Music by Pasquale Catalano “Cuore Di Sabbia” and Images by Monica Sheehan
As from the video:
1. Be Happy – People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham Lincoln
2. Show up
3. Follow your heart – There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart … pursue those. – Author Unknown
4. Find a new perspective
5. Have a sense of wonder – There are 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
6. Find people you love … and I would say loving all the people around us regardless of whether we know them in person or not.
7. Set Goals – Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives. – Viktor E. Frankl
8. Help others – If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them. – Dalai Lama
9. Dance – Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass … It’s about learning to dance in the rain. – Vivian Greene
10. Pamper yourself …
11. Face your fears … – Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
12. Go to a museum
13. Exercise – It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. – Mahatma Gandhi. Besides exercising, we do have to focus on eating healthy too; most health issues are directly related to the food we are putting in our mouths.
14. Limit Television
15. Get in touch with Nature
16. Lighten up
17. Get a good night’s sleep
18. Read books
19. Buy yourself flowers
20. Don’t compare yourself with others – Each of us is unique and special in our own way; do not seek to be like others and do not afraid to be different.
21. Don’t beat yourself up – Loving others start from first learning to love ourselves.
22. Be open to new ideas
23. Don’t focus on negative thought
24. … Focus on creating what you desire
25. Make time just to have fun
26. Keep the romance in your life
27. Make a Gratitude list
28. Love Your Mother Earth
29. Want what you have – Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. – Ingrid Bergman
If there was anything my junior college Physics tutor taught me, it was definitely not Physics. She taught us one lesson which had nothing much to do with Physics and yet it was one of the important lessons in my life.
In one of the tutorial lessons, she told us, ‘don’t worry, 70% of our worries will not come true anyway. Worrying is a waste of time’ I had no idea where she got her statistics from but at that moment I took it in as it was. However, I have been using this to consciously remind myself every time I get too worry about something.
Over the years, through experiences of others and myself, I have also learnt that there are some situations which we can do something about and some which we do not have control.
Worrying helps especially in situations where we can do something to change them; it can act as a strong motivating force to propel us into action to change the situations. However, worrying becomes futile and energy draining when we cannot control the outcomes or there is nothing we can do about it. In additional, we risk physical and mental health issues when we are overly worried.
Duke Ellington put it best when he said, “There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.” Such a simple and straightforward truth and yet it can be a challenge for many to follow.
Just recently, my partially erupted wisdom tooth had been giving me problem; my gum was not only swollen but it had also caused my face to be slightly swollen. Eating and chewing became a slight painful experience. I had similar experiences before but the swell usually went down after a few days.
This time round the swell persisted. I knew the time had come for something to be done about it. I went for an initial dental checkup on Tuesday and made another appointment with a dental surgeon to have the partially erupted wisdom tooth surgically removed on Thursday.
I had admitted to a few friends that I was scared and worried about it. Although I knew that it was just a common and small surgery that requires only local anesthesia, I couldn’t help worrying about it. I believe you may have heard many horror stories of the drilling involved.
My main fear was the pain from the injection; I had a pretty bad experience with the injection when I was young. Perhaps because I was young then, so the pain was intensified many times.
Thursday came and I was punctual with the appointment. The registration process was prompt and professional. In about 10 minutes, I was already lying on the dental surgical chair. The dental surgeon approached me with the first injection and once she administered me with the first injection, my worry of the pain was all gone. I could barely feel the injection. Maybe a bite by a red ant is even worse than the injection.
Soon after the injections, I was blindfolded to protect my eyes from the lightings. The moments in between blindfolded and waiting for the dental surgeon to start was a little unbearable as I recalled the horror stories. But talking to the nurses helped. It was quite a lot of drilling after that and much pressures were applied by the dental surgeon. Before I knew it, it was all done. Did I feel pain? The local anesthesia worked well.
Worrying was a waste of time, the experience was not even half as frightening as I imagined it to be. I could have gotten over with it 2 years ago. However, individual’s experience varies.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
– from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson.
When I first read the above passage from Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love, a new perspective hit me right on the face. The deepest fear is found in each one of us. However, what struck me is, “Are we also responsible for whatever we are achieving and not achieving?” We certainly do. It brought me back to some thought which I have previously. I have always been thinking of the point about what wealth can do for one. I realize after reading the passage that subconsciously I have rejected wealth because of some of the things that I might do if I am wealthy. I was focusing too much on what I did not want to do with wealth than on what I can possibly do with wealth. Repainted the images!
How about you? Are there any areas in your life where you are under achieving because you have fear of who you will become or what you will do?
Which will you choose? A jigsaw puzzle that you can get easily in a shop where you get to choose the exact picture that you want; it could be a cute dog, a beautiful mountain or landscape scenery, famous Disney’s cartoon characters and just about anything you can think of. How about a jigsaw puzzle where you don’t get to see the whole picture? It is like what Tom Hanks said in Forrest Gump, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” That is too much uncertainty for most to deal with and yet the excitements that come from the uncertainties are intriguing to some. Life wouldn’t be colourful if everything is as planned.
In so speaking, which will you choose? I like some excitements in life because they are usually unexpected, which make life more colourful and even more interesting, though excitements may not always be good. Yet at the same time, I think it is important to have plans and goals in life so that we know where we are heading to. The end destination might not always be what we expected but just like the say, “… it is not the end destination, but the journey towards the destination that is most important …” It is important that we enjoy the journey and stop at time to smell the flower along the way. Don’t worry too much about the end destination because when you shoot at the stars, even if you don’t hit any, you will end up among them.
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” — Les Brown
In an email which I received recently, it mentioned that patience is a virtue. I agree with it immediately when I read the subject line. However, I do not agree totally to the story that was used to illustrate that patience is a virtue. The story went that a couple sought only a job that would keep them in town but ended up with a multi-million dollar company. Patience is certainly a virtue in this case as building a multi-million dollar company not only takes time but also a lot of hard work. So what is it that I don’t agree?
In the story, it said that if the couple had seen the final picture, or the picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle box, they probably would have shaken their heads and said “Impossible Dream.” It may have appeared to them so hard or impossible to bring to life that they may never have embarked on the journey at all. If you knew how it would turn out? Would you have said, “Impossible Dream” too? Probably a lot of people would have said that while some would hold on to that image and knowing that they could not fail, they would push on into the unknown bravely.
Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?” — George Bernard Shaw
It is not the picture on the jigsaw puzzle box that would stop the couple, it would be themselves. It is important to have the end picture in mind and even more important to make plans and goals in working towards the picture in the mind. Just do what is in your heart and trust that eventually you will get there.It is of the utmost importance to believe in yourself and have faith that you can achieve the picture in your mind. Keep this closely in your mind.
“When the night is the darkest, it means that soon the day will break. Press on!”
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If there was anything my junior college Physics tutor taught me, it was definitely not Physics. She taught us one lesson which had nothing much to do with Physics and yet it was one of the important lessons in my life.
Which will you choose? A jigsaw puzzle that you can get easily in a shop where you get to choose the exact picture that you want; it could be a cute dog, a beautiful mountain or landscape scenery, famous Disney’s cartoon characters and just about anything you can think of. How about a jigsaw puzzle where you don’t get to see the whole picture? It is like what Tom Hanks said in Forrest Gump, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” That is too much uncertainty for most to deal with and yet the excitements that come from the uncertainties are intriguing to some. Life wouldn’t be colourful if everything is as planned.