** Happiness — we all define happiness differently. What may be happiness for you may not be happiness for me. However, I do know that no amount of money can buy happiness. I have come to know many people and families who are what I deem “well off” who has never and will never find happiness. The reason is because they think having financial security will bring happiness and well roundedness in their lives and the lives of their families…in reality…it doesn’t. Yes, it brings financial security but these families live very lonely lives…what they realize is that money can only buy “temporary” happiness…true happiness comes from being secure with who you are and all that God has given you. Material goods can never buy happiness. Unfortunately, this is what we are teaching our kids — for our lack of quality time we spend with them we try to make it up with material goods. Have you ever noticed that in our materialistic world these days, in order to “maintain” this so called happiness, we always have to “buy” more and more goods just to sustain this sense of false happiness? After the initial “high” of buying something is over, we go back into our “slump” and then we feel like we have to purchase more and better stuff to “get back” that happiness. This becomes a vicious circle…as a result, we end up with a house full of “things” we DON’T need and we still haven’t achieved TRUE Happiness.
One of my all time favourite books is “City of Joy” and I would recommend everyone to read this book. For those who have read it, I would love to hear your reviews!
** Compassion — more so than ever we need compassion in this world we live in. There too many sufferings that many of us tend to close our doors and view these sufferings as “other people’s sufferings”. Unfortunately, they are OUR sufferings too. It is important for us to understand that in order to make this world a better place to live in and a healthier place to live in, we all need to help each other. Homelessness, prostitution, spousal abuse, just to name a few, is not OTHER people’s problem, it is our problem too and we need to help as much as we can.
It is important for us to try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. It is nice that we have a warm, loving home to live in, we have many friends who care for us, but there are many people out there not so fortunate. WE can all pitch in and help…the simplest thing we can do EVERYDAY is SMILE! It is amazing how just flashing a smile at someone can uplift their maybe not so sunny day. So, if there nothing else you feel you can do — then try smiling. Obviously what I am writing here is quite simple..my goal here is to hopefully start a dialogue and get people interested and hopefully because of this, they start taking on their own research and initiative to helping others and become more compassionate.
** Unconditional Love — I think I am pretty safe to say that no one shows this better than animals. I have learned so much from my loving little yorkie. Anytime I am having a horrible day, my little yorkie is always there giving me lots of loving kisses and attention. Those of you who owns a pet will be able to understand better what I am saying.
One change I have made and am still making is trying not to buy too many “things” for my kids. I tend to go off the deep end with this…I am now spending more “quality” time with my kids (ie. doing arts and crafts, taking walks (when possible–especially during winter months)outside or we just go “mall” walking, etc). This is one challenge I have made for myself this year…
I hope this post inspires you to look deeply into your life and will also inspire you to start thinking about your life and to make the change(s) you feel important or necessary.
