Walk Through

Have you ever gone through something and felt like it was the valley of the shadow of death?

During the tough times, it’s easy to get discouraged. No matter what you are facing today, know this: you are not alone, and you are just walking through. You don’t have to stop and live in the tough times! They are only temporary.

I encourage you today; don’t allow fear to paralyze you in the middle of “the valley of the shadow of death.” Remember, God is with you. You must let your faith walk beside you, let it strengthen you, let it make a way of escape for you, let it line up people and situations to bring you out of that tough place into a place of strength and victory.

Today, don’t give up! Press on and walk through! Start to get a vision of your life on the other side. See yourself more loving, more faithful, stronger and more blessed than ever before. As you keep moving forward and walking through, you will get to the other side and walk in the victory!

The Cranky Old Man

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.

The Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses? What do you see?
What are you thinking, when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice, I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice the things that you do.
And forever is losing a sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding the long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?, is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am , as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now, I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me my wife is now dead.
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years and the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass, a young man still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells
I remember the joys, I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years, all too few gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people open and see.
Not a cranky old man,
Look closer see ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

The best and most beautiful things of this world can't be seen or touched. They must be felt by the heart!

Don't be serious, be sincere

During one of my many reads, I came across this wonderful piece, which I believe is so relevant in our day to day life..

Don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

"Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same is with life where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die…

One thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? …

It's ok, bunk a few classes, scoring low in couple of papers, goof up a few interviews, take leave from work, fall in love, little fights with your spouse. We are people, not programmed devices...”

"Don't be serious, be sincere."!!!

By Chetan Bhagat

Are you living in the past?

We spend too much time living in the ‘what if’ and need to learn to live in the ‘what is.’

Some people drift through their entire life. They do it one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how their lives are slipping away until it's too late.

 [The void] It's that place in our lives where what we've been hanging onto . . . clinging to for dear life . . . is stripped away. It's that place in us where we let go of what we know, what we think we know, and what we want and surrender to the unknown. It is the place of saying and meaning, 'I don't know.' It means standing there with our hands empty for a while, sometimes watching everything we wanted disappear; our self-image, our definition of who we thought we should be, the clones we've created of ourselves, the people we thought we had to have, the things we thought were so important to collect and surround ourselves with, the job we were certain was ours, the place we thought we'd live in all our lives.

Surrender control to the supreme wisdom and authority of God and to the Divine in your soul. Step into the void with courage.

Learn to say,  "I don't know"

That's not blind faith. It's pure faith that will allow your spirit to lead you wherever your soul wants and needs to go.

Going home means getting comfortable being who you are and who your soul really wants to be. There is no strain with that. The strain and tension come when we're not being who our soul wants to be and we're someplace where our soul doesn't feel at home.

Quit hanging on to the handrails . . . Let go. Surrender. Go for the ride of your life. Do it every day.

Your body is free but your heart is in prison. To release your heart, you simply reverse the process which locked it up. First you begin to listen for messages from your heart—messages you may have been ignoring since childhood. Next you must take the daring, risky step of expressing your heart in the outside world. . . . As you learn to live by heart, every choice you make will become another way of telling your story. . . . It is the way you were meant to exist. If you stop to listen, you’ll realize that your heart has been telling you so all along.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.

There is the risk you cannot afford to take and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you do not do them. No one lives on the top of the mountain. It’s fine to go there occasionally —for inspiration, for new perspectives. But you have to come down. Life is lived in the valleys. That’s where the farms and gardens and orchards are, and where the plowing and the work is done. That’s where you apply the visions you may have glimpsed from the peaks.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. In the past, whenever I had fallen short in almost any undertaking, it was seldom because I had tried and failed. It was because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying at all.

Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin. It is our choices that show what we really are, far more than our abilities. It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.

What frustrates us and robs our lives of joy is this absence of meaning. . . . Does our being alive matter?

You only live once! But if you do it right, once is enough!

Money Stress: Are you able to talk to your wife or partner about MONEY ?

The number one cause for marital arguments in today’s society is money. Financial stress puts a huge strain on the relationship and, in the current economic crisis; money problems can be doing more harm than ever before. But these temporary problems need not signal the end of your relationship. In fact, working together during a difficult time will often bring you closer together.

In this post I am going to talk about a few things you can try if you are worried about money and need to talk to your wife or partner. While I am no relationship counselor I am fortunate enough to be in a relationship where openness, patience, honesty and discussion are held to be very important. Because of that we have developed some really helpful solutions over the years that I hope will help some of you out there.

A man never tells?

Do you ever felt like you shouldn’t talk to your wife about money for fear of worrying her or appearing to not be “providing” very well.  Well what I can say is this could be harmful to the relationship and that, 99% of the time, your wife wants to know what’s going on and would prefer it if you discussed any issues with her instead of pretending everything is okay. The more you think about it the more you will realize  that it’s right. Your wife will know if you are stressed or upset about something and as such would prefer to know what is going on in your life. I am quite certain she would rather have the opportunity to help you work through it as opposed to knowing something is wrong but not being told any information.

The sad truth is that most men never tell. Most men are under the impression that they have to provide for the family and if they have any money troubles they aren’t doing their job as a husband or a father or a man. But this stigma can be quite harmful – I know many of the men who live by these rules wind up struggling with intense anxiety and are often fighting with their partners as soon as money becomes an issue. They are too ashamed to talk.

I think if you want to have a healthy relationship when money starts to become a worry you need to set some of these labels aside and really be open to the idea of talking to your partner, asking for help or at least being strong enough to admit there might be a problem.

How to talk to your wife or partner about money

1. Understand that they want to help
One of the things that may help you realize is that your partner would want to help. This is a very important moment as it may free you up a lot inside. At first you may think that you would be stressing her or placing your burden on her if you talked about money but you may learn that she probably wanted to be a part of the solution. Try and understand that your husband or wife loves you very much and they would want to be there for you if things were getting tough.

2. Work together like a company
Having worked in business for many years I know a few little things about making money. And one of the things I know is that if a company doesn’t work together things don’t go so well. Imagine if the finance department didn’t communicate with marketing or sales – no one would know how much money they could spend or needed to make to turn a profit. It would be a very bad situation. The same is true for a relationship; you both need to understand the money situation and know how to communicate all aspects of your personal finances. Both husband and wife need to know how much is coming in and how much is going out on bills, expenses, etc.

3. Don’t judge
I remember growing up and witnessing financial arguments between my father and mother, at the end, they wouldn’t have resolved anything. One of the things many husbands & wife’s have in common is that they are very judgmental about any spending’s that had happened over the month. Dad would be angry about Mom buying something for the house and Mom would be angry about Dad eating expensive lunches. But one thing I noticed over the years was that every time they got “told off” by the other one they hid more and more purchases. They were afraid of being judged so they would often buy things and then hide them and tell the kids, “Don’t tell your father“.

If you want to keep the relationship open and honest it is important to be as judgment-free as possible. Don’t get angry if your husband buys something that you don’t think he needs. The same goes for your wife, instead of getting upset try using the technique below.

4. Be gentle
One thing I have been learning lately is how we must try to be gentle and kind to other people and not use harsh words.

A great Buddhist master from Tibet called Longchenpa had said something that I thought might be nice to share at this point:

“In these decadent times one may reproach the crude people around one. Although one thinks it will be useful to them, it is just the source of poisonous thoughts. To utter peaceful words is my advice from the heart. Without any selfish consideration, one may, with affection, tell people their defects, only thinking of their own good. But although what one says is true this will ulcerate their hearts. To say gentle words is my advice from the heart.”

When talking to your loved one about sensitive issues I have found it is very helpful to be as gentle and diplomatic as possible. After all, you aren’t trying to make them feel bad or point out their mistakes; you are trying to find a solution to the problem. And I think those solutions very rarely come from harsh speech.

5. Make a list of discussion points aimed at a solution
I once read a quote by an anonymous CEO that said, “Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a solution for it“. He was, of course, talking about going to see your boss about issues in the workplace but I think it fits quite well into our topic. If you want to have a healthy discussion about your money troubles try making a list of points to talk about and make sure that list is aimed at a solution.

The reason we found this to be helpful is because it gives the conversation some direction. Instead of sitting around and getting stressed about all the things that were going wrong we instead talked about what we need to do in the short, medium and long term to fix it. This seemed to diffuse a lot of the tension as well, shifting the focus from the negative to the positive.

Conclusion

Financial stress can really eat away at you on the inside so try to remember that you have a wife or partner who would love to help you sort through the problems. If you are open, honest, gentle and have a plan of attack there is no reason why money worries should take a toll on your relationship. In fact, working together through rough patches might just help to make your relationship stronger and more supportive.

Take A Minute - A Wonderful Story on Honesty & Integrity

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. "The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After

about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - he so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room.

When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful - in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!" When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed, Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!"

His name is "Jim!" Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said. Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one

who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

The Moral of this story:

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust * If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness * If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment * If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective * If you plant hard work, you will reap success * If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.

So, be careful what you plant now - it will determine what you will reap later.

Think about this for a minute.

If I happened to show up on your door step crying, would you care?

If I called you and asked you to pick me up because something happened, would you come?

If I had one day left to live my life, would you be part of that last day?

If I needed a shoulder to cry on, would you give me yours?

This is a test to see who your real friends are or if you are just someone to talk to you when they are bored.

Your aspiration is your motivation,

Your motivation is your belief,

Your belief is your peace,

Your peace is your target,

Your target is heaven, and life is like hard core,

Torture without it!

The Power of Love - Proof That Animals Have Emotions

Every now and then you see a bit of footage that hits you in a place you forgot you had inside you.The video I am about to show you is one of them.

This video is proof that it isn’t just humans that feel emotions.

If you are in need of a cheer up or you are an animal lover or still think that animals don’t “feel” anything then you should spend two minutes watching this beautiful video. I challenge you to watch it and not feel zapped by the power and strength of friendship and love.

They don't hate, they don't discriminate, they don't judge others, they don't care about money, they don't hold grudges. All they know is to love unconditionally, and all they want in return is love and to be our friend forever.

Have a great weekend.

Be Strong: How to Deal With Pain and Hardships in Your Life

Every now and then life throws us in the deep end and tells us to swim. We find ourselves in overwhelming situations that we don’t know how to deal with. It might be the death of a loved one, a personal illness or a case of serious depression. In this post I want to give you a few ways to deal with the pain and hardships that you will encounter in your life. I hope it will inspire you just a little bit.

The inevitability of hardships

The first thing I want to talk about is the fact that pain and hardships are inevitable. No one can escape them. Every single one of us, at some point in our life, will experience pain, suffering and hardships of some form or another.

My goal in saying this is not to depress you. Rather my goal is to inspire you. How is this inspiring you might ask? Well it is simple. Being aware of the fact that you WILL experience suffering is a cause for hope because, unlike many other people, you now have a chance to prepare for it. And people who prepare are never as badly affected as those who don’t.

Suffering, pain and hardships are inevitable. Make sure your preparation for them is also just as inevitable. This is the most important step.

How to deal with pain and hardships in your life

The tips that I am about to give you come from two places, my own personal experience and the experiences of history’s greatest masters. Sometimes it is better to hear some pithy and real tips as opposed to some dry and theoretical ones. I will try, therefore, to keep these as practical as possible.

Realize that it is your hardships that make you better
Picture this. You are in the center of the Indian desert. You are just out of high school; young, naive and egotistical. You are on a bit of a spiritual journey but at the same time looking for adventure. And then after just arriving in a place miles from anywhere you wake up in the middle of the night vomiting, convulsing and shaking. You are days from a hospital and you are really sick. Things start to look bleak.

That is the situation I found myself many times in my life. Let me share with your this story

John was in India in the desert and had eaten some poisonous food and for the next three days he lay in bed sick as a dog. It didn’t matter what he did, nothing seemed to help. He started to get quite frightened as he knew he was too sick to travel and there were no doctors around. But then something amazing happened, he was paid a visit by a very lovely Tibetan Lama. He came into john’s room and said one thing and one thing only. John never ever forgot it as it had such a profound impact on his life. 

He said:

“I am not interested in how much money you have or what family you belong to. I am interested in how you deal with hardships. That is the only thing that matters. That defines your future.”

It is the truest thing anyone had ever said to John about suffering and hardships. It is the hardships that define your character. Everyone is charming and lovely when the birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming but hardly anyone is compassionate, patient and loving when they are sick, ill or under pressure. How you deal with hardships determines your character.

If you want to learn to deal with pain and hardship you need to realize that you have an amazing opportunity to grow as a person. You can prove to yourself that you are strong. You can show yourself that you have strength of character and will-power. The amazing thing about hardships and pain is that they present you with a rare opportunity to grow into a strong and decent human being.

Realize that pain and hardships won’t last
There is a great truth in this universe that applies to everything. There is no corner of the world that it does not touch, no depth of the ocean that it does not find, no planet in space that it cannot reach. That truth applies to everyone and everything. That truth is impermanence. Nothing lasts.

We have heard it all before. What goes up must come down. What comes together must eventually part. What is composite will soon break. What is accumulated will one day be dispersed. Everything in our universe is impermanent. Nothing can escape it.

As depressing as this sounds it also has an upside. The next time you are going through some pain or hardships you can remind yourself that it won’t last. You can look at everything in history and feel secure in knowing that, no matter how bad things seem now, the problems won’t last forever. What a wonderful thing! Like all things, suffering is also impermanent.

Realize that you are not alone
There is something very powerful about knowing that other people are going through what you are going through. Realizing that you are not alone is an extremely good way to deal with pain and hardships.

Let’s take the example of someone with severe depression. Depression can make you feel pretty alone. In fact, 90% of the time depression makes you feel so isolated and self-orientated that you don’t have a thought about other people for long stretches of time. I have a lot of experience dealing with this.

But when you open up to the fact that you are not alone you get a boost of some really powerful strength. You get a sense of community, of friendship, of companionship – even if you haven’t met anyone else with the condition. Just knowing that there are other people out there like you can really make you feel good.

The next step in this idea is to realize that thousands of other people have gone through what you are going through and come out the other end. They have made it through and won. They haven’t died, lost hope or given up. They have faced the very same thing as you (whatever it is) and they have come out the other end. Never forget this.

How To Understand You Have Ego Problem

The ego is one of most self-destructive mechanisms of a person’s character and his or her abilities. In fact if you look at some people who’ve achieved massive success only to lose it all at the end of their lives, it’s almost always a function of the ego that results in this. As strange as the following examples might be, drug dealers, and gangsters in the movies are blatant examples of people whose egos have ruined their success.

6 Signs That You Are Ego Driven

  1.    Concern with Approval of others
There are three tenets of self-actualizing people according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. One of those is that you should be independent of the good opinion of other people. It’s easier said than done, but comes with a sense of freedom and liberation that allows you to truly shine. Who you are independent of the good opinion of other people is the most authentic person you will ever be. This is the most attractive quality in anybody, in a world where people are overly concerned with looking good in front of others. Ironically I learned this in a business school class and of all places, the corporate world may seem like a strange place to not concern yourself with the good opinion of others. But if you come from a place of authenticity and hard work, you will be much more well-liked by your corporate peers. Self-actualization is at the top of the Maslow hierarchy and most leaders are self-actualized.

  2.    Fear of asking for help
If you are afraid to ask for help, or you don’t want to ask for help because you want all the credit, then your ego is driving you.

“John made this mistake a few years back when he attempted to launch a job web site for MBA students. In his own bad judgment, He decided to take on the project alone after discussing it with some classmates. The desire to get ahead quickly and launch the site was the work of his ego. Ultimately, it ended up being a failure. If his ego hadn’t gotten in the way, and he had worked with the other students, He would have saved a few friendships and the site might have succeeded.”

  3.    Comparing and Competing
People who are driven by ego often fall victim to what I call the comparative and competitive disadvantage. Comparing yourself to others is the ego in one of its most vicious forms. It’s a perpetual losing battle because there will always be somebody better and always somebody worse than you are. Even if you are the best in the world at what you do somebody will always be right on your tail. If you keep seeing your life as a competition with those around you, then you will continually be dissatisfied and the ego will drive your life.

  4.    The constant need for more
Greed is also a function of the ego. I think if there’s anything our movie characters could teach us, is that there comes a point where you do have everything you could possibly want, and getting more just for the sake of having it is an exercise in futility.

  5.    Lack of presence
Ego driven people continually live in the past and always plan for the future. They never live in the moment. They are always thinking of the next great phase of their life, even when this one is perfect. By forgetting to enjoy the present, we set ourselves up to live in an ego-driven limbo.

  6.    The need to always be right
This is another one of the ego’s most destructive functions. People who have a need to continually be right are headed for the ultimate downfall. These kinds of people will often get far in life because of their persistence and aggressiveness. But, these are also the people that will fail when they are on the brink of MASSIVE success. Their need to be right will be their downfall and years of hard work can be destroyed in minutes when this portion of the ego takes over. Leaders with this attitude ultimately alienate all those work for them, and eventually stop receiving the kind of input that can propel them forward because they are so adamant about being right.

When you can learn to let go of the ego, the level of success and fulfillment you will achieve will be dramatic.

Only with your ego in check will you have the ability to reach your full potential.

How Do You Deal With Life’s Disappointments

Over the course of your life you will encounter many  disappointments. Sometimes it will be a loved one who lets you down. Sometimes it will be a work deal or a business meeting that doesn’t go as planned. Other times it will seem as if the whole universe is kicking you in the head just because it can.

If you want to live a happy and fulfilled life you need to learn how to deal with life’s disappointments. 

In this post I am going to talk about a few strategies that you can use next time you feel let down.

Are your expectations realistic?

One of the first things you need to look at when you are feeling disappointed is whether or not your expectations were realistic. I want to tell you something that might sound quite radical:

It is your expectations that create your disappointment. Nothing else.

That’s right. It is your expectations that create the fertile ground for your disappointments to flourish. Although it might seem like your business partner let you down by not coming up with the goods it was, in actual fact, your expectations that led you to believe that this event would not occur.

The next time you feel disappointed by some situation I want you to take a few moments to look into your mind. Examine the situation and start to think about whether or not your expectations were realistic. I think you will find that, in almost all situations, your big disappointments will be caused by unrealistic expectations.

Should I have no expectations?
If you start to realize that your expectations are partly to blame it is natural to then think that perhaps you should have no expectations whatsoever. This is an interesting point that I would like to hear some discussion on as I am not completely sure of the answer myself. Should we have zero expectations or should we just try to be more realistic?

One thing I have noticed over the years is that sometimes my own mind is quite unrealistic when it comes to reacting to disappointment.

Are you looking on the bright side?

The most important point of all when discussing the issue of disappointments is that it provides you with an opportunity to grow. Disappointments are life’s little testers – you can either let them break you down or you can use them as a tool for change.

Now most of us would view this as “wasted time”. We would curse the fact that we spent all those years and didn’t achieve anything. But the Prince moved on to new things. He knew that the time wasn’t wasted because without that work he would never have progressed to the next stage. Without it he would never have become the great man that has changed the lives of hundreds of millions throughout history.

Using disappointment to grow
We need to see disappointment as one step in a series of many that is leading to bigger and better things. If you choose to dwell on disappointment and curse the day that it happened you are going to get stuck. The wise use it as a catalyst for change.

Conclusion

I truly believe that the feeling of being let down by your partner or your Government or your work is a time to grow and change. I also feel that most of the time we ourselves are at least 50% to blame.

The next time you feel disappointed by someone make sure you check to see whether your reaction is justified. Did the person try their best? Did they really mean to hurt you? Is your frustration really necessary? Most of the times the answer is a resounding “no”.

5 Foods That Sabotage Your Sleep

If you're having trouble sleeping, what about a midnight snack? It can be a good idea. But be careful to avoid these five foods that can *prevent* you from getting a good night's rest:

1. Preserved and smoked meats. Slap your hand away when it reaches to make a ham sandwich as an evening snack. Ham, bacon, sausages, and smoked meats contain high levels of the amino acid Tyra mine, which triggers the brain to release norepinephrine, a brain stimulant that makes us feel alert and wired.

2. Chocolate. Love an evening cup of cocoa? That sundae in front of the TV? Be careful of chocolate in all its disguises. Many people are increasingly sensitive to caffeine as they get older, and even the little chocolate chunks in chocolate chip ice cream could zap you just enough to prevent ZZZZs. Chocolate also contains tyrosine, a stimulating amino acid.

3. Energy drinks. Red Bull and other energy drinks are high in caffeine as well as the amino acid taurine, which boosts alertness and adrenaline. Recent studies have shown that even if you drink energy drinks early in the day, the combined high dosage of taurine and caffeine can make it hard to sleep, or to sleep well, later on.

4. Tomato sauce, chili, pizza, and spicy foods. Digestive disturbances are a common source of sleep problems, but many people fail to make the connection. Acidic and spicy foods can cause reflux, heartburn, and other symptoms that interrupt sleep.

5. The nightcap. A drink or two may make you feel more relaxed after dinner, but it comes back to haunt you -- literally -- a few hours later, by preventing you from achieving deep sleep. And because alcohol both dehydrates you and makes you have to pee, it wakes you up, too. Wine is high in the stimulant tyrosine as well.