplish and that you will one day reach it.

Find Inspiration to Do What You Love

www.alvinkclee.com

Here is someone that I can say I truly admire. Not because of all the great photos he takes, but how they tie to me emotionally.

I don't know him personally, but already after just exchanging a few messages, I felt he never had intentions of trying to be boastful but to be genuinely sincere.

He doesn't focus his life around his hobbies, but it clearly shows his interests and how he builds around his values. He enjoys photography but also holds a career outside of photo-shoots.

He is gifted in several aspects and yet finds time to have fun and do the things he enjoys.

His ability to take the simplest ideas, and create an image where you find yourself staring, really opens your eyes to appreciate art.

He also has a knack for building a connection through his photos. Giving the viewer a chance to live in that moment.

Thank you Alvin for helping me to dig deeper into my goals and look forward to the future.

Define Your Passion: Health

Frank Yang and Determination

In a previous post I had mentioned my three main passions.

To start things off, I make health and fitness a key foundation to life. To live a better life.

Health is important to me because of the obvious:

• To maintain a fully functional body without a need for outside support
• no more medicine
• no need for a walker as an elder
• to just feel good
• To look aesthetic. With a great appearance you tend to:
• feel better about yourself
• help build confidence in ways you didn't feel possible

To dig more into why I value health is because of how it can define who I am. I see so many people always saying they want to lose weight or be more athletic, but usually end up giving up because it's too much work. I feel with the one body you are given, why not try to progress. I would even go as far as saying evolve into a more perfect individual.

Development of my body bleeds into other aspects of my life. One thing I focus on is muscular development (bodybuilding), because I like the idea of being able to sculpt my image. Bodybuilding takes time and has no short cuts or a single instant solution. Even with steroids or HGH, you have to put work in regardless.

Bodybuilding has helped to teach me how to apply:

• Patience. Bodybuilding doesn't happen over night
• Dedication. You have to put the effort in to see muscles grow
• Knowledge. You have to truly understand why it works to be effective

My health has given me more insight as to how I want to live my life and has also shown me that if I truly wanted something I would work for it until I obtained it. If I wanted to lift this certain weight, I would get there. If i wanted to have the best sculpted physique, I would continue training. You learn to build better desire.

Working on my health defines my:

• Desire to understand my body and myself better
• Desire to never give up
• Desire to keep moving forward
• Desire to continue living so I can keep doing the things I love

Be determined to reach what you truly want

Speech is Valuable Part 1

Something people tend to take for granted these days is actuyourconversations. We find ourselves wanting to type or text things out rather than living each moment. Eventually we see more and more people losing the ability to be social among others.

It begins to separate bonds between people and we start to lose the human factor in us.

Finally it leads to dependence of only being able to communicate through a device. It doesn't seem like a big issue, but it also carries over into other actions we do.

What I've noticed is this strongly affects:

• our confidence 
• want for attention
• social skills

People tend to feel that its easy to just keep things electronic and hide behind a phone or a computer. At times they pretend to be a completely different person but in reality are completely opposite.

Finding a constant need to have people look at you. 

Using different or fake terms to come off as witty or interesting.

It can't be said that social media doesn't give its form of entertainment, but when it begins to pollute ways of thinking as well as social development, its hard to justify what people try to do through social media.

Where it comes into play

People are finding it harder to see why communication is an important factor in everyday life.

Just as an example, in the job market, strong communication skill:

• builds your value
• gathers respect from others
• and creates higher opportunities just by how you can converse

Better confidence can go a long way. Being able to begin with your social skills can greatly improve ones overall value.

Admitting Weakness

There are a lot of things about me that have really held me back from achieving much. The one main flaw that I can admit to is my lack of dedication.

To be able to accomplish anything, is to focus on what you want. 

My passions in life have been 3 things:

• Health
• Technology
• Music

The only problem that I have come across would be that I lack the ability to put complete focus which I want to advance in first.

Another cousin of mine had told me, "You work well in all different aspects, but you aren't truly good in one thing. Its nice to be a jack-of-all-trades, but it's better to be a master in one."

This started to force things into perspective and now I find that I have wasted time scattering my attention. 

In order for me to reach success, I have targeted my health and physical well being first.

This was taken August 22,  2013

Though many people would ask why don't you focus on your career, or your financial situation. I feel it necessary to focus on the values I care about and fit my work around that. I take health into consideration only because of the possibilities of how it can affect the way you perform and how people perceive you.

My focus on health and fitness provide:

• more energy
• stress relief
• aesthetics
• and a way to track self progress through my own body

One way I look at it is even with the best car, home, job, and even friends, most of them wouldn't be worth while if poor health was keeping from enjoying it.

If everything you had was to be taken from you, the last thing you would have for yourself would be your health.

My next focus and my next passion would be technology. Not only because I enjoy the reward of building computers or working with software, but because its one thing in life that continues to advance. If you don't follow along, you will just be left behind.

One of the many computers I've built. This one was for my dad

My final passion and focus is music. Simply because it is something I enjoy, as well as find a means to express myself.

My cousin's studio setup. He was the one who told me to master a skill. 

Focus on my current setup

Added a 21" monitor to help with productivity.

"For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

Progression

Although many won't agree to what Steve Jobs did with his passion, many would agree he did change how we view technology today.

His passion drove him into what some would say is the beginning of the new technology era. He was driven and even went to say that you have to love what you do otherwise you quit. 

To apply how his influence has come to help me is a bit difficult to explain. I don't find myself being the next big inventor, nor do I see my passion for technology as great as his. One thing I do know that I've learned from him is that nothing is truly out of your reach unless you are unable to act.

For more on how I am changing my ways, I'm trying to build from the group up.

I have to start easy before I am sure to handle the more difficult tasks. 

For starters, my boxes that I had used for my temporary desk has now been replaced by an actual table I was able to buy from IKEA. A great $20 dollar investment.

How this helps me realistically:

• organized
• productive
• and sense of growth

To see my studio physically change and develop overtime actually lets me physically feel and visually see the progress I am taking.

Keep moving forward. You have the power to make any decision you make the right one.

"Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose." 

- Steve Jobs

My Choices/What I'm Using for Productivity

I'm constantly thinking, if not, always over-thinking. When it all boils down to everything, I better make a decision before I regret making none at all. I find that a choice you make is one you made because you had a strong instinct to make that choice. 

Elliot Hulse on truly believing in your decision

What to consider in life is, why bother always trying to play it safe, when taking risks is where the chances of greater success can happen?

• take those risks in life
• not because someone gave you options, but because you made them and truly wanted it
• know that you will make bad choices
• none are truly wrong, because you learn from it (very cliche)
• it may take multiple wrong choices before finding one that leads you where you want to be
• be confident to know are able to make it work, and strive for your desires

Yes, I am on that poverty time.

This would be my poor excuse for a desk/workstation.

3 Boxes make for a great desk

 For closer look at what I use, I have my laptop.

Late 2012, 13 Inch Macbook Pro

For the next item in my arsenal, my tablet.

Galaxy Tab 2.0, 7 Inch model

Last but not least, like everyone else, my phone.

iPhone 4S

All these photos were taken with my phone, well except for my phone. I took that picture with the tablet due to lack of equipment . All of this is a start to make life much more livable. In the future, more changes will come, and a gradual transformation is on the way.

Why did I take this risk?

• To those wondering if this is something that I was ready for, I will just say that if I wasn't, then I wouldn't have done it. A push that drove me to move was the fact that I was living under my parents. I now live 1500 miles away from them.
• give me lectures about how my choices were wrong
• seem they knew the best decision for me (they believed that it works the same as their generation)
• but mainly, they made my feel I wasn't capable of success
• If this was a bad choice, I will have to live with that choice regardless
• I do this because I want to follow my passion and live by my values

Always know that you made a choice, not because it was the best choice, but because you believed that is what you truly wanted.