A life for life

Life according to Ping
COMMONNESS By Bong R. Osorio (The Philippine Star) Updated September 19, 2011 12:00 AM Comments (0)


Lord of the Ping: The tandem books Ping: A Frog in Search of a New Pond and The Way of Ping: Journey to the Great Ocean by marketing consultant and motivational speaker Stuart Avery Gold
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Are you living your finest life, the life of your most profound longings? This is the key question that the tandem books Ping: A Frog in Search of a New Pond and The Way of Ping: Journey to the Great Ocean posits. Both are authored by marketing consultant and motivational speaker, Stuart Avery Gold, and support the belief that one’s “most superb existence” can be attained through a life of option, preference and action, a truism that shouts out to anyone who would care to quiet down and pay attention.

The cover of “Ping number one” says that it is “a parable about adapting to change and overcoming obstacles, while “Ping number two” talks about taking risks and discovering a new path.”

In the genre of The Present, Aesop’s Fables, Who Moved My Cheese, The Little Engine That Could, and my all-time favorites The Little Prince and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, both share the charming story of the life-changing passage of a high-jumping frog named Ping. Peppered with wit and humor, they offer precious nuggets of business and life lessons, and do not make any attempt at downplaying the notion that challenges, obstacles, and out-and-out upheavals are parts of authentic professional and personal living.

“Ping number one” talks about the frog’s setbacks and struggles as he leaves home in search of a new pond. In the process, he meets an insightful owl that mentors him on how to find the real meaning of life and leap to new altitudes. In “Ping number two,” the frog has become the teacher as he shares his past experiences and lessons learned with two young, inquisitive and rebellious frogs as he challenges them to question the certainty of their current state. Let me share some food for thought picked up from Ping. You may consider most of them “nydak” (nothing you don’t already know), but they remain constant reminders of what The Financial Express describes as “the importance of living an intentional life.”

• It’s hard to let go when fear lies in wait inside you. Make the choice to let go of the past, connect to the future, and excitedly launch the great new idea of your life. Have a final glimpse of the surroundings you dearly adore, let go all the wonders of past exploits and make the most precise jump into the greatest adventure of all.

• The dream does not begin unless you do. Don’t just wait for the right time and right place to do something. The very act of waiting actually pushes the desired event away. You must do in order to be.

• Change — authentic change — is unsettling. When change happens, it can create the kind of fear that can take hold of even the most confident of people. Fear of change can grip, grab, and seize you with such strength, it can paralyze you. But only if you let it.

• If the path you travel has no obstacles, it leads nowhere. The “way” is not the path; it is the landscape of the soul that the universe fills with its breath. Within you and without you, it is there for you. Be open to this, and the universe will always lift you up, not keep you down. All else is futile struggle.

• Failure is one of nature’s wonderful teachers. Each failure will be painful and make you cringe and cry and give up in a minute, because that is what failure can do. But just as water effortlessly nourishes all things, failure enriches — it imparts truth and wisdom, insight and knowledge that help you grow.

• Talent comes naturally, while skill must be learned. Talent is incomplete when not aligned with skill. Talent may open doors, but skill will allow you to go through. You must develop both or you will never be a master of your life.

• The flow knows where to go. Go with it. Happiness is not a destination. It is a process — a wondrous, winding journey. Following the flow is a way of life that sustains you, guides you, and leads you to boundless joy and insight. You are a traveler, journeying with others, allowing your truest destiny to take its path.

• There is a bigger world outside your pond. It can indeed be found outside your little kingdom. True, there is nothing bigger, nothing more stimulating, and nothing more rewarding than your pond if you don’t explore. If you take the journey of discovery, however, you can come face to face with the magnificence and reality the great ocean brings. “What is greatly dreamed is nobly dared. The journey begins with you. It takes shape when you take a leap of faith into the beckoning darkness, and see how your own belief becomes evident beyond doubt.”



• Believing what’s inside of you is better than believing what’s outside of you. Meditation is the stillness within you, where the truth of the heart surrounds the mind. It is stillness that harmonizes the body and mind to recognize the limitless possibility that exists for you. Strengthening the body is done by making it move and strengthening the mind is achieved by bringing it to rest. Through reflection, you discover that while it is the brain that moves the body, it is the mind that moves the world.

• The “way” is your daily bread. It is awakening your mind and seeing your true nature. It is letting go of the attitudes and expectations of others so that you may enter the stream of your own destiny, flowing with the wellspring of all possibility. It is a life where you do what you like and like what you do by being who you are and not what others have dictated. The “way” does not ask you to be what you are not, but to be more fully aware of what you are.

• Every living thing has a place in the natural order of things, with a destiny to fulfill. When you focus on your deepest hopes and aspirations, you not only discover the starting point of your life but the source of it, your inborn reason, the life you were born to live. Let everything be what it naturally is. Within the “way,” there always exists two alleyways — the alleyway of what is and the alleyway of what can be, and through the choices you take, you can traverse the alleyway or not. It is up to you.

• A rock that stops you is a rock that you can step on. The path of reality is the one most often overlooked. Know that every problem that exists outside of you has a solution inside of you. Work in harmony with life’s circumstances as you become aware of your ability to correct your course and move onward. To change your life you must be willing to change your mind. Alternative options can be hidden by the unwillingness to listen or the unwillingness to see. Greet a challenge with change; see it with new eyes. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

• The rise to success is achieved by lifting others. A great part of the journey is whom you choose to travel the path with. One of the grand gifts of your existence is being a compassionate companion, knowing that you can depend on friends and be depended on by them, through adventure and hardship.

• The silence in bamboos speaks divine wisdom. The bamboo works in harmony with nature. It remains flexible in its response to external conditions. While the strongest tree can be uprooted and knocked over in a storm, the bamboo prevails in adverse conditions by bending and yielding to the prevailing winds.

• No one can deliver you a rainbow. It is you who must take responsibility for doing what you want to do and being what you want to be. If you believe in yourself, you don’t need the belief of others. Obstacles are there to prevent you. Distractions are there to pull you. Fear is there to keep you where you are. To live your dream, do not worry about what to do, just do what needs to be done. Decisions, not conditions, determine your destiny.

• The best things you’ve accomplished have no permanence, only peaks. But you must not stay and be comfortable on your highest points. You must always go beyond them. When you let go of all meaning, only what is truly important becomes meaningful. By letting go of things as they are, you can experience things as they might be. Unattached action is action that invites your future.

• The lack of will and willingness obstructs your trail. Never lose sight of what you desire or where you wish to be. Hang on to your idealism, hold fast to your dreams. Do not let the pressure of doubt and discouragement determine your fate. Focus on what you really want for yourself. Use the commitment of your own reality to confront the conflict and confusion of others. Persistence overcomes resistance. Stay brave.

• The purpose of life is a life of purpose. Nobody can show you the truth, only the way to the truth. True joy can be had if your life is dedicated to a purpose you recognize as a mighty one. Years can wrinkle your skin, but to live without purpose wrinkles the soul.

The only thing constant in life is change. It is an oft-repeated line, but it continues to ring true, especially as you take on the rapid changes around you that are driven mainly by the technology revolution. Your environment and the way you live are indeed changing at an unimaginable pace. You have to ride the massive waves of change; nobody is spared from it anyway.