Today while reading and writing my previous inspirational articles on Dreams Quotes By 2 Famous People, I felt a strange motivation deep inside me and I started to remember the deep moments that I had when I was still at school and university and which I still feel somehow at points in my life, including in blogging; I thought of sharing this moment with you since perhaps you might be feeling or living the same thing as me.

Having Good Hidden Skills Can Be A Bad Thing If…

As we grow up and during the course of our life, most of us become conscious of our own capabilities and limits. We start realizing that we have hidden talents or skills inside us. While this is a good thing, experience has told me that this can actually be a bad thing also. You might be saying what the hell? Having good skills is a bad thing? No, it’s not having it that is bad, it is ‘the frame of mind that this special trait shapes over time’ which is responsible in diverting us from obvious success if we are not careful enough about ourselves and taking actions at the right time.

How Is Our Special Talent Dangerous To Us - Side Effects

At the beginning, we will find ourself leading the class or group and being the number one for some time. As time passes, we start getting overconfident about our own performance. We start getting into the game of ‘the rabbit and the tortoise‘. We start getting lazy with the idea and lame excuse that we will catch up later on - each time we postpone things. Alas! That’s where the danger zone starts. Ok, let’s say that for some another period of time we might be able to catch up, but as the level of our education or work increases we find ourself lost in the middle of nowhere without realising it. The result is that we are lagging behind everytime and ending up seeing our mates performing a lot better than us, though knowing that we are worth more than what they are achieving. We begin developing a psychological block and a stressful mind which is now full of uncertainties and doubts on our own capabilities. In most cases, there’s a big chance that this behaviour is masked under our laziness which is now our best friend. “Damm, it’s so good to sleep, it’s so good to watch tv…, learning? Not now, we have all the time to catch up.” That’s how things goes.

How To Know When We Are Going Astray? Symptoms

1) We are no more the number one, or among the best, in the class/group as we used to be
2) We are honestly (no jealousy here) frustrated a lot when we see others doing far better than us
3) We are lagging behind for things which appear so easy to do
4) We are digging our head with anxiety as we are not finding any success in life

Explanation Of Why Your Team Mates Perform Even Without Talent

In our case, there’s a big chance that we are now late as compared to the others. The most important thing is that you try to think about why you are not performing. If you are reading this article, chances are that you have taken conscious and want to overcome the situation. Okay, I will save you time here by explaining to you what I have realised with time; You should understand and put into your mind the following reasoning:

→ Success is NOT about having skills or talent. Success is about hardwork, practice, practice and practice with a will to perform.
→ Without practice, you will go nowhere except in the abyss (failure) whatever the degree of your skills or talent.

Therefore with the above reasoning, even if you are talented, you cannot perform without actually putting the required effort. Let’s say that your classmates are somewhat less talented than you, but they are practicing everyday on a regular basis. Now I hope you have at least heard this quote once: “practice makes perfect“. Despite the fact that those guys are not good at something, they will eventually perform because they are constantly doing the right thing, that is learning and practising. Out of 100 marks, you can only get 100. However talented you are, you cannot get more than 100points. So your mates are doing just that, that is to aim at the 100 points which is all achievable with enough practice.

It’s Time For Action - Your Talent Is Now Your Lethal Weapon

Alright, you have now understood your situation, so it’s now high time for action. At this stage, you cannot make any excuses to yourself nor waste time. If you haven’t got time to do it right, you now don’t have time to do it wrong either! Step out of your darkside, bring out the motivated and performing instinct inside you, start kicking the ass of those competitions/papers. Let’s say you have X hours or X days remaining till the start of the exams (or whatever assessing occasion), give the best of yourself each and every minute till X arrives. Lay out a plan first, plan what you have to learn/know. Observe and find out what part or pieces are most likely to be assessed - you be able to do that. And start practising. Now if you are the type of person that I have tried to portray in this article, you will surely come up with your own unique way of preparing yourself for the battle (each one of us have different methods as I have observed in real life). But whatever your techniques, there’s one key thing to remember:- “Always, and I mean it, always keep up hope even till the last second - the hope that you will do thing positive and that you will succeed whatever it takes you.” This is very realistic because for example, at some point in my life, I had onnly 1 day to pass an exam which was a tough one with notes of the length of a big huge book. I gave all my best that whole day and guess what? I succeeded the exam with an A (keep reading below). But you should also keep in mind that you need to have a good preparation of mind and physically also (spare energy) - be strong and convincing with yourself.

Biggest Part - Celebrate And Reward Youself!

Now another very crucial part is to celebrate each and every winning battle. I remember when I came back home on that day, I knew I have done my utmost best and that I would score at least a B. That was a tremendous satisfaction for me, keeping in mind my situation. I celebrated my joy. And after the results officially came out, I once again celebrated with a bigger heart and motivation. The key point is that you need to reward yourself for every satisfaction you give yourself!

But You Will Not Be Able To Compete With This Other Type Of Talented People - Be Warned!

As I said above, I scored an A while some of my classmates who practised since the beginning, got a B+. But there were also a couple of mates who actually scored A+. Huuumm, who are those type of guys? Well, I believe there are four categories of people:
1) People who are not talented and do not even want to try to perform
2) People who are not talented but do achieve success with perseverance and practice
3) People who are talented, but who are lazy and do only on the average or below
4) People who are both talented and have a good will of peseverence, achieving their full potential successfully.

So, the guys who scored the A+, was actually the type described in 4) above. You cannot compete with these guys unless you step-out and face them since day 1.

Side Note

I don’t claim to be a genius nor do I want to show any arrogance or whatever. Please accept this article as my humble will to share my experience with you because I know what it is like to be in failure and sadness and wasting your best traits, when you could have secured a better seat. In this respect, I want to encourage you to take the right action at the right time to prevent yourself from ruining your own success my friend.

I will end up with another of my own quotes :- “Success is not the vehicle to reach your destination [success], but a weapon to help you reach it faster and more comfortably.” - by Wakish

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I had so much in my mind to share with you, but I do not want to go any longer nor making several parts of this article. Nevetheless, I hope I have conveyed the most important ideas. And I’m sure you can add your part by using the comment form below. I have made my effort to share generously and I expect you to at least be rewarding by engaging in a discussion or simply giving your feedback or still by sharing the link to this article with others.

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Dreams Quotes By 2 Famous People

1) By Robert Kennedy

- “Some people look at things as they are and ask why. We dream things as they never were and ask why not”

2) Henry David Thoreau

- “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours… If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the fundation under them!”

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Verbs and prepositions have always been linked together in the construction of a simple sentence. I hence call them this way: verbs and prepositions are the husband and wife, for there cannot be a shining house without a couple. (That’s my own quote ). Each verb has only a set or one compatible preposition(s); ideally each verb is associated with a preposition, but there are also some cases where a verb might dwell with more than one preposition.

This is the first edition that I brought forward in this series of “Phrases With Prepositions” and I will start with the alphabet A and upto Z. But trust me this is a whole lot of them and yet they are very crucial in helping you write better and confidently. I will show you what verb goes with what preposition(s) and also forming a sentence or phrase with them. It should definitely be a good collection in your database of “Learn Good Writing Skills by starting with the Basics of the English Language“. So here we go…

5 Verbs And Prepositions With A Sentence

1) Abondon to

Having no other choice, the King abandoned his ministers to the fury of the of the mob.

2) Abide by

As a honest student, you should always abide by the rules and regulations of your institution.

3) Able to

Having gone bankrupt, the manager is not able to pay his employees right now.

NOTE:
Ideally, we do not say “is not able to”, instead we say “is unable to” - This is much better english. But for the sake of the subject of this article, I have used “is not able”

4) Absorb in

Tom Sawyer was so absorbed in his day dreams that he completely forgot about Mr Dobbins’ class.

5) Abhorrence of (abhorrence means ’strong dislike’ or ‘disgust’)

Most sentient women have an abhorrence of lizards

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That’s it for this edition. I have tried to make the sentences simple so that you can concentrate more on how the marriage of certain verb with its specific preposition goes. For example, we cannot say “able for“, that’s not good english (just like an eagle is not an appropriate pair for a hen - Got it?!). Hopefully, as you keep on reading editions after editions, you will surely get a better grasp of things. So don’t forget to subscribe freely and come back often. And please do use the comment form to give me your feedback and other possible sentences or associations.

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I was reading an article where my blogo-friend, Jirel, was talking about his own past experience on how First impression is the last impression. While commenting, I turned up to be writing more than a whole paragraph which is quite enormous for a handy quick comment. Hence, I finally decided to write an article. Let’s get started…

Why Do You Need To Make A First Good Impression

Since my early primary schooling, I remember my dad talking about ‘making a first good impression is worth a lifetime relationship’. At that tender age, I was not too attentive on what he was talking about. But as I grew up, his words and repetitive ’speech’ started to make more sense. A good first impression is very important in any field, whether in friendship, dating, professional world or even a one-time unexpected meeting with someone. You never know when a split-second glance at your personality (or a very short conversation) can change the meaning of your whole world. Even online, while chatting, a first good impression is crucial in establishing a strong relationship. But different ‘meeting’ with someone will imply different level of approach, for example, meeting a professional guy would mean that you should have a formal approach.

But whatever the nature of the ‘meeting’, there are some obvious general tips which applies as we will see. Helping someone make a good opinion on you forms a key ingredient to a successful life; it’s just a matter of the opinion you give and the attitude you adopt to attract success. You cannot undo a first impression, nor will you get a second chance to create the deep impact and perception that a first impression triggers.

How Can A First Good Impression Help You?

A good first impression can help you get:
→ respect and trust
→ a job
→ a girl/wife
→ famous
→ friendship
→ so many unexpected golden opportunities

How To Make A First Good Impression?

Meeting with someone generally last a few 10 to 30 seconds or just a glimpse. So keeping this in mind, I will list the most relevant points first:-

1) Always keep a smile on your face, have a welcoming face - Have a good body language
2) Always dress up properly in whatever cloth/outfit you are wearing - be tidy
3) Try to be the first to greet the other
4) Give a warm shakehand
5) Have a good voice tone and speak intelligibly
6) Try to make the environment jovial + be relaxed, don’t make yourself feel too stressed, shy or too much enthusiasm - control your emotion and expressions.
7) Be yourself and talk convincingly - Avoid giving false impression on you
8.) Stay within limits - Don’t try to depict yourself as Mr Perfect
9) Have the gut to say you don’t know. Be honest, if your opponent is talking about a topic which you don’t know and he asks you if you know this and that, don’t say yes. Instead, simply tell him/her that you don’t know. This might infact trigger a new level of engagement with your opponent who is now enthusiastic to explain you something.
10) Engage into topics you know. Don’t talk about something which you don’t have any knowledge on. For example, if you don’t know anything about Linux, don’t try to fake it, you’ll end up creating a bad impression.
11) Talk about positive things. Don’t talk about your problems. Infact refrain yourself from talking about anything negative
12) Pay attention to what your opponent is saying - be attentive. There’s nothing more frustrating than to talk with someone and seeing his eyes or attention on something or someone else. So keep your eyes focussed.
13) Make it an engaging conversation where everyone can have their say. Don’t talk to much about yourself and keep the other one listening, this is a bad thing.

14) Do you have anything to add? I’m sure you do, so use the comment form below..

A Video On ‘How Can I Make A Good First Impression?’

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Anatomy Of An Ellipsis In Written Languages

→ We say an ellipsis, but many ellipses - (Ellipsis in singular form, but Ellipses in plural form)
→ Ellipsis, has two meanings as far as linguistics is concerned. Some linguists or writers might argue that it has like 3 or 4 meanings. But I’m convinced that it has only 2 main meanings and the rest are just derivatives, or different styles, as I will show you.

First Definition Of Ellipsis

In any written form, (like english, french, polish or chinese), the common reference attributed to an ellipsis is:
→ An ellipsis comprises a set of three consecutive dots (without any spaces between them)

Those 3 dots can be further broken down to the following:

1) To show a deliberate silence to stress an emotion or feeling

I am Sorely vexed…

- Here the author would remain silent after speaking and looking to his opponent with a severe face expression

2) To indicate or show the omission of a word or groups of words.
The words are omitted simply because the first set of words would give a clear indication of those [omitted] words.

It is raining heavily…

- The full intended sentence would be: “It is raining heavily today”
- ‘Today‘ is the omitted word because the verb ‘is‘, which is in the present tense, clearly shows that the action is happening now!

Second Definition Of Ellipsis / What Is An Elliptical Sentence?

→ In written english language, an ellipsis refers to the omission of a word or set of words from a sentence.
→ The idea of simply omitting words in a sentence, makes that ’sentence’ to be referred as an Elliptical Sentence.

E.g:
a) Either Chelsea or Man Utd will win the English Barclays Premier League this season.

- The full intended meaning of the sentence is:
Either Chelsea will win the English Barclays Premier League
Or Man Utd will win the English Barclays Premier League

b) Wakish does not often write articles, but he does it is a blogging explosion.

- The full intended meaning of the sentence is:
Wakish does not often write articles
but when he does write articles it is a blogging explosion

→ As you can deduce from the above, an elliptical sentence undoubtedly avoids repetition of words which can otherwise be read ‘in between the lines’.
Intelligent usage of ellipses greatly enhances the structure of a sentence and thus conveying a clear meaningful message.

Pitfalls Of Elliptical Sentences

Don’t try to force a sentence to be elliptical, it will convey an incorrect grammatical meaning.

E.g:
Alesha neither has nor will go to Pubcons

- Here obviously, the reader will be confused in understanding that sentence
- The writer intended to say:
Alesha neither has go
nor will go to Pubcons

This is completely wrong, so be careful with such incorrect elliptical sentences

Final Notes On Ellipsis

→ I have precised that I’m defining ellipsis as pertained in ‘Written Language’. But ellipses also have different meanings in other types of languages, namely: mathematical languages, programming languages or computer languages.

→ In written language, ellipses vary slightly in their position in a sentence depending on their specific ‘governing linguistic bodies‘; whether to include a space at the beginning or end of the ‘3 dots‘ or/and to enclose them within square brackets..etc. Usage of an ellipsis in Japanese is different from that in Polish. For instance, in the U.S, writers abide by a ‘guide‘ known as the ‘Bluebook‘.

Readers’ Short Exercises On Ellipsis

1) Can you think of other (derived) meanings of ellipses?
2) Can you try to think of sentences which could make a wrong usage of an ellipsis?

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