Tag: Kids

Everything in life is hard before it becomes easy. At almost every turn two roads open up: the easy one, and the one that is actually worth taking. The easy road asks nothing of us today and costs us later. The other road asks a great deal today and pays us back for years. Here are the places where the two part company.

With the people in our care

• It is easier to punish a child than to patiently raise one.
• It is easier to use emotional blackmail than to lift people through leadership.

With what we have and what we earn

• It is easier to take than to earn.
• It is easier to hoard than to share.
• It is easier to enjoy the glory alone than to share the spotlight.

With problems and promises

• Blaming is easier than solving.
• It is easier to abandon a commitment than to stand by it.
• It is easier to look on than to take the initiative.

With our attention and our work

• It is easier to be distracted than to focus.
• It is easier to look busy than to be productive.
• It is easier to repeat than to improve.
• It is easier to follow a path than to make one.

With other people

• Gossiping is easier than keeping a confidence.
• It is easier to blend into the crowd than to stand out from it.
• Spotting faults is easier than spotting greatness.

With our own hearts

• It is easier to be proud than to be grateful.
• It is easier to stay hurt than to forgive.

Choosing the other path

None of us takes the harder road every time. The point is to notice the fork when it appears. Each time you pick the worthwhile option, even once in a day, that road gets a little easier to walk, and in time it becomes the natural way you move through the world.

If you want your words to make sense, let them come out of silence. Sit quietly for five minutes every day.

A young woman once complained to her father that her life was miserable and she could not see how she would get through it. She was worn out from fighting and struggling all the time. Every time she solved one problem, another arrived straight after it.

Three pots on the fire

Her father, who was a chef, took her into the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and set each one over a high flame. When all three were boiling, he dropped potatoes into the first, eggs into the second and ground coffee beans into the third.

He let them boil and said nothing. His daughter sighed and fidgeted, waiting impatiently and wondering what he was up to. After twenty minutes he switched off the burners. He lifted out the potatoes and put them in a bowl, took out the eggs and put them in another, then ladled the coffee into a cup.

“What do you see?” he asked her.

“Potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she answered quickly.

Look closer

He asked her to touch the potatoes. They had gone soft. He asked her to crack an egg; once the shell was off, she found it had boiled hard. Last, he had her taste the coffee, and its rich smell made her smile. “What does it mean?” she asked.

Same water, three answers

Each of the three, he explained, had faced the same hardship: boiling water. Each had responded differently.

The potato went in firm, tough and unyielding, but the boiling water left it soft and weak.

The egg began fragile, its thin shell guarding a liquid centre. After the boiling water, its inside had turned hard.

The ground coffee beans were different from both. Once they met the boiling water, they changed the water itself and made something new.

“Which one are you?” he asked her. “When hardship comes knocking, how do you respond? Are you the potato, the egg or the coffee bean?”

What happens within

Things happen around us, and things happen to us, but what truly matters is what happens inside us. Some people start strong and are softened by trouble. Some start tender and are hardened by it. A few let the difficulty draw out something that changes the situation for the better.

So, which one are you?

Life brings every kind of situation and experience. Some leave us with good feelings and thoughts. Others start a steady trickle of negativity that seems never to stop. Whether you let that negativity grow inside you or keep it in check is your decision. Here are four steps towards a positive mind, and towards leaving negativity behind for good.

1. Live in the present

Nobody has superpowers. You cannot change what has already happened, and you cannot see what the future holds. The only thing within your reach is to enjoy the moment you are in. Every minute spent reliving the past or worrying about tomorrow is a minute taken away from the one place you can actually act.

2. Keep positive people around you

Extrovert or introvert, you have to deal with people. Negative people pull you towards negative beliefs, gloomy outlooks and discouraging stories. Keep your distance from them, and spend your time with people who spread good energy. Moods spread, so choose carefully what you let rub off on you.

3. Start the day with a positive feeling

Simply tell yourself something like “Today will be a good day” or “Whatever happens, I am happy today.” Talking to yourself kindly does not mean you are losing your mind. It shows a mind turned towards the good, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

4. Meet challenges with a positive attitude

Learn to turn mistakes, failures and heartbreaks into valuable lessons for life. Face your fears head on, and overcome whatever is stopping you from living a full and satisfying life.

The thread through all four

None of these steps asks you to pretend that bad things do not happen. They ask you to choose where your attention goes: to the present rather than the past, to people who lift you rather than drain you, to a hopeful first thought rather than a fearful one, and to the lesson rather than the wound.

Jealousy is a sharp, stinging emotion. It can leave us bitter, even hostile, towards another person, whether we know them well or have never met them.

What envy actually is

Envy is the discomfort of seeing someone else happy. It might be their success at work or something in their personal life. Whatever it is, the moment you notice what they have achieved, you begin measuring it against what you have.

Everyone does it. That is not the problem

All of us envy other people at times. Fair enough. The trouble starts when you let that feeling seep into every thought and emotion you have about that person, or about yourself. At that point you lose touch with your own reality.

The grass and the rain cloud

When all your attention goes to what others are doing on their greener patch of grass, you fail to notice why yours looks darker: you are standing under your own rain cloud. The gloom is coming from where you stand, not from what you have.

One life, and it is yours

You get one life, and it is your own. Spend it comparing yourself with others and resenting everything they have that you want, and there will be no space left for motivation. The negativity will fill every corner of it.

The way out starts with noticing. When the comparison begins, bring your attention back to your own ground: what you are building, what you are grateful for, and what you can do next. Your energy is limited. Spend it on your own garden, not on watching someone else’s.

If you daydream a lot, your brain may simply have more thinking capacity to spare, enough that it can drift off while you do something easy.

How to tell

Do you look as though you are miles away, yet manage to snap back to the task without having missed anything important? Then you probably have an efficient brain. Letting the mind wander in this way seems to give your working memory a workout.

Working memory is the brain’s mental workbench: the space that lets it hold and juggle several thoughts at the same time. The more working memory a person has, the more they can daydream without losing track of what they are supposed to be doing.

Good or bad?

There are several views on whether a wandering mind helps or hinders. Unlike other animals, humans spend a great deal of time thinking about things that are not happening in front of them: going back over events in the past, picturing what might happen in the future, or imagining things that may never happen at all. In fact, drifting thought appears to be the brain’s natural resting state.

Where it costs you

Working memory can help you concentrate, but once your mind starts to wander, those mental resources get pulled elsewhere and you can lose sight of what you were trying to do. Most of us have arrived home with no memory of the journey, or suddenly realised we have turned several pages of a book without taking in a single word.

Where it pays you back

For the most part, though, a mind that roams freely from one thought to the next brings real benefits, because that is how fresh ideas and new approaches are born. For all its drawbacks, it is perfectly fine to let your thoughts drift every now and then.

We often wish someone would show us the whole picture of our lives. It is not always good for us, because seeing everything at once would easily overwhelm us.

The wish to know

Now and then we catch ourselves wanting to know what our lives will look like, and what gifts and difficulties the coming months or years will bring. We want to know whether our present relationship will last, or whether our goals will be reached. Faced with a decision, we want to know in advance which choice will work out best. Some people even turn to fortune-tellers, their dreams and all kinds of other sources, hoping to find out what lies ahead. At most we get fleeting glimpses.

We may believe we want the whole story in full detail. In truth, knowing everything that is going to happen to us would probably leave us swamped and worn out.

Look at what you have already lived

Think about your life so far. Like most people, you have probably done more and faced more than you could ever have pictured. If someone had told you as a child about every job and every relationship you would go through, with all their ups and downs, you would have been overwhelmed. With your head crammed with facts about the future, you would have struggled to live in the present moment, and the present is where everything actually happens.

Not knowing is how we grow

In many ways, not knowing what is coming draws out of us the very qualities we need to grow. It would have been hard to give yourself fully to certain people or projects if you had known they would not work out in the end. Yet it was by sticking with them that you learned the lessons you needed.

Look back over your life and you would struggle to name anything that should not have happened. Your hardest experiences, and the lessons that came with them, may well have brought you your greatest rewards. Not knowing the future keeps us in the right place: wholehearted, and living in the present.

PERMA is often described as the simplest, most basic guide to finding happiness. It names five core elements that feed our sense of wellbeing. Here is what you need to know if happiness is what you are after.

The psychologist Martin Seligman, often called the father of positive psychology, argues that happiness has a formula. He sets out five elements that strongly shape how happy and fulfilled a person feels: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement. Together they spell PERMA, and together they give practical pointers towards a happier life.

P for positive emotion: feeling good

A positive attitude is central to happiness. That does not mean smiling all the time. Quite the opposite: it should never mean bottling up any emotion. Building positive emotion means accepting and understanding your negative thoughts and feelings, learning where they come from and why, and gradually getting better at finding the brighter side of each situation.

E for engagement: finding flow

Doing something that truly matters to us keeps us fully in the present. That absorption brings a deep sense of joy, of mattering, of purpose and of happiness. To raise our happiness and keep it there, we need to let ourselves explore and find activities that absorb every one of our senses. Finding our drive and passion also means putting ourselves first sometimes, and saying no to whatever does not leave us immersed, inspired and energised.

R for relationships: real connection

To put this element into practice, look at the relationships you have now and work on their quality. Nurturing close bonds with friends, family, relatives and partners gives us a solid, healthy foundation, and the support and care we need throughout life. Spending real time together, backing one another and taking a genuine interest in each other’s lives builds healthy connections that deepen our sense of purpose, belonging and happiness.

M for meaning: a life with purpose

Meaning and purpose add hugely to happiness, because we all feel a pull to give our lives to something far larger than ourselves, something beyond the chase for money and passing pleasures. Finding purpose means setting aside small, short-lived rewards and looking at the bigger picture. Write down your dreams and goals. Ask yourself what you want to be remembered for and what you want to leave behind. And do not be alarmed if your dreams look too big for now.

A for achievement: a sense of accomplishment

Reaching our goals adds a great deal to our overall happiness and fulfilment. Achievement is closely tied to meaning and to goal-setting. Meeting a goal of any size confirms our strength, our ability and our staying power. When we stick with a goal and put all our energy, creativity and time into it, our happiness grows because we have given ourselves to something worthwhile.

Putting PERMA to work

• Knowing the model exists is the first step to using it. Keep looking at things from a positive angle.
• Find what makes you happy and fully absorbed.
• Invest in your relationships with family and friends by making time to connect and simply enjoy being together.
• Work out what gives your life meaning and purpose. It is different for everyone.

A short guided practice can help you see how cravings rise up in your mind and body. Once you can see them, you have a real chance of breaking free from unhealthy habits.

Our minds are wired to crave. When a craving arrives, we have two options. We can feed it, or we can notice what set it off and work with that. Here is a simple practice for the second option.

Settle into a comfortable position

Start by getting comfortable, in whatever posture suits you at this moment. There is no correct pose. Just let yourself settle.

Tune in to your body

Turn your attention to the physical sensations you can feel. Check in with your body. How does it feel right now? Are you holding tension anywhere? You might start with your feet and the other places where you touch the ground or the chair: your knees, your hips, your hands, your shoulders. Notice your breath, the simple fact of breathing. Be genuinely curious about what is going on inside you right now.

Rest in that awareness

Notice what it is like simply to rest in awareness of your body. Notice, too, what it is like to realise that you can become aware of these sensations at all. That realisation matters. It means you do not have to be ruled by your cravings. You can study them with curiosity, one moment at a time.

Watch for other urges

For the last few minutes, stay aware of your body and look out for any other urges that come up. There may be a pull to drift into daydreams, or a pull to scold yourself over something that happened earlier in the day or the week. Do not push them away. Go straight towards them and explore them, holding each sensation with the same gentle, curious attention.

Why it works

A habit runs on autopilot: the urge appears and we act on it before we have even noticed it. This practice puts a small gap between the urge and the action. In that gap, the craving becomes something you can look at rather than something that simply happens to you, and you get to choose what to do next.

Two sisters, both in middle age, were making a long train journey from one end of the country to the other. Bad weather forced the train to stop at a small station halfway, where it had to wait until conditions eased and the line was cleared. The passengers were stuck on board for hours.

The older sister

The older sister was irritated and fed up. She complained sharply to the guards, who could do nothing about it either. She sulked without pause and became a nuisance to everyone travelling with her.

The younger sister

The younger sister would not let the hold-up spoil her mood. She moved cheerfully through the train, made friends, swapped jokes, played with the children, got people singing in one carriage after another, and generally lifted everyone’s spirits.

Strangers warmed to her. They shared their food, asked her to join them, and threw themselves into the games she organised to keep everyone amused.

Journey’s end

When the train at last pulled into its final station, the older sister was gloomy, low and worn out. As far as she was concerned, the whole trip had been a waste of time.

The younger sister had enjoyed herself enormously. She had made plenty of new friends, had fresh experiences, and kept her good mood and good humour the whole way.

What made the difference

The younger sister enjoyed the trip in spite of the delay and discomfort because she made the most of the moment she was in. The older sister was unhappy because she was waiting for her surroundings to improve. She had put her happiness off until some later point when everything would be just right.

Every day brings each of us a share of problems, obstacles, rewards and successes. Given that, living in the present opens up the most of what life has to offer. We can pay attention to what is going on around us and enjoy the small pleasures that are available right here, right now. Yet most of us stay caught up in old griefs, regrets and failures, or in worries about the future.

The past is finished. The future has not arrived. The only thing that is real is this moment, so use it well. Take hold of these moments, because none of them will come round again. Take hold of the now.

A monkey once lived a happy, easy life in the jungle. When he was hungry he ate ripe fruit, and when he was tired he rested.

One day he wandered up to a house and spotted a bowl of the loveliest apples he had ever seen. He grabbed one in each hand and raced back into the trees. When he sniffed them, they had no smell at all. When he bit into one, it hurt his teeth. The apples were carved from wood. Still, they were beautiful, and when the other monkeys noticed them, he only gripped them tighter.

Too precious to put down

He carried his treasures proudly through the forest. They shone red in the sunlight and looked flawless to him. He grew so attached to them that at first he did not even notice he was getting hungry.

The sight of a fruit tree jogged his memory, but he could feel the apples in his hands and could not stand to put them down to pick anything. Nor could he ever relax, since he always had to guard them. So on he went along the jungle paths, prouder than before and a good deal less happy.

The moment he let go

The apples seemed to weigh more with every step, and the poor monkey began to wonder about leaving them behind. He was worn out and hungry, and with both hands full he could neither climb nor gather food. What if he simply dropped them?

Throwing away something so valuable felt like madness, but what choice did he have? He was exhausted. When he reached the next fruit tree and caught the scent of real fruit, that settled it. He let the wooden apples fall, reached up for his dinner, and was happy once more.

Our own wooden apples

We are often like that monkey, hauling around things that feel too precious to give up. Picture a man who holds on to the idea of himself as someone who is always productive, carrying it like a gleaming wooden apple. In truth, all that busyness leaves him drained and hungry for a better life. Even so, putting it down feels unthinkable. Even his worries become treasured apples, proof that he is doing everything he possibly can, and he clutches them without being able to stop.

Ask yourself what you are holding that looks beautiful and feeds you nothing. Your hands have to be empty before they can reach for what nourishes you.