Life

35 Steps to an Enhanced Life

Mush Happiness, Health, Life, Motivation, Productivity, Relationships , , , , , ,

We all want more happiness, better health, increased productivity and improved relationships. We want to be able to motivate ourselves to do the things we know we should do to enhance our lives. I try to help myself and others to achieve all that through this blog.

Here’s a collection of posts from the last couple of years that I consider to be the best, considering the popularity and comments from the readers. Most articles are short, and take only a few minutes to read. Please let me know through your comments if this collection could form a useful ebook…

Happiness:

Health:

Productivity:

Relationships:

Motivation:

Please take a few minutes to tell me about your most favorite articles, through comments below. Thanks.

[Photo of Kuk Po hike near Tai Po in Hong Kong, taken last week]

23 Wonderful Ice-Breakers

Mush Life, Relationships ,

Just read this wonderful piece in What On Earth Have I Done? by Robert Fulghum – one of my all-time favorite authors…

I have a list in the active pocket of my mind. A list I often refer to when thrown into the company of strangers while traveling. The list is labeled Conversation Lifeboats:

  1. Did you ever have a great teacher – in school or out? Tell me.
  2. What would you be learning – if you had time?
  3. What would you have learned to do if you knew then what you know now?
  4. What would you teach, if you were asked?
  5. Teach me something. Anything.
  6. Do you know any silly tricks? Coins, cards, face contortions?
  7. If you could be an eyewitness to some event in history, which one?
  8. If you could see anyplace in the world before human history, where would you go and why?
  9. Who would you like to see naked?
  10. Who do you admire? Who admires you?
  11. Answer an unasked question – something you know but nobody would ever ask about and you would never volunteer.
  12. Decisions of consequence – what forks in the road were on your way – and what if you had taken the other path?
  13. Pick another place/time in modern history – since 1700 – to live.
  14. Book, movie, you’ve read/seen more than once. Why? Continue reading →

Be The Best You Can!

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation , ,

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“Do the best you can, where you are, with what you have, now.” (African-American proverb)

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” (Leonardo da Vinci)

“Make the most of yourself, for that’s all there is of you.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“Doing the best at this moment, puts you in the best place for the next moment.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Subscribe to get latest posts in email. Follow the latest links in Twitter. Forward this link to friends. Friend me up on Facebook.

Prayers, Thoughts and Quotes for the New Year

Mush Life, Motivation ,

I turn to you because you know everything, even what is hidden. If what I am doing is good for me, for my life now and hereafter, then let that task be easy and blessed. If what I am doing is bad for me, for my life now and hereafter, then remove me from that task. (The Prophet Mohammed)

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Jesus – Mathew 7:7-8)

If there’s to be peace in the world, the nations must live in peace. If there’s to be peace among nations, the cities must not rise up against each other. If there’s to be peace in the cities, neighbors must understand each other. If there’s to be peace among neighbors, there must be harmony in the home. If there’s to be peace in the home, we must each find our own heart. (Lao Tsu)

In the new year, I will live one day at a time. I will make each day one of preparation for better things ahead. I will not dwell on the past or the future, only on the present. I will bury every fear of the future, all thoughts of unkindness and bitterness, all my dislikes, my resentments, my disappointment in others and in myself, my gloom and my despondency. I will leave all these things buried and go forward, in this near year, into a new life. (Thought for the day. Twenty-four Hours a Day)

[Photo of The Prophet’s Mosque, the second largest in the world, taken in Feb. 2004]

Happy New Day!

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation ,

What if we had new month resolutions at the start of each new month, instead of new year resolutions? Could we have a better chance of fulfilling them, knowing that we only have 30 days?

What if we celebrated every new week, instead of just the new year? Could we not be as excited about the challenges and surprises that each new week brings?

What if we welcomed each new day with the same gratefulness, cheer and optimism, as we greet the new year? Could we not wish each other a Happy New Day, every day?

That’s part of my new year resolutions – to celebrate each new day and be grateful for every moment of this wonderful life. Let’s see how long does that last!

Would you like to share your new year resolutions?

[Video of fireworks in Hong Kong a few hours ago, taken by Sara from the Peak]

Subscribe to get latest posts in email. Follow the latest links in Twitter. Forward this link to friends. Friend me up on Facebook.

Favorite Quotes on Time

Mush Life, Motivation, Productivity ,

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. Stephen R. Covey

Make use of time, let not advantage slip. William Shakespeare

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life. Charles Darwin

Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade! Anthony Robbins

If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got. Lee Iacocca Continue reading →

For Fast-Acting Relief, Try Slowing Down…

Mush Happiness, Life ,

Thanks to all those who read and forwarded and commented on the post on Stress. You can view all the comments here – some very interesting perspectives and useful tips on managing stress. Seeing the level of interest, I have put together some nice quotes on stress:

  • The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.  ~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris
  • Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.  ~Richard Carlson
  • For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.  ~Lily Tomlin
  • The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it.  ~Author Unknown
  • One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.  ~Bertrand Russell
  • Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency.  ~Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind
  • Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.  ~Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne
  • There is more to life than increasing its speed.  ~Mohandas K. Gandhi
  • A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.  ~Aesop, Fables
  • Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.  ~John De Paola
  • How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward.  ~Spanish Proverb
  • Stress is poison.  ~Agavé Powers
  • It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.  ~Jerome K. Jerome, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
  • Sometimes a headache is all in your head.  Relax.  ~Hartman Jule
  • Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are.  ~Chinese Proverb
  • Stress is an admission of weakness, a cry of defeat to the world.  ~Carrie Latet

Please share your favorite quotes through comments.

[Photo taken at Hua Hin beach, Thailand]

Subscribe to get latest posts in email. Follow the latest links in Twitter. Forward this link to friends.

4 Tips for Instant Happiness!

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation , ,

The happy cobbler“If you want to be happy, be.” Leo Tolstoy

Feeling sad, depressed or unhappy? Does life look gloomy, and the world seems dreary? Try one of the following tested and proven tips to achieve an instant shift in your emotions and feelings:

1. Be grateful for the things you usually take for granted…

  • Being alive and healthy
  • For the basic stuff: food, water, clothes, shelter, electricity…
  • Your skills: reading, writing, thinking, driving, writing, and other
  • People in your life: family, friends, people you love, people who love you, those who had a positive influence in your life

2. Make someone happy…

  • Compliment people: for their appearance, intelligence, skills…
  • Appreciate others: for what they do for you, for their helpfulness… your family, co-workers and others; say ‘thank you’
  • Listen without interrupting, without offering advice, without judging Continue reading →

10 Reasons to Control Your Anger!

Mush Happiness, Life, Relationships ,

0911 angry

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry. Winston Churchill

Speak when you are angry – and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret. Dr. Lawrence Peter

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one. Benjamin Franklin

Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. Benjamin Franklin

Anyone who angers you, conquers you. Unknown

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger. Epictetus

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. Marcus Aurelius

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size? Sydney J. Harris

If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot. Korean Proverb

Subscribe to get latest posts in email. Follow the latest links in Twitter. Forward this link to friends.

The Tears of the Desert – Paulo Coelho

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation ,

0911 desert

A beautiful piece from ‘Like a Flowing River’ by Paulo Coelho:

A friend of mind returns from Morocco with a beautiful story about a missionary who, as soon as he arrived in Marrakesh, decided that he would go for a walk every morning in the desert that lay just outside the city. The first time he did this, he noticed a man lying down, with his ear pressed to the ground and stoking the sand with one hand.

‘He’s obviously mad,’ the missionary said to himself. But the scene was repeated every day, and after a month, intrigued by this strange behavior, he decided to speak to the stranger. With great difficulty, since he was not yet fluent in Arabic, he knelt down by his side.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I am keeping the desert company and offering it consolation for its loneliness and its tears.’

‘I didn’t know the desert was capable of tears.’

‘It weeps every day because it dreams of being useful to people, and of being transformed into a vast garden where they could grow cereal crops and flowers and graze sheep.’ Continue reading →

Smaller the Better!

Mush Life, Productivity ,

0911 kittens

From  Minimalist.com, one of my favorite blogs:

Less can come in many forms. You can have fewer things, you can do fewer things, you can use fewer things, you can focus on fewer things. But less isn’t just fewer: it can also be smaller.

Small is often downplayed in this world of “bigger means better”. But small is beautiful, and often better.

  • Smaller banks aren’t “too big to fail”, requiring bailouts when they’re mismanaged, and yet they make very important community loans.
  • Smaller teams are more nimble, can adapt to changing environments faster, don’t require as much management or communication overhead, can work cheaply and from anywhere.
  • Smaller cars use less gas, are more maneuverable, cause fewer deaths, use fewer resources.
  • Smaller homes require less heating, less cleaning, less maintenance, force you to simplify, are cozier.
  • Smaller programs use fewer computer resources, take up less computer power and thus help the environment, work faster, get the job done with a minimum of fuss.
  • Smaller suitcases (such as a small backpack) are easier to carry around, fit easier in overhead compartments, don’t require you to check luggage and worry about luggage not getting to the right destination, are easier to pack and unpack.
  • Smaller websites (in terms of file sizes) are easier to load, faster, more responsive.
  • Smaller companies are also more responsive, less expensive, hungrier, more focused.
  • Haikus pack a lot of punch into three tiny lines.
  • Smaller posts don’t take as much time to write or read, which is good for a lazy blogger. And a busy reader.

Small is beautiful. Aim for smaller when it makes sense, and enjoy the wonder that ensues.

[Photo of Mashu’s kittens]

Subscribe to get latest posts in email. Follow the latest links in Twitter. Forward this link to friends.

Do You Trust Strangers?

Mush Life, Work, Business , ,

0911 book coverI just re-read one my favorite books, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It’s full of his real life stories and experiences that are fun to read and full of wisdom. Here’s one about trusting strangers:

“How about some good news for a change? Something to consider when you are in a people-are-no-damn-good mood? Here’s a phrase we hear a lot: “You can’t trust anybody anymore.” Doctors and politicians and salesmen. They are all out to rip you off, right? It ain’t necessarily so.

Man name Steven Brill test the theory. In New York City, with taxicab drivers. Bill posed as a well-do-do foreigner with little knowledge of English. He got into several dozen taxis around New York City to see how many drivers would cheat him. His friends predicted in advance that most would take advantage of him in some way.

One driver out of thirty-seven cheated him. The rest took him directly to his destination and charged him correctly. Several refused to take him when his destination was only a block or two away, even getting out of their cabs to show him how close he already was. There greatest irony of all was that several drivers warned him that New York City was full of crooks and to be careful. Continue reading →

Choose to Live!

Mush Life

Last night I got an email from an old friend. She wrote:

“Someone I loved for 12 years broke up with me to marry someone else. I am shattered. How can I be normal? In fact, I don’t want to be normal. My positivity is not working. All self-motivation formula are failing. I just want to commit suicide. You said, choose to live, no matter how miserable life is… accept the things you cannot change. But I have lost all hopes… what can I do? My mom has a lot of dreams for me, but I have no hope…”

I am sure she must have already heard all forms of consolation and advice from family and friends e.g.

  • He wasn’t meant for you. He was not good enough for you…
  • Things could be worse: People break up even after marriage…
  • There’s someone for you; you will find him if you allow yourself…
  • It’s OK to be depressed, but for how long, is your choice…
  • Forget positivity; just acknowledge the good things you do have…
  • Don’t worry about motivation; just try to focus on other motives in life, besides having a partner you love…
  • Suicide is the surest way to end all misery and grief, but it also ends all hopes and possibilities…
  • There are people who love you, who believe in you, who look up to you for inspiration, who have hopes and dreams for you… don’t let them down.
  • Right now you have made a choice: to be depressed, to think and feel in a certain way, to not let any positive thoughts enter your mind… tomorrow you can choose to think differently and feel differently.

So I am not going to tell her any of that. Instead, I said a little prayer for her. What would you say to her?

Dan Gilbert asks: Why Are We Happy?

Mush Happiness, Life , ,

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong — a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness.

It is wonderful that a modern philosopher can come to the same conclusions as the Buddha 2,500 years ago. He said that when we learn to accept things as they are we find happiness. When we cease to strive for happiness in the future we find it in this moment. Getting what we want doesn’t make us happy, being happy with what we have does. Craving causes misery, acceptance and peace makes us happy.

Life – Destiny or Choice?

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation

0910 PuneLast week I did a road trip from Mumbai to Pune and back. The journey was almost five hours each time, so I got to know the drivers very well:

One of them was a 30-year old who had been driving different vehicles for different companies ever since he got his driving license at the age of 18. He just made enough money to support his old parents and younger brother’s education. He had no ambitions, and believed he was destined to be a low-paid driver. When I asked him whether he had considered saving up to buy his own car or taxi, he gave me many reasons why not. He was unclean, drove recklessly and kept complaining about the government, roads, other reckless drivers and life in general. He bumped his car into another near Pune but didn’t accept his mistake.

The other was a 35-year old who had a similar background – poor parents, no education – but a completely different life. Continue reading →

5 More Reasons to be Grateful!

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation ,

0910 Buddha

Did you know?

  • 923 million people in the world are hungry!
  • 16,000 children die every day due to hunger – that’s one every five seconds!
  • 880 million people live without adequate supply of water!
  • 1.4 billion people live below the poverty line (USD1 per day)!
  • 200 million people are unemployed. And at least 20 million more were estimated to become unemployed in 2009!

If we are not one of the above, we have at least five more reasons to be grateful. We can choose to take all the good things for granted; we can continue to complain about the imperfections in our lives and other people; we can focus on all the things that we don’t have. And we are sure to be unhappy, miserable and stressed. Or… we can choose to be happy; we can start acknowledging and being grateful for all the goodness in life, and everything that we do have.

What are you grateful for, today, right now?

[Photo of Big Buddha in Hong Kong]

If you enjoy reading this blog, you can a) subscribe to get latest posts in email, b) follow the latest links in Twitter, c) forward this link to friends.

Take our Stress Poll…

Mush Happiness, Health, Life, Motivation, Productivity, Work, Business ,

0910 stressed woman

Inspiring Quotes by Paulo Coelho

Mush Life, Motivation ,

0910 pagodaNo one can avoid defeat. That is why it is better to lose a few battles in the fight for your dreams than to be defeated without even knowing why you are fighting. (By the River Piedra…)

We are allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. (Veronika Decided to Die)

If we pay close attention we will come to realize that no day is the same as another. Every morning brings with it a hidden blessing. (Unpublished)

Absolute freedom does not exist; what does exist is the freedom to choose anything you like and then commit yourself to the decision. (The Zahir)

Start to do something. That way, time will be an ally, not an enemy. (The Fifth Mountain)

[Photo of the pagoda in Tung Chung, Hong Kong]

If you enjoy reading this blog, you can a) subscribe to get latest posts in email, b) follow the latest links in Twitter, c) forward this link to friends.

Change Anything That’s Causing You Unhappiness

Mush Happiness, Life, Motivation , ,

0909 sunset

“Every day, God gives us a moment when it is possible to change anything that is causing us unhappiness. The magic moment is the moment when a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ can change our whole existence. Every day, we try to pretend that we do not see that moment, that it does not exist, that today is the same as yesterday and that tomorrow will be the same too.

However, anyone who pays close attention to his day will discover the magic moment. It might be hidden in the instant that we put the key in the door in the morning, in the moment of silence after supper, in the thousand and one things that appear to us to be the same. This moment exists, a moment in which all the strength of the stars flows through us and allows us to perform miracles.”

By Paulo Coelho in By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept.

More stuff on having a great day: Great day or lousy day? and Make Today Count!