Author: Cody Galea

 

If the title isn’t self-explanatory enough, it’s quite simple. If you go around doing things that aren’t the smartest decisions, then don’t expect the outcomes to be favorable. This kind of touches on a topic from a previous post regarding how your attitude towards things can attract likewise outcomes for yourself. This is something that crosses my mind on a decently frequent basis mainly because I’ve been on the wrong side of this spectrum a few times recently, which is actually why I have decided to bring this up. But also, I feel like there are a lot of people who don’t take this into account and sit around playing victim wondering how something unfavorable could have happened to them without looking back at what they were doing in the lead up.

Most of the time, the “stupid games” you are playing are very easy to notice when you’re in the middle of them. For me, it’s sometimes a feeling that’s accompanied by a voice in my head telling me it’s a dumb idea and is really immature in nature. Another one is the fact that what you’re doing is universally known as being something stupid. For example, poking a bear, tormenting a wild animal, and most common, driving while drunk. By definition, a prize is something rewarded to someone for doing something of note or winning a competition. Most commonly a prize is seen as a good thing, like a Super Bowl Trophy, but trust me when I say there are a lot of little prizes in life that are not good and unwanted to say the least. Stupid prize you say? How about a DUI, a trip to jail, or a one night stay in the hospital! Now, those are definitely extreme cases of the topic, but I’m going to go into a little lighter region of it and talk about some things in the regard.

There’s a stupid game I find myself playing every once in a while that I can assure you has never ended in me coming out on top, and it’s something so trivial it’s almost maddening. I was having a text conversation with someone who I really wanted to continue speaking with, but the conversation was kind of spotty at the time, which in turn made me feel really anxious so I would repeatedly check my phone and would get let down if I got a notification that wasn’t from them (Which by the way is extremely stupid in itself, and you should work on not being thrown off by a lack of texting lol). So, my bright idea as to put my phone away and not check it for any reason until the day was over and I had nothing to do. Now, let me phone out that taking a break from your phone or social media can be a good thing to help you reset, BUT it is not when you are doing it for the wrong reason. I was doing it because I didn’t want to be let down when I check my phone to not see a notification from them. Now there were obvious hints that this was stupid. One, because I had feeling of guilt almost that made me sense that this was stupid. And two, because I had a voice in my head telling me it was. The voice in this case was just me talking to myself saying that this was going to get me nowhere and would not help me whatsoever. Basically saying that at the end of the day you’re either going to look at your phone and not see anything, or you’re going to see something you want to see but you’ll have missed out because you’re hours late and there’s nothing you can do now. For me, it was the second one. This person had asked me if I wanted to do something with them, but I didn’t see it until 7 hours later because I was being stupid. So I won a stupid prize, which was the regretful feeling of not being present and missing out on something I wanted to do with someone I wanted to do it with.

There are stupid prizes everywhere for you to win, but they can only be won if you do the stupid things to win them. What I’m trying to say with this piece is that you should take time to analyze what you’re doing. Ask yourself if this is in line with the other things you want to do, or if it possibly has negative implications on things you want in the future. As long as you’re conscious about what you do and take note of the possible outcomes of doing or not doing something, you can put yourself in a better position. Trust your gut and believe in your morals because you are a smart person and the best one to make decisions for yourself.

 

I hope this made some sort of sense to you. It’s a basic, almost comical idea that happens to have a lot of depth behind it.

 

Regret can be one of the biggest issues and a person’s life, constantly thinking “what if?” and “why did I do that?” It can be like walking around with a dark cloud over you that no one can fix because it was brought on by you. It makes you look at yourself in a lessened manner than you should and affects your everyday mood. It can bring on self-hatred and even self-sabotage because you are so consumed with decision made in the past and how it has possibly changed the course of your life as it is today. In some extreme cases people never get over it and attribute any misfortune they encounter to the regrets they harbor, barring them from ever finding happiness. I’ve heard many people claim that the first step in getting better is forgiving themselves. While I partially agree, I feel it goes a little deeper in than just that.

I like to think that there are three versions of yourself. First, there is You. You hold all of the cards and are who makes all of the decisions for yourself. How you think about yourself and the way you go about life falls under your direction. Then there’s Past You, and he is everything that You used to be. All of your past thoughts and past decisions reside in him and there is nothing you can do to change him. Finally there is Future You. He is everything You will become. Future You is culminated of everything You are doing right now, and you are actively building him up every second with everything you do. Now that you’ve met you other selves, we can move on.

There are 2 rules that you should follow and keep up on regarding them. Rule number 1, which is initially the most important, is to forgive your past self. You cannot move on with a clear head until you have forgiven the decisions and mishaps that your past self has done. Don’t hate him either because without him you would not be the ‘You’ that you are today. Your past self is who you can learn the most from because he was and is you. If there was a decision you made that you wish you could have back, then acknowledge it, forgive yourself for doing it, and keep it in mind for reference later on. Which takes me right into the next rule.

Rule number 2, is make decisions for your future self. Think back on your past self real quick and imagine if they had your present self’s best interest in mind when making their decisions. Things would most likely be how you would want them to be right? Now that is what you should think of when going through your day to day life. Whether or not this be helpful or even detrimental to my future self. The most basic example of this is what time you should go to bed at night. Will you go to sleep at a time that helps your future self get up feeling well rested, or will they get up feeling tired and regret going to bed so late? These decisions are as simple as that and come across your plate multiple times a day. So having that in mind when contemplating what you should do can help you make the most beneficial decision you can.

The most understanding and forgiving person in your life will always be you, and you may most likely be the only person who has your best interest in mind. You can’t expect no one besides yourself to look out after you, so rely on the different versions of you to make sure you accomplish what you want. Forgive the things you’ve done and do the things that help you the most. You can’t have regrets if you did the best you could and made the smartest decisions that we relayed out for you.

Take care of yourself, your past self, and your future self

“You have a lot of potential.”

“They show the potential to be good.”

“Someday they will reach their full potential.”

These are words that I’m sure everybody has heard at least once, and it is most often used as a compliment. Teachers, coaches, bosses, and even peers use these all the time to show praise for a colleague whether it be in sports or the workplace. I’ve always seen the word used to give someone feedback for how much promise they show in their line of work, what they could be eventually, and I’ve also seen people who receive that kind of praise and get a false sense of accomplishment and abilities which leads them to think they have done and are doing enough to achieve what they want. In reality, you are not.

When I was younger, I was always told to take the word “potential” as almost an insult or a backhanded compliment. To take it as someone saying, “you’re pretty good, but not good enough”. But I feel as if I’m the one person who sees it this way. Too many times I’ve seen the effect be a sense of confidence of what they COULD be, when in reality what you could be is not what you are. Sure, being able to understand what you could do is important, but the word makes too many people feel good about nothing. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that people absolutely love the idea that they could do something, without ever realizing if they would be able to or not.

A common scenario I see and hear about a lot involves men and sports they used to play. For example, “I could have probably played Division 1 football and made it to the NFL if I didn’t have to stop playing because of my injuries in High School. I was really good and my coaches told me I had the potential to be a great player.” I’m sure there is someone out in the world that has a story like this that they fantasize about regularly. Just the thought of them possibly being able to do something like that keeps them going and happy, and that’s why those people are mediocre. Having the potential to do or be something is nowhere near the same as someone who has done it or is it.

Potential is a big fat lie. Potential makes you believe that you can or could’ve done something, that in reality you can’t. It makes you think you’re better than you actually are, and leaves room for excuses explaining away why you weren’t able to. Potential means you’re not good enough right now, and if you don’t make the changes to become better and continue to grow, when the next year comes around you will still not be good enough. If you ever hear someone refer to you as being somebody with “Potential”, you should take that negatively to heart and work to make sure you are the person that can do something as opposed to the person that could possibly be able to do something. Having the potential to be a running back that rushes for 2,000 yards in a season doesn’t mean a thing when you only rush for 500 yards every year.

 

Potential does not equate to value. So work to become valuable and you will find success.

 

But wait, there’s more!

Potential doesn’t just affect you in regards to who you are and what you can do, it can affect you in whom or what you see potential in. And that can have the same dire consequences as well. While you should see potential as a negative when its aimed at you, you must also see potential for what it is when you find yourself placing it on other people, things, or situations. Like stated early, potential is basically a nice way of saying you aren’t good enough. So place that same viewpoint on other things and it changes your view of what you originally thought about it.

A big example of this, which has affected me negatively as well, is people staying in relationships they shouldn’t be in because that person has or shows the POTENTIAL to be a good partner or spouse. So it keeps you around because your vision is clouded by what could be, because it could be everything you want, but it isn’t. That person shows flashes of what you want, but they will never be what you’re looking for because the entirety of the existence in your life is because of potential. If you stop seeing things and people through you “potential goggles”, and see them for who and what they really are right in front of you, you wont be letting yourself down over and over again because you see more out of them then they wish to be or even are able to be. To make at as simple and materialistic as possible, it’s like having a Ford Ranger because it has the potential to be a solid work truck, but you really need an F-150. The Ranger will never be able to do what you actually need it to do.

So in conclusion, always strive to be of value and search for valuable components for you life, and not the potential of them or yourself to be valuable. Make decisions with what is present, not what might be there when its all said and done.

There is only one person who is the culprit of all your problems.

And that person is YOU.

The good news about that is when you look yourself in the mirror every morning, the person you see has the answers to all the problems in your life. The answer may be anything from an attitude adjustment to a complete change in your decision-making and ethics. The bottom line is that you hold all the cards to your happiness.

A lot of your success in life, regardless of what that may be, can be attributed to how you approach life in itself, specifically situations you find yourself in. Also, how you carry yourself from day to day can be an indicator on how you will fair in life.

You Can Think Things Into Existence

This idea may sound kind of far fetched if you take it too literally. Like you can’t actually just think really hard and have something appear, but I trust everyone knows that already. This involves the tactic of visualization, where you see yourself doing the thing you want, or being where you want to be. Your thoughts revolve around achieving this goal. You think out the things you need to do, how you’re going to do it, and when you’re going to do them. The decisions you make on a day to day basis have this in mind, and you make the decision that propels you forward towards your goal. For example, if I want to run a marathon in 6 months, I have to make the obvious changes to get to the point where I will be able to do that. Running, diet, recovery, etc. Those are the basic changes everyone knows about, but the successful people do more than that, they constantly think about what they do with their time and what they put into their bodies. Do the people they hang around help promote their choices or are they detrimental to the goal? Will eating this affect my workout tomorrow? What decisions will I make that will cause a ripple effect of bad workouts, which will put me behind schedule and cause me to miss out on progress?

These are the things I am talking about when I talking about thinking something into existence. It’s not going to happen if I just think about it, my thoughts and overall thinking have to push me in the right direction of what I’m looking to do. Any lapse in thought can make you become stagnant, and make you fall behind so you won’t be where you want when the opportunity arrives.

 

You Can Attract Good and Positive Things By Having A Likewise Attitude

People are attracted to positive things and are repelled by negative ones. It’s quite simple. By being positive and being someone who lights up a room, you will attract more people and opportunities to you. But, you’ll be able to differentiate between good and bad intentions because they will match your genuineness or not. Nobody really enjoys themselves when they’re around someone who is constantly negative, so if you think that someone will go out of their way to come and lift you up over and over again, newsflash; they won’t. Maybe once or twice, but once you become a burden you will find yourself wallowing in your own self-pity by yourself because you affect others around you. But there’s good news! While negativity affects people around you and causes them to repel, a positive attitude is so much more contagious. And the better news is that your attitude is the single biggest, and most important, thing you have control over! You can’t control the weather or traffic or whatever else is bugging you, but you can control how you react to it. You can either succumb to the cruddiness, or you can decide to make the best of it. Find the positive with in the negative.

This can help make any bad day you have better, while also improving the days of others around you. It’s amazing how just a little different view on something can cause a huge shift in the outcome of your day. When you carry yourself that way and take control of how you handle situations, you affect not only yourself but your friends and family around you. You and your friends have a great time while doing the most mundane things, and you can look back and recall how much fun you had while painting or doing yard work. If you had a subpar attitude doing those things, you remember that day as boring and no fun at all. It’s really up to you.

Some of the happiest people in the world have nothing at all, while people that have everything are unhappy. It’s all about how you look at your situation and the attitude you bring forth to the occasion. That’s it. So next time think about your situation like that, flip the switch. And if you can’t, do something you enjoy than helps put you in that state of mind. It’s all on you!

You Decide What You Do

Nobody is going to look out for you like your own self. So do things with that in mind. Why are you doing something? Is it for yourself or is it for someone else? Does doing this for someone else bring you enjoyment? No? Then don’t do it. Easy peasy. That can be anything from your job to a certain social setting. While you have control over your attitude, you also have control of where you go and who you’re around. The equation is simple: if it makes you feel good, then continue to do it; if it makes you feel bad, then don’t do it anymore. Prioritize your time for things that fall in the good category. For example, if you like hiking rather than drinking at a pool party, then pass up on the party and go for a hike. You wont be worried about how others feel about it because you’ll be too busy doing something you enjoy and makes you feel good. So, consciously put yourself in advantageous positions while simultaneously removing yourself from situations that put you at risk or stress you out.

 

You Don’t Have to Wait On Anybody Else To Make You Feel Whole

You can start doing that right now. They only person who can really make you feel whole is you. Because you are the only person within your self, theres nobody else inside your head who can do these things for you. You are enough, and you should treat yourself that way. There’s a quote from the movie Spiderman: Homecoming, where Tony Stark asks Peter Parker for his suit back and Peter responds with, “But I’m nothing without the suit!” and Stark replies, “If you’re nothing without the suit, then maybe you shouldn’t have it.” I think that exchange exemplifies the issue with a lot of people where they put too much of themselves into material things and even other people, and depend on them so much that it defines them as a person. They lose site of who they are and what they stand for.

On the contrary, there is a different marvel comic book quote that think exemplifies what I’m talking about when it comes to making yourself whole as opposed to finding other things to do that. It’s a quote from a Thor comic from Thor himself. While in the heat of battle, his enemy knocks his hammer out of his grasp to gain the upper hand. Thor initially tries to retrieve it claiming that he only has 60 seconds to regain it, but then makes a decision not to. “Let it lie! If I cannot defeat this evil being bare-handed within one minute, I am not worthy of the name Thor!” This is a realization that he is the powerful being that makes all of his victories possible, the hammer isn’t the key component, he is. The hammer is just an accessory to him. He is “whole” without it.

Biggest Regrets

The biggest regrets in life, mine at least, are not the things that happen outside of yourself, but what happens inside. It’s the things that happen within your mind that project out into the world, the things you have control over. Like, how you treat others, react to certain situations, and the decisions you make either consciously or subconsciously. Decisions that others make, may affect you in a certain way, but it will never resonate with you like a decision that you make. And how you partake in that event will stick with you for a long time. Things like “I should have/shouldn’t have said something” seems to be a pretty prominent thought that pops into my head. The signs were there that something was wrong, but I let it be and it made a turn for the worse. Leaves you thinking that if you had just said something like you wanted to, maybe you could’ve made a difference. And the same goes for the opposite, where you wanted to stay quiet but something caused you to blurt out and now you’re in a predicament you didn’t want to be in.

Final Thought

You can consciously decide how you uphold yourself, and that is one of the greatest tools you posses. As long as you stay true to yourself and who you are you cannot fail. So don’t fail yourself, you’re all you got.

Hi to everyone and anyone that has happened to stumble upon my new blog! I have to admit that this is my first ever attempt at blogging, so I have no clue what topics I’ll end up writing about or even the direction I plan on taking this. So, because of that I thought I would take the first post to give a little background on myself. Who I am, what I like, and what I do outside of writing. Just give you a little bit of insight into who I am, and a chance to see if you enjoy my writing style and the topics I choose to reflect and expand on.

 

My name is Cody Galea, (obviously because that the name of my website) and I am a 26 year old man from California, born and raised. A lot of my life was dedicated to the sport of football, and I was able to achieve a childhood dream of playing professionally. I had the privilege of playing for the San Diego State Aztecs football team in college and then signing with the Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Rattlers, and Geneva Seahawks of Switzerland. Injuries plagued my pro career so I have moved onto new pastures since then. There are plenty of things I enjoy outside of football like fitness, food, reading, watching other sports, music, art, television, movies, news stories, and always trying new things. I have a curiosity for trying things I’ve never done in order to experience something new. So I see this blog kind of moving in the direction of expanding on certain ideas and documenting things that occur in my life. I have a lot of knowledge in my head that I think may do better out on the Internet as opposed to staying between my ears.

 

So if you like reading about new ideas or a different look on things you already know, this may be the place for you to check into every once in a while. But, I have a lot of things to say and some ideas to share, so I thought I would share them. I’m not worried if anyone reads what I have to say, but being able to put my words out there in the world is a form of self-expression I’m intrigued by.

 

Welcome!