Tag: Young Adults

We all enjoy meeting people who share our interests and beliefs. Yet we also need people who can disagree with us, because they sharpen our choices and deepen our understanding of each other. Here is why disagreement matters so much, and why the people who often disagree with you deserve to be valued.

They are the ones talking to you

Like it or not, disagreement is one thing everyone can agree on. It means someone is listening to you and trying to engage with you. It shows when someone takes the trouble to explain their feelings and their reasons for differing. You may bristle at first, yet in the end this is someone who values your relationship enough to be honest with you. People take a risk when they tell you they disagree, because they believe you are worth talking to.

You see the world more clearly

You are not always right, however unwelcome that thought may be. If you only ever look at the world through your own eyes, you may miss the things you cannot see or do not know about. When people disagree with you, they bring experience, knowledge and views you may never have come across or understood.

You learn who you can trust

A disagreement is one of the best ways to see a person’s true self. Anyone can act kind and pleasant, but when there is a disagreement, the pretence falls away and the real person shows. When you disagree with someone, you find out whether this is a person you want to be with and whether you can truly enjoy their company.

The years after college can be rough. We land in the working world with low pay, relationships that shift under our feet, and a strong feeling of being adrift. Most of us gather a few hard lessons on the way to adulthood. If you have not yet, these are worth hearing.

A life is simply a string of days. Make each one good, notice it, enjoy it and love what is there, and over time you will have built a good life. That is really all it takes. Read these reminders often. They tend to let more light into your days and more calm into your heart.

Now is where you live

Your life is not somewhere ahead of you. It is happening today, in this place, at this minute. Give yourself wholly to the present and you will feel more awake than ever before.

Everything has its season

Some days call for solitude and some for the company of those you love. Some bring happiness and some bring grief. The sooner we make peace with that rhythm, the calmer we feel, and the less any change or challenge throws us.

Every dawn is a clean slate

Life is kind in one simple way: each new day offers another chance to begin, to put yesterday down and set out again.

We only borrow what we hold

Nothing stays as it is. We love to grip things and call them ours, yet in truth we keep none of it. When our time here ends, we leave with empty hands.

Hard times come sized to your strength

Each experience and each encounter, however painful, can shape you into who you are meant to become. When life piles a great deal on you, take it as an invitation to find the courage and strength buried deep within.

You already have wings

You carry more strength, beauty, wisdom and power than you realise. Trust yourself as fully as you hope others will trust you, and you will find the potential you were born with. Then use it, and let it lift you.

Do not abandon your own road

You have a path that is yours and a purpose only you can serve. However strongly people around you press you to pause your life for theirs, do not give in.

Choose solitude over poor company

Keep close to people who are wise, kind, loving, honest and principled. If no such companion can be found, then walk on by yourself, as a king walks away from a kingdom he has won, or as an elephant roams the forest on its own.

Your worth is not your output

Do not let ego convince you that you are not enough as you are, or that you must turn into someone important to prove your value. Being busy and capable is fine. Trouble starts when you measure your worth only by how much you get done and how well you do it.

Real generosity grows out of caring for another person without conditions. Each of us depends on others for the good things in our lives. We thrive or struggle together through a web of generous acts, coming from the kindness and integrity of people, many of whom we will never meet. That is the power of generosity, and when we practise it with awareness, we come into contact with its joyful, healing strength.

Letting go through giving

Practising generosity means setting out to free ourselves from the need to feed our ego, by giving freely of whatever we have that is of value. What we give may be material, or it may be our time, our energy or our wisdom.

We practise generosity to loosen the attachments that come from feeling that there is never enough and that we stand apart from others. It lets us see the world in terms of what we have and what we can give, instead of what we do not have and badly want.

Generosity all year round

Seasons of gift giving are a good time to ask how you might practise generosity through the rest of the year. There are many ways to build a generous attitude into daily life. A few are especially powerful:

• Be generous with your attention when someone is speaking to you.
• Be generous in celebrating another person’s happiness.
• Be generous with your sympathy for someone who has suffered a loss.
• Be generous with compliments and praise for others.
• Be generous with respect for others, without conditions.
• Be generous with your willingness to help.

None of these costs money. Each of them is something only you can give.

Do not give less than your best, and do not let yourself get sidetracked. You either finish strong or you finish badly. There is no comfortable middle ground.

The last runner in the stadium

The setting was the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. The marathon was the final event, and the stadium was packed and buzzing as the first runner, an Ethiopian athlete, came in and crossed the line to a huge roar.

Far behind him was another runner, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania. The other runners had long since left him behind. After thirty kilometres his head was pounding, his muscles ached, and he fell to the ground. His leg injuries were serious, and officials wanted him to retire from the race. He refused.

With his knee bandaged, Akhwari got back up and hobbled the last twelve kilometres of the course.

About an hour after the winner had finished, Akhwari entered the stadium. Only a few thousand spectators were still in their seats. He circled the track at an agonisingly slow pace and finally collapsed over the finish line.

Why he kept going

It is remembered as one of the most heroic efforts in Olympic history. Afterwards a reporter asked him why he had not dropped out. Akhwari replied that his country had not sent him to start the race. They had sent him to finish it.

A question for each of us

Put yourself in Akhwari’s shoes. Would you have kept going to the end? Most of us are not running marathons, but we all start things: a course, a job, a promise, a plan. The story asks whether we are only there to begin, or whether we see it through to the end, even when no one is left in the stands to watch.

Late one night, a teacher known far and wide for his wisdom walked up to a king’s palace. The guards recognised him and let him pass, and he went all the way in to where the king was sitting on his throne. The king knew him at once.

“You are welcome here,” said the king. “What brings you?”

“I would like a bed in this inn for the night,” the teacher said.

The king bristled. “An inn? This is my palace!”

Quietly, the teacher asked whom the palace had belonged to before the king.

“To my father, naturally. He passed away.”

“And before him?”

“My grandfather. He too is gone.”

“A place where one person after another stays for a time and then leaves,” said the teacher. “Is that not exactly what an inn is?”

Why the story stays with us

We speak of our homes, our positions and our possessions as if they were ours for good. The teacher’s gentle questions remind us that we are all guests passing through. Nothing we hold stays with us forever, and remembering that makes it easier to hold things lightly and to treat the people who come after us with care.

If you want to take your life or your business to the next level, you need to make full use of all twenty four hours in each day. That starts with a strong routine that sets you up for the day ahead. A few habits help build one.

Note what you learned and what went well

Write down the things you learned during the day and list at least three big wins. This builds the habit of recognising what you have achieved.

Look ahead

Think in advance about any roadblocks, difficult conversations or other problems that might come up, so they do not catch you off guard.

Keep your goals in view

It helps to keep a list of goals you are working towards across the different parts of your life. Give each one a few minutes of thought and picture it as if you had already achieved it.

Do not wait for motivation

Counting on waking up fired up every day is a recipe for disappointment. Drive rises and falls, even for the world’s highest achievers. What you need is a routine that helps you feel motivated and inspired, whether or not you woke up that way.

Give your mind a question for the night

Your brain keeps working while you sleep, just as it has all day. So before you sleep, hand it something to chew on: say aloud, or jot in a notebook, a question about a problem you are still stuck on.

How do you make the right decision when you are stuck in a dilemma, and how do you know it is the right one? Often we get stuck on even small choices, where heart and head keep pulling in different directions. Let us look at this more closely.

Desire and knowledge

Think of the heart as our desires, the things we want to do, and the head as our knowledge, the facts and information about those things. Confusion sets in when the two drift apart, when our wanting runs ahead of our knowing. At that point we cannot be sure how things will turn out. To clear the confusion and make the right choice, we need to bring ourselves to what the clipping calls the gut point.

Reaching the gut point

The gut point is reached when we back up our head with enough knowledge to meet the strength of our desire. Once head and heart line up, a way forward tends to appear, and we get a real gut feeling about how things are likely to turn out.

Whenever you feel unsure while deciding, build up your knowledge by gathering information and details. This helps you climb out of the dilemma and reach the point where you can picture the outcome clearly, good or bad. That clarity gives you the push to choose well.

An example

Say you work for a large company but have a strong wish to give up your job and become a freelance photographer. You have no formal training, but you love taking pictures. What should you do?

First, test that love. Take a short course or a workshop and do some real photography. Very often a desire is an illusion, born from comparing ourselves with someone else’s success. If your desire stays as strong, or grows stronger, start connecting with people in the field and look into ways of earning a living from photography. As your knowledge grows, your desire will grow with it. Sooner or later you will reach the gut point, with full information, a plan and a clear gut feeling about whether to go full time and leave your job.

In everyday life

The same approach works for ordinary decisions. If we get a positive feeling, we are probably on the right track. If it is negative, we need to change something. Unlike other living creatures, we humans can deepen our knowledge to understand things better and make choices that are good for us and good for others.

Saying “I am sorry” is supposed to help the other person feel better. Because the phrase has been used so carelessly for so long, it rarely does its job on its own. So here are ways to apologise without saying it at all.

Every relationship goes through rough patches. Handled the right way, a problem can actually bring two people closer. An apology expresses regret for something you did wrong and is a way to start putting things right.

Do their chores

If you live with the person you upset, let them walk into a spotless home with nothing left to do but kick back and rest. If you do not live together, find a fair and welcome way to help out anyway. After a big fight, when your friend or loved one is not taking your calls, you might wash their car or tidy their garden.

Write a poem

Write one, or find one, that shows how you feel about the person beyond this one disagreement. Keep it simple, and give it to the person you wronged.

Cook for them

Cook their favourite dish, and if you are not sure what that is, find out. You could go further and bake an actual apology cake with the words “I am sorry” in the icing, because good food has a way of reaching anyone’s heart. Even a cup of coffee made with extra care and a smile can do it.

Make a collage

Put together a collage of photos from wonderful places you have been together, or happy times you have shared. Add a short message, something like: “Nothing matters more to me than the happy moments you have brought into my life.”

Take responsibility

Be as specific as you can when you own up to what you did. A specific apology means more to the other person, because it shows you have truly understood what hurt them.

Put your enthusiasm into a hobby and a whole new world of possibilities opens up. Hobbies feed the soul. They lift our spirits, restore our energy and refresh the mind. They can be so stimulating that they create moments of real delight. Anyone who calls hobbies a waste of time should reconsider. And if you believe you could never step away from work long enough for one, that is probably the best sign you need it. Here is why.

Recharge

When we do something we enjoy, we can step away from everyday worries and recharge. Leisure that gives us pleasure helps us recover from the demands of busy, even frantic, lives.

A creative spark

Hobbies can be healing, and they can rekindle our spark. They calm the mind and let us slip away from the outside world to reconnect with ourselves, leaving us refreshed and full of energy. Having a passionate interest that helps us unwind makes us happier, and that in turn makes us more successful in everything else we do.

Learn about yourself

Our hobbies say a lot about who we are. Doing something only because we enjoy it teaches us much about ourselves: our likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, fears and beliefs. Take meditation: it shows you how restless your thoughts can get and how badly they need a quiet pause from time to time. A pastime can uncover parts of you and bring out talents you never knew you had.

Perspective

Hobbies give us a balanced view of life beyond work. They remind us how important it is to make time for ourselves and to refresh both mind and spirit. When responsibilities pile up, a hobby gives us something to look forward to. Putting energy into recovery matters just as much as putting it into work. Stepping back from life’s pressures does not only revive us. It also helps us see the bigger picture, the whole forest rather than just the trees. And you never know where a hobby might lead: to interesting new people, or even to a new career.

A boost to self-esteem

A hobby will challenge you, mentally or physically. As you rise to those challenges, your confidence grows. Solving problems and becoming good at something is both exciting and rewarding.

Keep it in balance

Overall, a hobby improves both the quality of your life and your success. But be sensible about it. A hobby should not swallow the rest of your life. Some people, for instance, pursue health and fitness to the point of cutting themselves off, giving up time with others to keep control over their food, workouts and routine. A hobby should bring balance to your life, not drive every choice you make.

Anyone who has worked in an office or been to school knows how much harm a rumour can cause. Avoiding rumours altogether would be ideal, but sometimes you simply cannot stop one from spreading about you. The best approach is to build habits that make future rumours less likely, and to deal with any rumour calmly and promptly.

Keep people informed

Rumours tend to grow around people who are very private about their lives or who rarely talk with those around them. There is no need to share every detail of your life with everyone. But letting a few people know how you are and what is happening helps. Then, if a rumour does start, it is harder for anyone to believe, because people already know the real story.

Treat people kindly

Not every rumour begins with close friends or family. Many start with people who do not know you well, which makes it easy for them to invent things. That is why it pays to be kind to everyone. The kinder you are, the less likely people are to act out of spite and try to damage your name. Even with people who are hard to get along with, aim at least to be kind.

If you harm someone else’s reputation, you are more likely to find a rumour spreading about you, and you will be in no position to blame anyone for it.

Do not spread rumours yourself

It really is that simple. Passing rumours along makes you part of the harm done to others. If you do it, you are no better than the person who spread one about you.

Do not take it personally

Some people carry bitterness or ill will and spread rumours because it makes them feel better about themselves. Others mishear something and pass it on without meaning any harm. Either way, a rumour is usually not a sign that you did anything wrong. Often the people spreading it are dealing with their own insecurities or simply with boredom. So do not let it get under your skin.