June 10, 2010
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
Gandhi
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Are you driving at one hundred miles an hour going nowhere?
Are you constantly busy doing unimportant things?
Are you repeating the same things over again and again?
June 9, 2010
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
— Mother Teresa, charity worker
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When we give a sincere compliment, it costs us nothing, but it enriches the person who receives it. It usually doesn’t take much of our time, but it has a long lasting effect on the recipient.
Why don’t we take time to give more compliments?
May 19, 2010
“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live”
Dorothy Thompson, journalist
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May 18, 2010
“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?
May 12, 2010
“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.
May 11, 2010
It’s the age-old question, how to reconcile the fact that life is so short?
Make the most of every nanosecond.
Or at least, die trying…
May 10, 2010
| “Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.” | |
| Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Roman emperor, philosopher |
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In other words, we should try to be fully aware of each moment, to do one thing at the time with people, to be active and productive and to simply be ourselves.
May 9, 2010
“Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others”
Morrie Schwartz ( Tuesdays with Morrie p.164)
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Why is it so important to forgive ourselves? Why is it so important to forgive others as soon as we can?
Forgiving ourselves and others is an act of letting go, it is also an act of selfishness because when we let go, we let go of the emotions that are poisoning our day. Who needs these emotions? Shouldn’t we use our limited time and energy for more exciting activities?
Morrie said “Forgive yourself and others before you die”
But since we don’t know when we are going to die, why not forgive NOW?
If we know that we will eventually forgive, why wait?
May 8, 2010
“If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”
— Vince Lombardi, football coach
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There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. This is how we learn.
Where did we get the idea that we have to avoid making mistakes?
What we should try to avoid is repeating the same mistake over and over again.
When we learn from our mistakes, we improve our quality of life and we save time in the long run.
Do you try to avoid making mistakes at all cost?
May 7, 2010
“Forget the past and live in the present hour”
Sarah Knowles Bolton
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There is not much you can do about your past. The only thing you can do is learn from it and try not to repeat the same mistakes.
But what if I cannot learn from my past mistakes? First, forgive yourself for not learning the lesson, then pay the price one more time until you sick of learning the same lesson over and over again.
Which lesson are you willing to learn over and over again?
May 5, 2010
I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
George Bernard Shaw
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This is the reason why we talk about George Bernard Shaw; he dared to say WHY NOT?
How many times in our lives did we say WHY and the main reason was our concern for the opinion of others?
How many times we did not dare SAY THE THING or DO THE THING because of fear or timidity?
Benjamin Franklin used to say ; “Do something worth writing about or write something worth reading if you don’t want to be forgotten an hour after your death.”
Will you dare say WHY NOT ?
May 4, 2010
What do most people get out of criticizing others? I simply can’t understand that.
Sometimes, I still find myself doing it . I hate it when I do this.
What a waste of time. Live and let live.
Do you often “catch” yourself criticizing others?
Shouldn’t we learn to appreciate others?
What do we get out of it ?
May 3, 2010
“To revolt against reality will only torment you.”
Author unknown
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If you have any doubts about this quote, just keep trying and I’ll promise you will be disappointed.
Remember the beginning of the post on serenity.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change
And the courage to change the things that I can.”
Another way to say the same thing is
“Accept things as they really are and not as you want them to be”
This is the way to face realism.
Do you still like to be tormented?
Isn’t it a waste of your time and energy to rebel against things over which you have very little control?
May 2, 2010
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
— Maya Angelou, poet
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Good luck with this one. Have a nice day.
May 1, 2010
“It is not that we have a short life to live but we waste a lot of it”
Seneca
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Sometimes we waste our time because we don’t have much control over what is happening to us. In this case, there’s not much we can do about it.
At other times we waste our time because we lack a definite purpose in our lives.
This we can do something about. We must take the time to ask ourselves the important questions, the ones that concern only us.
It may look like a waste of time at first, but in the long run, it will save us time.
Benjamin Franklin used to ask himself these important questions every night before he went to sleep.
What did I do wrong today?
What did I do right ?
What can I improve tomorrow?
Apparently, he did this for most of his life.
If you want to learn more about this, I recommend that you read his autobiography. It will make you realize that even if he had lived more than 250 years ago, he was facing similar challenges like the ones we have to deal with today.
Great weekend to all of you!
April 29, 2010
Some of us live under the influence of alcohol.
The influence is good as long as we are under the influence. The next morning, the influence can be quite different.
Some of us live under the influence of shopping, and the influence is good until as we receive the credit card monthly statement…
Some of us live under the influence of gambling, and the influence is good until as we realize that the house always wins against most of us.
Some of us live under the influence of buying expensive toys to impress others who don’t care at all. This influence is gone when we realize that we become a slave of this habit.
Some of us are under the influence of a new religion, and the influence seems to disappear when that special God of ours doesn’t answer our requests.
Some of us indulge in sexual escapism, and the influence is gone when the temporary thrill is over.
Some of us will study philosophy and believe that they have found the Way, only to wake up later and realize that their particular philosophy can fail them.
Some of us will swear by the world of reason and science, only to discover the actual limitations of our understanding. At least at this point of our evolution.
Some of us will invest in the joy of parenthood only to realize later that our kids will be entitled to their own lives.
Some of us will want to earn a lot of money until they realize that money can’t buy love.
And while most of us live under one kind of influence or another, Time goes by.
Under what kind of influence are you living ?
Is this the kind of influence that you enjoy?
It’s up to you!
April 27, 2010
“Life is just one damned thing after another”
Frank Ward O’Malley (1875-1932)
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It’s true for most of us, at least until we choose to do OUR own damned thing.
I suppose that we feel like this when we lose the balance between how much time and effort we invest for others compared to the time we invest for ourselves.
When we spend a lot of time doing OUR own thing, others may think or say that we are selfish, however, when we invest a lot of time for others, ( I’m thinking of mothers with young children or when we are taking care of family member in need) it can lead us to becoming frustrated or irritable.
Our challenge is to find the right amount of time between what we do for ourselves and what we do for others.
Why is it so important to think of ourselves before we think of others?
The answer is; How can we give to others what we don’t have?
How can you give money if you don’t have enough for your own needs?
How can you give time when you don’t even have time for yourself?
How can you share your knowledge when you are ignorant?
It seems to me that the most generous people of today who are able to give back used to be the people who were thinking of themselves not long ago.
An example? Bill Gates with his philantropy and his Foundation. One of the richest man in the world is becoming one of the most generous in his lifetime.
Do you feel that you invest enough time for others?
Do you feel that you invest enough time for yourself?
Do you ever struggle with these questions?
April 26, 2010
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Proverb
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This is one of my favorite proverbs because it summarizes so well all the excuses
that we create to justify our inadequacies in so many areas of our lives.
The time and the energy that we often spend to make up these excuses could be invested in doing what must be done.
Life seems to tell us ” Whatever responsability that you try to avoid, I’ll figure out a way for you not to escape it”
Yes, but it’s not my fault…
I meant to do it, but then…
I was very ill, so I couldn’t …
If I had more money…
If I were younger…
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Do I really have to keep on writing?
Are you on the road to hell with YOUR “good intentions”?
April 24, 2010
“As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.”
Julius Caesar
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Why do we worry so much?
What do we get out of it?
What’s in it for us?
It is true that we worry more about the unseen and the unknown.
Many people who have written or spoken about worry have told the statistics story. The earliest source that we could find of the story and most probable author was Thomas S. Kepler. He wrote about a woman who realized fears were ruining her life. She began to keep track of what was worrying her and she found:
40% of the things she worried about were about things that would never happen.
30% of the things she worried about were about things that had already happened, water under the bridge.
12% of the things she worried about were about others’ opinion. When she thought about it, she realized that criticisms are often made by those that are jealous or insecure; therefore unjust criticism is a disguised compliment.
10% of the things she worried about were needless health worries, which made her health worse as she worried.
8% of the things she worried about were “legitimate,” since life has some real problems to meet.
If you consider the above as probable statistics, it would seem that only 8% of the things that you worry about are worth the worry. Next time you are worried about something, perform a check to see if the worry is in a category other then the 8% category and if it is, perhaps logic will help free you from the worry.
Will This Matter a Year from Now?
How much quality time do I spend worrying?
April 23, 2010
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?
April 17, 2010
Through my efforts, I gain the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
To live one day at a time;
Enjoy one moment at a time;
Accept the hardships as natural balance;
Taking this beautiful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting in the balance;
That I may be able to see myself as happy in this life.
(Many authors have worked on this one, I don’t know who to give the credit to)
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This is so much easier said than done, but I’ll keep on trying until…
I could try to comment this text over and over again, but the real challenge is to live by it when we are confronted with daily frustrations.
April 9, 2010
I really enjoyed this clip and I’m sharing it with you.
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