Every responsible adult knows the truth

My dear friend, you will never know peace until you accept you’re responsible for your life. Your thoughts attract everything into your life, if you don’t like what you’re attracting, you’ve got to change what you’re thinking about.

You only have to do one thing

Live, my friend, experience everything life throws at you. Just remember, you’ll never feel more alive than when you’re doing something you really shouldn’t. The only thing I’d advise is. Try not to get into too much trouble or don’t get caught, whichever is easier.

You are the answer you’ve been looking for

If you don’t find the answer to every problem inside of you, it’s not really your problem.

Spirituality is beyond human ability to comprehend

Spirituality cannot be explained or described because it’s not a human concept, it’s the equivalent of trying to teach somebody how to hold water using a net, no matter how hard they try, the water will always travel through the net. Religions have been using spirituality as the foundation for everything they do for generations, however, religion and spirituality are not the same. There are enough stories in the world about how religions have failed already so I’m not going to add another one here. If you want to find that kind of information? Just type into Google, “how religion failed mankind.” I’m sure you’ll find the articles you’re looking for. Spirituality on the other hand will never fail mankind because everybody will one day experience a spiritual existence once more.

While spirituality cannot be easily explained or described there are people who exhibit the traits of spirituality, they’re the people who always appear to be at peace with themselves. They enjoy connecting with nature as the flora and fauna have a special attraction for them, they don’t criticise or judge the fox for killing to live, they understand that’s the meaning of life for the fox. They treat people with the same kindness, they understand that each person is on their own journey of discovery. These people do not necessarily practice religion, meditate or belong to any particular group because they know that’s what people do when they can’t easily find peace within themselves. Spiritual people appear to have fewer needs than most people. A comfortable place to sleep, clothes to keep them warm and food to give them the energy to continue doing the things they enjoy seems to satisfy them.

Why peace is inevitable for everybody

Spiritualists find peace on earth, for everybody else the journey to find peace is a little longer. If we analyse the following quote in a spiritual context instead of a scientific one, it may explain a thing or two. “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” ~Albert Einstein. Humans consist of matter and energy, the physical form will breakdown and wither, that’s inevitable, however, the energy will transform into another form of energy when it’s finish with its human host. This energy is beyond human’s ability to interact with. And if history has taught us anything, the energy or we’ll call them spirits have no way of interacting with human kind, if it could, I personally know quite a number of people who’ve passed on to the next plane of existence who would have made it back to annoy the living. Or maybe, when they transformed into another form of energy they found the peace they were looking for during their human existence.

I’ll leave you with one final thought.

If you don’t find peace in this life, maybe you’ll find it in the next.

Sorry, you cannot control what other people believe

If somebody else’s beliefs do not harm you; you don’t have the right to tell them what to believe in.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow belongs to everybody who believes in its existence.

The people who make a wish when they see a falling star believe in luck.

Believing everybody you meet has a message for you will make you a wonderful listener and popular with people who like to talk.

You are God’s gift to someone.

People who believe they can improve their life are the people who do.

If people want to believe in miracles, let them.

Everything blooms in its own good time

The picture above is of the daffodils in my back garden, I planted them last October and have been waiting, not so patiently for them to bloom, which only happened in the last week. I had seen lots of daffodils in everybody else’s garden blooming since early February, I was beginning to think they’d never bloom, however, that, as you can see was a waste of my energy. It was at that point I realized the following line.

People are a great deal like flowers, they bloom when they’re ready.

It’s true, you attract everything the universe has brought to you

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles R. Swindoll 

The quote by itself doesn’t quite give you the whole story so let’s put it into perspective using the two examples of the same day.

James is leaving for work as usual at 7.30 a.m, he gets into his car and drives down to the bottom of the road where he’s going to make a left turn, he knows he has the right of way so he doesn’t slow down, however, this morning he gets a surprise because another driver cuts him off. That’s the 10%.

90% Example 1.

His first reaction is to raise his fist and give the one fingered salute, which is followed by honking of his car horn for another two minutes as he chases after the maniac in the other car. Luckily for the other driver he’s not going the same direction and turns off at the next junction but he departs the scene he’s given some more verbal abuse. Then James continues on his way to work still fuming about the incident.

Upon reaching work, James still hasn’t calmed down and barely acknowledges his work colleagues, they know James and with a upwards glance to each other they decide to give him a wide berth for the day. They go out for lunch and leave James uninvited. James notices this and is angry at not being asked, he decides he’s not going to give those twats another moment of his time for the remainder of the day.

James arrives home at 6.30 p.m still in a relatively foul mood, his family notices this and decide to let him get over it before interacting with him. He eats his dinner in silence and then goes into the sitting room to watch some of his favourite television programmes.

Around 9.30 p.m James decides to have an early night. He lays down and tries to go asleep, but the events of the day keep him from his sleep. James wonders how everybody else could have given him such a miserable day. First it was the lunatic driver, then his work colleagues and then his family ignored him. Ahhhhh.

90% Example 2.

James’ first reaction to not being hit by the other car is to breathe a sigh of relief and think how lucky he was that he wasn’t going any faster than he actually was. He has been driving for a number of years so he understands other drivers can make a mistake from time to time. James continues on his journey whistling to himself, all the time thinking this must be his lucky day.

James arrives at work and salutes his friends telling them he’ll be joining them for lunch as usual. They smile back at him, giving him the thumbs up.

During the morning James’s boss invites him into his office and informs him that due to his performance over the previous month he is being rewarded with a gift voucher for the local diner. James leaves the office with a smile beaming across his face.

James went for lunch with his friends and they enjoy a delicious lunch, after they had finished their meal James told them he was going to pick up the bill today. His friends told him that wasn’t necessary, however, when James told them about the voucher, they gladly accepted his offer and gave their gratitude in return.

James arrived home at 6.30 p.m as usual and was met by warm smiles from his family, shortly after he arrived home they sat down and enjoyed a family meal. After the meal and all the cleaning up was done, they agreed to have a movie evening. They went into the sitting room, spent the usual 30 minutes picking what film to watch. The film they decided to watch was Onwards. Everybody really enjoyed the film because it had something all the family could appreciate. A real feel-good movie.

Bedtime arrived for James and as just as he was drifting off to sleep he spent a few moments reflecting on the day and thinking , how lucky am I to have such a great life, a great family and great friends.

Conclusion

The examples above are but one day in the life of James, however, if you consider you live your life one day at a time, James with a negative attitude could have a life-time of one disappointment after the other, while James with a positive attitude will spend his life thinking how lucky he is.

I’ll leave you with one final thought.

Your attitude to life will determine what you attract into it. I hope you choose a positive one.

I aspire to be a positive influence on everybody who wants to be positive

 

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Your thoughts are the solution to every stressful event you encounter

Stress is caused when your mind tries to find a resolution to a problem when you do not have the information or power to solve it.

Example: If you consider stressful situations are like being stuck in the middle lane of the traffic jam like that white car.

Unknowable: You don’t know what’s causing the tailback or how long it will take you to get to your destination. You don’t know whether the lanes on either side of you will go faster or slower if you move into them.

What you know: You know the traffic jam will not last forever, eventually the traffic with thin out and you will get moving forward again.

• Another thing you know is, being stressed about your current situation is not going to help you in any positive way.

During those stressful moments in your life the only logical option is to accept the following. You are where you are meant to be and you will arrive at your destination when you’re meant to arrive.

I’ll leave you with a couple of lines that employ common sense.

• If your actions don’t relieve your stress, you’ve got to learn how to change how you think about the cause of your stress.
• Stress is something you embrace, you have the power to release it.
• Stress is clearly the result of not thinking clearly.
• You should never stress about what you cannot possibly know.
• Whatever you accept will not cause you stress.

Believing in yourself is good for you

When you believe in your future, nobody can take it away from you.

According to all known laws of aviation, there’s no way that a male bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground, however, the male bee doesn’t care what humans believe so he continues to fly effortlessly along.

That’s one valuable lesson people can learn from the humble bee: Don’t listen to people with limited beliefs about what’s possible.

You may be talented, inspired and motivated, however, if you don’t believe in yourself, those traits will only get you so far. Remember, your belief in yourself is your super power, it gives that edge over everybody else who is competing with you.

How do you believe in yourself?

1. Accept yourself for who you are today.
2. Look back on everything you have accomplished in your life. For example; if you have passed one exam in your life, you’re capable of passing every exam you will take in your future.
3. Talk out loud to yourself, tell yourself how energetic, powerful, strong and courageous you are. If you feel uncomfortable letting other people hear you, put a pair of earphones in and they will think you’re motivating somebody using your mobile phone.
4. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Believe me when I tell you, every leader makes mistakes all the time, they’re just better at hiding them.
5. Learn from everybody you admire. Take the traits you admire most about them and adopt them to suit your purpose.
6. Adopt a positive attitude towards everything.
7. Live in the moment, if something isn’t going right for you at any given time, don’t cling to that moment, let it go. There will be plenty of moments when everything will go right for you.
8. Listen to, and accept compliments from other people with gratitude.
9. Don’t pay attention to insults. They’re normally given by weak people who think they will make them strong.
10. You are not alone.
11. Share your opinions. However, don’t expect everybody to agree with you.
12. Don’t allow your past to anchor you to the past.
13. Believe in your destiny, you were put on this planet for a good reason.

I’ll leave you with a couple of my favourite quotes:

• “Every saint has a past, every sinner a future.” ~Oscar Wilde.
• “We are what we believe we are.” ~C.S. Lewis.
• “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt.
• “Never stop trying. Never stop believing. Never give up. Your day will come.” ~Mandy Hale.

 

Karma what goes around comes around

How other people think and act will determine what they attract into their lives (their karma), your thoughts and actions will determine your Karma.

Cursing your enemies may sound like a fun thing to do; “May you get the runs on your wedding night.” or “may you get an itch you can’t reach, are two popular Irish curses. However, they’re your thoughts and if you wish those things for somebody else, you’re really wishing them for yourself.

You’d be better off wishing for them to experience a wonderful happy and healthy life, and wishing for them to win a fortune every year they’re alive. Now, that’s something worth receiving.

How Karma works: If you work on the theory that your karmic force is an all-powerful 14-month-old baby, who doesn’t know right from wrong, positive from negative, good from evil and whose ability to understand language is almost non-existent. All they understand are images and emotions. That’s why the information you’re sending to your karmic force needs to be clear.

If you’re forever cursing people, your karmic force will guide you to find more people to curse. If you’re wishing happiness for people, it will look for people and events to bring more happiness into your life. I’ll leave you with one final thought;

If you knew how powerful your thoughts and emotions are, you’d never concentrate on a negative one.

The professionals who learn from experience are the best to learn from

Learning from experience is the most valuable kind of learning there is, as long as that experience brings about understanding.

You see, a lot of people experience events but are too involved in the event to understand what’s going on, so they ask their friends for help but, that doesn’t work because their friends may not want to hurt their feelings or the friend may be biased one way or the other.

And that’s why it’s important to get advice from a professional who won’t allow their own bias to affect the advice they give.

Finding the right professional can be an interesting journey, however, I’ve found that professionals with real life experience are the best because they have a level of understanding you will not find in any book.

I’ll leave you with a couple of examples.

A person who understands psychology and gave up smoking cigarettes themselves is the best person to give advice on how to give up smoking cigarettes.

A person who understands marketing and has built their own business is the best person to give advice on marketing.

A person who understands human behaviour and has overcome their own obstacles is the best person to give advice on, how to overcome obstacles.

P.S. What you don’t want in a professional is someone who gives advice like a professional but follows it like an amateur because they clearly don’t understand what they’re doing.

What are they selling me

Only the gullible buy every story they’re being sold.

Unfortunately in today’s world you can’t believe much of what you see online because the majority of it is designed to fool the casual observer. All you’re seeing are the highlight reels or a video/picture that’s after being edited to the extent that it no longer resembles the original. This falls under the “fake news” category that’s been used by everyone who disagrees with what they’re reading or seeing. And that’s why I always ask the following question before I engage with anything I see, what are they selling me, and why? The answer will determine my actions, which are,

• I will engage with positive statements.
• I will engage with positive people.
• I will engage with open minded people.
• I will not engage with people who share pictures of their food online because that’s not why you order food.
• I will not engage with people who are looking for sympathy because my engagement will not help them.
• I will not engage with people who inspire hate and division.
• I will not engage with people who are looking for attention for the same reason as the sympathy one.
• I will engage with people who are helping other people.
• I will not engage with famous people just because they’re famous, that’s pointless because at the end of the day they’re only another person.
• I will engage with people who are sharing posts to help their local community.

I’ll leave you with one final thought.

Tbh, I don’t engage with a lot of things online because I don’t like the story they’re selling, however, I always observe.

Magic and Motivation will change the world you see

A good magician will make you question your reality, a good motivator will do the same thing. The only difference between them is the reality created through motivation is a reality you create for yourself whereas the reality created by a magician will only last as long as you remember the illusion. The important thing to remember is, both need your participation to work at all. I’ll leave you with one final thought.

Motivation is like a waterfall, in that, you need to continue to feed it with fresh water or it will cease to exist.

P.S. what makes you do the things you do? The answer is your motivation.

You are not missing anything

You are not missing anything, you can’t because you will do everything you’re supposed to do. It’s only as you mature will you realise the validity of that line. Allow me to explain.

It’s true, after a few years the world sets into a repetitive rhythm, the conversations, the places you go, and the people you interact with all fall into deja vu, been there, done that, bought that t-shirt. You begin to lose track of time and wonder where the years went, then you decide you must be missing out on something so you arrange to go out and do something different only to wake up the following morning wondering to yourself, “why did I bother,” and settle down for another couple of months until you forget about it, and the cycle begins again.

The cycle is much shorter for people who consume enough alcohol so they forget what happened the previous night and believe they had a great time, mind you, they’re generally younger people who are looking in all the wrong places for all the right things they want in their life.

I’ll leave you with one final thought. Rest easy my friends, staying in is a luxury denied to many a restless soul.

You only get one chance to fail

The world would be an interesting place if people only got one chance to fail. I don’t know if it would be any better than the world we’re living in today, however, I’m fairly sure the concentration level of people would improve because the consequences of failure would be far greater.

It would be a hard world, full of hard people with little empathy for anybody who didn’t measure up to expectations.

However, as long as people have hearts helping to make their decisions we’ll never live in that kind of world. I’ll leave you with one final thought.

The power to forgive requires strength, the power to forgive and forget requires empathy. To power to forgive over and over again requires divinity or stupidity, I’m not sure which.

What can you remove to improve your life

Believe it or not, as an adult, it’s the things you remove from your life that improves your life. So what kind of things can you remove? That’s an easy question to answer.

• You remove the need to impress anyone else.
• You remove the need to acquire things that gather dust.
• You remove the need to get emotional over trivial matters.
• You remove the need to gather useless information.
• You remove the need to contradict other people.
• You remove the need to change things you cannot control.
• You remove the need to chase people who don’t improve your peace of mind.

When you remove everything you don’t need from your life, it allows you to concentrate on the things you need. So my friend, what do you need in your life? That’s an easy question to answer too, it’s gratitude for everything you have in your life.

When you meet enough people

“Do you hate people? I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they’re not around.” -Charles Bukowski

I like people, I’m just not interested enough in people’s lives to be sociable with them. For example.

What they did and who they did it with, are a couple of questions I don’t want to ask. That’s the equivalent of watching love island and that’s something that’s not going to happen.

I’ve no desire to listen to people complaining about things they’ve no intention of changing, or better still they haven’t got the power to change them. That’s the equivalent of listening to the party in opposition to the Government for a couple of years, all they do is point out everything that’s wrong when they know they don’t have to come up with a solution that works.

I’ve very little interest in listening to people telling me what someone else is thinking, because unless they’ve got the skills of an empath or a good mentalist, they are only guessing. That’s the equivalent of wildlife narrator telling you what a lion is thinking after it’s finished eating breakfast.

I’m not fond of people pointing out the obvious as if I suddenly arrived from a different planet. That’s the equivalent of watching a match with a friend, our team scores and they turn and say, “we scored,” that’s just not necessary.

I’m not interested in talking with people who are one hundred percent sure everything they know is the truth because there are at least three sides to every story where people’s perceptions are concerned.

I’m capable of discussing the weather with the best of them, however, when they start telling me how the weather was better when we were children I begin to lose interest because weather patterns have always been the same, you could experience all four seasons in the same week.

I’m not fond of having discussions with people who believe everything the see and hear on main stream media because I’m a cynic and I believe they’re always trying to inspire either fear or hate in their listeners.

After reading about all the things I’m not interested in talking about you might think I’ve no interests, however, that couldn’t be further from the truth because I’ve an interest in almost everything else, except people. And when you meet enough people who are not interested in talking about anything except people, you tend to avoid being sociable. I’ll leave you another of Bukowski’s famous quotes.

“Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but never felt right.”

P.S. people are meant to be sociable, they just need to find their kind of people.

To be happy with your behaviour is enough

You are responsible for your behaviour, I’m responsible for how I react to your behaviour, if we’re both happy with our interaction it’s a win win for everybody. However, if one of the people involved is not happy with the other person’s behaviour that’s when something has to change. The personalities and the relationship between the people involved will determine what those changes will be, but in every case they’ll fall into two categories which are direct and indirect.

Direct changes

Direct changes are the quickest and easiest way to resolve any difference of opinion about a person’s behaviour. The person with the grievance outlines how the other person’s behaviour offended them and then gives the other person a chance to respond. The response will determine the future relationship between the two people.

Indirect changes

Indirect changes on the other hand can last an eternity, neither person confronts the other about the behaviour that offends them so they just alter their own behaviour. “I can’t believe they did or said that,” are common phrases in this scenario, however, they say it to other people instead of each other. Of course, one of the people involved may have no idea their behaviour offended the other person and is wondering why the other person has changed.

I don’t know for definite which category is most used but if I was a gambler I’d be putting my money on the indirect changes method, simply because people are complicated and the like to make everything complicated too. I’ll leave you with one final thought.

To be happy with your behaviour is enough because it’s impossible to please everybody.

P.S. To say this post is only the tip of the iceberg on this subject is an under statement.

Surprisingly enough your world will not end

The consequences of your actions is your responsibility.

If you don’t go to work for a week, you’re going to need a letter from a professional to explain your absence. If you don’t go to work for a month, you’ll need a few more letters.

If you don’t pay your mortgage or rent, you’re going to find somewhere else to live.

If you’re late on your car payments, you could end up walking to a lot more places.

If you stop talking to people, they may stop trying to connect with you.

If you don’t exercise occasionally, you’ll not be fit enough to enjoy life.

If you don’t eat enough of the right foods, you’ll get fat. If you don’t eat enough food, you’ll get really thin.

If you don’t do something that engages your mind outside of your work, you’re going to think all you do is work.

If you do nothing at all, you will get depressed.

If you worry about all the things you’re not doing, you will suffer from anxiety.

That’s enough negativity for one day, you really shouldn’t concentrate on what you’re not doing anyway, you should instead focus your attention on everything you accomplish during your week. You’ll be surprised by how much you actually do that you take for granted. I’ll leave you with one final thought.

Do what you can today, and worry about what you don’t do tomorrow because surprisingly enough, your world will not end as a result of what you don’t do.

Feel sorry for me

There’s a big difference between people asking for help and people looking for sympathy.

People who are asking for help are looking to change their life in positive, meaningful way, whereas people who are looking for sympathy are looking for people to feel sorry for them, and there’s nothing positive in sorrow.

The compensation culture is the best example of these types of behaviour. People who look for help will be helped and compensated, while people who only look for compensation will never get enough money to help them overcome their sorrow, they will always be a victim.

Of course, the online world is full of examples too. All you have to ask when you see a post is, are they looking for help or sympathy?

I have to be honest, I’m not impressed with people who look for sympathy, however, I’ve the greatest admiration for people who are strong enough to ask for help. I’ll leave you with one final thought.

The biggest problem in modern times is the people looking for sympathy are loud while the people who need help remain silent.