Meditate Upon Good Thoughts

"The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world & the world at large." -- Confucius

I have been a strong believer that if you think positively, the world around you will seem so much brighter. Everything in the world is seem differently by different eyes. What I see in one thing, may not be the same thing you see in that exact same thing. The thing is not different. Our points of view are different.

There is so much negativity out there. All you have to do is turn on the television and all you get are things that can depress you. The news is mostly comprised of accidents, murders and people stealing money from each other. If you sit down to watch a movie, most of them have anger, hatred and all kinds of ill will towards each other. Sure most of them end happily, but getting to that happy ending just fills your mind with all kinds of negativity. This is not good for you.

Think about avoiding those things that bring negativity to your mind. Avoid the news. all you need are the headlines to keep yourself abreast with what is going on in the world. Don't watch these headlines in the morning. Wait till you have already started your day in a good way before you introduce those negative thoughts. If you can avoid them altogether, then do that. Find things that make you happy. Find things you can do that bring you some sort of peace and enjoyment. Do these things briefly everyday.

If you can bring good and happy things into your life, you will be amazed at the quality of your life. You will be a happier person. You will be able to handle the things that are not so good. You will also find you are healthier. You will not be sick quite as often. So think positively and have some fun.

Find Your Inner Way

"Once you have the Inner Way, the Outer Way will Follow" ~Wayne Dyer

If you think about it, Whatever it is, it will usually find a way to happen. I have always liked the philosophy that you become whatever it is you think about. If you set up the thought pattern in your mind that something bad is going to happen, something bad usually finds a way to happen. On the other side of the coin, If you set it in your mind that only good things are going to happen, then you will find awesome things happening to you all the time.

The trick is to find ways to make you think about positive things.For some reason, we a human beings are trained to think negatively. We don't trust anyone or anything. We feel like we have to do things by ourselves when in reality to be good at any one thing, you need a group who also is interested in that one thing. That is why there are writing groups, magician clubs and coupon cutting parties.

Here are some ways you can keep yourself thinking positively:

1. Find a partner who wants the same thing you do. Together you can build each other up and route each other on to make it to the finish line. I am sure you can do it all by yourself, but it will be a whole lot more fun if you had someone to share the success with.
2. Carry a reminder. If you can keep something in your pocket or around your wrist to remind you to think positively then you will have a trigger to pull you back into the positive side of that line.
3. Laugh out loud for no apparent reason. If you find yourself thinking badly, stop what you are doing and just start laughing. Soon you will find that you are laughing at yourself laughing for no reason. Laughing feels good and will lift you out of your negativity.
4. Write good things in your journal. Sit down and just start a list of the things that are good right at that moment. If you can see your surroundings in a different way, then you will be able to be positive.

You Are a Success

Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success." ~Dr. Joyce Brothers

This is a simple concept, but I think most people fail to live it. If you want something, you need to focus on it. If you don't focus on it, then your mind will not be aware of the things you want when they pass near you. If you are focusing on those things, then you will notice them when they approach. Then you can take action on those opportunities.

You can only do things if you believe you can do things. That includes being a success. If you don't believe you can, then what chance do you have to actually become that success. You have to know it is possible, and the more present tense you can make that belief, the sooner you will feel that success come to your reality.

I think you have to be ready to make something happen. If your mind is not ready, then it will be hard for your body to make it happen. The nice thing is that you can choose to be ready whenever you want to be. Once you make that choice then there is nothing outside your grasp. You just have to believe.

Stop Rowing and Look Around

"Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction." - Kenichi Ohmae

I don't know how often this happens to us, but it does happen often. We are doing one thing when we should be doing another. It's not until we fall into a hole when we realize that we were heading in the wrong direction.

There are other times when we know we are heading in the wrong direction be we make the decision not to turn around. Then we wonder why we arrive somewhere we don't want to be. The best example of this is how we eat. We know we should be eating healthy food. We make the decision to eat a lot of junk food and fast food. Then we wonder why we are fat and miserable.

Take some time to think about your life and what you are doing with it. Identify the things you are doing that are heading in a different direction than you truly intend to be heading. May a conscious choice to turn around and head toward a definite goal. You will enjoy your life much more when you start making some of your goals come true.

Love, Strength & Courage

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ~ Lao Tzu

I don't know why I like this quote. There is something truthful about the words. I wonder if it is the same for men as it is for women. I know when I think about it, women tend to give men their strength. If it wasn't for women, I don't think men would ever do anything. I think they would sit around and do as little as possible. When women (or anyone you might care for) comes into the picture, then men want to do things for her. The man wants to give her everything he possibly can. It takes courage to do that.

When that same person loves you back, that just makes you want to do more. It becomes a cycle. She loves you. That gives you the courage to do the things that will make you successful. Loving her in return makes you strong enough to continue to do the things that make him and her successful. The cycle continues as long as they continue to love each other.

So here is what I suggest that you do. Take the time to find someone who you can love. Allow that love to give you the strength you need to build your life. When she loves you back, that will give you the courage to continue to do the things you need to do to continue to grow your life together. It will take that courage to have kids and to be the parents you want to be.

Strength, Courage and Love. Those are a fantastic combination.

Make Yourself Happy

"Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response." ~ Mildred Barthel

Have you ever thought about this? You may laugh at a joke, you may find things around you, but you choose to laugh. You have a choice to laugh. You may think that you don't, but if you put your mind to it, you can force yourself to keep a strait face instead of laughing.

The exact opposite is true as well. While you are sitting there in your seat in front of your computer or your smartphone or even your tablet reader, just start laughing. You can laugh for no reason. When you start laughing, you will find that funny and that will make you laugh. Try it. I Dare You. The laughing will make you feel good. There is something in your body, a hormone or something that is released when you laugh that makes you happy. So just laugh. Laugh when you are in your car and you just had a rough drive to work. If you laugh yourself into a good mood before you walk into the building, you will have a better day than if you walked in with the sourness from the guy who cut you off.

If you think you are a naturally pessimistic person, I am here to tell you, that is a choice you have made. Change that choice. Whenever you catch yourself being pessimistic, change your thinking. If you need to, start laughing. The people around you will wonder what happened to you.

Time to Get Even

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. ~John E. Southard

Can you imagine if everyone lived by this quote? No one tried to get even for the negative things that have happened in life. Instead, people were more interested in burning their energy trying to do good things for the people who have done good to them. The world would be such a nice place to live.

This quote reminds me of the movie called "Pay It Forward" The story is about a boy who has discovered the powers of multiplicity. He finds that if one person does something nice for three people without any need for repayment, and tells them to each help three people in the same way, those three people will be helping nine people. Then nine people will be helping 27 people. Then 27 people will be helping 81 people. Then 81 people will be helping 243 people and so on. That number gets large very quickly.

The world would be such a nice place to live if everyone was in the mindset that we were working for the greater good of everyone else. If we could all live in homes that were built and maintained by the other people in the city. We all have something to strive for, to make each others' lives more comfortable.I can see a world that looks more like Earth in the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The people on Earth are more interested in exploring the galaxy and the universe than they are about gaining wealth. We are working for the general good, creating things that will help everyone. Today, I want you to go out and do something for someone else. Think of a way to help someone else without them knowing who did it for them. Go pay someone's light bill, or go buy some groceries and leave them on the doorstep of someone who you know is having a hard time making ends meet. Mow someone else's yard for them. Pay the toll for the car behind you. Just do something nice without needing anything in return.

Don't Walk Backwards

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward - Abraham Lincoln,16th U.S. president

Always take steps forward. You may have to tread slowly to make sure you are moving forward, but moving ahead slowly is better than having to move backwards. I think that is what our great leader was trying to say.

There are so many of us who are so used to taking two steps forwards and one step backwards. We try so hard to move up in our lives that we end up falling down and having to pick ourselves back up. Sure there are times in our lives when we should take chances to get ahead, but there is no reason to fall if we can see the obstacles ahead of us. If we can move a bit slower, we will move forward faster even though we are taking slow calculated steps.

I think the easiest example I can think of to illustrate my point is relationships. Think about this a minute. Let's say you meet someone you like and you ask them out on a date. You have a nice time, but you are so anxious to be in a romantic relationship that you push a kiss on her within the first hour of the date. You start holding her and hugging her and making her feel very claustrophobic. The next thing you know, she's not feeling good and asking you to take her home. Then there is no second date.

What if instead, you let things happen on their own. You go out on a nice date, you maybe hold her hand, you have wonderful conversation and have fun. Then you walk her to the door and ask her for a second date. On the second or third date, when you know that she is enjoying the time she is spending with you, you close in for that kiss. She returns the kiss and the relationship becomes what you were hoping it would be.

You will get a lot further if you let things happen in their own time. If you rush things, then things will change, possibly change for the worse. You can take advantage of the opportunities, but make sure the opportunities are there to be taken. If you jump the gun, you might have to start all over again.

Not Just a Dream

"If you know it's going to happen there's no need to call it a dream." -Eric Pio

What is a dream? It is something that has not happened yet that you hope one day will happen. Is that really something you want in your life? I wonder if dreams are just cruel and unusual punishment. Most of the people I have met torture themselves with their own dreams. They think about something they know in their mind they will never have and let it eat them up inside.

What if you make your dreams a reality. That is the only way they will ever happen. You have to do something to make them come true. If you just sit there and dream, that is all they are going to be... Dreams.

If you think your dreams are possible, then go ahead and make them come true. The only person keeping you from achieving those dreams is you. You can make them happen and you will. Just take one step at a time to get it done.

If you think your Dreams are impossible, choose right now to make them possible. If they are a dream you are passionate about, then you can find a way to make them possible. There are plenty of stories out there where people who were born deaf are now able to hear. There are people who have lost both legs who are now able to walk. If you have a dream, just find a way to make those dreams come true.

If you believe it can and will happen, then it will. If you have the tiniest little doubt, then push that doubt away and believe. That is why it is called faith.

All You Need is a Spark

"A great flame follows a little spark." ~ Dante

There are a lot of these types of metaphors. What happens when you start a snowball rolling down a hill? You get a bigger and bigger snowball. What happens when a small leak breaks through a dam? If left unchecked, it will erode the hole in the dam till water is flowing through it with the power of a waterfall. What happens when one ant finds your picnic? Soon your food will be covered in the entire colony of ants.

What you have to learn from these metaphors is all it takes is an idea or even an small inspiration. All you have to do is feed it and it will grow into something great and amazing. The blog you are reading right now; it was an inspired thought. What would happen if I found some of life's great quotes and let my mind run away with them? Would I be able to write something that would benefit everyone? Would I be able to write something every weekday for an entire year? If I did, then this would turn into something great, something everyone would want to visit on a regular basis, something that would turn into a book or a calendar or who knows what else.

Take a few minutes and look at the things in your life. Don't just look at the normal things like your meals, and your job. Look at the friends around you and the projects you have started but laid aside because you lost interest or ran into some sort of roadblock. Ponder the new ideas or rekindle the old ideas. Envision how some of those ideas might blossom into something that could make money for you. Think about the things that have possibilities. Take those possibilities to the next level.

Meet with your friends... You know the ones. The ones who have ambition; the ones who know how to take an idea and run with it; the ones who will do their best to support you, to drive you to do more with what you have, to encourage you to take your ideas and make something amazing out of them. I think you will be surprised at what comes from those people and ideas.

How Your Destiny is Shaped

"It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped." ~ Tony Robbins

Do you know how to make a decision?  Are you someone who continuously has to think about something over and over and over pounding his own brain trying to figure out what the outcome of each decision might be? Well I don't think that is any way to live.

I have found that if I sit there and think about a problem for hours before I make a decision, then not only do I become a tortured soul, but so does everyone else around me.

Have you ever sat at home with your loved one and tried to decide what you want to do for dinner. You all know you want to go out for dinner, but you can't decide where. You bounce ideas back and forth but neither of you want to make the final decision, sometime because you want the other person to be happy with the choice; sometime because you don't really have a preference. Whatever the case, you spend more time trying to figure out where you want to go than the actual time it takes to get there and eat.

I think the best thing to do it to lay out the best things about each decision down on the table, then make a gut choice. Just choose the one that feels right. If they both feel good, then it doesn't really matter which one you choose, just pick one randomly.

After you have made that choice, stay with it. Once you make the choice, it is too late to go back and change your mind. See that choice through. Whatever the case (unless you foresee something horrible happening) do not change you mind. Just move forward and enjoy the choice you made.

Look For Stars, Not Mud

Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud and one the stars. ~ Frederick Langbridge

This could be said in so many ways. You hand someone a glass with a bit of water in it. One person sees the glass as half empty. The other sees the glass as half full. We have all heard that one. I don't know who said it, but it is a good way to see the nature of a person.

Take a look at yourself first. How do you look at things? Do you think about what is happening to you? Are you seeing all the things people are doing to hurt you? Are you thing about all the negatives in you life? From my experience, thinking about the bad things in life just brings on more things that are bad.

What you want to do is try to turn your thinking around; take a complete 180 turn and start thinking about what is good in your life, or better yet, make the negative things in your life a positive. If your car had a flat tire, take a moment to breathe and realize that the universe is just trying to slow you down. If you move too fast, you might not be able to stop when you see the brick wall.

Look for the positive things in life so you can attract more positive things. Change your way of thinking. Happiness is a choice. You can choose to feel happy. It is easy. Just think to yourself, I refuse to feel negative and I think I am going to feel happy. Want to concrete that feeling. Then start laughing. Start laughing for no reason. Just laugh. You will find it makes you feel better. You will also find that people around you will wonder why you are laughing.

Want another way to feel good. Take a deep breath. Hold it.... Then let it out slowly. It feels good.