Hope to live and live with hope

The literary meaning of hope is to meet any expectation, accrued out of our various desires.  Once this desire is fulfilled, you feel satisfied and search for another desire to get it fulfilled. Our hope is quenching our thirst of fulfillment and at the same time, it acts as an illusion. Hope provides us enjoyment and at the same time it causes sorrow when the same is not materialized at all. Further, when your hope is not met, the progress in your life suffers considerably. You hope that better days should be imminent whenever you  are in gloomy situation. And, when that situation brings in pleasant outcome, you feel that it should be continued for a long time. So the sequence of our life revolves around hope only.

If you are a firm believer of positive results for all your efforts, you will become successful most of the time. In that case, failure can rarely touch you or loom upon you.  It is the hope, which increases our confidence level and allows us to fulfill our dreams.  Life is full of thrones; it cannot be on the straight path.  If you think that your life will be very smooth, there will be no obstacles, barriers, problems and anxieties, you are wrong.  And it is a complete fallacy. No one can predict what is going to happen in the next morning with certainty. So you should not be discouraged or disheartened to visualize and observe the things in upheaval condition and if the same is not according to your plan and choice. Nothing is going to stay for a long whether it is joy, happiness, distress or sad. Everything will appear because of very many reasons and when the reason is fulfilled; either the happiness or distress will evaporate. In any “ism”, namely Buddhism, Christianity or Judaism, hope is the backbone or the pillar of faith. Here, there is no place of despondent.

Hope is an intrinsic value of desire and even daydreams are also classified accordingly.   For example, If you are desperate to achieve your goal to obtain a very lucrative job in a multinational company and if you are not getting the same, you feel disappointed.  You blame everybody for your failure. Some people even mumble saying, “Oh God! Why are you not giving me the desired job?” Though hope always keeps us moving, but in this particular situation, hope is shattered.  Remember, ‘doubt’ and ‘hope’ both are steps of mind.  Doubt creates the darkest moments in our finest hour, while hope brings finest moment in our darkest hour.

We often mistake a desire of the body for a yearning of the soul. We must understand one aspect very clearly that our wishes are not going to materialize unless our hope is realistic and further, we have to take actions to fulfill the same. For example, your neighbor has purchased a swanky car with a high end brand because he has earned a sizable profit in his business. Seeing this, you start to initiate an action plan to buy a similar type of car. But based on your limited monthly income, you are not in a position to afford the same type of a luxury car, but you are still hoping for the same. In that situation, your hope is unrealistic though we all know that hope is the yardstick of a prosperous life.

Hope is like a two way traffic. If you expect based on your capabilities, you will get, maybe not fully. Contrarily, if you don’t expect, you won’t be getting anything; of course, the choice is yours. That is why, many people profess that you must have hope all the time. The expectation is something reciprocal and interactive, but hope is sufficient unto itself.  It is proven that hope is the best and most powerful quality, which shows a direction to our lives.  We keep our hopes alive through faith and vision.  Since we live based on faith, we are able to foresee our future. All of us live in this great world because we believe in optimism. When we believe in optimism, no obstacles and no barriers can stop us to reach our destination.  No crisis is able to dismay us.  It may happen that we may have to swallow some bitterness, which arises out of bad happenings, but our hope, and faith in our lives keep us alive. We always pray for a blissful and joyous, life, which must be full of entertainment and tension free. Through our  positive, we get a serene, tranquil and peaceful lives. We must develop enough confidence to sustain our hope and face the future without any botheration of failure.  If we are able to garner more and more confidence, then most of our hopes will be fulfilled.

Hope and imagination are interlinked because imagination is a source of fear.  Worry and fear are destructive and eat away your energy. So fear needs to be avoided. Similarly, faith is a qualitative aspect of life, which allows us to ignore everything.  Faith is an inner conviction whereas prayers are based on the divine qualities imbibed within.  The meditation and continual practice of your religious rituals make you to eliminate all types of your sufferings. These practices teach us to endure all our sufferings. Again, all these ritual and religious practices depend on your hope.  Faith is a bridge between where you are, and the place where God is willing to take you. However, you must ensure that faith alone cannot illuminate your life, you must have to own the responsibility and carry out your duties with a full focus and take decisions accordingly. Life is not always easy, smooth and trouble free.  There will be complexities, quarrels, animosity and jealousy, which create twists and turns.  These will further escalate tensions, stresses and irritations. Why this happens?  Because all of us have different types of desires, hopes, expectations, beliefs and attitude. 

Therefore, it is always prudent to depend on the quality of hope and with this hope; you can fulfill your desires, of course, with God’s blessings.  Jesus says, “Don’t worry about these things saying, what will be eaten? What will we drink? What will we wear?’’  These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.  Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.

How to increase your productivity?

Have you ever thought why your productivity is not very high as you desire? Further, why you fail to achieve the target in your life?  What makes you scowl when you fall short of any output irrespective of your getting sufficient input?  What is the reason and why most of the time; you curse your luck for any set back?  The reason is that the happenings in your life do not depend on others; it is entirely of your own creation and your reaction to the happenings, which brings in either joy or distress. In management education, your teachers teach the theory of probability of 80-20, life is also governed by the same theory. The occurrence of twenty percent is all by habits, regular practice and  the dictum of your parents, peers, teachers or friends, but the eighty percent happens  to you how you react to a particular situation.  For example, for an issue of family feud, if you are silent and your reaction is neutral, you won’t have to face any unpleasant scenario. May be the consequences of the feud will die on its own. But if you react strongly, take part with a grumpy face and support one member knowing that he is not correct, the acrimonies  will increase and the same pollute the atmosphere and vitiate the peace of the house at that particular moment. This is only an example.  In fact, for most of the situations where we get entangled with wrangling, the same is our own creations, which destroys our energy and we lose our productive hours. And after losing the productivity, when the situation goes beyond the control, we finger and accuse others to create the volatility. We then vociferate that what a life, it is!  But if you closely monitor, who is responsible? It is you and your retaliatory approach which only affects  your life’s growth. 

In today’s nuclear family lifestyle, this is much more prevalent.  The parents are sharply reacting and criticizing each other in front of their children and the siblings are reacting between themselves for one or the other disputes. Many times, these are creeping up due to pressure to discharge duties of our lives. The students are burdened with the load of studies; the parents are bogged down by the pressure of work in offices and at the same time in houses. All these circumstances lead to a reaction of an unfavorable attitude which causes disharmony in  relationships and agitate our mind. This is more relevant to the younger generation as they do not react nonchalantly to each and every state of affairs in their lives.

Take the case of todays generation. Why they react so sharply to each incidence? Who are their role models?  What is their lifestyle and perception of their lives?  Are they very critical of the behavior of their parents? How they define the meaning of various responsibilities entrusted to them?  Are they willing to share the same spontaneously or willy-nilly?  What ethics and morality they like to envisage from their life?  What is the meaning of spirituality to them?   Are they open to various religions and trust the other religion?  Are they open to differentiate between truth and false?  Are they believers of integrity and have a desire to lead a frugal life?  Do they feel for brotherhood?  What is their value system towards relationship bonding between family members, marriage, social mingling, parenting and children?  How much sensitive they are to other’s distress and pain?  All these questions are needed to be  answered to find out the reason of their sharp and instant reaction to any situation.

If you analyze, you will  find that we waste a huge amount of energy to react and ultimately spoil the relationship. The derogatory comments of others, which even includes parents, teachers, superiors and friends, the mind becomes provoked and ultimately loses its tranquility. This hampers  both who are involved in this unwanted practice of commenting on frivolous issues. For example, when you show your disrespect to your parents, teachers or your friends, even though they inflict you wrongly, the situation will be under control if you keep quiet and take the same as a passing phase of your life. In this way, you will be able to save your energy to utilize the same for productive work. Contrarily, if you react and take vengeance, you will waste your valuable time perhaps sacrificing your important duties. These  activities will whistle away your precious time and the same will carry a huge  loss socially and professionally.

In today’s competitive world, one is always eager to surmount others. In this process people want to engage in all sorts of temptations to earn quick money to become rich within no time or to vaunt their wealth to the society. They react sharply, if they find their desires are not getting fulfilled. Many become ferocious to achieve their said goal of prosperity by demeaning others. For that reason only, today’s society follows a more retaliatory approach to each other. By stopping the behavior of reacting sharply and bluntly, if the situation is handled based on a conciliatory approach, many problems can be eliminated at the initial stage itself.

To do so, each of us has to increase the tolerance power. If we inculcate this self- disciplinary habit in our lives, starting from individual, corporations, citizens, communities, societies at large, automatically, each of us will be flourishing with a remarkable achievement rate. The wrongdoings will be less as well unethical approaches will be minimized. But unfortunately, the eighty percent of the events steam up due to the less tolerance power, which is the major cause to pollute the society and its habitants.  So, if you want to lead an exemplary life, don’t react eighty percent time of your life, sedate your mind to become glittery and invest more time for productive output and suggest others to follow you. In this way, productivity of all of us will be increased reasonably.

How to avoid boredom?

How to avoid boredom?

Quite Often we are afflicted with a peculiar attitudinal problem, namely  boredom.  Most of the time, it is a creation of the mind. This is not at all related to health and its condition. But then why we get bored when God has given us such a beautiful life to enjoy and make others happy. Why we spoil the charm?  God has blessed the world with flowers, trees, sun and stars, flowing rivers and chirping birds. Can you introspect the reason why we get ourselves confined in boredom?  The reason is that we prefer to be in the claustrophobia of negative traits, and when are not able to come out, we get bored.  No sooner, we complete our jobs at the office or finish our outside activities related to our household, we become somehow restless to visit our home. Then we get engaged in indoor activities. But you must take the privilege to watch natural things outside your home.  Of course, some people will be outside for a longer period of time either for the professional or social work or simply passing the time in gossiping.  For the purpose of enjoyment, you can watch the beauty of the things, God has created.  The famous poet John Keats said in his amazing poetry “Grace on the urn” – Beauty is the truth, truth is the beauty.  In our life, if we are able to worship the beauty of the natural things as Keats had emphasized, we can easily overcome our boredom, whether we are alone or in company.

The biggest problem for us is that we easily become gloomy and we are not at all sensitive to recognize the abundance of opportunities and happiness.  Nothing wrong, if you remain in the closed space of your home, but mentally, you must be in a position to accept God's creation. You have to liberate yourself from the closed spaces and must embrace upon the beauties of the outer world.  You can never get bored outdoors. When you move across in the midst of soothing breeze, your hair will ruffle, you will get a pleasant feeling and it will reduce your boredom. In the same way, if you laze around in drizzling    supported by a breeze and if you  happen to observe the red roses on the big vase on the roof terrace or pass through a garden with lots of flowers, you may come out from the boredom. Your presence in the nature  and observing the scenic  beauty will definitely energize you and vitalize your mind.  If you watch these outdoor beauties with keenness and passion, the boredom will not engulf you. What is boredom? It is a movement of thoughts either positive or negative and all of us pass through this sequence regularly. This state of mind’s dictum unduly pressurizes us to think either in a right or wrong direction. If you think that you should never be bored and you are able to verbalize the same, you will not get bored.  But most of us are not that much determined to verbalize the feeling and so, remains boring for many things starting from the professional environment to the home front even in the midst of  the family members.  Fear is another aspect of our life, which also provokes us to boredom.  It is better to learn the technique to always think the right thoughts.  If you are capable to think in a right way, you can escape the clutch of boredom. The more importantly, if you prefer to remember God in your distress and can avoid boredom, you can slowly  reach the stage of enlightenment. Though it is not easy, but continuous practice of eliminating the bad  thoughts and anxieties may lead you to the path of expanding the emptiness. In the state of emptiness, you will not be distracted by any type of desires, greed, aspirations and needs.

When you meditate, you will be attracted by various types of thoughts, some of them may be provocative and sensual also. You can enjoy the thoughts and there is nothing wrong in the same.  Despite all odds, you have to still remain in the state of void.  Then you will be able to embrace upon the stage of nihilism.  If you can arouse empty mind in the state of your waking, you will never bore even in the midst of lustful things. There is a difference between burden mind and an empty mind.  It requires a lot of painstaking practice to restrain you from the traveling on the path between these two conditions of mind.  We make  mistakes or accomplish less whenever we perform our duties with the help of burden mind.  Now, if you are getting attracted by boredom, just try to retreat from the confines of the inner world and disengage yourself from all types of activities and constantly take the ambrosia of the outdoor beauties.  It will relieve you from the anxieties and tensions  and your burdened mind will become calm.  You always tend to  exaggerate your problems, but in reality, the same may not be that serious. 

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When you continuously focus your attention on a problem and it occupies your mind, it is but natural that this problem will grow large enough to occupy all the mental space you have.  A time will come that you will be exhausted and you will get disturbed unnecessarily. Many of us are the victims of this mental disease known as boredom. There is no medicine for this.  But if you cannot get rid of this symptom and not able to exercise your mental power coupled with meditation, you will feel sick more often than not.  So, to avoid boredom, love the nature, enjoy the outward beauties and make your mind energetic like a child and behave accordingly. You will never experience boredom.

How to be happy when you are unhappy?

Have you ever thought what you should do to become happy when you are in a state of unhappiness?  For most of us, to digest the above preaching will be ridiculous. One may question that when the situation is not favorable and one is not able to overcome the obstacles and the constraints he face, how is it possible to be happy?  You can.  Because happiness is just the opposite of unhappiness and it is vice-versa.  During the time of unhappiness, you can focus for all the opposite things which generally cause your unhappiness; you are bound to be happy. For that matter, you need to study the factors causing your unhappiness. The clinical psychologists are continuously doing  in-depth research to reach the root of unpleasant feelings, which are the main reason of your unhappiness.  For the past twenty years, the brain researchers are exploring to search the root causes of fear, anger, jealousy and anxiety, which causes depression and unhappiness. These people conclude with their research findings that medication need to be administered to the people, who are suspected with the distorted mental condition evolving from their perpetual unhappiness for most of the things they experience in their lives. But you can be  rest assured that if you change your mindset and get rid of unscrupulous thoughts, you can be happy most of the time. The subject of unhappiness is widely discussed, but the subject of happiness and how to be happy is always a matter of  logical debate.

The pertinent question is what makes us unhappy; is it a generic?  Or, is it so when you are clouded with the feeling of anger and if you are not in a position to vent it off, you become unhappy? The moment of our happiness is limited, whereas unhappiness arises is at every stage in our lives. Can money alone make us happy?  Can we be in love with the same person throughout the life?  Can you define, what is the highest quotient of happiness?  Though It is difficult to find out the reasons for all these questions, but the brain researchers have come to a certain conclusion, saying that the part of the brain that produces a sense of well-being is the main criteria to make us ponder for the above questions. Our brain has a special centre, which provides a signal for various occasions by which we become happy, gloomy, jealous and anxious.  Based on the signals from the brain, when we are happy, we get attached to a happiness mood. This happiness system is just the opposite of unhappiness syndrome. We come into the world with a right to speak to convey our opinion and thoughts. In the same way, we are programmed for positive feeling alongside the negative.  This discovery is the basic reason to recognize the value based system of mankind, its existence and usefulness thereto.

Using the microscope, we can visualize the transformations in the skull. These transformations take place because of thoughts and emotions. If we are able to control our thoughts and emotions, we can be happy mostly. Supposed, for a bad incident which has just occurred in your life, you get emotionally distressed and you are not able to come out of the impasse.  During this state of mind, if you are able to balance your emotions with some enjoyment either of the present or the past, your unhappiness will be little bit reduced. And this less unhappiness from the quantum of total unhappiness will increase your happiness slightly. At the time of unhappiness, if possible, you can focus your attention to learn a new skill, make yourself busy in some pastimes or simply play with pets or your children to reduce the intensity of the same. Our happiness depends as much on our environment and our upbringing as on our genes. Precisely, that is the reason that apart from our brain, the socio-cultural influences and our daily associations and  happenings, which is taken place with other people also have bearing on our happiness factor. Unhappiness brings disharmony in life.  It destroys us, whereas happiness strengthens it.  If you are always in fear syndrome and are under stress continually, your health will suffer, which will lead you to unhappiness.  Contrarily, if you are in a position to convert your dark mood into like a sunny day’s brightness, your health  will be alright. 

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When health is sound, your positive feelings evolved from there will counter stress and its consequences. Further, this will stimulate your immune system. They will increase your mental productivity. If you consider the brain as a coin, the thoughts and the emotions are the two sides of this coin.  The happy people are more self-supportive and creative.  The research shows that the happiest people are quick enough to sort our problem and they react nonchalantly whenever they are enforced with any awkward situation.  Further, happiness makes people smarter, active and agile. Finally, happy people are nicer and congenial in their behavior.  They talk mostly with softness, they invite everybody cordially and they are not interested to litigate matters.  They seldom criticize and they seem always positive in others.  They mostly act altruistically and they are very good mediators in resolving conflicts.  Negative moods restrict your progress and cause your downfall.  So, you need to learn to remain out of negative feelings and must control your emotion so that even in the midst of unhappy moments, you are not losing your happiness.