Eyes of a child, stress and wisdom

"The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart."
- Mencius -

The sense of wonder and the curiosity of a child could be the reason for his apparently unlimited energy. But we grow up, we forget our childhood dreams, and we learn to deal with stress and responsibilities. Is this the life we wanted for us to live? If not, ask yourself when did you changed, along the journey. It was all at once or happened gradually? Can you still go back in time, at that moment when you where still happy, living in the moment? Maybe what we need to do is not to think to much about the past, maybe not even about the future, but to stay in the present, reaching out in awe for all the sounds, all the tastes and smells, for all the smiles and real friends. Think about it! It is still possible to be happy. But i need you to start with one step. First one. And then the second.


"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. "
- Viktor E. Frankl -

This is a practical key, or another way to say it, that we are not suffering because of the stress in our life, but merely because of our ways and choices on how we respond to the stressors. If something is not working, change your response. A definition of madness was to try to do the same thing, expecting different results. Right?


"Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way."
- Terry Tempest Williams -

I was once asked what is the difference between being intelligent and being wise. I answered with someone else answer, remembering the moment when i had asked the same question. I was told: An intelligent person know how to use a tool in the right way, a wise person finds another ten ways to use the same tool for something else.

About stress and unsettling routines

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself."
- Michel de Montaigne -

It is a story as old as time itself. The stress is not bad for us. Some people grow under pressure, some people crumble. It is the way we respond to stress that it is making all the difference in the world. Or as some old mystic said, we are not going to the paradise or hell after we die, we are living in the paradise or hell every day of our life, and we are creating and sustaining this with every decision we make. So, next time when something bad happen to you, think about three way to react differently, and see what happen.

"People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

We are always thinking about how the life will be when we have everything we need, a day when we will never work again. Could be our retirement, could be early retirement via financial independence, could be a company we made and sell it. But then again, we are not made to stay, to become fixed in our own routines. When we do this, the life is lifeless. We are made to explore, to wonder, to stare in awe at the unlimited sky in a sunny October afternoon. We need to walk more, to do new things every day. The experts in neurochemistry showed us the value of the brain plasticity. We need to be exposed daily to something different, to not become stuck in some endless loop, Groundhog Day-like. We are made to thrive. To live.