Acts of Goodness

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody."

- Chinese Proverb

Smile thru storms

If you find yourself getting frustrated with the mundanity of life, try focusing on how you can serve others.  This can have an immense impact on your own life.

Cook a neighbor some cookies, buy a meal for someone experiencing homelessness, help someone who is stranded on the side of the road, buy someone's groceries, volunteer at a homeless shelter, donate some of your homegrown vegetables, volunteer at an organization helping refugees, volunteer at an orphanage, those are just a few ideas of how you can help others - if you so desire.  There are probably millions if not billions of ways you can help others.  Get creative with it!

Think about how if a neighbor were to bring you some cookies, how much that would make your day.  Even if you don't like cookies, or if they're terrible or if you don't eat sugar, just the act of them bringing you cookies will still brighten your day.  If it would make your day better, go brighten somebody else's day with it.

The Joys of Life

"The sage calmly stopped pouring tea and looked at him: Your mind, sir, is much like this teacup.  I'm afraid it is already too full for me to be able to fit anything else into.  Else it will surely run over and spill everywhere."

- Traditional Adage

Playing with an elephant in a river in Nepal

As you go thru life it's way too easy to focus on the negative and what's going wrong in both your life and the world.  This isn't the full story though.  There is always good to be found, no matter your circumstance.  Even if it is simply: I am alive today.

The news focuses on what sells and what gets clicks, which is usually negative.  You will never see a news headline that says, "Person Lost Car Keys, Neighbor Picks Person Up and Gives Them a Ride Home."  Nobody would read that article or watch that segment, even though it's uplifting.

The truth of the matter is that is exactly the type of headline that fills the majority of our lives and world, but you'll never see it since it doesn't sell.  The negativity that you do see is such a small portion of what actually exists, miniscule in fact.

If you find yourself focusing on the negative of your life or the world then I challenge you to find the joy amongst the negativity.  Don't ignore the negativity but rather acknowledge it, let it move along and find the joy that exists amongst it.  Such as a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk.

The Way I Am

People often ask why am I the way I am, why am I so strange.  To which I answer, why are you the way you are?  The answer is this... 

Representation of Trauma -  Dall·e AI