General

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” – Dalai Lama We human beings have an insatiable appetite for things and wishes. We also have the biggest capacity for taking things for granted. We may have so much more today than what we did years ago, yet we are able to find the slightest opportunity to complain about the little things that we don’t have. If you find yourself in this situation often, look at the following ways to start appreciating what you have in life more and complain less. Journal entries Keep a gratitude journal. In this journal, write down everything that has gone right in your life. Stop focusing on what is wrong simply because the world’s richest and most successful person does not have it all right either. When you see a visual list of all the blessings you are enjoying, your conscious and sub conscious mind shifts focus to the positive instead of dwelling on the negative. When you focus on the positive, you also invite more positive energy into your life. Wants VS Needs In the current days of endless demands, we sometimes go overboard in our wants. Having excessive wants simply puts a toll on how hard we have to work in order to earn enough for all our wants. This vicious cycle never ends. Your wants are always going to be more than what you have in your bank account. Distinguish between your needs and your wants. Don’t get carried away in the bandwagon of estimating your self worth based on your possessions. Once you begin to detach yourself from material possessions that are unnecessary, you will find that you are happier. Do you own things or do things own you? One great example is of a successful businessman who achieved great success in his life. Instead of splurging and heading down the lane of a lifestyle where your wants just get bigger and your complaints even bigger, both the businessman and his wife gave up material possessions. They limited themselves to a certain amount of new clothes every year and led a simple life. His hobby of running a successful business continued, but their needs remained the same as before. While you don’t need to take such a drastic step, think twice before investing in that lovely red car or the swanky home. Do you really need it and add to your worries? Voluntary Service One of the most humbling experiences of my life has been helping out at orphanages and old folks’ homes. When you see how happy these children are with the little possessions they have and what a difficult life they are leading, you start living life a bit more realistically. These places have a very humbling effect on people – literally brings you down to earth. Here we are complaining about the size of our home and how the children constantly fight. Go and spend a few hours at an orphanage and you …

We are all too familiar with those little voices that exist in our heads; constantly telling us what and how we feel, how and what we should do, often betraying what we show on the outside. These voices are nothing but conversations with yourself and it is these internal conversations that characterize how we view things. They also influence a lot on our lives – from achievements to relationships, from your attitude towards life to attitude towards happiness and disappointments. Self-talk comes in package – the devil and the angel. It is up to you who you will give dominance to with internal dialogues. Are you going to allow your self-talk to focus on all your mistakes, faults, fears and insecurities? With heavy burdens of negativity, will you ever feel good about yourself? These negative feelings will not only make you feel like the biggest loser, it will slowly rob you of your health, not forgetting your sanity. If you believe that you are what you think, then you need to focus all your energies into conversing with yourself positively. Self-talk is an amazing tool is used correctly. Concentrate on your internal conversations and always direct them to talk about your strengths, successes, blessings and other positive aspects of your life. You will not only add a booster of confidence to yourself, you will also start feeling good about yourself. You will soon notice that your ability to overcome difficulties would have improved and you will attract better luck. If you have lived with negative or out of control self-talk all your life, you can slowly but surely change this and make your thoughts more positive. Begin by listening to your self-talk. Ask yourself if your thoughts are positive or negative. Ask yourself if these thoughts help your confidence or bring you down. Consciously keep your thoughts positive and when they go downhill, stop and analyze why negativity is seeping in. The next and final step is to say ‘STOP’ as soon as negative conversations are starting to brew in your mind. Say this loudly (unless of course, you are at a party where you might look a bit odd) so you consciously know how often you are pushing negative thoughts away. Soon, you will notice that positive thoughts are entering your mind more often than their negative competitor. Remember that mistakes are life’s lessons. We all experience failures and make mistakes. Remind yourself that these experiences are our teachers but we cannot allow them to jeopardize our future. Use your intelligence to learn from them and your self-control to keep thoughts of them at bay. Fill yourself with positive self-talk and see the difference it makes in your life..

The feeling of happiness seems to be in the past now. A distant memory. Your heart is broken, your soul is crushed. You are going through a breakup. So, you sit alone at home where so many good memories resided and they seem to be suffocating you. Regardless of the reasons behind your breakup, the memories still haunt you like a ghost of a former self. It is in this moment, while you sitting there, with your phone turned off because you’re afraid they may call and even more afraid that they won’t that you must make a choice; are you going to be lonely, or just alone? Choosing to be lonely implies a sense of desolate desperation; severing you from the world by force. To be lonely implicates you and condemns you in your choice to allow that relationship status to rule you. Loneliness incurs a negative energy, from which it takes a great deal of willpower to overcome. If you are lonely, you are sad, depressed and forlorn. You tend to look at the world through a “what if” lens that revolves around a solitary person or circumstance. What if I had given them more space? What if I hadn’t said that? What if I told them how I truly feel? What if… What ifs only feed the hunger for which loneliness yearns. The past is the past. What is done is done. By truly accepting that fact and looking forward to what life has in store for your future, whether it is five minutes from now, or five years, is what will give you the strength to be alone. Choosing to be alone implies independence. You are your own self. You do not have to answer to anyone. If you want to go out, just grab your keys, if you do no return home, no one will hold it against you. Choosing to be alone is the strength that allows you to get on with your life. Being alone is the implicit understanding that you are in charge of your own life. Being alone gives you a chance to get to know the real you. To be alone gives you the freedom to form your own preferences, make your own schedule and take a risk that being in a relationship may have held you back from. Just because one is alone does not mean that they must inevitably be lonely. Far from it! To be alone, to truly have the confidence in yourself to be alone, may actually enhance your life! So many people are so afraid of being alone, because they feel loneliness is looming just around the corner. When they think about being alone, they feel the walls caving in and the whole world turning against them as they shrink from existence into oblivion. Forget oblivion and forget loneliness. Loneliness is only for the weak of spirit. You are strong and your heart will not allow you to be lonely. There is not a soul …

In todays society, worry became a normal routine. But there are 2 sides to this feeling. If the feeling of worry pushes you to take action and solve a problem, then you are implementing correctly. Unfortunately most of us are creating more harm than good by worrying. By constantly contemplating “what ifs” and worse case scenarios, we are stressing our body and mind with unnecessary fear and doubt. What if you stopped worrying about things that you can’t control and started focusing on the things you can? How would your life change? I assume you would be a much happier person 🙂 We need to understand that everything that is happening in our life today is either teaching us a lesson, helping us grow, or testing our strength. Remember, everything will work out for the best even if you don’t see it now. Let today be the day you stop worrying and start enjoying your life 🙂.