October 5, 2016 It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop - Confucius

   Over the past couple of years I have found myself drawn into the world of philosophy. I know that a lot of people tend to discredit philosophy as a subject, however I believe that philosophy is important for personal growth. Philosophical thinking and analysis can help with a person's critical thinking ability. There are two main reasons why I love philosophy, the first being a peak inside a philosopher's mind. Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zengzi and even Bruce Lee are great philosophers who are no longer with us. Their teachings however have stood the test of time. The second reason that I enjoy philosophy is because it changes the way I see the world. Growing up the world is painted as black or white with no gray in between. But philosophy paints a different story with certain teachings questioning the fundamentals of our very own society. Powerful stuff right, that's why I decided to begin including my very own take on some teachings and incorporate it on my website.

   So let's dive into today's teaching. Today I decided to touch upon a very famous teaching by Confucius. The teaching is "It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop". One of the reasons that I decided to choose this teaching is because I feel that it embodies my current situation. For most readers of this site and my YouTube subscribers know, I have recently hit a fork in the road. Instead of bearing right to continue working and living just as I had for the past three years, I decided to take the left road which has no guarantee of success. If you are a new reader or have missed my post about my situation, you might be asking yourself why I would take such a risk. Let's just say that the easy road would have made me miserable and I would have regretted taking said road. The left road might or might not bring me any success but at the end of it all I can never say what if.

   So this teaching stood out to me today because I was a bit down in the dumps. I have been working on a couple of projects for months now and have not seen the results that I was expecting. Negative results and rejection after rejection would drain the energy out of many. So why wouldn't an average Joe like myself be affected by this constant flow of negativity. Before you go saying that I just need motivation, let me ask you to pump the brake. I already have my Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn and Abraham Hicks YouTube playlist at the ready at all times, so I have enough "motivational" audios. Motivation can only take you so far, without results it is just wishful thinking. If a business does not make money it closes, if an employee does not produce they are fired. That is the way the world works, plain and simple. Yes we all know the saying that Rome was not built in a day, but try telling that to your bills.

   So now picture me in the morning rediscovering this amazing teaching by Confucius. I was sitting in my seat on the Metro North going through my two and a half hour commute, second guessing my decision to leave my current industry. I was already contemplating contacting some people in the industry to see if I could find something. But then boom, I notice Confucius' teaching among a list of top one hundred philosophy teachings. As I read it over and over I begin to gain back my belief in myself. It's easy to quit and throw in the towel, it's hard to see something through to the end. If you ever read a biography ( I have read many), no one achieves success over night it is a hard strenuous process. For some success takes 5 years while for others it takes 20 to 30. As long as at the end of it you achieve the success that you always dreamed of, what's wrong with falling a couple of times along the way. I know there are some skeptics in the crowd reading this who think that all this is made up. To those readers all I can say is you are free to believe what you want but this is my story and I'm sticking to it.

   As you can see this is almost the length of a high-school essay, so let me wrap it up. I don't know if you could tell from reading my text but this was directly from the heart. When I write I try my best to let the words come naturally. None of the text on this paper were written before hand or planned. I found this teaching today wrote it down and kept it on my note pad. I did not come up with what I was going to say on my commute back to my house. Once I opened up this page the post essentially wrote itself. My post might not be written conventionally but they are written directly from the heart without a filter. So if you enjoyed this post or if you have a favorite philosopher you would like me to read up on let me know below in the comments.