what we hold on to, what we let go off

As the seconds flutter by, the minutes stroll past, the hours melt away and so on, we find ourselves living our lives and being who we are with the type of lifestyles we have come to accept, whether by choice or by circumstance, we are there. We are all looking for our perfect way of living life and the right way to do things, but we rarely would know as we only get one shot realistically at living life. With this in mind i feel that we really are born with a basic instinct as to how we live life. Sure our ancestors didn't live the same way as us because of what we call knowledge and learning. Our ancestors learnt from their ancestors as we do from them, and in essence, we understand more things than they did, only because we have access to what they didn't. We could call that learning from experience on a macro scale. In life as humans, we have the ability to learn and then progress. Because we have learned how to efficiently stay alive with minimal effort, we then started learning to develop with things that caught out curiosities, and hence we know a wide variety of things because of experiments and research. With this learning and developing, i can come to my point which is that we still however have one life to live and we aspire to the best we can. With this realization, i went down a road of further thought on the things that affect us and the weight of it on our lives. We find that we can be emotionally affected by people who have a place in our lives. Even though we may have previously lived perfectly fine with our dreams and aspirations, when we find a person that we become friends with and subsequently more, we connect on a certain level, and then we feel that we cannot live our lives again without that person after that. Our ability to learn is directly effected by our emotions, since we shall learn and progress when we really want to. The reason i feel that we hold onto people and things that bring about some change in our lives is that they appeal to our emotional side of living the perfect life, and hence we feel that henceforth without those special things or people, we shall never have the same quality of life. I understand that as human we cannot simply let go, because that is what we define as someone that cares, but i also think that because we care, we should have the ability to let go of everything. A bit cryptic perhaps, but a bit more significant for me as i feel that when we can control our emotions to allow us to learn that a perfect life isn't one that really obtained, but rather a realistic life is what we get, then we would actually be closer to live a life which is more fulfilling. It maybe quite subjective, but i know that it makes a whole lot of sense, as people change, and people are different. We may not know what someone is truly about, or we may when its a bit too late. To close, id just like to share "In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself." – Deepak Chopra

The effect of consistency

There seems to always come a time when we are drawn into our lives and have a monotonous lifestyle doing things the same way everyday. Sometimes, this may seem as a good thing as doing good continuously adds up and shows good progress, though how do we know that what we are doing is actually improving our lives or doing the opposite? The reason i have this on my mind is that a few weeks ago, i decided that what i was doing wasn't enough, and to be more productive and have a better quality of life, i will need to work harder for longer now. During this beginning phase i ask myself a whole lot of questions which helps me understand if i am doing too much and heading for a burnout, or am i actually doing what i was supposed to be doing in the first place. The idea of making the most of ones time comes up a lot in everyone's life when they take the time to reflect and put things into perspective. I get amazed quite often at what kind of goals i set myself when after a while i try to take the route where i do much more than i think i can handle and it actually goes along well without any problems. Let me give you an example. Ive been trying to go to gym from the time i was in school to keep fit and lead a healthy lifestyle, and part of going to gym, is the consistency as well as intensity. Generally we should go to gym 3-4 time a week to lead a fruitful healthy lifestyle with moderate intensity. Ive been doing this generally on and off and see minimal results, and a couple months ago i decided to up the ante and try and go to gym on average 5 times a week, and not only that but with a high intensity. The difference is that when working consistently you will find a more fruitful outcome than working hard for a short while. Our only draw back would be our minds since we have a limited amount of concentration to give. so, to me, i feel that if i can increase my concentration, i can earn a better quality of life getting the most i can get done!

a determined mind

The feeling of waking up in the morning, realizing the state you are in and making a promise to yourself to change everything that you do to change and get to a happier place in life. I'm sure that many of us can agree to this kind of scenario since we all have goals in life although at times it may seem to be in the furthest recesses of our minds just kept away so we don't realize what we are doing or what we are allowing ourselves to be put through. The realization that we have other choices and the determination of following through with those decisions are what make us determined. This can be seen mainly with people who are over weight and wake up one day realizing that they are indeed much fatter and unhealthy than they need to be, and thus make up their minds to change. This change in the way people treat themselves are triggered by a motivation to attain a better quality of life. Not everyone can find this determination in their lives , but from the few success stories that we do fine, we can see that it is possible to change. For me, this shows that although as humans we get beaten down, trod on in terms of literal and superficial issues, even issues of the mind and our beliefs, we can find a motivation to make ourselves determined to find the truth or to find a better way to live in essence. For a person to appreciate the value of living a "normal" life, they have to be subjected to living a life off those more unfortunate. in many ways, a hungry person find more satisfaction from a cup of water than a spoilt rich person who only drinks designer beverages. However, we don't have to put ourselves through every agony to acquire the humbleness and the appreciating of what we have and where we are. I feel that although i may not have lived in the slums or fought against an army, i still appreciate what it would be like and take choices in my life to be better than that and not go down the same path. To know the limits of your mind, you do need to push it however, but you will be surprised for how much you can do with it when you really try.