Looking On The Bright Side

There are many things in the world that could do with improving: in our individual behaviors, our personal lives, and also in the larger society and world that humankind has created.

Sometimes the thought of this can be overwhelming if we concentrate for too long on what's wrong. It's important to think deeply about these issues and to address them, but it's counterproductive to dwell on the negative aspects of ourselves or situations.

The majority of our attention is better spent admiring and enjoying the good things, which in turn gives us more energy to work towards making improvements where we feel they are needed.

In our society, technological advancements and way of life allows us, and perhaps even encourages us, to spend much of our time indoors. It's possible to go from one concrete structure to another without really being aware of all the life there is outside. Birds, bees, insects, small animals, trees... They become abstract objects, without a personal meaning or relationship to us. It's easy to live isolated from the wonder and magic of being alive.Even taking the time to look at non-sentient and inanimate objects can give us a boost. Colors give us energy. Observing shapes and patterns can be relaxing and calming.

One simple way to enhance our awareness of the beauty around us is to look at the sky.








Watching changes take place in front of our eyes allows us to experience it intimately.





By engaging our powers of awareness on the beautiful things around us we create a positive environment for ourselves. We connect with our feelings and this generates a dynamo of enthusiasm. As a result, we have more energy and zest to make other things even better than they are.

How To Discover Our Passions

If you want to know more about someone and what they think about different things, a good way to find out is to ask them. This can also work extremely well for ourselves!

That might sound like a funny idea, but there are times when we don't know what we're thinking or feeling about a situation, a person, or even our life. There may be some niggling sensation that tells us we do have thoughts and feelings about something, but we may not have the time, or take the time, to stop and listen to what they are. They can become buried, difficult to isolate. A good approach to find out what's really going on is to ask ourselves.

A particularly important facet of our lives that can be very fulfilling is doing something we really enjoy. Becoming completely engrossed in an activity can lead to a sense of satisfaction, contentment and accomplishment.

Some people know what they like to do and they do it. They can become so involved in their passion for it that they become experts and they naturally develop strengths that cause them to excel in it. They eagerly put hours into cultivating their interest, and while it might be hard work some of the time, they have the motivation required to persevere until they achieve what they want. It can frequently follow as a simple progression that a person like this ends up pursuing their genuine interest in some form of career or employment.

For others it may not be so easy. Some of us may not even have fully figured out what exactly it is we like to do. There can be many reasons for this, but it happens all too frequently that we don't have time to investigate what we like simply for the pleasure of it. Or maybe we have the notion that it wouldn't be an acceptable way to spend time, perhaps it doesn't seem useful enough.


It is amazing though, the variety of extreme and bizarre activities people have managed to turn into a hobby and then, eventually, a means of income.


Whether it's to find a new career that is more directly related to things we love to do, or whether it's to find out more definitively how we would most enjoy spending our spare time: there's a simple set of questions we can answer for ourselves in order to begin to discover more concretely what it is that we like especially.

List three, four or more of your most favorite:

1. magazines
2. books
3. known hobbies or fun things you like to do
   
4. topics of study or reading
   
5. historical periods or events
6. people
7. legends or interesting topics
8. films

Give as many short (one or two-word phrases) of explanation that you can think of for liking each of your choices. For sure there are more questions that can be added to that list to reveal us to ourselves; answer as many questions as you can think of to get your answers.

Patterns begin to emerge in the answers and this enables us to see more clearly what is most important and appealing to us. The answers can be a real surprise and it's lots of fun to find out what we may not consciously know about ourselves. This secret life can hold some gems that might dramatically change our outlook.



Do you have unknown passions waiting for you to discover? Try it and see!

Thinking Our Way to Success

One of the most precious commodities we have in life is the ability to think. Our thoughts alone can give us tremendous freedom, regardless of our outer circumstances. They determine how we approach situations, how we make decisions; and this in turn directs and forms many of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Habitually following certain thought patterns can continually regenerate the same, or similar, unwanted results in our lives. If the thoughts are habitual it's unlikely that we'll recognize how they are affecting our outlook and responses. They can be so familiar to us that we consider them to be part of who we are, or how life is, and we can perceive them to be inherently unchangeable.

We may rely on other people's conclusions and experiences in forming our own. There are times when it's important, even necessary for survival, to follow someone's ideas and to do what they say.




Social obligations demand that we follow a set of general predefined rules. But ideally these should be as limited as possible to maintain a positive social structure without greatly compromising the individual's personal liberty, especially freedom of thought.
It takes practice to identify and understand which thoughts are our own, and which ones have actually been formulated by our culture and social environment. Even when we are very young it is important to be encouraged to think for ourselves and experiment with finding out what happens when we make our own choices. It is possible to allow babies certain freedoms in which they gradually find their own strength.


It's unfair to dictate to or carry the young for any great length of time, because in doing so they are not being encouraged to trust in themselves and act on their own accord.

Taking into consideration other people's views allows us to add many new ideas to our own. The ability to weigh these in their relevance to our lives can accelerate the process of learning and identifying positive and helpful outlooks.

Swimming with the crowd is a great time saver on some occasions.




But, for a satisfying, fulfilling life we need to know when and how to be our own agents.Each person is unique, with their own particular set of interests and passions. In order to discover these fully we need to know our own thoughts and feelings. Once we know who we are by what we think and feel, we can find a way to express this in our lives. This is the first and most important step to real success.

Choices

It sometimes happens that just when you think you have a plan, something gets in the way.
It's like walking round the corner of your house and discovering that the road and view you are used to, have been completely replaced by something startlingly different and unknown.

At first it might seem scary, with everything familiar having been wiped away unexpectedly. Then it could become very frustrating when you realise that what you wanted to do, or where you wanted to go, no longer appears in front of you. No matter that there is now expanse, beauty and freedom instead; that may not seem relevant in the circumstances. You might freeze, unsure what to do next. You might start running, in panic about what has happened. And if you don't understand it and think you can't, you might become disheartened and give up, sitting down right where you are, hoping that someone will either wake you from a bad dream or come to tell you what is going on. But what if they don't?

Sitting there, you might close your eyes and start imagining that you are hemmed in, and are too frightened to pass through the darkness of it; or you might even start thinking that there is no road left to you at all and that you are in imminent danger with no future left to you.

But most of the time it is simply an opportunity to look at things in a novel way. Whether the change is inherently beneficial or not, it is a good time to check out the initial goal again, the original path being followed to get to it, and assess the choices available at this point. Very often, on closer inspection, there is another way to get to the goal, and sometimes it turns out to be a stepping stone to an even better solution than the old one.
Once a decision is made and a path forward chosen, the situation is often resolved. The familiar road may even reappear and, on closer inspection, may contain greater advantages than it did before.