Life Is Now Today, TODAY!

Life and death is like the ebb and flow of waves. People appear and disappear.

While we have life, let's not squander our time. We do not need the daily headlines in the news of tragedy to remind us that life is fragile and transient.

We are like the leaves on a tree which grow and flourish for a season before they become dislodged and fall to the ground.

While there is life, go out and seize the day and gather the rosebuds while ye may as Walt Whitman reminds.

Take out your musical instruments or whatever it is that serves as an avenue for your celebration of life and let loose. Make music, spread some happiness and invoke positive thoughts that life is good no matter the circumstances.

Life and time will not delay. Life is now, today, Today!

Stay Within The Positive Zone of the Losada Line

What you say and how you treat other people can affect their happiness. Likewise, what you hear and how other people handle you can affect your happiness. 

Photo by Ankush Minda on Unsplash

The critical ratio is 3+ to 1-, approximately, to remain at status quo. This means that it takes 3 positive expressions or interactions to offset 1 negative expression or interaction.

In his research on marriages, John Gottman was able to predict the success or failure of marriages with over 90% accuracy and the ratio of positive expressions over negative expressions was a key predictor.

Based on his mathematical modeling of corporate teamwork, Marcial Losada derived 2.9013 as the critical ratio for success in the team's performance with an ideal ratio of 6.

Barbara Fredrickson, from her research of college students, has found that students with a positivity ratio higher than 3 have high mental and social health. 

The war against negative experiences wages on. Do not allow the negative to rob you of your happiness or the happiness of others within your circle of influence.

Bear in mind the Losada Line, Losada ratio, Gottman ratio or positivity ratio. Stay above it and you will be happy or, at the least, you will not be unhappy. 

Just as you wanna to be happy, show kindness to others, in turn, besides heeding the call of librarians to handle books with care and the urging of naturalists to be kind to animals. 

Bibliography:

* www.happierhuman.com, "The Power of Positivity, In Moderation: The Losada Ratio"

* Shawn Achor, "The Happiness Advantage": page 61

Have You Found Your Path To Happiness?

What makes you happy? Can you sustain it or does it come and go beyond your power to control it?

Photo by hafizh armynazrie on Unsplash

Emily Esfahani Smith would have you know that finding meaning in life would be a better path to take than chasing happiness with a void on the inside of you.

Slow down and engage gear for some deep thinking as you reflect on what Emily has to share with words of gold in setting of silver concerning the Four Pillars of a Meaningful Life:

1. Belonging (receiving and showing love)

2. Purpose (making a contribution)

3. Transcendent (connected to a higher reality)

4. Story-telling (your personal narrative about you)

Click here for There's more to life than being happy | Emily Esfahani Smith.

 

Jazz Up Your Atmosphere

Music can work wonders to your atmosphere.

For some help to chill out while, say, reading a book or prodding to get on with your tasks at hand, you might find the following refreshing.

Click here for BRAIN POWER JAZZ & Bossa Nova - Relaxing Music For Concentration, Study & Work

If it is late at night and it is raining outside, or you just wanna to relax with a smile on your face while enjoying the pitter-patter of rain, the following clip will not disappoint you.

Click here for Relax Music: "Rain" (4 Hours of Relaxing Music - Chill Soft Jazz & Rain Sounds for Sleep and Study).

And, if you can't sleep, then the following slower offering might just be the snooze dosage for you.

Click here for Relaxing Rainy JAZZ - Amazing Cafe Piano & Saxophone Jazz Music for Studying, Sleep, Work.

Have a jazzy atmosphere. May your blues be chased away and you get to appreciate and smell the carnations of life.

Thank you for reading Daily Refreshing.

How To Cultivate A Resourceful State of Mind

When the world sour things up for you, do you retaliate or make lemonade instead? 

Photo by Gustavo Scafeli on Unsplash

All things being equal, the manner in which you respond internally to external factors will determine how you feel. It is all in your mind. Over time you would have conditioned yourself into a predictable response when faced with the same triggering event.

If you are typically emotionally drained because you are bothered by everything and every other person, then it is time for you to unlearn and learn how you can take charge of your response and chart a preferred outcome.

It is time for you to grapple with: Event + Response = Outcome.

Click here for Take Charge of Your Mind & your Results by Adam Khoo (NLP techniques).

You will be refreshed by Adam Khoo's passionate and insightful motivation to generate resourceful emotions so as live a more enjoyable and successful life.

Antidote for Monday Blues

Food for thought indeed from Happy Tummy. 

While you are it, go figure out the following "For Sale":-

"When you start to do the things that you truly love, it wouldn't matter whether it is Monday or Friday; you would be so excited to wake up each morning to work on your passions." ― Edmond Mbiaka

"Start the Monday with a fresh cup of happiness." --quotabulary.com

And, here is how you can go one up by slaying the Monday monster with a cup of intentional kindness:-

Know How Privileged You Are

You would have heard it often enough on how good it is to be grateful and count your blessings.

Photo by Stefany Andrade on Unsplash

Another take of this is to: Know how privileged you are.

Being privilege means not taking things for granted. For examples, things such as:

1. Freedom (from war or imprisonment due to unfavourable circumstances).

2. Ability to use your 5 senses of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.

3. Education or literacy.

4. Access to the internet.

5. Opportunity to earn an income.

6. Help from family, friends and community.

7. Healthcare whenever you need it.

8. Happy tummy.

Consider, happy tummy. Imagine that your descendants migrated from a country where once upon a time there was widespread famine and abject poverty. The people were so desperate that a lot of them chose to disperse overseas and brave the raging seas so as to reach distant shores to make a living. 

Fast forward today, when they meet one another, they do not say "How do you do?', but rather they ask, "Have you eaten?".

For your further reflections, you may find the following clips by Channel News Asia to be insightful.

Click here for Inside Singapore's Only Women's Prison | CNA Insider

Click here for The Hawker's Assistant | Singapore's Elderly Poor | CNA Insider

Click here for The Ice-cream Uncle | Singapore's Elderly Poor | CNA Insider  

Click here for Why The Danes Are Happy | Conversation With | CNA Insider

How To Overcome Boredom

Idleness or boredom is the devil's workshop. When you are not down physically but still unhappy, there are things you can do to take charge of your life. The following are just a sampler:

1. Dream

   

Give yourself the freedom to write down your wildest dream. Make it as clear as possible until you can see it plainly like a picture. Put in all the details for your dream. Start with a sketch. Think of a fishbone chart. Draw the head, backbone and tail, and then line up the rest of the bones.

Your vision or dream in the eye of your heart will give you the motivation and courage to endure the valleys, knockdowns and detours before you reach the Las Vegas, Hawaii or Paris of your dream.

2. Smile

It takes less muscles to smile than to frown. Smile and keep the wrinkles away in your later years. Choose the positive over the negative, and the outcome on your mental wellbeing will be a world apart. 

Be thankful for the little things in life and you will be a happier person with a lot more reasons to smile. Stay on the positive side as you don't need to wait until you are reminded by someone who is always wearing a smile because he has 'lost' his mind.

3. Enjoy Life

Be content with your lot in life. There will always be people who have a better quality of life than you. On the other hand, there will also always be people who are much worse off than you.

Stop comparing and enjoy your current state of being. Take in a few deep breaths right here and now to pump in some fresh oxygen for your body and brain, and you will already be more uplifted.

4. Imagine 

Do some dreaming or visualisation while you are awake. If morning is too rush for you, then schedule for the evening before you hit the sack. Read your written dream and spend some time imagining living out your dream life -- how it feels, looks and sound like; where you will be and what you will be doing; how you will look like and what clothes you will be wearing; and what kind of people you will be hanging out with.

Feed your subconscious mind with the image of your future, and you will sustain the achievement of your goals.

5. Be Kind 

Being kind and doing good is a virtue as with having a good character. There is a difference between being good and being great. You can be a great person, but not a good person. Likewise, you can be a good person without being great. Greatness has to do with size or magnitude.

Choose to be good, primarily, rather than to be great but void of a good heart. That said, charity or kindness begins at home. Start by treating well the people who are in your immediate circle.

6.  Have Fun 

Life is serious. Our actions or inactions will have consequences. And, the choices we make may hold untold ramifications. The journey of life goes on unstoppable.

However, if we take ourselves too seriously, we may blow up whenever we make a mistake where even a molehill may appear like a mountain and a milk spill like an oil spill.

Also, take some time off from work and enjoy a Sabbath day of rest weekly. When you are working without rest, you will become dull and lacking in sharpness, alertness or cognitive skills -- "the core skills which your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention". 

The worst time to do some thinking or work is when you are tired or lacking in sleep. Take a nap or get some sleep and you will find yourself in a much better shape mentally to enjoy life, thereafter.

That's a wrap for this article. Thank you for visiting Daily Refreshing.

No Longer A Slave To Fear

Let the following Jennifer Jeon's violin cover of "No Longer Slaves" by Bethel Music infuses you with serenity and refreshes you with new strength to face life with confidence.

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

Click here for No Longer Slaves 두려움의 멍에 벗네 - Jennifer Jeon 

Also, click here for Break Every Chain by Jesus Culture Lyrics

Guard Your Attitude and Thinking

A bad and sour attitude can ruin your potential to live a full and enjoyable life. Guard it for dear life so that it does not form or become part of your heart or core values.

"Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life." - Proverbs 4:23 (AMP)

Photo by Elijah Hiett on Unsplash

Here are some insights on the far-reaches of attitude for your refreshing:

"Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude." - Dale Carnegie 

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." - Albert Einstein

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." - Zig Ziglar  

"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new." - Og Mandino

In the book The Art of Living by Bob Proctor with Sandra Gallagher, Bob shared the following advice with Sandra, his student then before becoming his business partner, the following nuggets on How To Maintain A Good Attitude:-

"1) Every morning think of ten things that you are grateful for.

2) When you finished writing the ten things down, send love to three people who are bothering you.

3) Be quiet for five minutes and ask guidance for the day."

For a snippet from an audio book version, click here for Bob Proctor, Sandra Gallagher - The Art of Living - Chapter 01.

Beyond attitude, you can move on to develop your thinking.

Click here also Bob Proctor - 💪The Most Powerful 30 Minutes Ever!!!💪 - The Law of Attraction for Dummies!

Rhonda Byrne, in her book The Magic, attests that, "Gratitude changed me, and my whole life magically changed." And, she has encapsulated The Magic Formula as follows:-

"1. Deliberately think and say the magic words, thank you. 

2. The more you deliberately think and say the magic words, thank you, the more gratitude you feel.

3. The more gratitude you deliberately think and feel, the more abundance you receive."

Photo by Lucas Lenzi on Unsplash

As you keep learning and change both your attitude and thinking, your life will be changed for the better, moving forward. May you have it all, in due course, and get to share your enjoyment of life.

Click here for Jason Mraz - Have It All [Official Video].

Be blessed. Thank you for visiting Daily Refreshing.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Finding Your Freedom

Unless you are in a war zone, you have a lot of freedom going for you that you may have taken for granted such as freedom to access the internet, take a walk in the park and make your own choices. 

Photo by Rémi Jacquaint on Unsplash

However, there may still be some lingering constraints on your freedom to live the life that you wanna live within the boundaries of what is legal, moral and civil.

Click here for Don't Allow Your Life To Be Controlled By These 5 Things, namely:

1. Your PAST.

2. OTHER peoples opinions and judgements.

3. Limited BELIEFS you project on yourself.

4. RELATIONSHIPS.

5. MONEY.

PERMA Your Way To HAPPINESS

The PERMA model which was designed by Martin Seligman consists of the following five key ingredients which contribute to your well-being and happiness:

P – Positive Emotion

E – Engagement
R – Relationships
M – Meaning
A – Accomplishments


Click here to explore further.  

What's Your Passion?

At first glance, passion speaks of your thing -- the thing that infuses your body and soul with zest and zeal, unassisted. It is like an elderly pianist who comes alive when seated at the piano and his hands begin to work its magic on the keyboard.

You may say that your passion is reading. But, if you are sold out to buy books and nary make time to read them, then you are at best a book hoarder or tsundoku practitioner (someone who leaves a book unread after buying it, adding to the pile of other such unread books).

The other undergirding bedrock of passion, which does not come to mind at the first, is a willingness to suffer or go the distance in the pursuit of your element.

And, so you read a paper book, e-book or on the internet every so often without limiting to what you have already bought. You are an avid reader; that's your passion and it defines you to a great extent and will help you find your tribe of fellow readers -- and create even more magic!

Find you passion, pursue it and you will be clued in for "Life is great!".

Click here for Irene Cara - Flashdance What A Feeling (Official Music Video).

You Are Beautiful Just the Way You Are

Be inspired by Nick Vujicic. You are beautiful just the way you are.

Click here for Nick Vujicic: STAND STRONG (Most Powerful Speech). 

Click here for God’s Plan For Your Life - Nick Vujicic Inspirational & Motivational Video.

Click here for more on Nick Vujicic's Life Without Limbs.

Have You Found Your Happy Place?

A happy life is a matter of finding the right balance or a modicum of balance between work and play (or study and play, if you are still a student). Too much work without sufficient rest and recreation will wear and tear you out. 

On the other hand, too much play while others are working their butts out will degenerate you as you are not engaged with sufficient challenges to stimulate your brain.

Thank God there is not only Friday but also a happy place you can go to find some solace after the riot of events and demands of each working day. 

Your happy place could well be that little corner in a cafe where you can have breakfast while you read through the newspaper. Perhaps your lunch date at your favourite jaunt would be the thing. For some it may well be the watering hole where they have their 'Happy Hours' with drinking buddies after work.

That said, one of your happy place would be at home unless you have been taking it for granted or due to special circumstances it is not so happening at home (our empathy goes out to you, but don't give up on yourself; you deserve to be happy!).

Your dressing table (ladies only) could well be your happy place. If you don't even like yourself, no problem. Click here for Self-Approval: How To Love Yourself When You Don't With Rose Cole to get some useful tips on how to get your life into alignment (and appreciate the little things; live life with celebration).

The kitchen is another strong contender for a happy place if you have a thing or two going with pots, pans, oven and food for happy tummies.

The dining area, living room or bedroom where you relax with loved ones are surefire happy places.

Then there is your most private space such as a study desk or bed which would be best if they are right up there as one of your happiest place. Now, if you can't be happy here, then you need to address your inner state of happiness. 

Click here for 6 Ways To Live A Happy Life by Daniel Ally which are summarised as follows:

1. Appreciate Everything

2. Stop Complaining 

3. Tell The Truth 

4. Search Your Heart

5. Confide With Someone 

6. Trust Yourself 

7. Stop Comparing (Comparison with others is the thief of joy) 

By the way, click here for 8 Ways You’ll Find Your Happy Place With TrollsTopia At Universal Studio Sentosa.

As you become happy on the inside, you will attract even more happiness. Go spread some happiness for free and in your freedom today!

Eat Well, Look Good and Feel Great

Mind what you eat as there is a grain of truth in the oft-quoted phrase of "You are what you eat".

The above signage eludes that when you eat well it would yield the consequential benefits of looking great (younger, usually) and feeling great (happy).

Well, before you watch the following clips, if you are on medication or suffering from some ailments then it would be best for you to follow your physician's advice on your prescribed diet. 

Also, as always, moderation and variety are the cardinal rules to a well-balanced diet of health-giving food.

Click here for 10 Foods That Make You Look 10 Years Younger.

Click here for Top 10 Foods that Makes you Look Beautiful.

Click here for 10 Foods to Eat to Fight Depression, which are as follows:-

1.   Green tea

2.   Almonds

3.   Salmon

4.   Dark chocolate

5.   Eggs 

6.   Bananas

7.   Avocados 

8.   Blueberries

9.   Spinach 

10. Asparagus

Take Charge of Your Life

You will be a happier person if you learn how to take charge of your life. Unless you are the duly elected governor of the day with a mandate to change the law and order in your sphere of influence, you will not be in a position to dictate your circumstances.

Thus, you will find yourself bombarded by externalities and pulled ever so often in so many ways by the different demands exerted on you. For example, if you commute by train or drive your car to work during peak hours it would be a no-brainer that you would have to jostle with the crowd or get stuck in a traffic jam. 

You have the power to choose. You can intentionally form a new habit of, say, sleeping earlier and getting up earlier so that you can get to work breezily way before the sleepyheads make their presence felt. 

What if a garbage truck came by in the morning and dumped its filth on your front door? This literally means a bad day where an irritable someone (anyone for that matter who got up on the wrong side of the bed) come by your desk and blast you with a piece of his mind for the slightest of reasons and you are left wondering "What was that all about?!". Worse still, you might find yourself reacting with a fistful of insults, as well.

You take charge of your life when you decide on your game plan for the day and focus on getting your things done. In this way, when you can avoid disruptions or interruptions (e.g. traffic jam and crowded train) or remain unruffled by the nonsense that is thrown at you so that you can achieve what you want while staying calm and composed (Think: "Keep Calm").

In other words, if you remain a sailboat, you will be tossed and turned by the wind while working frantically to tack your sails so that you can stay on course. Why not be like a powerboat instead where you are oblivious to the wind as you have the ability to plough straight through the waves towards your port of call?

Photo by Alin Meceanu on Unsplash

If you are aimless and clueless as to what you need to tackle for the day or what you want in your life, you will be distracted all around and will not be able to operate at full capacity. In this operating environment of your brain, you have no pre-determine priorities and life's goals; you are merely reacting to circumstances, including the priorities and wishes of other people. 

When you plan your life (one day at a time) with medium and long term goals at the back of your mind, you will get to where you want to go and be the person you wanna become. You are like a powerboat that is pro-active and self-disciplined. Even when other people need your help, you are able to schedule in their needs into your next available time slot unless it is something that is both urgent and critical, in which case, you will have to attend immediately.  

The choice is clear. Choose wisely and make the change you want to see in your life. You have the power to change, and it's all up to you. Change for the better and you will emerge as a happy person!

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Measure What You Wanna Manage

If you wanna manage something, you need to pay attention to it and determine how to measure it.

Photo by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash

Let's say you want to curb your expenditure. What you could do would be to use Google sheets or an app to keep track of your daily expenditure so that you can analyse the bulk of your discretionary or non-essential expenses and then make a conscious decisions to cut back on them or buy cheaper alternatives.

If you want to have more personal time, you would need to be more conscious of what have been consuming your time. By your very act of measuring your time usage, you would be a better steward of time and become innovative in the use of time. For example, you could make use of idle time when queuing or travelling on public transport to do something productive like clearing emails or catching on news.

Same thing goes for your own happiness. That said you might wanna measure how many happiness habits you are able to cultivate based on the following clip.

Click here for 10 Habits of Happy People - How To Be Happy.  

Yup, taking Habit #1 of Being Grateful, why not start counting your blessing each day and name them one by one?

Standing Ovation for Humanity from Bollywood

In the human race, winning is not everything.

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash

Better yet, it is not about being better than others. It is all about being a better person from the inside out and demonstrated by the way we live with progressive improvement so that we can reach our highest potential.

The following clip was circulated in a chat group and I think you would find it to be a gentle reminder of what it means to love and another -- to be a better human. I don't think robots will ever get this.

5 Ways to Achieve Happiness by Brian Tracy

According to Mr Brian Tracy, the 5 ways to achieve happiness are as follows:

1. Listen to your heart.

2. Always be true to yourself.

3. Understand that you deserve to be happy.

4. Do the things that make you happy.

5. Pay the price.

Click here for How to Be Happy: 5 Steps to Living a Life You Love | Brian Tracy.

He says, ""When you decide to make your happiness the chief organizing principle of your life, everything else will fall into place." 

Photo by Isaiah McClean on Unsplash

His challenge to you at the end of the video is recap here:

"What one thing are you going to begin today to ensure you start living a life you love?"

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Likewise, the proof of happiness is in the actions taken.

if you are already living the life you love, good on you.