Sharing dreams

All of us tend to have a bigger purpose, aspirations of reaching and achieving some higher goals. If we keep this all to ourselves, we risk to lose our lofty goals along the way. But the risk to lose our lofty goals along the way is still much bigger if we share our bold plans with our family and friends. 

Our purpose, our goals tend to carry some of our passion and attention. Attention and passion will make us see opportunities that will be met along the way. We are in charge and make it happen. 

Once we share our plans with our close relatives or friends, it is not unlikely that we will get their critical opinion and express their disbelief about the mere possibility of our goals. Then our ego has to come in and start defending our goals. It is out of the realm of the passion and drive, and becomes an ego undertaking, proving our family members/friends we can do it.They may create doubts and point out obstacles that may or may not be there. Even if the obstacles are there and they are real, we may be able to deal with them when we encounter them. 

So while ideally, sharing your dreams and lofty aspirations, may lead to extra motivation, more often the simple of act of sharing may push you in a defensive position, taking away the enthusiasm and energy that are so necessary in achieving anything. 

Keep dreaming big, aiming high. But think twice before announcing your dream to the world.

Treasures

Where do we build our treasures?

Do we build them in bank accounts? In gold vaults? In jewelry? In assets? 

Our heart will be exactly there.

 

Do we build them in the realm of kindness, peace and beauty?

Our heart will be exactly there.

A bit of my heart is with my bank account, a bit in my assets

But the treasure hidden in my soul, carries my heart too. 

The treasure of true virtue, of honesty and kind acts

The treasure of wisdom. I want to build them as much 

as I desire that amount in my bank, my list of possessions

Ignoring the importance of physical needs may be not a wise thing to do

But ignoring the treasures of virtue and love within our soul is worse.

I pray to my Creator, 

that I may appreciate and be grateful for the abundance that is around us that I may appreciate and work also on these soul experiences, on these soul moments

I love, I love, I love.

 

Lots of love from my heart to you.

 

Have a wonderful next minute, next hour, next week, next year :)

Changing the world, we do it!

When I was young, I wanted to change the world. 

And sadly, in my early adulthood, I was (almost) convinced that I could not change the world.  

 

But that is the biggest fallacy that we tell our youths.
We try to take away their ideals.
We try to "make them come to their senses"

We want them to see "reality"

 

I put the phrases above between double inverted commas because they are extremely wrong.

The worst thing we have done to this world, is not the wars we have fought, it is not the pollution of the seas; the very worst thing we have done to this world is making large numbers of young dynamic people with lofty great ideals lose these ideals in their early twenties, because we think they will be disappointed if we do not make them live up to our perception of reality.

 

If all youths with fantastic ideals and aspirations to make a huge positive change in this world, would have been encouraged to keep believing and live up to their ideals, the world would have been a very different place at this moment. 

Am I a dreamer? Did I lost touch with reality, making the above statements? The answer is NO.

Every little thing we do in our lives is changing the world, for the worse or the better:

- yesterday i cut into the lane of another car; the driver became visibly upset with me; His wife and children were in his car. The upset driver spread negative emotions to all in the car and a spiral of negativity and problems emerged. I made my day a bit worse and their day a bit worse. I had changed a small part of the world I live in for the worse.

- today, I gave way to two girls standing in the middle of the road, waiting to cross the lane I was driving on to be clear of traffic. I stopped the car and let them cross. The smiles on their faces were wonderful. The small act of giving way, changed my day, their day and it may have caused a spiral of positivity in the small part of the world I live in.

If we are aware that we change the world we live in constantly by all we do and say, we may choose much more positivity than what we do or say routinely, impulsively. 

Let us not discourage our youths, in the name of being "realistic". Instead let us inspire them to go and make lots of positive changes in the world on a daily basis and even if only two in a hundred thousand of these small changes lead to something bigger, just a few positive changes per day will result in a huge change over a life time. 

The ideals, I had in my teens are more alive today than ever. I want to change the world. I want to make small positive changes every day. At the end of my life, I want to be happy with the life I lived and that will depend on how many small positive changes I made :)

Stopping the overthinking

We had done a research project on burn out among caregivers of severely disabled people. One person had a particular bad burn out and asked to get more help. The coordinator of the home care program, our psychologist, one psychology student and myself (a medic who had coordinated the research) were attending the session. 

The person opened up and stated her problem clearly. We probed into what she had done or tried to do about it, and tried to help her think and discover some ways to find relief. When she got stuck in the process, some gentle suggestions were made, but 45 min into the session, it seemed we were making either very slow or no progress. 

I had been mainly listening. I had been thinking what would be best to say, if I was to participate in the counseling, but I had no clue what to say or how to start. 

Then I prayed. I emptied my mind and asked, with the deepest desire to help the caregiver, for help from our Creator. I got mentally disconnected from the session for awhile and then an idea entered my mind which I shared with the group in an empathic way and quite suddenly we seemed to make real progress. 

I feel I had been overthinking for 45 min and after calming my mind through a heartfelt prayer, an idea seemed to cause a breakthrough. I think that for some of us, sincere and heartfelt prayer may at times, be an effective way to tap into positive intuition. :).