Choosing The Simply Luxurious Life by Shannon Ables Part 2

Following on from Tuesday's post, here are some more parts of Choosing The Simply Luxurious Life that I really enjoyed:

Find your passion and then become an expert in it. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour rule where you practice a task for 10,000 hours to be a success in that field. Ables says, "The formula is very clear: Acquire knowledge, make a sustained effort, and exercise patience."

As an individual, you don't need to be validated by anyone else. What you feel, what you think, your values...they are YOURS because you've decided what you deem important to leading a fulfilling life. "In our world today, there are as many opinions as there are people...Choosing to maintain some privacy and not share everything about our lives with the rest of the world bolsters a belief in ourselves."

"In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you." Oscar Wilde

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." Alan Alda

We all know the well known saying "Money can't buy you happiness", but as Ables points out and I've experienced, money is very useful when it comes to building a foundation for emergencies and for dreaming and scheming - in my case, my next destination! The best feeling in the world is financial security.

Despite the outside world dictating what Success is and isn't, Success should be what you deem it to be for yourself and your own personal struggle to achieve what you've achieved.

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are so busy rushing through life, that we rarely connect with ourselves. I remember in my 20s being swept along most of the time because there wasn't any time to stop and get in tune with myself. For the start of my 30s, I've had time to think about what is most important to me in all aspects of my life.

"...at the core of our desire for connection is a need to know that we exist, that we are loved, needed, and valued."

"All great changes are preceded by chaos." Deepak Chopra

"What I like most about change is that it's a synonym for 'hope'. If you are taking a risk, what you are really saying is, 'I believe in tomorrow, and I will be part of it.' " Linda Ellerbee

It was Ables's idea that sparked my desire to keep a journal for 2016, writing one positive sentence a day for 365 days. Even if nothing goes right one day, I'm going to pull a positive from a negative - I hope!

Ables says that simple luxuries are everywhere, but we need to slow down to really see them. I like the way she puts it, "...indulging in a simple luxury that slows down your heartbeat just enough that you can appreciate all the things in your life that are going well."