inspiration

Self-acceptance is not a mythical creature everyone knows about but never really saw. It’s real. And unlike a unicorn, whose absence is not that vital for our lives, self-acceptance decides whether you’re going to have the life of your dream or not. It’s also vital for your mental health.

I always say that self-acceptance is where it either begins or ends for you. It’s one of the major keys to having a happy, fulfilling life.

Now, let’s turn to the definition of self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is, first and foremost, a form of awareness of your strengths and weaknesses (your positives and your negatives) either given by nature or shaped by life circumstances.

It begins with learning all aspects ...

If you were an apple, there would be needed two halves to make you whole. Well, in case with us, humans, two halves would not be enough to form your naturally multisided personality and complete a healthy balance to your cooperation with the outside world.

What I mean by that? In my previous post I wrote about self-acceptance and its importance in acquiring solid ground for personal growth and development. I stressed that self-acceptance is not one-time thing you can get once and for all but rather a journey of awareness where each time you learn better.

Well, these 5 spheres that lie in the base of shaping the understanding of your worthiness as an individual in the society, are responsible for not only sharpening your awareness, which impr...

It’s been always the same, like a badly written story where one human being stands against another. Some use fists to defend their truths, others are sharp at tongue. Each is reluctant to give up.

But does it really matter?

It’s a fact that huge part of people living on this planet struggle to make their lives better. This is understandable. Each has their list of beliefs, deeply engraved on the innate side of their being. But for what I learned, if the life you have today is not yet the life of your dream then surely, the beliefs you’re guarding so much are not simply working for you.

For some reasons, it’s in us to feel like defending ourselves against people’s thoughts, people’s words, people’s actions, in othe...

"Short story is not a sailing ship to take you far in the ocean but a boat to transport you fast on the other side."

Honestly, I had not much of interest in short stories before. I — an experienced bookworm — obviously, preferred full length novels over twelve-page stories. I liked to sail far rather than jump in for a short ride. Till one day, I accidently got The Magic Shop by H. G. Wells in my hands. Unwrapped on a very delicate line between illusion and reality, it was narrated in such exquisite way that I was immediately dragged in, headfirst.

This was the beginning of my journey into the world of short stories.

Doubtless today, I can assure you, that reading short stories is, indeed, one of the greatest ways to delv...

Everyone has a view at what happiness is. Some, manage to find happiness in mundane things, like taking a stroll outside in the morning, others search happiness beyond things that can be touched, dedicating their daily activities to spiritual practices and self-education.

But what about ultimate happiness – the state of mind that is peaceful and content?

In this easy conversation, I want to share 10 reasons that might be the cause of your yet not found happiness.

Reason #1 Internal Conflict

‘The scariest monsters are those who lurk within our souls.’ by Edgar Alan Poe

I’ve never met a person who did not have some internal conflicts to de...

There is only one way to turn one book into many, and it is to TRANSLATE.

Yet, the amount of books that never get a chance to be translated is enormous. It is even more so in the world of Indie Authors and their baby books. If you want to taste how truly dramatic this is, imagine ocean of books, drifting away from the starving hearts of its potential readers.

Imagine Shakespeare, drowned in among those drifting away waters of words.

Imagine Kafka, never crossing the border of Germany.

As a Russian/English speaking person, I’ve read dozens and dozens of books, some of them written by my favorite American/British Indie Authors, that will more likely never ...

I remember good days like a vague outline of the bridge which I enter on the days, dark like night sky.

It affects my writing. It affects me. It affects people, I care about. And even though there is no way to dispel clouds from life once and for all, there is still a way to help yourself stay on both feet in the storm of dark days.

Journaling yourself out of anything!

I was 10 years old when I first met people involved in business, self-development, mental/physical health and all of them in one voice were telling about the power of journaling. I was so wired up with their energy and even though I was just a ten years old girl and hardly could tell if I needed to journal myself out of anything (I was writing in my diary sometimes, but most of the ...

As I stepped in this multifaceted world of translation, the only question that kept me awake at night was ‘If my translation is CORRECT?’ Fidgeting over every word, scanning it scrupulously, checking all the possible resources, and comparing my translation to countless examples of others was my main routine. As exhausting and at times tiring as it was I enjoyed each time when I saw the product of my ‘labor’ and was enormously proud of myself when I noticed some kind of progress in the way I was doing my job.

But as more time passed, my insatiable craving to be CORRECT turned into a hump on my path of professional growth.

Naturally, I started discovering more and more odd details, mysterious I would say, in uncountable wa...

To make a written text shine you need to trust it to the hands of a knowing polisher

—Editor.

Exquisitely written books not just tell you a story, they speak it to you as if this very story is the echo of your own life. Exquisitely written books have logical flow and don’t tolerate meaningless words on their golden pages. Just like in the creation of life, in exquisitely written books all elements are important for healthy functioning of the whole organism (whether it is life or a story).

But what has it to do with book translation, you may ask?! And the answer to this questions is rather simple.

Everything.

Unlike technical, commercial, scientific, etc., translations, literat...

Have you ever met a small person? I’m not talking about size, even though for some size is what really matters. I’m talking about emotional aspect of human presence that makes some of us look like a tiny dot lost in never ending space of any room we walk in. Whereas others, once inside of that same room, would make us feel they are the only ones in it.

So, what was wrong with the Bird that looked like a Fly? One thing obviously – it’s was not a Fly. It was a BIRD! So, why it looked like a fly to everyone else?

For me, as I’m sure for most of you, this matter is personal. We all do this, whether we realize it or not. We make ourselves, in most cases unintentionally, look like mere flies, when in fact, we are gorgeous, cheery birds.

Who would think that staying at home can be so challenging and tough?! I’m sure, most of us dreamed of a week or better a month off work. But now when we have it, it does not feel so satisfying as we imagined it would.

But, don’t panic. Pandemic can keep us in lockdown for weeks or even months, but it cannot imprison our spirit and it, for sure, cannot stop us from growing personally or professionally.

Tough times are not to break us but to give new opportunities to change.

It is time to reset our mindset and just to take a moment to look around at things that in the chaos of daily responsibilities we had no time to even notice.

For some, it may be just the right time to think about their dreams more seriou...

How low is your bathtub?

People come into our lives with different attitudes, different world views, different goals. As a person who is ‘lucky’ to be born with overly friendly nature, I know how painful it can be to let a wrong person inside. How at times unbearable is to see someone you considered your friend and your ally turning out to be nothing more but a toxic root that all this time was poisoning your life.

I’m sure you’ve met people who, whether intentionally or not, make you feel low. They drain you, discourage you, set you into a mindset that makes the world around you look as hopeless as never before. Slowly your life turns as cold as at the bottom of a bathtub. But the worst, you never know why.

As social creatures, even...

Have you ever seen a leafless tree in the middle of Spring? What would you think if you saw one?

Poor tree, it’s probably dying – this is what I would definitely find among a flush of different thoughts in my head at the sight of this picture. I would feel sad seeing it bare and weak standing among the countless green ones around it. I would think, it was unfair.

Here’s what happened to me a few years ago. I moved from a noisy city to a small town framed at both sides by vast fields and woods. Place that I personally believe to be wildlife heaven. It’s the place where a plain crown looks like a fashion model and hedgehogs are enjoying their bust lives on your backyard.

It was Spring and everything around stood in magnif...

Living a life in isolation does not make you a better Artist!

The power of creative minds is the force that makes the Earth rotate, the Sun rise and the life on our planet evolve. But there are four basic conditions for prosperity of a creative mind that at times may seem reachable only in isolation.

World is a noisy torture.

Most of artists I know admit, that’s how they feel. And so, they search for quiet by isolating themselves from all the things that happen and happen and happen in the outside world. This need for silence at times becomes the only thing that matters and many artists feel this undeniable urge to get away (preferably on the Moon).

Time speeds and life goes into nowhere.

Like water, time tends to sli...

This post is my attempt at journaling online. And it feels different.

Nevertheless, I am willing to try and since I have some things to say, I sincerely hope that this post will be something interesting to read.

Let me begin with quarantine and how this global COVID-19 pandemic affected me. To my own surprise and utter bewilderment, it is not all bad. Scary? Yes! But not bad at all.

Maybe it has something to do with my book that I started writing in the end of September, 2019, which touches on terrifying aspects of immortality and connected to countless outbursts of pandemics throughout the entire history of mankind, but I feel the current situation is no...

It’s been almost five years since I first discovered freelance as a way of living for myself.

For a long time, I kept definition of freelance and business separate in my mind. When I started out as a newbie in the field of, as I used to define it, independent work from home I had no idea what a complex, demanding, and at times competitive venture it really was. And since usually the word business made me think about a tie and a black leather case, for a long time I was refusing to admit that freelance was also a very special kind of business.

Now, all those years later, freelance and business are some kind of synonyms for me. Because making a living as a freelancer means to be a good tête-à-tête businessman (woman).

Why you? T...

This brilliant with its simplicity question stands in the base of the professional journey called freelance. But how many of freelancers can actually answer to this question?

For a long time, I was following this false belief that the answer to this question was something only high-level professional freelancers could know. I thought of it as one thinks about math; that only talented wits can get it. But in the cloud of this mindset, I forgot about one absolutely important thing: freelance is all about experience and every experience is different.

So the answer to this question is not one for everyone but rather it’s a mechanism that sets the tone to the future personal progress in freelance.

Over the years, I learnt a few ways that helped me...

Please, don’t get me wrong: this is not a note to add to the established image of a writer. This is a short blog post written by a writer without spectacles.

Spectacles and hat – the main attributes for the sacred ritual of writing through writer’s block (for those who believe such thing exists), and I am sure it does especially in the first years of writing. In some way, I can assure I saw it like one sees a shadow on the dimly lit street in midnight on Halloween. Could be just a vision and yet, what if it was real?!

Another combo to add to the attributes is a cup of steaming drink and a cheap tobacco cigar. Maybe a typewriter.

Well, from all the possible attributes I have only fake pair of spectacles, hat, and a cup of steaming coffee at...

2020 started as a swift spin down. Many plans and goals, hopes and visions were forced to be put on hold. Time slipped through our fingers with the speed of waterfall and I know, many of us feel like there is no hope for this year anymore.

Many of us feel like there is nothing we can do about this year; nothing but wait till it ends.

But what about everyday counts and time irretrievability? After all, no one is responsible for your life but you.

Naturally, this challenging time made all of us, people, to, whether intentionally or not, split into two groups: one that adopts to the new time and the other that lets the worst side of the new world order to consume and break them. And though, now, when I am actually thinking about it, it somehow seems too radica...

Unimaginable amount of possibilities and opportunities that exist in the world can easily cloud our minds, weaken us, and strip off our inborn greatness. And clarity is the only way to avoid it.

I know from personal experience how hard it can be to plan out even just a week ahead, gather the data and set everything the best way possible, so all the goals could have been achieved and all the projects successfully executed. It’s a complicated process that most of people struggle to perform. And this is perhaps one of the superpowers highly successful people have mastered.

It’s especially important if you, just like me, have a trouble to direct the focus of your mind to one direction, constantly finding yourself veering off and paying attention to things tha...

Habit is what makes all people wear clothes. But what about the habit of daily reading?

I used to be an avid reader. English literature and urban fiction writers made it easy for me to merge with the idea of daily reading. Later, I discovered the world of non-fiction and audiobooks and it seemed the goal was reached. I finally adopted the habit of daily reading.

But life swiftly flooded in and I dived into freelance with more serious intentions. My time was split into 3 hour pieces and little by little I started skipping my reading hours. My habit of daily reading turned into a habit of daily avoidance of reading.

So, I did a research and found out a few quite interesting facts about why are we struggling to read books.

Unresolved stress

It took me a while to reflect on this idea – you can be anyone and do anything you want, but for some reasons you keep replacing doors with walls and then cry ‘how unfair life is.’

It may look like the whole world is against you but what is really happening is that you keep limiting yourself, creating new and new barriers on your way to a happy living.

Subconscious has unimaginable power over your life; all the things it believes in sooner or later becomes your only reality. If you believe that you have no time or capability to work towards your dream, then you lost without even starting.

3 Bullheads of How You Limit Yourself

You predict without actual trying

Think how many times you came to a conclusion based merel...