Do not let others decide for you

Many people are struggling to live their lives according to their beliefs and their desires. Too often people organize their lives avoiding to not displease their families, their friends and in some cases their children.

If your life is organized around these obligations, you must surely feel a huge weight on your shoulders and above all you probably find that life is very demanding. Understand the influence of others can affect all areas of your life. If you let the influence of others affect your choices and decisions, it is almost certain that in most cases you will not act according to your values, your desires and your aspirations.

The negative effects to please everyone is devastating to your self-esteem, devastating to the achievement of your personal projects, your personal development and the fulfillment of your dreams. If you prevent yourself to achieve your dreams because of public opinion and influence of others, what motivates you to get up each morning?

I do not mean to dismiss anything other say, I'm proposing to simply make your choice based on your beliefs, your values, your desires, your abilities and your dreams. When you've made your choice, there will certainly be people who will disagree with your choices and that's normal. All you have to do is to calmly explain why you do it and if he does not respect your choices and decisions is no longer your problem, anyway how can he stop you since you're the person who controls your decisions.

For people who decide to reject the whole crowd of negative influences, they must be careful not to fall into the trap of insolence, arrogance and contempt. Maybe you decided not to attend them, but this is not a reason not to respect their differences.

Whatever you do in life, there is always someone to tell you that you have not made the right choice or that your ideas are inadequate. Listen to your heart and your mind and live life according to you, while respecting others. It is not always easy for others to accept the fact that you live according to your choice and not based on what they want you to do or to be. At some point it will eventually let go and accept your way of life. The time always ends by overcoming the most stubborn.

The homeless, these unknown

For people living in large cities, the phenomenon of itinerant or homeless is something normal, there is nothing unusual to see one of these people asking for money with a smile and mostly a thank you even if you do not give him anything.


Every time I see one of these people and I mean every time, I always wonder what has been happening in their lives to become what they are today. Of course I am aware that there are a number of those people in the street because they have a mental illness and they are not adequately treated and monitored. However, we all know that most homeless are not in this situation.

I make this reflection this morning because I recently went to downtown Montreal (my hometown) and there was a homeless shelter that was next to a parking machine and with his cap hanging to collect money and welcome me with a nice hello. I returned the favor and then he started to explain the machine seemed to refuse all credit cards, but what a surprise, his manner of speaking, his vocabulary, his speech and his playful attitude to me where simply impressive.

It is clear that the person facing me was intelligent, educated and with great ability to interact with people better than most people I know. Again, I was confront to a person who lived a life situation that I could not explain. I understand that a person in depression can happen at any time in his life dropping everything time to heal, but the homeless are not all people with depression illness!

All this means that when you're facing a homeless, take time to ask yourself some questions like: is this really what the person wants as life? Was it really in his wildest dreams of becoming a homeless?

Just ask him instantly triggers a feeling of compassion towards these people. Compassion is not pity, but a feeling that makes you let go of our negative judgments and we tried, at least for a moment, to walk in their shoes. It is from this moment we realize that these people need to be treated like you and me, that is to say an equal, with respect despite their physical appearance. Never forget the saying "the clothes do not make the man", simply think of tie bandits!

Tell me what you think, tell me how to react when you face these people.