...continued from Part-1 here:
So how can we enjoy life more?
If your life reads like a TV script - with a perfect partner, angelic kids, spotless house, a 5-minute commute without any traffic jams to the perfect job alongside caring and empathic workmates and a boss who gives you bonuses to pay for your regular exotic holidays… then get back to the fairy-tale you came from!
The rest of us don’t have lives like that and the more we try to grab onto that kind of a fantasy the worse we feel.
Time for a reality check and you might be pleasantly surprised how well your life currently stacks up against those supposedly living the high life. And in the areas where things aren’t so great, change is much simpler to put into practice than most people think.
By the way, I’m no sheet-clad yogi sitting on a mountain top passing down pearls of wisdom because I’ve got all the answers. Far from it!
I’m still working on being happier every single day because ‘being happy’ isn’t a destination – it’s the fun you have right now creating memories you will want to look back on.
There are plenty of books by ‘experts’ on being happy. Many of these give you step by step instructions like ‘take a bath’ - ‘find some you time’ - ‘exercise and eat well’ - ‘get plenty of sleep’ - ‘have lot’s of good friends‘ etc etc etc…
Then there are those books on being happy that approach the topic in a more spiritual way like ‘meditation is the key to enlightenment’ - ‘yoga releases your inner stress’ or ‘try veganism for a cleaner you!’
All of those approaches won’t do you any harm and will more than likely give you some ideas about changing your life in some way for the better.
But what if you’re just a regular person struggling to meet societal or family expectations – or at the other end of the spectrum maybe you ‘have everything’ – the job, the money, the car, the house or boat and you’re still not happy...
What then?
What can we do about it? – PLENTY! – but you have to WANT to make changes. You have to WANT to step back and take a good look at your life and you have to stop and THINK about who you are and what you are.
And if you don’t like what you see – change it!
Lots of the new-age books refer to the idea that ‘affirmations’ help remind us to do better if repeated regularly – here’s one of my favourites;
“Think big and your deeds will grow
Think small and you’ll be left behind
Think that you can and you will
It’s all in the state of the mind”
Sounds a little ‘new-age’, don’t you think? Well, this affirmation was actually penned way back before the Second World War!
It’s a hand-written note inside a small prayer book (photo above) given to my mother in February 1942 as she left her first job to go off and help the War effort in the Australian Women's Land Army.
It basically means that you can ‘mentally’ leave a negative situation and follow physically later, when you’ve found where you want to go. It might be to a new job or to a new way of living.
The important thing is not to ignore an imperfect situation thinking it’ll sort itself out.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re 16 or 60 or 96… you can make small but significant changes in your life or you can make really big momentous ones.
It’s up to you and depends entirely on your attitude and of course – what you want from your life.
After all we really do create our own reality!...
... Read Part-1 here:
(c) 2021 - Brian Pickering
