1. Focus on doing good things and all else will follow. This morning I read a comment someone made that being a good person is the world’s toughest task. Indeed, it could very well be the greatest challenge – especially when we put the focus on being a good person. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said, “When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad.” Let us focus on doing good things and being a good person comes naturally in the process. It couldn’t have been more simpler than that. To do a rain check on ourselves, we can use the Integrity test: What we do when no one is watching us should be the same as when we know that someone is watching us. And follow our heart, not our ‘desire’, as it will always have the right answer for us.

2. Change should and must come from us – FIRST. I am a strong believer of Mahatma Gandhi‘s philosophy, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Instead of trying to change people, we lead and inspire the change.

3. Spend time with positive, loving and happy people. We know that positiveness and happiness are highly contagious, and yet we are allowing ourselves to be ‘beaten’ continuously by negative people around us. Have a clear picture of the kind of person we want to be and associate ourselves with like-minded people who are supportive and are willing to help us to become the person we aspire to be. It is easy to let go of negative people who are not closely related to us. How about those closely related to us? I’m not telling you to cut the tie completely; let them know that you will keep the lifeline always open for them and yet understand clearly that you can lead the horse to the river, you can’t make it drink. Understand also that they may not be ready now and there will be a time when they are ready; be there for them when they are.

4. Start loving people, including ourselves, and let go of any hatred we may hold of others. As Buddha said (I changed a little in this context), “Holding on to hatred is like grasping hot coals with the intent of throwing them at someone else, we are the one who will get burned.” Harness the power of forgiveness and free ourselves. As Louise Hay said, “I forgive everyone in my life, and release them with love. They are free and I am free.” Forgiveness free the people we hate and most importantly – free us.

5. Live in the present. Learn the lessons from the past and leave the past where it should stay. Start living in the moments. The things we are doing today will create the tomorrow we dream and putting our attention to the current moments can make a huge difference in simplifying our lives. Take care of today and tomorrow will turn out to be what we want it to be.

6. Start to take up responsibility. Putting the blame on others accomplishes nothing and complicates things. Be the master of our fates and the captain of our souls. Choose to be in control of ourselves, then to let go of that control to someone else.

7. Put useful information in our minds and mind our own businesses. The mind is the garden of our well-beings. Would we dump rubbish into our gardens? Yet, we are putting useless information into our mind. Online social medias like Facebook, Twitter etc are splendid way to keep in touch, yet many spend hours everyday minding the businesses of their friends in these social medias. We should be the one making use of these social medias and not the other way round.

8. Take a step backward in making decisions. Moving backward could be the best way to forge ahead sometimes. Think things through before making decisions especially when we know our emotions are kicking in. The best decisions are usually made with a clear mind.

As I reflected in the quietness of my room, many images flashed through my minds; images of babies, smiling children, elderlies and faces … faces whom I do not know and yet they seem to be just like the faces of my friends.

It dawned upon me that these images of babies, they could have been the images of our babies. These images of smiling children could have been my smiling niece and nephews, giggling as they tried to climb up to the lap of their uncle. These images of elderlies could have been our grandparents and parents. Last but not least, these images of familiar faces could have been our best friends, friends and working associates. It could simply be the images of people whom we hold dearly and closely in our heart … it could be images of you and I.

In that moment of quiet reflection, I realised there is no Singaporean, American, British, Indian, Chinese or Japanese etc; there is only human being of one united race on Planet Earth.

Symphony of Love is making a special request from you to continue to send prayer and positive wishes of Loving Kindness and compassionate to our friends in Japan and for those of you who are able to help out financially, below are some ways:

1. Singaporeans may make a cash, cheque or SMS donation to the Singapore Red Cross for victims of this disaster.

For walk-in donations, the Singapore Red Cross is open from 9.30am to 9pm from Mondays to Fridays, and from 9.30am to 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

For cheque donations, cheques should be made payable to the “Singapore Red Cross Society”.

Donors may also donate via their mobile phones to 75772. For every SMS, S$50 will be donated to the “Japan Disaster” fund.

2. For American, you can make direct donation to American Red Cross.

Resources related to the crisis in Japan and ways to help, from Google.

From Yahoo

And yet, it is exciting to get out of bed. I would love a cup of hot chocolate to start the rainy day, watching the raindrops falling from the sky, the ripples they create when they fall into a pool of water, the sound of the raindrops beating against the window and last but not least, the freshness and sweetness in the air.

For me, it has been the most exciting 4 months and with a lot of changes. What I observed or experienced was a challenge would follow every change. At first the challenge would appear insurmountable and that is because we do not have the capability yet to overcome it. Or rather, what I will say is, “We thought we do not have the capability to overcome it.” However, the truth of the matter is, “We will not be given a challenge too big for us!” This is what I believe and this is what I use to remind myself constantly.

Just as we might continue to focus on the challenge and some will view it as problem; we must remind ourselves to focus on finding the solution. We may not have direct control to the challenge, but we always have the Power to choose what we want to focus on. Use that Power which is given to you and which cost you nothing. Because frankly speaking, if we do not use that Power given to us, someone else would be using the Power given to him/her to choose for us. Just as the quotation from the movie The Astronaut Farmer, “You better know what you want to do before somebody know it for you.” So we better start using that Power given to us before somebody use his/hers on us.

And finally after we overcome the challenge, we grow. With every challenge, there is a great potential for us to grow and to become a better person. Not only that, we are automatically ready for bigger changes and challenges in life. This simple reason of growth makes change ever exciting for me!

What we really must do is Embracing Changes and Challenges and this journey call life will surely be an exciting and memorable one!

It didn’t really take much effort to clear the stack of old bills stubs, receipts and invoices that were sitting in the cabinet. And yet how did they get stacked up and taking all the spaces in the cabinet which could be put to better usage? Procrastination. As the saying goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind.‘ It is about time to take the first step. The Guy’s Perspective post provided that kick in the butt.

Today, I decided that it is time to let go of all that stack of old bill stubs, receipts and invoices. Their rightful place are in the recycle bin. They are of no use to me or anyone as long as they remained the way they are. However, going through the recycle bins, they have a chance to be recycled into something useful again.

Do you have stack of old bill stubs, receipts and invoices sitting in the cabinet waiting to be cleared? Perhaps it is time for you to clear the messes; spring is really a good time to start.

Besides the old stack of bill stubs, receipts and invoices, are there also emotional baggage which some of us are carrying through life like? Some of these emotional baggage may not really do much harm to us but they do take up spaces and give us the messy feeling; like there is always something holding us back. Wouldn’t it make sense for us to clear them too?

I have cleared the mess outside today and there are more to be cleared in the other cabinets. After that, it will be time to revisit the messes inside to start cleaning them too. It is time to ditch the emotional baggage,.