Have you ever felt like being a football?

Well, as weird as it might seem, I’m feeling like one these days.

I feel as if I am a football and 22 players (11 from each side), are all running after me, trying to take hold of me, kicking me in all directions in their unrelenting effort to throw me into the goal area of the opposite team.

That is how life becomes sometimes, and with all your planning and all your efforts to live a controlled and planned life, you simply are unable to do just that.

I used the word “events”—like your father being extremely sick all of a sudden, your child having trouble with his health, your wife expecting another baby soon and needing your attention, your business going down the drain due to no fault of your own, and stuff like that—stuff that is simply none of your doing and totally beyond your direct control.

How do you deal with that? How do you stop being a football? How do you request the 22 players to stop kicking your ass around? How do you manage to bring sanity back into your life?

The answer is the funnel.

If you take a funnel and look through it, closing the other eye, what do you see? You see only a tiny portion of what is in front of you. You see reality, but you see it in parts, patches and segments. And that is what makes you feel like you can handle the stuff.

You only focus on what is in front of you, and needs your immediate attention, and you give it to that, without worrying about what is going to happen next. You filter everything out and zero in on the task at hand, knowing that soon things will be back to normal, and they usually are after some time passes.

What you should avoid, is letting the things get to you, making you mentally confused and anxious. Keep your feet on the ground and whenever the events in your life get out of control, just see the light at the end of the funnel.

Photo Credit

I have received a number of emails, Twitter and Facebook messages from the readers worldwide, who read my post 21 Faces of The Pakistan Flood, and wanted to contribute for the Pakistan flood victims, asking me to either take their contributions personally from them, or tell them about the single most credible source where they can send their contributions in cash and kind.

In the original post I gave 3 credible sources, but it looks like that didn’t help. I have changed the sources from 3 to only 1 now—Aaj Relief—which I am sure will direct your help to the right people, in the most efficient manner, along with accountability and transparency.

It’s not that the remaining 2 sources (Edhi Foundation and Chippa Welfare Association) are any less credible, but given the demand of the donors, and the fact that those two organizations do not have regularly updated websites (that update every donor how his or her money is being spent and where it is being used), I have decided on the Aaj Relief only. I am myself contributing my money to Aaj Relief.

It is unfortunate that the credibility of Pakistani Government and local NGOs is at its lowest point in the history of Pakistan, and people inside and outside Pakistan do not want to trust them at all, in spite of their increasing desire to help the Pakistan flood victims. But I am not here to judge the Government or any NGO.

My sole purpose of writing this post is to bridge the gap between you—the willing and generous donor—and the right organization—which is constantly in touch, on a minute by minute basis, with the people on the ground who are actually doing the relief work.

Along with that, I myself also want to make sure that you are constantly updated online about what is going on, in the field, and how your money is being spent for the flood victims, and in which area. And to ensure that, I chose Aaj Relief, because currently that is the only organization in Pakistan which is providing these services online, through their regularly updated website.

The Governments of the first world countries have not contributed much, due to exactly the same reasons (plus their own on-going economic recessions), and international organization like UNHCR, UNICEF and International Red Cross have been slow in their relief efforts because of the two main reasons, which are;

1. They co-ordinate their efforts with the help of the local Government which is inefficient and unprepared for a disaster of this scale.
2. The victims are not concentrated in a small area, instead they are scattered all over Pakistan, in small groups, which makes reaching out to them a big problem.

In the end, it comes down to us. You and me. I don’t care about the Government but unfortunately we have to get them involved because the scale of the disaster is too big and one person, one organization or even one Government can not handle it all by itself. It has to be a collective effort.

Let us focus on the first step only—giving our contributions to the right organization. The organization that has taken on the responsibility to do all the rest of the work voluntarily. So let’s not waste anymore time and start with helping out, right away.

Please go to the website of Aaj Relief to send your contributions.

UPDATES ON THE CURRENT CONDITIONS OF THE PAKISTAN FLOOD VICTIMS

1. The estimate of the affected people has gone up from 20 Million to 60 Million people who will be displaced from their homes—the homes that have totally disappeared from the face of the Earth.
2. Epidemics like cholera have broken out and diseases like watery diarrhea and dysentery are rampant along with skin diseases and snake bites cases.
3. There is acute shortage of clean drinking water—the biggest problem at present.
4. There is not enough food to give to the flood victims, who go hungry for days without eating anything, and many of them fight over a handful of rice when finally the aid arrives.
5. There are not sufficient tents for the affected families to live in temporarily. They are scattered on the roadsides of the major Pakistani cities, without any shelter.
6. There are a lot of areas where the aid can not reach, either through ground routes (because the roads and bridges have been washed away), or air routes because the hills makes it impossible for the helicopters to land. What little aid goes in those areas, it is taken by individuals on mules who travel on the hilly terrain for 9-10 hours on foot to reach small, scattered villages.
7. There is not enough medical aid and medicine to treat the sick.
8. Children and women are the worst affected segment of population with children dying at a heartbreaking rate—every minute.
9. The rains are still falling incessantly, increasing the scale of damage and hampering relief efforts.
10. Some of the biggest oil refineries and power plants in Pakistan have also been affected by the floods, resulting in severe shortages of fuel for transportation vehicles and electricity.
11. The hunger is driving people mad and they willing to do ANYTHING just to survive.

Please help as much as you can, for it is in these dire times in the history of civilization, that human souls are tested for their strength and their inherent ability to lend a helping hand to a fellow human being in need.

Believe in your humanity and believe that you can help. It doesn’t matter that you give 1 dollar or a million, what matters is your willingness to help, that finally translates into Life for someone else.

Here is the Aaj Relief website again, waiting for your generosity.

Photos Courtesy BBC

Yesterday, I wrote a post 21 Faces of The Pakistan Flood as an effort to spread awareness about the continuing devastation that is happening all around me these days, due to the unprecedented floods that Pakistan is facing.

Luckily, the post hit the main page of Reddit, and it was read by more than 1500 people from 57 countries in less than 12 hours of it’s publication. People emailed me asking permission to use my post in their own efforts to spread the message, which of course, I was happy to give.

Along with the much needed and appreciated support, came a few comments on the post’s link on Reddit, that made me feel as if we are yet far away from being civilized.

The comments showed how thoughtlessly and blindly some of us judge the entire races, religions and countries, based on the actions of a few individuals. No doubt, the condition this World is in, makes sense.

To make the readers understand the magnitude and scale of the destruction floods brought, I had written that, “Imagine 3 Scotlands drowning and its population stranded among rising waters, which destroyed the houses, shops, bridges, roads, in short everything that those people had going for them.”

In response to that a commenter (with the interesting username of scumbag_contractor) replied, “Yea… except Scotland is a civilized country and Pakistan is a country of savage terrorists. Let them all drown.”

Right after Mr. Scumbag_Contractor came Mr. NukeThePope, who said, “Pakistan is a country of poor ignorant slobs co-opted by a criminal gang of religious nutjobs. The vast majority of them bear no blame for the terrorism that’s emerging… I’d heartlessly consider any aid to Pakistan a waste of good resources… A priority would be to kick their Islamist assholes into line.”

I am not going to reply to either of the above commenters and fall into a useless discussion about how wrong they are and how right am I. I won’t do it because it is not a matter of being right and wrong. It is simply a matter of being who one is. They did not judge me, my country, my people or my message. They just revealed how they think and that is perfectly fine with me.

But most people in this situation, especially when it happens face to face, become angry and feel hurt and insulted. They usually lash back at the accuser and lose their grip on logic and civility. They do that because they feel threatened and do not know how to deal with their emotions in a constructive way.

If you have ever been in such a situation and couldn’t handle it properly then I want to share with you how I deal with it. Maybe next time, if something like this happens to you, then you can recall what you read here and react differently.

Here is a story you must remember.

HOW BUDDHA DEALT WITH NEGATVITY

One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up to him and began insulting him.

"You have no right to be teaching others," he shouted.

"You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."

Buddha was not upset by these insults. He just smiled. The man insulted him again and again but the only reaction he could get back from the Buddha was a smile and silence. Finally he stomped his feet and left cursing.

The disciples were feeling angry and one of the them couldn’t keep quiet and asked the Buddha, “Why didn’t you reply to the rude man?”

The Buddha replied, “If someone offers you a gift, and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?”

“Of course to the person who brought the gift,” replied the disciple.

“That is correct,” smiled the Buddha, “and that is exactly why I didn’t accept what that young man was trying to offer me”.

You got the message, right?

MOTHER TERESA’S QUOTE – DO IT ANYWAY

The following quote from Mother Teresa always helps me get over any negativity that is thrown my way and I’m sure that it will help you do the same as well.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

—Mother Teresa

Photo Credit

UPDATE: How to Ensure that Your Help Actually Reaches the Pakistan Flood Victims.

This time I am not going to say much. I don’t feel like it.

I am sad, anxious, worried and hopeful at the same time.

I am sad for the devastation that happened. The sheer magnitude of which I have not seen in my life. Not even when Tsunami came in 2004. This time it is even bigger.

Imagine 3 Scotlands drowning and its population stranded among rising waters, which destroyed the houses, shops, bridges, roads, in short everything that those people had going for them.

Imagine 20 Million (and counting) HUMAN BEINGS without food and clean water, getting hungrier and sicker with every minute that passes.

Imagine 44 people of a single family drowning under the first wave of water that caught them in the middle of the night.

Imagine a mother watching her 3 little daughters drowning in front of her eyes with heartbreaking helplessness, unable to save even one of them.

Imagine miles upon miles of rubbish, that were once villages and towns, where people lived and dreamed and hoped.

Imagine 1 human being dying every 30 minutes just because we are unable to help.

Imagine rampant diseases and the smell and hopelessness of dying bodies.

Imagine mud-covered bodies lying all around, waiting to be buried.

Imagine children who were saved, waiting for their Moms and Dads who never came.

Imagine parents who are alive, searching for their dead children.

Imagine the houses falling on the very people who made them.

Imagine farmers looking at millions of square kilometers under water, where once stood their flourishing crops.

Imagine children looking at their mothers, crying and asking for a sip of water.

Imagine wives looking at their husbands, and not saying anything because they know, there is nothing that they can give them.

Imagine fathers drowning to save their sons and daughters from the crashing waves.

Imagine sons and daughters, asking their parents to board the navy boats and save themselves first, even knowing that the boats may come again too late.

And imagine that the second wave is coming. The first one is just halfway and the second one has started. The estimate is that around 30 Million people will be displaced. 30 Million People. That is more than the population of many countries in the world.

Now look at these faces of the flood and then I’ll ask you a question and tell you why i am hopeful

1. Water, Water, Everywhere!

2. Where to Go Now?

3. How to Save the Bed and Themselves?

4. Finally, Leaving the Roof Behind.

5. Can He Save Anything Else?

6. The City That Was!

7. Where to?

8. Still Waiting for the Rescue…

9. Waiting in Line for the Food.

10. How Many Can They Save?

11. Homes Where People Once Lived…

12. How to Feed Them All?

13. Here the Rescuers Need to be Rescued.

14. The Paralyzed City.

15. A Temporary Home!

16. Save Our Souls!

17. This is What is Left Behind.

18. Moving with the Whole Town.

19. When Will the Helicopters Come?

20. Till Someone Comes to Rescue Us, Lets Share with Each Other What Little We Have to Eat.

21. Please, Don’t Leave Us Behind…

Now that you know the magnitude of the devastation and have seen the visuals of the destruction, I want to ask you a simple question.

Will You Help?

I leave the answer to you because I am hopeful, like I said in the beginning of this post. And the reason for being hopeful is that I believe you will help, in whatever way you can. I believe in the goodness of the human soul. I believe in YOU.

HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP

I am giving you the most trustable source that can direct your help in cash and kind to the people who need it the most. And please bear in mind that they need it URGENTLY. Even a single cent would help, so just do what you can, with an open heart.

Please donate to AAJ RELIEF

And while you are doing so, never for a single moment think, that you are helping some flood victims, living in a far away land, unknown to you. Just know that you are helping yourself. Because, in the final analysis, we are all connected to each other, we are all one!

You may not have even a single dollar for the flood victims, but at least you can spread the message around. That won’t cost a penny and that is the least you can do. Please spread this message on Social Networking Sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Stumbleupon etc.

I’ll be personally grateful to you for this kind gesture.

UPDATE: How to Ensure that Your Help Actually Reaches the Pakistan Flood Victims.

Photo Credits: AFP and Reuters

Which is the first ever personal development book that you read?

For me it is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey [Affiliate Link]

Here in my city, Faisalabad, used books are sold on roadside stalls on Friday. I remember cycling past one such stall, sometime back in 1992 (two years after its publication in 1990), and seeing the book lying on top of a big pile of used book.

The title just spoke to me, and I went ahead and bought the the book, without even reading a few pages, as if I “knew” that I’d like this book.

And I liked it. Not only that, but it also kindled the dormant flames of a hunger for understanding of life and excellence inside me.

Reading this book was like opening my eyes for the first time and looking at life from a very different angle.

That is what Stephen Covey calls in his book—a paradigm shift. I was introduced to this concept by this exact book of Stephen Covey, and got hooked on to it.

This is not a review of the book. With over 15 million copies of this book sold, you can find thousand of its reviews on the Web. In fact, you can read some great reviews right on the Amazon.Com website. Just scroll down the page and you’ll see many reviews.

It is a lazy, hazy and cloudy day today, with a strange nostalgic feel to it. I am drinking my first cup of tea, and while sipping on the silky textured tea, my mind is travelling back in time, when I didn’t know about “personal development”. I didn’t know that my life is not entirely pre-destined. I didn’t know that there exist thought patterns and life strategies that can change my life.

Now I know better and I owe it to this wonderful book, now considered a classic in the self-help category of books. If you haven’t read it up until now, you better read it, for you cannot miss out on reading it, if you are interested in developing your life personally.

Which is the first personal development book that you read?

I have always wondered, why people usually look towards the sky, when they refer to God?

As if there is a sky, and there is a physical entity, living somewhere beyond the clouds, looking down at the mortals, watching them, and deciding what to do with them, and when.

Maybe it’s because we subconsciously believe that God is someone, who is far away from us, almost in another galaxy.

Maybe we borrowed it from the scriptures which so frequently mention “heaven”, as a place “in the sky”, where God resides.

I don’t know what makes us look at the sky to look for God, but I do find it strange, in spite of the fact, that I do it myself, by default. But now, I have started noticing this behavior of mine, consciously.

I also wonder, when someone asks me that whether I believe in God or not. And I usually respond with, “Who is God, for you?”

Most of the people get confused by that question, and don’t know how to respond to that. They never really thought about their God. They took the concept of God, as handed down to them by their parents, teachers, environment and culture and let it just hang in there, without any inquiry into its nature, by themselves.

We all have a different version of God, programmed into our minds, and some of those versions are way off the mark, so much so, that people react by refusing to believe in any version at all. Atheism, in my opinion, is just such a reaction. When you fail to understand a concept to your satisfaction, you either take it as it is, or you simply let it go.

God is a strictly subjective concept, and as subjectivity goes, there is no single answer to the question of who God is. That is why I ask that, who is God for YOU. Your God is yours, just the way YOU choose to believe in Him (sorry but the English language has its limitations, so excuse me for the Him part).

So if you are expecting me to define God for you, you’ll be disappointed. I can’t do that for you. I can do that only for myself. As far as you are concerned, you have to do it for yourself, if at all you want to do it.

But if, at any stage of your life, you feel that you need God in your life, then I will encourage you to define God for yourself, before you start looking towards the sky. That will clear up a lot of mess, trust me. Mess, even if it is spiritual mess, is mess nonetheless.

And one more thing before I end this post.

Instead of asking, do you believe in God, consider asking this question: Does Your God believe in You?

Photo Credit

Have you ever read a book, and then wished you had read that book earlier in your life?

How to be Rich and Happy turned out to be that book for me, simply because I think, you should learn to be rich and happy, as early as possible, in your life. That can save you a lot of grief, stress and needless experimentation.

John P. Strelecky and Tim Brownson, the authors of the book—How to be Rich and Happy, have done a wonderful job writing this book.

I was introduced to one of the authors, Tim Brownson by Haider Al-Mosawi, a dear friend of mine, whose opinion I respect, and Tim later on, sent me his book for review.

I am an avid reader and in the course of the last 20 years I have read a number of books relating to personal development. Yet, there are few books that resonated with me, and made me change my behavior, for my own good. Read my post on 4 Most Overlooked Reasons Why Self-Help Material Doesn’t Change Your Life.

If a book makes you think and inspires you to change your behavior, then that is a keeper and that is the scale on which personal development books should be judged.

How to be Rich and Happy also happens to be the first book, that I decided to write a review of, on my blog. Firstly because it came highly recommended by a friend and secondly because I read Tim’s blog, A Daring Adventure, and found it to be inspiring.

Tim and John, in How to be Rich and Happy, have provided valuable information, inspirational stories as well as practical tips, techniques and exercises, which in my opinion have the potential to bring about a positive change in you.

The book is based on the core principals of NLP—Neuro-linguistic Programming. It takes you on a step by step journey, to the inside of your own mind, starting with Value Elicitation and Belief Systems. That is a powerful experience to go through and it brings to surface the hidden forces that has been shaping your behavior, your whole life.

It encourages you to define the word “success,” for yourself, which gives you a much needed mental clarity and lays out the foundation of personal change towards a worthy goal. On the way, it gives examples of inspiring people who changed the course of their lives and left behind a legacy worth following.

I found it to be an easy read that avoids the jargon and gets straight to the point. That is a big plus for any NLP based, personal development book.

But that is not all. The book also comes with a worthy challenge—to help Tim and John in their dream of giving away one million copies of How to be Rich and Happy, for free, to the people who most need to have access to such information. That is a great dream, and shows how much the authors believe in their work, and how much they want to help all of us with their hard work. I encourage you to make this dream a reality. Here is the story and how you can help.

Would you like to be rich and happy NOW or would you like to wait? If you are sick and tired of waiting, then I suggest you give How to be Rich and Happy a shot, at helping you become just that—rich and happy!

[Note: I am not affiliated with the book, How to be Rich and Happy, and/or it’s authors in anyway, and none of the links above are affiliate links. This review is an honest opinion, that I chose to share with you, without any kind of material reward, just FYI]

(This is a guest post by Nadia Ballas-Ruta of Happy Lotus)

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

—Steve Jobs

One of the many great things about the passage of time is that it provides us with enough experiences to be able to reflect upon, and in that reflection, it becomes obvious that every single event was part of a chain and/or puzzle which leads up to the present.

Unlike many people, there is nothing I would like to change in my past.

Everything that happened to me, made me who I am today. My past has its pain and problems but there are also successes and joys. All of those events are part of my biography and I would not want to be anyone else. I earned what I have now and for that I am eternally grateful.

Yes, there are things in my past which make me cringe but that is part of the beauty of being alive. None of us is born knowing everything and therein lies one of the purposes of being born. We are here in order to learn and grow.

We are the sum total of our experiences and we have the wisdom that we can share with each other.

So here is what I learnt in my brief time on this planet. May it be as beneficial to you as it has been for me.

1. Everything Happens For A Reason

There is no such thing as a random event that holds no purpose. The interesting part is, that the purpose of the event, may not become evident until years later, when you are taking a shower or having a conversation with a stranger.

2. There Is No Such Thing As A Bad Event

I took my time to learn this lesson. Every event that occurs in your life, holds a purpose and the purpose is a good one, even though the event may be extremely painful.

The Universe is all loving and everything that we experience is for our benefit. I know that this may sound odd, but trust me. This is coming from a person who has had a far from ideal childhood. I used to view my childhood with immense pain, but now I am very grateful for it, because it made me who I am and I love being me.

3. You Will Always Land On Your Feet (a.k.a. There Is Nothing To Fear)

One of the benefits of the passage of time that I have come to realize, is that things always work out in the end for you. No matter how huge the risk may seem, you will land on your feet and be okay.

The Universe provides you with what you need at any given moment. So do not fear anything. You will be fine, no matter how tough things may seem initially.

4. You Create Your Reality

Contrary to popular thought, things do not happen to you. You create your reality. It is like when we were in school. Our grades were earned and not given. The same holds true in life. What we experience, is what we have earned.

So if you are not happy with your life, do what you can to change it. You are far more powerful than you know.

5. Ego Based Behavior Is For Losers. Life Is All About Love

Any time someone is mean to you or does something to hurt you, rest assured that their behavior is more about them than it is about you. Happy people want others to be happy. Miserable people want others to be miserable.

Any time you do something out of your ego, you are acting from the mindset of fear and insecurity. Love gives freely and without condition. Love allows other people to be who they are, without feeling threatened. There is enough abundance in the world, and we can all have a life we love.

When your journey here on Earth comes to an end (which it will at some point in time, as no one is exempt from that), what will matter most, and what you will take away with you, will be how you played your part. All of your degrees and material possessions will be left behind. So be sure that when you leave, your legacy is love.

For it is love, that changes everything. Love!

Photo Credit

Dr. Wayne Dyer, in an interview he gave to Ray Hemachandra, back in November 2005 said, “When I look at the news and all the things that are hostile out there, I remind myself that for every act of evil in the world, there are a million acts of kindness.”

That line of Dr. Wayne Dyer slid its way into my heart and mind. After that, every time I felt, that the news and acts of violence and injustice in the world are sucking away my energy, I recalled that line and deliberately chose to see the million acts of kindness people are doing around me.

They usually go unnoticed—the million acts of kindness. Media doesn’t highlight them, for they are hardly newsworthy, and we don’t notice them because we have somehow trained our minds to follow the camera—blindly.

It is no wonder then, that our minds look for the negativity around us more than the positivity, and we ignore the acts of kindness that are happening around us, all the time.

But then someone comes along and do something wonderful, and the energy of such an act of kindness grips our heart, and we are forced to look at it. Raam Dev is one of those people.

He is an idealist. I believe he is, because only an idealist can label himself as, “a frugal world traveling nomad”. Only an idealist can feel the need to change our collective behaviors, for the greater good of mankind, and only an idealist can come up with a brilliant and valuable 160 page e-book, within days, by distilling the wisdom of over 40 personal development bloggers.

I am not one of the contributors to Raam’s book, titled aptly, “Small Ways to Make a Big Difference”, but I definitely am the kind of guy who, when sees some act of kindness, makes sure that he spreads the word around.

This free e-book is one act of kindness you need to check out for yourself, for it may just inspire you to do an act of kindness too, and that I believe, is what we need the most.

Click the book’s title to get your free copy of Raam’s e-book—Small Ways to Make a Big Difference—and make a difference.

Have you ever failed at something in your life?

I doubt that there is any person on this planet who will say NO to that.

You might have failed and failed often (by the way that is a great trait to have), but let me ask you, how do you deal with your failures?

Do you indulge yourself in self-pity, complain, hit yourself over the head, shout at your family and friends, get drunk or just sit there thinking about the whys and hows for days without end?

What does this word, failure, mean to you? What emotions does it bring forth?

Does this word frighten you and you avoid it like a plague, or do you invite failure instead, and think of it as an inevitable step on the ladder of success?

Life is simply a collection of tiny moments stringed together in the stream of Time. There come moments when you feel you have failed at something, and then there come moments when you feel you have succeeded.

It is a perpetual happening. If you wanted to be alive this morning, here you are, ALIVE! That is a success, if you think about it. But you don’t think that way. You take it for granted.

Every moment can be a success or failure, depending on how you choose to think about it.

Usually your mind gets stuck on failures unnecessarily, and in the process it creates unwanted stress.

I call this—the failure mindset. Absolutely useless but common, nonetheless. You have to avoid this mental trap, this pessimistic thinking pattern. It doesn’t serve any purpose except making you feel bad and tense.

Whenever you see the thoughts of your past failures rising in your mind, immediately be alert and change the way you think about failures.

Failure is just information. Information about what doesn’t work. Embrace this knowledge and use it to reach at what does work.

Think of failing at something as a filtering mechanism of life, that is activated so you may succeed eventually.

Your failing at something does not mean that you are a failure, as a whole. Don’t extend its boundaries unreasonably. Your actions may have failed to bring about the results you were hoping for, but that doesn’t make you a failure at all.

There are no such people who don’t fail. We all go through “the failing phase”. That is just how life works. Accept it.

If you failed at one thing, that does not mean that you will fail at everything else too. That is simply not true. Look around you and you will know what I mean. We fail at certain things and we succeed at some—all of us.

To be willing to fail and fail often is a great mindset to acquire. Why? Because it increases your chances of success with each new failure you face. Look at the life histories of great people and behind the glamorous veils of their successes you will see a long chain of failures which they dealt with successfully, to succeed in life.

Remember failure is just a state of mind. It is not good or bad but you make it so by painting it emotionally in one way or the other.

Failure is not the opposite of success. In fact, it is a vital part of every success.

I love this quote from George Bernard Shaw.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

—George Bernard Shaw

Redefine the word, failure, for yourself. It will empower you and help you succeed in life by making you accept your failures gracefully and learning from them.

Next time you fail at something, instead of indulging yourself in self-pity, pat yourself on the back, dust off the emotional dirt, stand in front of a mirror and say, “Well done You! You are one more step closer to success than ever before”.

Photo Credit

I got a problem with the English phrase—to fall in love.

Whenever I see it in print or hear it, my mind gets stuck on the use of the word, “fall” alongside “love”.

To me these two words, fall and love, can not be used together, conceptually, to convey the feeling of being in love.

They make love seem like some kind of a booby trap that you’d rather avoid falling into.

If you are “falling” in love, then either you should stop falling or stop loving. You can not  love if you are falling and you can not fall if you are loving.

How could you fall in love when love is supposed to be the grandest and the greatest of all human emotions?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PHRASE—TO FALL IN LOVE

I don’t know who coined this phrase but when I searched for it on The Online Etymology Dictionary, I came to know that its usage in the English language, dates back to the early 15th century.

To get a perspective on that, as far as the history of English literature is concerned, that would be after the time of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) and before the birth of William Shakespeare (baptized 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616).

Shakespeare also used this phrase in his play, As You Like It, believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in 1623.

As You Like It
by William Shakespeare

Act 1, Scene 2

CELIA

    You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is
    like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt
    be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy
    father perforce, I will render thee again in
    affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break
    that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my
    sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

ROSALIND

    From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
    me see; what think you of falling in love?

I wish that instead of Rosalind asking Celia, “what think you of falling in love?”, Shakespeare would have asked me about it.

Some people also argue that the phrase, to fall in love, is linked to the “fall” of Adam and Eve from Heavens.

In Genesis, the first book of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, God creates Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, in his own image.

God places them in the Garden of Eden and forbids them to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (often symbolized in European art and literature as an apple tree).

The serpent persuades Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve shares the fruit with Adam and they immediately become ashamed of their nakedness.

Source: Wikipedia

As Adam and Eve become ashamed of their nakedness, God says:

I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.^{[Gen. 3:6]}

You may or may not agree with this argument, but the phrase, to fall in love, is full of negativity, which I dislike, because for me love is an emotion that is absolutely positive and decidedly grand.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LOVE AND LUST

From the Bible reference above the act of sex is implied. Somehow, somewhere in our subconscious, sex is being labeled as bad, especially so in the Eastern cultures. We are made to believe that sex has no place in love and love is an emotion above and beyond the carnal pleasures.

I disagree with this thought. I see clear distinction between love and lust, but for me, love may or may not accommodate lust but pure lust has no place in the emotion of love.

This is true if we speak of love, as the love between a man and a woman. Of course, out of this context, the feeling of lust automatically vanishes. There is no question of lust when you are talking about your love for mankind or your love for your family.

WHAT IS LOVE ANYWAY

Everyone has an opinion on this and probably this emotion of love has been the single most  talked and written about human emotion ever. It has been and still is the central focus of the literature of all times.

Your life revolves around it. You feel the presence or lack of it in your life acutely and your behavior is constantly shaped by it, in one way or another.

How do you define love? Try to answer this question for yourself.

You may have heard people saying that love can not be defined. It is too big an emotion to be expressed in words etc. But I think otherwise. And I also think that it is important to define this emotion of love for yourself.

You may not agree with my definition of love and similarly your definition of love may not ring true to me, but still you should know clearly that what is love for you.

HOW DO I DEFINE LOVE

My definition is simple.

Love is the emotion you feel, when you willingly and gladly give more importance to the well being and happiness of your object of love, rather than your own.

Do you agree with it?

When you love your child, won’t you put your own life at risk for him?

When you love a woman, won’t you do everything possible to make and keep her happy?

When you love God, won’t you go to any extreme to “please” Him?

When you love your fellow human beings, won’t you give them the best of what you got?

This is love, for me.

What is love for you? How do you define it? Let me know by commenting on this article in the comments section below.

SO NEVER FALL IN LOVE

Rise in love. Be in love. Share your love. Extend your love. Serve with love. Experience love. Just love. But never ever “fall” in love.

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