Now


Turn your weakness into a strength!

One of the most inspirational stories ever told is the story of Dumbo the Elephant. Throughout most of his young life, Dumbo was persecuted for having big ears. As a result, he hated his ears because they always brought him down. One day, however, he falls from an airplane, but then something amazing happens. Dumbo begins to flap his ears, and he can fly! The very things that had brought Dumbo down his whole life are now lifting him up.

A good book that explains how to turn your negatives to your advantage is…..

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How many times in your life did someone make fun of you only to realize later on that it was actually your strength??????

How many times did someone criticize you for doing something good????

How many times did you feel guilty because of other people’s personal beliefs?

How can you learn to turn your “weakness into a strength”?

Next time you feel this way, try to remember Dumbo.

 

 

“I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at the time.”

Charles Schulz, Peanuts, cartoon

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A while ago, a lady went to a restaurant in downtown Montreal to celebrate her birthday with her husband , as they entered the restaurant, apparently they asked the hostess for a seat near the window to get access to a better view…

This is an excerpt of the Montreal Gazette July 17, 2009

“MONTREAL – One minute Thursday night, a couple was quietly celebrating a birthday inside the Mikasa Sushi Bar on Peel St.; the next minute, a concrete slab crashed through the glass skylight above them, killing the 33-year-old woman instantly.

Her husband of two years, also 33, lay next to her lifeless body screaming, “Ma femme! Ma femme! Stay with me!”

He pleaded for help, but other diners and staff were paralyzed with shock. Minutes later, sobbing and screaming, the man was loaded into an ambulance, his right hand wrapped in a blood-soaked napkin, two single tracks of blood running down his cheek.

“Her birthday was Monday, that’s what they were celebrating,” said the nurse, who spoke on condition that her name not be published. The concrete panel from the 18th floor of the Marriott Residence Inn crashed through the sloping glass ceiling of the restaurant, which lies directly below at street level, and hit the woman “directly” – while she was seated at her table, said Montreal police Constable Olivier Lapointe.”

The last thing this couple was expecting on that evening was a piece of concrete to fall on the woman’s head…  33 years old.   (12 045 days)

The reason why I bring up this story today is to show that when we have regrets about the past or worries about the future, we waste precious time and energy. We must focus on the present.

This is where our attention should be because this is where we have a little more control over what happens to us. This lady didn’t have much control over what happened to her that night.

Today, try to focus your attention on what you can influence and the rest will take care of itself.

I agree with the creator of Peanuts; we should only “dread one day at a time”

How many days to you “dread” in advance?

“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only one hundred percent of the time.”

Byron Katie

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“The future will depend on what we do in the present”

Mahatma Gandhi

(1869-1948)

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We all know this, it is so simple to understand when we read it. However, the challenge is not only to read it and understand it, the real challenge is to practice what we understand so well.

Yes, practice it day in day out, especially when you have distractions, a bad day or a good day.

Whatever is your dream, your project, your goal, pursue it relentlessly without wasting time.

You need a burning desire to keep you absorbed and focused, even when you have so many responsibilities and distractions.

Will you?

“If you want to know your past, look into your present conditions.”

“If you want to know your future, look into your present ACTIONS.”

Chinese proverb

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Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.

JLH

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“I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

 Lewis Carroll

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We cannot change the past, we can learn from the past and we can avoid repeating the same mistakes too many times over.

Someone will say;  “This is so obvious!”

Yes it is!

Why do so many of us let our lives be governed by our personal history if we can’t go back to yerterday?

“Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.”

Anton Chekhov

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There is a lot of truth in this quote! Sometimes, we are at our personal best when we are in the middle of a crisis. Somehow, we find the energy and the courage to fight when everything seems to be hopeless. On the other hand, the routine of the day to day can sometimes drain more energy from us than a big crisis.

Why would this be?   It seems to me that our focus is better and that we are less distracted when times are hard than when times are easy.

What do you think?

“Life is a one-way street, and we are not coming back.”

Anon

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Many of us spend and waste a lot of time thinking that things will be better WHEN we lose weight, get promoted, move into a nicer place, make more money, get married, have children, get out of debt, have more free time, get the kids out of the house, retire, recover from a specific injury, illness, or whatever else it is we think needs to change in order for us to be happy.

Life is not “WHEN” ; it is TODAY.

Stephen Lafond

Change is constant in the world we live in. We all know that but somehow, many of us seem to forget this at times.

Why? It is not change most people resist, but rather the pain and discomfort during the period of transition. From birth on, we are constantly changing with never ending new experiences. Our bodies change with time, our thoughts and emotions, our relationships, our finances and our health. Every thing within us and around us is changing constantly.

The change is sometimes so slow that we don’t pay attention to it. If you find yourself resisting to change without being aware of it, I recommend that you hide a fresh banana somewhere for 30 days. Take it out of its hiding place after a month and you will witness the transformation in action. The banana experiment is a clear demonstration of the nature of change. Not all changes will be so noticeable, but the principle of change remains the same.

Winston Churchill said something like this many years ago;

“Take change by the hand before change grabs you by the throat”

It means to me; accept and cooperate with the change that is inevitable before it will be imposed on us.

Do you find yourself resisting to change in some areas of your life?

If your answer is yes, is it because of fear, comfort or any other reasons?

“Before my cancer, I was often afraid to try new things or do something different. But I just began singing lessons and this summer I’m off on my first kayak camping trip. I have a chance at living again, and I try to take a moment every day to really appreciate just being alive.”

Joshua, 24 years old, testicular cancer, 2-year survivor

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“Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.”

Author unknown

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I don’t know who wrote this, but he or she probably had some hedonistic tendancies or a good sense of humor.

It brings to my mind the following questions;

It is better to live a very long  life and experience illness, old age and slowly losing  most of our physical and mental capacities or is it better to live fully and die younger before we experience all these inconvenients?

I don’t know, what are the pros and cons?

What do you think?

Which one would you prefer?

“My life is my message.”

Mahatma Gandhi.

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A good friend of mine wrote this little note after one of his good friends passed away;

What is life?

“Sometimes life goes by too fast for anyone to see what is really going on around them.Why do we always wait for someone we love to leave this world for everyone around them to realize how little time we have? We have to see the sadness in the people we love before asking ourselves the same question over and over. What else am I going to miss in life before I decide to slow down?”

Ritz Pesce

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Why, why, why???

We can learn from past failures and mistakes, but we shouldn’t get stuck there. We can keep future goals in mind, but we shouldn’t get stuck there either. One of the best ways to improve our circumstances and our quality of life is to focus on what we must do right now, at this very moment.

Stephen Lafond

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“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

 Alfred D’Souza.

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“Time cools; time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.”

Thomas Mann

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Good news, bad news, good mood, bad mood, joy, disappointments, new and exciting projects, boring routine, sunny day, rainy day, entertainment, lazy sunday afternoon…

This is what life is made of and each one of us must make the best of it.

One of the best lines I have ever read is from Anthony Di Mello who said: I AM NOT my depression.

He meant that we all have bad days but we can choose to watch our bad mood as a spectator would watch a movie, we don’t have to identify with it, we can simply become the observer of our mood.

Remember that it is not what happens to us but how we react to what happens to us that matters.

Do you spend too much time worrying about your mood swings?

Do you accept that you can have a bad day and just witness yourself having a bad day?

 

 

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.”
 
— Jackson Brown Jr., writer
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“Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go.”

Josh Billings

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When I was 5 years old, I couldn’t care less about time.

When I was 15 years old, it seemed to me that everything was always taking too long to happen.

When I was 25 years old, it seemed like I was always so busy and running out of time.

When I was 35 years old, with a wife and children, a business to run, and bills to pay, I really had less and less time.

Now at almost 45 years old, I know that we never have enough time to do everything but we always have time to do the most important.

The more pressure we have with time, the more productive we seem to become.

Are you making the most of the time you have?

“Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep”

Fran Lebowitz ( 1950-      )

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I still feel like a kid most of the time. I really don’t like going to sleep at night. I can’t wait to get up early in the morning.

By the time I’m ready to go to bed, I’m so exausted that I fall asleep right away. In between I try to live life to the fullest.

Do you have a hard time sleeping sometimes?

If you do, I reccommend that you do something very enjoyable until you’re so tired, that you will need to rest very quickly.

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live”

Dorothy Thompson, journalist

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“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness”

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson was describing the “Flow” before it was clearly defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.

(source: Wikipedia, english, May 18, 2010)

How often are you experiencing the Flow?

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Walt Disney

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Walt Disney said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Life is too short to spend it doing the possible. Learn to pursue the impossible, pursue what others say can’t be done, pursue what has never been done before, pursue your dreams, and turn them into a reality.

You must believe in the beauty of your dreams. Walt said, “When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” If you’re going to believe, you might as well believe all the way.

Do you ever find yourself saying:

When I’m older, I’ll do this…

Or when it’s time or when I have a chance…

When I finish school, I’ll be able to…

When I have more money…

When I get married, I’ll be …

When the house is paid, we’ll go …

When the kids leave the house, we’ll move…

When I retire, I’ll have more time to…

When I’m dying… Oh no not already… AHHHHHHH…

We should learn to enjoy the road while we are travelling, because if we put all our hopes on the destination, we could be disappointed.

Most of the time, the anticipation is more exciting than the actual outcome.

For years, I wanted to be older, but NOT ANYMORE.

What about you?

The real question for me is : Is there a life BEFORE death ?

When they asked  Henry David Thoreau his opinion on the afterlife, he answered to them: One Life at the time.

Sometimes , it seems to me that some of the people who worry the most about the afterlife are often the ones who don’t know what to do with this one.

Why should we worry about the unknown, why should we worry about something over which we seem to have very little control?

I hear many people talking about faith and yet, at the same time worrying constantly, how can they worry and have faith at the same time? Isn’t worrying the opposite of faith?

Do you spend too much of your time worrying about things over which you have no control?

Does this make any sense to you?

 

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Henry David Thoreau

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Some people are so busy.Really? Busy doing what exactly ? Do you really want to do what you do everyday ?

If you had 10 million dollars, would you keep doing what you are doing now?

Do you enjoy what you do so much that you would gladly to do it for free?

What is YOUR answer ?

 

 

Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans”

John Lennon (1940-80) British rock musician

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We often say things like, “when I’m older, I’ll do this; if I had more time, I would start this project; when my children are grown up, I’ ll have more time to take  care of myself.” If, If, If, when, when, when…are just excuses to test our determination.

When we really care about someone, we do what we must do.

When we really care about something, we become very creative in order to get what we want.

What we can be, we must become, ultimately, it is one of the best ways to be at peace with ourselves.

Stop waiting and Start acting NOW.

 

What are you waiting for?

In India, Buddhist aspirants used to visit burning grounds and watch the corpses of those whose families couldn’t afford a cremation rot away. They did this to terrify the GREED and POSSESSIVENESS out of themselves. After that, they changed their perspective about life, death and what was the most essential things in their lives.

As of 5 April 2010, the human population of the world is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6,812,400,000.

It is estimated that 156 000 people on this planet are dying everyday. One day it will be our turn.

I don’t care how rich you are, I don’t care how smart you are, I don’t care how proud you are, because, ultimately, your only real earthly possession is : TODAY.

 

Can you always tell the difference between your needs and your wants?

When we become too possessive, doesn’t it remind you of little kids who refuse to share their toys?

 

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware,

 joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

Henry Miller (1891-1980) US novelist

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When I am completely aware and living in the NOW, it is easier for me to accept the things as they really are and not as I want them to be. It’s when I’m preoccupied with the potential problems of the future that I lose most of my awareness. This is why it is so important for us to put things in perspective, especially a long-term perspective. If I ask myself questions like the following ones;

What will I think of this particular problem in 1, 5 or 10 years?

How will I feel about this frustration a week from now?

Why am I so annoyed with this person?

How can I keep my calm when I’m stuck in a traffic jam?

Who cares if this stranger is insulting me?

 you can continue with your own questions here.

When we think of it, it is often these petty annoyances that disturb us the most.

After we take the time to answer these questions with a long term perspective in mind, we can start to live in the NOW again, and that improves our quality of life. Awaress is in the NOW .

 

Why does it take so much time to so many of us to understand this simple reality?

Or if we understand it, why is it so difficult to practice in our own lives?