Kindness, habit, routine and everlasting love

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter."
- John Keats -

There is a special power in anonymous random acts of kindness, and your heart will sing an unseen song long after you did some, even if you do not know the one benefiting from your action. It is good to see yourself helping a person in need, it is even better to do it only for the sake of it, no pride involved at all. Try this today, pay someone coffee in the shop or help some person in need. See what happen.

"I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life."
- Maya Angelou -

How can you enrich your own life? By going the extra mile, especially when it is about yourself. It is your day off, take the train or bus to the next town and wonder aimlessly around, discovering what will attract you on your next move. Do something beyond your routine, it will rewire your brain and bring some sense into your life. It is a good exercise, if you get bored quickly. Be creative, think out of the box. Act out of the box. Ant tell me about your experiences. Make me curious.

"Child, give me your hand that I may walk in the light of your faith in me."
- Hannah Kahn -

It is all about the right attitude. Remember when you were a little child and your parents assisted you every step of the way. Think at yourself as the parent of the entire humanity. Consider every person that you meet as your own child. Watch him or her with love, assisting that person all along. It is all about being with your heart in everything you do, encompassing every one with parental love.

Listening the forest grow, healing ourselves and reaching the stars

"In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear."
- Mark Nepo -

These days, we listen to answer back, not to listen only. Do this next time, as a little exercise. Listen with intention, carefully, without judgement, just for the sake of it. And see what change. Because listening is one of the most needed skills, it is a must, and the good news is that we can become better listeners, with practice. Empathy will follow soon after we master this skill, and then we will observe a dramatic increase in a quality of our emotional and overall life. Just do it!


"It is never too late to heal the mind and to bring to ourselves and to those around us the compassion and kindness that arise from that healing and integration."
- Dan Siegel -

Listening and developing of empathy is one of the many steps we need to make in order to achieve perfect balance. And like the Chinese saying, the perfect moment to start this was 10 years ago. The second perfect moment is now. Doesn't matter how low we can get, or where we feel we are right now. The perfect moment to start is the present moment. If we are down, is it still fine, because now we can rise. It is never too soon. It is never to late. The biggest and most consistent amount of change in my life came after my 37th birthday. I was asleep until then. I was lost in the night of the spirit. And i wake up.


"The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always...It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time."
- John Steinbeck -

They are there, as witnesses from another time, from another space. The are majestic, and they are giants among us. But they were not like these all the time. They started as a humble acorn. They were a small tree once. But given enough time, they grow. They reach the height that will make us to look in awe. So are we. We can be majestic too. Given enough time. Given enough learning. Given enough inner fire.

How i spend my summer between light and darkness

"You must not ever stop being whimsical."
- Mary Oliver -

What being whimsical means? It is a childhood quality,it is being curious just for the sake of it, it is following a balloon on the sky for half an hour only because you can. As a child, following the desires of your heart and the pull of your ideas, this means whimsical. As an adult, i often forget. Too many tasks, too many lines on my to-do list, to many events to attend or problems too solve. But our curiosity is still there, waiting patiently.


"One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen, can change the world."
- Malala Yousafzai -

Another reason to awake your inner child is your hidden potential. How often do you feel that you are not all that you were meant to be, that you were destined for greatness, and you can even feel it waiting for you around the corner. You were always thinking that it is something inside of you, a great river behind the dam. The dam is only a mental construction, a prison of which warden are yourself. You accepted the rules of whatever society are you living in it, without questioning them first. But something there is making its way to the surface, and soon you will find what you always knew. Yes, you are destined to be great. You are the one who will change the world. At least your world, at first, and then you will touch others.


"Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars."
- Serbian Proverb -

And then, when your meaning is clear, do your work from behind the words, enjoying the smile of other people and being humble. But continue to bring happiness into the world. This is a duty of every person.

Business, life, inside and out, and maybe a bit of self importance

"If I am in a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and the boat is in trouble, who do I want in that boat with me? Those are the people would hire."
- Jim Crupi -

If i am dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur and owning my own company, and as we know that a quality of a person is easily to determine by the quality of their questions, not of their answers, then this is the question to ask yourself before you start.


"Hold on to what is good,
Even if it's a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe,
Even if it's a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do,
Even if it's a long way from here."
- Pueblo Prayer -

And we need to hold on not only to the good men and women from our life, our friends, but to everything else that will help us grow too. Because in the end, like some Olympic performer said, all that we accept in our life need to help our boat to go faster.


" I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
- John Muir -

To conclude for today, going out, travel the world and learn about new, amazing things are just another reason to start the most important journey, within ourselves. Because without this journey, we are lost into the immensity of one unfriendly universe, and within the scale of time, we are only one pale blue dot. We, as the Earth, like Carl Sagan brilliantly put it in words.

Have a perfect December!

Aim, goals and travels

*
"The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart."
- Annie Dillard -

If you have a goal, if you focus into something, your overall brain activity is increased, you perform better, you are acting better in response to the environment, you are even energized and ready to use some unknown resources to fuel your pathway. Don't be aimless, find a meaning in your life. There is no dream too big, no project too small. Find your courage and do the first step.

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Today's gift for all my readers

For the Traveler
by John O'Donohue

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O'Donohue ~

***
 "Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing him or herself"
- Leo Tolstoy -

Here you have one alternative view to our almighty internal noise. Check the link.

About fear, best version of life ever and listening to intuition

One interesting lecture for tonight. Quote: "2015 is the best year in the history of humankind. Why everyone if fearing everyone? Who is interested in cultivating this atmosphere of fear and distrust?"

You want to know more? Check this link.


"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. "
- Parker J. Palmer -

We are learning how to react  to different stimuli from the time we are born, and then, for the rest of our life. Reacting is good, and we need to react fast and decisive. But it this completely true? Or maybe it is another alternative, a parallel universe where we listen to a different way of rationing, one based on intuition and the language of the heart? If you already looked in Malcolm Gladwell's books, you know that all the research pointed out that our intuition is incredible accurate. If only we want to learn how to use it.