Yippee! Today is Christmas Eve. I’m bursting with joy to say a BIG, BIG Merry Christmas to all my readers. I want to thank everyone for your support and I pray that your life will be blessed with happiness, joy and peace.

One of the reasons that I continue to work on this blog is the sense of satisfaction in helping people and making a difference. Other than making many new friends, I have received some emails from readers to give them some pointers about their problems in their life. Sometimes, I manage to point something out and the reader goes away with a bigger perspective and a happier person. This is the satisfaction that I derive.

On this special day, other than my Christmas gift, I like to share a very meaningful story with you. It’s not written by me, a friend emailed this story to me. Nonetheless, I believe this story will help you to end 2007 and start 2008 with a great perspective about the truly important things in life.

Enjoy the Christmas times with your family and your love ones. Merry Christmas!

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This blog is about leading a balanced life focusing on career, relationships and money. You can read more about balancing your life here. These articles are written for you. If you find them useful, feel free to subscribe for regular updates as new articles are posted. It's FREE. :)

(Photo by aloshbennett)

Don’t aim at success–the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run–in the long run, I say–success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
-Viktor Frankl

Before we talk about how to become a Career Lover and aligning three dimensions of Passion, Talents and Practicality, I feel that it is important to clarify one important concept - success.

Ultimately, you want to be successful in your work and life. But do you really know what is the success that you striving for? What if the success that you’re working so hard for does not provide lasting happiness or satisfaction?

OUR MINDSET OF SUCCESS

When we speak of successful professionals, we’ll often come up with names like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, Ray Croc, Andrew Carnegie etc…

All these successful people have the following commonalities:

• Wealth - much more than they ever need in their entire lifetime.
• Fame - the media talks about them, everyone knows who they are.
• Status - highly respected, aspired and sought-after.

As such, the society has unknowingly associated success with attributes of wealth, fame and status. Even Merriam-Webster defines success as:

the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.

WHAT IF YOUR LADDER OF SUCCESS IS LEANING AGAINST THE WRONG WALL

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(Photo by adesigna)

I started this blog with the intention to provide my insights on living a balanced life through personal development. Over time, I have crystallized this mission into the three-legged stool concept.

The diagram shows a three-legged stool: my depiction of a balanced life. Each leg of the stool is a key pillar needed for life fulfillment as follows:

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Photo by mikeautry1

I’d recently posted my perspectives on Law of Attraction, and how it relates to personal development. To be very honest, I was mentally prepared to take some objections from supporters of Law of Attraction with this decision.

Not surprising, the first comment I’d got was from a support of Law of Attraction; his name is Jack. If you look at the comment thread, you will see that his comment was constructive and offers a different but valid perspective. I also asked Jack for a testimony to support his argument.

Boy, was I surprised, a couple of hours later, to see a comment of 2580 words which contains Jack’s testimony.

I appreciate Jack’s contribution of time and effort. Even though our opinions defer, I feel that the best judgment on this issue should be left to you, the readers to make. Offering a new perspective certainly offers my readers more value; to make an all-rounded judgment for yourself. As such, I wrote to Jack and asked for his permission to publish his testimony as a post, and he gracefully obliged.

Other than correcting some spelling and grammars, I have left Jack’s testimony as-is. Thank you Jack.

JACK’S TESTIMONY OF LAW OF ATTRACTION

Hi, Lawrence, et al,

Sure, I can give you testimony about the “miracles” I’ve experienced. To do it thoroughly enough, I’m afraid, will be a long-winded affair. Before I begin, I’d like to say that, having seen the video of “The Secret,” there was a lot that was annoying about the presentation of the Law of Attraction. I found that amusing: there they were, presenting a very profound idea, but done with all the rank hucksterism of a late night infomercial for a device that would flatten your abs. The whole thing seemed kind of like a scam. I guess what’s important, though, is that it got the message out there….

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Photo by Heidi and Matt

If you read about my blog, you will see that I have made it my purpose and mission to create awareness through advocating about personal development. I hope to, through this blog, evangelize and promote an awareness of living purposefully.

I feel that the saddest thing in life, will be to look back at the end of your life journey and found out that you have traveled in vain; without a purpose. Those years lost trying to live up to others’ expectations, dogma, social norms; which may be well-intended, but does not serve your purpose or fulfillment.

It is my deepest belief that everyone of us has a purpose and reason to be at the place that we are at, the people that we meet, the circumstances that we are in. Everything in our life happens for a good cause, to help us grow and become what we are truly meant to be. The big, big difference between a fulfilling life and mediocrity lies in an awareness of purpose and to deliberately direct your own life like you are a masterful creator.

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Photo by Tmonzon

I like to share this inspirational video about Nick Vujicic, a man born without any limbs. As you will see from his video, despite his limitations, his aspirations and spirit are much, much more unlimited than many of us who are physically normal.

I am very touched seeing Nick going about daily tasks like switching on the lights, brushing his teeth, combing his hair; things that most of us do easily and take for granted. Yet for a man with no hands and legs, it means so much just to be able to do these on his own. Nick’s intense desire to be independent and his best efforts to live a meaningful life, despite his physical limitations, touches and inspires me to the core.

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(Photo by Swamibu)

We’ve heard it so many times before, ‘life is tough’. There are so many things that we want; an understanding and supportive lover or spouse, that wonderful house you saw last week, a carefree, stress-free life style, a fulfilling career… the list goes on.

Even though there are some many things that you want to accomplish, you don’t have enough time, so little money, so little that you can afford, limited energy. There’s just not enough to accomplish what you want… How do you ever get to live a life of happiness?

Indeed, it’s not easy, we all know that. Nonetheless, Happiness can be yours; it is possible, really. The modern society presents a lot of ‘noise’ and distractions in your life, which are diverting your focus and attention; detrimental to your pursue of happiness. What you need first is to gain a keen awareness of what constitutes and contributes to a happy life.

To this end, I like to talk about 4 key areas which contribute to happiness. I will explain why I believe they are the 4 key areas and why you should pay attention to them. Lastly, I will end with how these areas need to be balanced to contribute to your happiness.

This new awareness will be like an awakening that allows you to see through the fog of life, and filter out unnecessary pursues; thereby getting you onto a true journey of happiness

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A few days ago, my friend went for an interview at a local MNC. At the office, she was received by a young HR executive, who led her to the meeting room for the interview. However, upon arrival at the meeting room, the HR executive saw that the meeting room was occupied by a group whose meeting was still in progress. The HR executive hesitated on interrupting the group inside and asked my friend to wait a little while for the meeting inside to finish.

After five minutes passed, my friend asked the HR executive “did you book the meeting room”?

“Yes I did,” replied the HR executive.

Then, it was obvious to my friend that the group’s meeting had overrun, and are oblivious that they are eating into someone else’s time slot. “Why don’t you knock on the door and let them know you need to use the room?”

The HR executive seemed irritated by my friend’s prompting, and looked undecidedly through the gap on the glass door, into the meeting room; afraid that she’ll draw attention to herself. Finally, after another minute of hesitation, the HR executive said “I don’t have the authority, I will get my manager here. She will have the authority to ask them to leave.”

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