Personal Improvement
To the extent you know love you become love. Love is more than an emotion, it is a force of nature and therefore must contain truth. When you say the word love, you may catch the feeling but the essence cannot be spoken. The purest love lies where it is least expected; in UN-attachment.
What do you think of love? Would you suffer out of love?
Ask these questions from yourself and find out for yourself, what is your inner image of love. Love is basically an inner image. Love can change to hate, if the reality of the object changes. Look beyond your emotions, they always change; ask yourself what lies behind the image.
To us love is highly personal feeling, to me it is a universal force, I do not see forms of love as higher or lower – that is the language of judgment – I DON’T JUDGE!
There is only one form of love, personal love is concentrated form of universal love. Universal love is an expanded form of personal love. You can experience both to the fullest, if you allow yourself to be open. To some extent or another we all fall in love with images. Usually we are searching for someone to either reflect our own self-image or to repair it. Feeling incomplete in yourself, you try to bounce your lack through someone else.
Searching out your own voice is the first step of universal love. Filling love with the essence of life is the second. If you honestly look at your past, you will always find a mixed bag; some experience may have aroused love of self or others, when it is not. These images what they are, accept them and move to higher sense of self, which is unconnected with memory; this is the origin of love. The origin of yourself is entered through meditation. You can get a sense of what it is like to go beyond the image you keep in your mind, if you just imagine a beautiful girl/boy, than think of them as old and try to end up with a wrinkled image of them. Do you feel the same? Can you call it love? When a mere change of image causes such an alteration?
When you stop seeing love as a mere emotion it makes sense and as a universal force, love is drawing everyone towards it. Thus we should honor every expression of love – how ever distorted.
Personal Improvement
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.
One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.
His bed was next to the room’s only window.
The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end.
They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..
Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.
The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.
Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.
Days, weeks and months passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.
She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.
It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.
The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.
She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’
Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.
‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present .’
Uncategorized
It is important to remember, when thinking about what you would like to achieve in your life, that change is inevitable. Your circumstances and priorities will change through your life, you may realise, at the age of 40 that you are never going to be a concert pianist – as you had planned when you were 19. However if you take the right steps from the age of 19 then there is nothing to stop you achieving this potential goal.
When thinking about your lifetime goals, make them challenging and exciting, base them on your strengths but make them relevant to you and ultimately achievable.
It may be useful to categorise life goals:
- Academic goals – what knowledge and/or qualifications do you want to achieve?
- Career goals – where would you like your career to take you, what level do you want to reach?
- Monetary goals – what do you aim to earn at given point in your life?
- Ethical goals – do you want to volunteer some of your time to a good cause or get involved in local events, politics etc.?
- Creative goals – how do you want to progress creatively or artistically?
- Domestic goals – how would you like your domestic life to be in the future?
- Physical goals – do you want to develop you skill in a certain sport or other physical activity?
Once you have thought about your life goals you can start to plan how best to achieve them. Set yourself smaller goals for the future. In ten years I will be… in five years I will be… etc. Work out plans of action with smaller and smaller sub-goals until you can arrive at an action plan that you can start working on now.
Making Your Goals SMART:
It can be useful to make your goals and sub-goals fit the SMART criteria.
That is goals should be:
- S Specific – make each goal specific, so you know exactly what it is.
- M Measurable – make each goal measurable so you know how you are progressing.
- A Attainable – don’t set impossible goals, make sure each goal and sub-goal is attainable.
- R Relevant – make your goals relevant. Ensure your sub-goals are relevant to your life goals.
- T Timed – set time-limits or deadlines for when to achieve each goal.
Keep Motivated
Finally it is important to keep track of what you want to achieve and stay motivated to do so. To keep your motivation levels up try to:
- Learn and Acquire Knowledge. Read, study and talk to people – knowledge and information are key for feeding your mind and keeping you curious and motivated. See our section: Study Skills for some tips on how to make your learning more effective.
- Keep the Company of Enthusiastic People. Try to avoid negative people and seek out positive, well-motivated people. It is a lot easier to be motivated if the people around you are.
- Keep Positive. Keep a positive attitude, see problems and set-backs as learning opportunities.
- Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses. Work on ironing out your weaknesses and building on your strengths.
- Do it. Try not to procrastinate, assess the risks but keep working towards your goals.
- Get Help and Help Others. Don’t be afraid to ask other for help and don’t hold back if you can help them. Seeing other people succeed will help to motivate you to do the same.
