Tag: Parents

People come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Once you work out which it is, you know how to respond. It helps to understand why someone is in your life, and to value them for exactly what they are.

For a reason

When someone enters your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need, one you have spoken aloud or only felt inside. They arrive to help you through a difficulty, to give you guidance and support, or to help you physically or emotionally. They can feel like a gift sent at just the right moment, and in a sense they are. They are there because you need them to be.

Then, through no fault of yours, and often at an awkward time, they say or do something that brings the relationship to an end. Sometimes they simply walk away. What we need to understand is that our need has been met and our wish fulfilled. Their part is done. What we hoped for has arrived, and now it is time to move on.

For a season

When people come into your life for a season, it is because your time has come to share, to grow or to learn. They may bring you a sense of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done before. Often they give you an extraordinary amount of joy. Believe it, because it is real. But it lasts only for a season.

For a lifetime

Lifetime relationships teach lifetime lessons: the things you must build on to have a solid emotional foundation. Your task is to accept the lesson, love the person, and carry what you have learned into all your other relationships and into the rest of your life.

It is said that love is blind, but friendship sees clearly. Whichever kind of person you are thinking of right now, be grateful for what they brought.

Nelson Mandela once observed that what binds us to one another is human compassion. Not pity, and not looking down on others, but the understanding of people who have learned to transform the pain they share into hope.

So here are a few dares for today, to help you show a little more compassion to the people around you. Try them, and by the end of the day you may find yourself more mindful, and happier.

Show compassion to someone

Whatever you are going through yourself, you can always make another person feel good in some small way. Pay someone a compliment. Hold the door open. Stop to help someone stranded by the roadside. Cook something for a friend who has just been through a painful break-up or a hard time. Put simply, do one unplanned kind thing, and see how inventive you can be.

Offer a hug

Some people stand in busy streets holding a sign that offers free hugs, and it works well because everyone knows what to expect. When did you last hug someone who needed it? The truth is that many people feel quite lonely. A warm embrace, offered where it is welcome, can ease that feeling, even if only for a moment.

Call someone you keep meaning to

Today, pick up the phone and call the person you have been meaning to talk to for ages. It could be an old friend, a distant relative, a former teacher, or someone you once knew well. Ask how they have been. There is nothing to lose.

Write a letter by hand

When did you last receive a handwritten letter? We read emails and messages all day, but none of them feels like opening an envelope from a friend or relative. If you can remember how excited you were to receive a letter you had been waiting for, imagine how the person you write to will feel.

Some lessons cannot be taught in a classroom. They arrive slowly, through years of living. Here are a few of them, put as simply as possible.

Change is the only constant

Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. The good days pass, and so do the hard ones. Holding this lightly makes both easier to live through.

Hatred ends only through love

An old teaching from the Buddha says that hatred never ends through more hatred. It ends only through love. Answering anger with anger only adds fuel.

Mind your inner voice

Pay attention to the conversation running inside your head. And before you speak, think.

Understand before you are understood

If you want to be happy, stop waiting for others to understand you. Try instead to understand them, and to understand yourself.

Let tradition comfort, not confine

Traditions can bring real comfort. But they should not decide what is real for you, or you risk never growing beyond them.

Love wants the other to be well

Love does not say, “You make me happy.” Love says, “I want you to be happy.” The first is about what we receive. The second is about what we give.

Strive, and be content

Every result has a cause. So always have goals, but always keep a sense of contentment alongside them. Ambition without contentment never rests.

You choose your response

You will not always be able to control what goes on around you, but you can always choose how you respond.

And one last lesson to carry into the night: all you truly own is what is with you when you close your eyes to sleep. So make sure that what fills your mind is worth keeping.

Sometimes you simply cannot have what you want at this very moment. There is a time for everything.

Nothing worth having takes two minutes

When did you last do something truly worthwhile in two minutes? Have you ever had a deep, heartfelt conversation that lasted a single minute? Made something beautiful in ninety seconds? Even a song takes longer than that to listen to, and far, far longer to write. By now you know that two minutes is too short for almost anything that matters.

So instead of rushing to be first at something, wait, and give it time. Give it time to come to you, and give yourself time to reach it. Everything takes time, and it is often best not to hurry what you most want to be good at. Becoming skilled can take a great deal of time and practice. Making mistakes is another vital part of the process, because you learn so much from them.

Life is meant to be savoured

Life was made to be enjoyed. It is not meant to be rushed through or let slip by. It is meant to be savoured, just like the search for the right thing should be. Sometimes the trials and setbacks are simply part of the journey. Sometimes you have to learn a few things before you can achieve something great.

The power of slow

Slow down, and much of what you are chasing will catch up with you. In almost everything, thinking long term and making steady progress, day by day, is what produces real results. That is the power of slow. With patience, discipline and hard work, you will eventually stumble upon a breakthrough.

Do not force it

The most important thing is not to force it. When you are stuck and feel like banging your head against a wall, it is wise to step back and walk away for a while. Let the problem quietly settle in the back of your mind.

The same holds for anything you set out to do. Do not begin with enormous goals or expect instant results. All good things take time, and accepting this simple idea makes everything go more smoothly. The only real measure is whether you are getting a little closer to your goal each day. If you are searching for a breakthrough, give it a couple of hours of focused, deliberate thought, but do not exhaust yourself. Then take a break, and let your quieter mind take over.

Have you ever wondered what makes Nobel Prize winners exceptional? How do they arrive at original ideas and make breakthrough discoveries? Their work has changed the world for the better and laid foundations for progress and social change. Here are six of their lessons, each worth carrying into an ordinary day.

Malala Yousafzai: knowledge over violence

The young campaigner for girls’ education taught us to put knowledge before violence, and that education is what allows a society to live in peace and prosper. As she said when accepting her prize, books and pens are the most powerful weapons we have.

Nelson Mandela: conquering fear

He showed the difference between feeling fear and being ruled by it. In his words, the brave man is not the one who never feels afraid, but the one who conquers that fear. You cannot move towards your goals while fear is allowed to block the road.

George Bernard Shaw: make your circumstances

The playwright and critic, who won the prize for literature in 1925, believed that circumstances are made, not given. He observed that the people who get on in the world are the ones who look for the circumstances they want, and, if they cannot find them, make them. So take action and do everything in your power to reach your dreams.

Niels Bohr: learn from your mistakes

The physicist, honoured in 1922 for work that shaped our understanding of the atom, taught that it is fine to make mistakes, because none of us is perfect. What matters is learning from them so we do not repeat them. He described an expert as someone who has discovered, through painful experience, every mistake that can be made in a very narrow field.

Rudyard Kipling: the power of words

The author reminds us that words carry extraordinary power. They can open many doors, but they can also wound very easily. So think before you speak, and you will have nothing to regret later. He called words the most powerful drug humanity uses.

Martin Luther King Jr: the beauty of brotherhood

Among his many lessons is the value of true companionship. Good friends make life easier, motivate and inspire us, and stand beside us when we need them. As he put it, genuine brotherhood and peace are more precious than diamonds, silver or gold.

A writer once arranged, over a few chat messages, to meet a couple at the coffee shop of a large hotel. He had never met them in person before. He arrived a little early and sat taking in the beautifully designed interior.

Any orders, sir?

An attentive waiter was hovering nearby, ready to serve. Their eyes met, the writer smiled, and the waiter bent down politely and asked, “What may I do for you, sir? Any orders, sir?” The writer glanced at the name plate on his uniform.

“I am waiting for two wonderful friends,” he replied, using the waiter’s name. “May I wait until they come? Then I will certainly request something from you. I will not order. I will request.”

The waiter was taken aback by such an unusual reply. Then he smiled, and stood up a little straighter.

Something that had never happened before

Soon the couple walked in, both wearing broad smiles. The next three quarters of an hour were full of laughter. As the three of them stood up to leave, something happened that the writer had never experienced before.

The waiter came over, smiling, and said, “You all look so happy together. Maybe you would like a photograph? I can take it on your phone.” He took several lovely pictures, the kind that are treasured for a long time.

The questions that stayed

They said goodbye, but a few questions refused to leave. Was it right to say, “I will not order, I will request”? What made the waiter step forward and offer to take that photograph? And do happy people make the world around them happier too?

Perhaps the answer to all three is the same. When we treat people as people, and not as functions, they stand a little taller, and the warmth we give tends to find its way back to us.

When we look at other people, we notice all kinds of qualities in endless combinations. Yet the qualities we pick out are often closely tied to traits that already exist within us. Like tends to attract like. The people we feel drawn to often reflect something of our inner selves back at us, and we do the same for them.

What we admire

Put simply, when you look at others, you are likely to see what is also in you. When you notice beauty, sweetness or a kind of inner light in someone, you may be recognising goodness that lives in you as well.

What irritates us

The same is true of the harder feelings. When someone stirs up anger, annoyance or even hatred in you, you may be seeing a reflection of parts of yourself that you have pushed away or do not like.

It is easy to spot the traits we dislike in others. It is much harder to admit that we carry those same traits. Often, the habits and attitudes in others that bother us most are linked to unresolved issues of our own that we have not yet looked at.

Learning from the mirror

Because we all act as mirrors for one another, the people in your life can teach you a great deal about yourself. Who you are can be laid bare by what you notice in them.

When you meet someone you admire, look within for the same admirable qualities. They may be there, waiting to grow. Seeing yourself through the way you see others can be humbling and eye opening. It also gives you a choice: you can deliberately grow the traits you do like.

Nurture compassion and empathy, and let the goodness you see in others become the mirror you live by.

Some things, once we let them go, make life far easier and much happier. Yet we hold on to so much that causes us pain, stress and suffering. Instead of releasing it and allowing ourselves to feel lighter, we cling on tighter.

Starting today, decide to give up whatever no longer serves you, and welcome change for the better. Here are three places to begin.

Give up the need to always be right

Many of us cannot bear the idea of being wrong. We want to be right even if it means ending a good relationship, or causing a great deal of stress and pain for ourselves and others. It is simply not worth it.

The next time you feel the urgent pull to jump into an argument over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself one question: is winning this worth more to me than being kind? Notice how much that question changes.

Give up complaining

Let go of the constant need to complain about the many people, situations and events that make you unhappy, sad or low. No person and no situation can make you miserable unless you allow it. It is not the situation itself that stirs up those feelings, but how you choose to see it and respond to it.

Never underestimate the power of staying calm and positive when trouble arrives. It changes what happens next.

Give up your excuses

Very often we hold ourselves back with the excuses we keep repeating. Instead of growing and working to improve ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, telling ourselves stories that are usually not even true.

Send those excuses packing, and tell them they are not welcome back. You no longer need them.

There are few better ways to escape the worries of everyday life than to climb up into the welcoming arms of a tree house. Nestled among the branches, screened by a wall of green, we feel as sheltered as a fledgling.

Above the everyday

At that height, breathing comes easier and thoughts run clearer, as the leaves around us refresh the air. We float above the busy world on the ground and enjoy a bird’s eye view of everything going on below.

We can climb up by ourselves, or bring along someone dear. Either way, it is our private world, where we decide who comes and who goes. It is a refuge where we can be completely ourselves, put down the masks the world below expects us to wear, and let out our most hidden secrets, dreams and wishes. It is also a perfect place from which to watch the life that carries on beneath the branches.

A new view

Often, a fresh view of a situation is exactly what we need to answer a hard question, solve a stubborn problem, or notice something we have been missing. Up high, it feels as if we can reach a wider kind of awareness. We can draw on that lightness to renew ourselves, to relax and to let new ideas arrive. When we climb back down, we return to the world clearer, calmer and often more inspired.

Your own piece of sky

If it has been a long time since you sat in a tree house, perhaps now is the time to build one, or to find one you can borrow. If a real tree house is out of reach, think of other places that could give you the same feeling: a rooftop corner, a quiet grove of trees on a hill, a sunny attic.

Or simply close your eyes, and picture yourself settled into your perfect home in the branches of your favourite tree. Even that small climb can lift you.

The signs of a rut are easy to spot: the ideas dry up and the spark goes missing. You spend more and more time on your work, yet nothing useful seems to get done. Whether you are a working professional, a writer, a student or anyone else, these simple moves can help you break out of the same old routine.

Start with the small tasks

When you are stuck, begin small. Clear away the minor tasks that have been piling up. Answer your emails, sort out your documents, tidy your workspace and reply to personal messages. Each small thing finished gives you a little momentum, and momentum is what a rut takes away.

Step away from your desk

Get away from where you work. Walk around the building, go outside, fetch a snack. Your mind is weighed down and needs some fresh air. A short change of scene often clears what hours of staring could not.

Talk to a friend

Talk to someone and take your mind off work for a while. It can be about anything, from light chatter to a deep conversation about something you truly care about. You may be surprised at how much a short exchange can refresh you.

Paint a vision to work towards

If you keep falling into the same rut, perhaps there is no vision pulling you forward. Ask what this work is for, and where it is leading. What is the destination you have in mind? Make that picture as vivid as you can, and think about everything it makes possible. Be sure it is a vision that genuinely inspires you, then use it as the spark that moves you to act.

And while you climb out, remember one more thing. Worrying a little every day can cost you years over a lifetime. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. Otherwise, train yourself not to worry. Worry has never fixed anything.