Thinking Out Situations Before Jumping Into Them (The Look Deep Before You Leap Mentality).

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There's a fairly popular saying that goes "Look deep before you leap." I can't remember exactly how old I was when I first heard that remark, but it was one that struck me, and has stuck with me for a good portion of my life. The making of mistakes is something that most of us will experience on a regular basis. One of the unfortunate aspects of our society is that it has conditioned us that the few are perfect and never make mistakes, while the many are condemned most for our shortcomings. Regardless of what your position may be when it comes to making mistakes, no person can deny that mistakes are a part of life that EVERYONE will experience. While mistakes will always happen and can vary in their degree of severity when it comes to our lives, the ones that we make from lack of proper planning normally have the biggest consequences. There will also constantly be times in our lives where we may find ourselves in certain situations that we're not entirely sure about. I believe this aspect of life applies to every human-being on some level or another. It is a known fact that we all have general doubts and concerns about certain situations that we find ourselves in, but the truth of the matter is that many of us jump into situations that we don't entirely think through. I like to refer to this as the look deep before you leap mentality; a mentality that I feel we must work on implementing more often.

What's going on people? It's your boy young Brad H. coming back at you once again, and welcome to another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I hope everyone has been maintaining since the last time I wrote and if this happens to be your first time stopping by here, let me be the first to say thanks and welcome. We've found ourselves nearly at the end of May, which means that many high school students either have or will be graduating this week. One of my cousin's will be graduating and walking that stage this upcoming Friday. I'm very proud of and happy for his accomplishment, and a good portion of the family will be out there in full force to support his moment. Big shout out to all the high school students that are graduating no matter where you are located. I also want to acknowledge and give a shout out to my younger sister for another successful semester of college. She is now only three courses away from obtaining her degree, so I'm very proud of her as well. I just wanna give a big shout out to everyone out there that are achieving their goals regardless of how big or small they may be. Now that I've gotten on my soapbox for a bit, lets go ahead and get into this week's topic of thinking out situations before jumping into them.

Like I always aim to point out in my writings, a person's individual viewpoint on any topic will always vary. The goal here isn't to focus on what is considered to be right or wrong, but rather to give anyone that reads something to hopefully think about and evaluate further. My mission here is to use this platform as a way to express some of my ideas and opinions. If anyone happens to feel differently or disagree with my views on this or any of the topics I write about, that is totally okay with me. Now for this week's topic, I'm going to be talking about the importance of thinking out situations before jumping into them so quickly. I know for many that this particular topic likely applies to the youth, however, I feel that a person is never too old to learn the lessons of life. Even if you're well versed on certain life lessons, it never hurts to get a refresher course every so often. Another reason why I'm addressing this topic is to hopefully encourage more people to think certain things through instead of just acting. I want to stress that my ears to closet to my eyes and mouth, so anything that I mention here applies to myself as well. Too many people are out here are looking to give advice to others, and many of these people aren't following the advice they're giving. I personally strive to not be one of those people.

Now those who maybe are not familiar with the "Look deep before you leap" saying may think that it only applies to water, etc. If we're being honest here, most people will likely equate this saying to someone going to the edge of something that has a stream of water below, and then examining how shallow or deep the water is before jumping in. From a straight forward perspective, that is exactly what it means. However, it can also be an analogy for many of the mistakes we make that come from not always thinking before we act. See, in some instances, many people do not fully examine certain decisions and situations before jumping into them. Similar to the water comparison, there are times in life where we don't thoroughly examine some of our decisions, and then we find ourselves in a situation where we're possibly drowning. I don't mean drowning from a literal sense, but I mean from a perspective that we often find ourselves in too deep in regards to certain situations that we didn't think through properly. Then again, there are some situations and decisions that can have dire consequences for ourselves, as well as for those that care for us.

So what are the situations and decisions that require in depth consideration before jumping into? Well I personally think it's subjective to how well an individual is able to handle life issues. However, for the sake of this blog entry, one of the biggest examples I can think of jumping into a serious commitment with another person. I'm far from an expert on relationships, but I think we can all agree that a serious relationship with another human being is a serious commitment. Now where does the look deep before you leap mentality come into play? From my perspective, a person must seriously examine anyone and anything that they're considering a long term commitment to. This is important because the wrong people or the wrong situations can ruin your life in ways that can't always be easily fixed. I know it sounds cliche, but many people put too much value only into what they can see with their own two eyes. In order to apply the look deep before you leap mentality, you have to be willing to look beyond what's in front of you. Imagine a person that is only focused on how beautiful someone is, but doesn't pay attention other aspects of this person's character. Just because a person looks good doesn't necessarily mean they are good for you. Like I mentioned earlier, making a serious commitment to the wrong person, place, or thing can have lasting consequences on your life.

I know that I mainly focused on the relationship aspect of this topic as an example, but there are many others out there where improper planning can be devastating to a person's life. Again, the goal here is to encourage more of our society to look deeper into situations before diving head first into them. Like I stated previously, we all make mistakes, but the truth of the matter is that mistakes are no excuse for knowingly making ill planned choices. Furthermore; and this is an even harder truth, there are some situations and decisions that don't always afford us the do-overs of correcting our mistakes. Like the drowning analogy I used earlier, some situations don't always end in a lesson learned. So with all of that said, lets start adopting the look deep before you leap state of mind more often, and this goes for everyone regardless of how young or old you may be. Never ignore any and all situations that you find yourself presented with that find you uneasy or questioning things. Always listen whenever that inner voice tells you when you something isn't right. Mistakes are a part of life and never ending, but I believe that we can at least cut some of our losses if we take out the proper time to evaluate before acting. Lets start looking deep before we leap folks.

Well my friends, I believe I was able to get my point across in this entry. I'm going to go ahead and sign off for now, but big thanks goes to everyone that stopped by again for another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'. My hope is that some meaning and understanding was gained from this installment. If that happens to not be the case for you, then your visit here is still extremely appreciated. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week ahead, and I'll see you all in the next one. Till next time my name is Brad H., and I wish you all peace and positive thoughts.

©2016 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

Finding Positive Outlets For Channeling Anger and Frustrations.

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There's a saying that we're all familiar with that goes; "Nothing in certain in life except death and taxes." Whether you believe this to be true or not is up to you, but one thing that we cannot deny is how that quote has stood the test of time. For the sake of the argument that I'm going to be making in this week's post, I'm personally going to go a bit further and put the emotion anger in that category of guarantees that come in life. Being human means that we're going to experience a multitude of various emotions, and one of them is anger. While some people have no problem with expressing their anger and frustrations publicly, many of us try to lock this emotion away in an invisible closet that doesn't exist. Whether you're the former or latter in this case isn't what we're going to focus on this week. While constant or even every now and again anger is guaranteed, the way we choose to react to our anger isn't. We can always look for more positive outlets for channeling our anger and frustrations.

What's going on folks? It's me young Brad H. coming back at you again with another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'. How has everyone been doing out there? I hope that everyone has been staying up and maintaining since we last came together on here. If you happen to be a new reader here, let me be the first to say welcome, and thank you for stopping through. Well we're nearing the midpoint of the month of May, and we've definitely been seeing our share of showers and thunderstorms in my area as of late. Hopefully the weather has been accommodating to you all wherever you are. In the previous post that was written, I talked about the then upcoming NBA Playoff series between the Spurs and Thunder. Well my Spurs have fell in the series 4-2. I'm pretty disappointed about it, but I kinda had a feeling that they weren't going to win last night. Congrats goes to the Thunder, and if last night was Tim Duncan's last game, big thanks to him for all the great seasons he has given us. We'll see what happens with the Thunder vs. Warriors series next. Don't care for either team, but it should be a good series. Now that I've gotten on my soapbox for a bit, lets go ahead and get into this week's topic of channeling our anger and frustrations towards more positive things.

As I always look to mention in my writings, a person's individual viewpoint on any topic will always vary. My goal here isn't to focus on what is considered to be right or wrong, but rather to give anyone that reads something to maybe think about and evaluate further. My aim here is to use this platform as a way to express my ideas and opinions. If anyone happens to feel differently or disagree with my views on this or any of the topics I write about, that is totally fine with me. Alright, we're going to be talking about looking for more positive outlets to channel our anger this week. Back in the year 2014, I wrote a blog post titled "You Don't Have to Pay These People Any Attention(Controlling Your Anger and Reactions Towards Others)." It can be read here if anyone wants to read it, but that particular post focused on how we react to other people that may cause anger within us. Now for this time around, I want to address the point of looking for ways to turn anger into something more productive. In essence, this post not only deals with anger that is caused by others, but also the anger that can come with life in general.

Now we're all aware by now that anger for the most part doesn't accomplish, nor does a whole lot of good for us. Anger often triggers actions that lead to things like lashing out at others, violent tendencies, and doing or saying things that we often have to apologize for later on. I'm not even going to mention the health related downfalls that anger can cause, but to sum up the main point that I'm trying to make here, uncontrolled anger definitely isn't a good thing. Now a more controlled form of anger on the other hand can be a more positive asset at our disposal, but there's a certain amount of discipline required for most to get to that point. I'm far from an expert on this topic, however from my own personal opinion and perspective, one of the biggest keys to developing a habit of controlled anger is to first find more positive avenues for channeling our anger. Believe it or not, there are activities out there where being angry can actually be somewhat beneficial to our lives.

So what are some of the activities that we can use to channel our anger? Well there are many of them out there, so you'll have to find one that interests you. For the sake of this topic however, I'll give a brief story on an activity I engaged in years ago that brought me positive results whenever I found myself angry. Years ago, back in 2003, I received a workout set as a Christmas gift. During that particular point of of my life, I was severely out of shape, overweight, and constantly battling with anger due to my situation back then. I would often overeat and indulge in bad foods whenever I was frustrated, and on occasion, I would say certain things to people that I cared about that I shouldn't have. Basically, I was handling many of my problems all wrong during that particular period. Then something happened that I believe changed me for the better. I decided that whenever I found myself becoming angry or frustrated, I would go exercise with the workout set that I received. I'd take all my frustrations, along with that negative energy I was experiencing, and channel it all into working out. This lead to pretty intense workout sessions, and as a result, I began to lose weight and tone up. I believe that decision was the catalyst which lead me to seek out other avenues for becoming a more healthier individual.

Now I'm not saying that working out is the only avenue for channeling anger, and there are several outlets that I've discovered on my journey of trying to become a better person that suite me well. However, the point that I'm trying to make here is that none of us have to allow our frustrations and anger to control us. Regardless if you're sitting around being angry at the world, or engaging in bad habits during those periods of anger in your life, the results of it all is often counter productive. Why take your anger out on others when you can take it out at a gym? Why sit around being angry when you can get outside and be active, or at least read self improvement books or paint if you're sitting? Even when there are dark periods of anger in our lives, there are still opportunities for growth if we're willing to acknowledge that a change for the better is necessary. Again no one is perfect, and we're all going to deal with anger and frustration. However, just because the emotion of anger rears its head every so often, we don't have to allow it to control us. So to all my people out there, continue to look for more positive avenues that will inspire you to channel your anger for something better. Remember that even in the darkest of times in life, there is still always light.

Well that's all that I have for you all this time, so I'm going bounce out of here. Again, much thanks and appreciation to everyone that stopped by for another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'. As always, the hope is that some meaning and understanding was gained from this post. It's perfectly fine if that doesn't apply to you, and I'm still appreciative for anyone that hears me out. I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I'll see you all in the next one. I go by the name of Brad H., and I wish you all peace and positive thoughts. Till next time friends!

©2016 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.