New year resolutions

Dear readers

A new year beckons and so does a new opportunity arise to become a "new you".

Many people fail to realise that every day represents a new life in the mind of the wise.

In any case, a lot of people will be making resolutions and so I thought that I would share some thoughts on how to make the most of the good feeling that envelopes this time of year.

1) make a resolution if you are in two minds. You have an infinitely better chance of fulfilling your resolutions if you are able to articulate them and motivated to actually write them down.

2) make a maximum of 3. The more you make, the harder it will be to maintain them all and the moment one fails, the house comes crashing down.

3) write your reasons for wanting to achieve the resolutions and the consequences of failure to do so. This will give your aspirations the legs and heart to grow to fruition.

I wish you all a prosperous 2016 and would love to hear any thoughts or new year resolutions that you would like to share that you feel could help inspire anyone readings.

God bless.

Reflections on attending my first ever funeral

Readers,

At the ripe old age of 32, I experienced my first ever funeral yesterday and would like to share some of my thoughts and feelings with you all.

The first point that I would like to make is that witnessing a lifeless body placed in a box, lowered deep in to the ground and then covered up with mud and stones is probably the most humbling experience I have experienced in my life and would recommend everyone to go and witness a burial as soon as possible if you have not already done so. It certainly helps to put life and it's temporal problems into context.

The second point I would like to share is that knowing someone has died and watching them be buried are two very different things. I acknowledge my mortality daily when I pray 5 times, but the emotional response to watching a burial was something that I was not prepared for and my own emotional response took me by surprise.

The third point I would like to share is one of change. The witnessing of a burial has challenged me to question my own productivity. I have always known that I should be sowing more productive seeds with my limited time on Earth, but my goodness if ever a reminder of how short life is was needed, the message was received.

Finally, I was lucky that the first funeral service I attended was for a comparatively distant relative. Though it was my father's blood brother, he lived quite far away and so I rarely met him. I am determined to forge a closer relationship with the cemetery by trying to visit at least once a month. This will hopefully build up my character to be able to cope with human mortality in the future.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this post hasbeen of some benefit to you.

If today was your last day on Earth, what would you do?

Readers,

I have heard of so many deaths in the last few days ranging from babies to elderly men who have arguably had "a good innings".

The reality is though that death is never greeted with anything but shock and disappointment from friends and family.

We live in a world where death is guaranteed and yet we wilfully neglect to acknowledge that each day we wake up in the morning may well be our last.

How would you classify a successful day?

Does it include telling your loved ones that you love them?

Does it include savouring the taste of the food you eat?

Does it include reading something to enhance your education and spiritual growth?

Who do you want to be when you die?

The question worth asking every night is "am I closer or further away from the person I wish to be on my last day on Earth?"T

How often do we engage in contemplating about our own death and in effect the quality of our own lives?

I would like to end this post with a quote from the Prophet Muhammad  (peace be upon him and his family)

"The most intelligent person is the one who remembers death often".

The importance of asking "why"

Readers,

How often do we question the reasons behind the things that we do?

When we are young, we are naturally curious to want to know the reasons for everything. As we get older, we become more content accepting many things on face value.

My manager shared a beautiful story with me a week or so ago that I would like to share with you all that illustrates this point very well.

There was a young girl who observed her mother preparing a lamb stew every couple of weeks. Before her mother would put it in the oven, she would cut off a bit from the corner and throw it away. This was done every single time her mother prepared this dish. Then one day, this young girl asked the mother why she would always cut off the end piece and throw it away. The mother was taken aback. She had to admit that she didn't know. The reason that she did this was that she saw her mother doing it and was merely copying her. She told her young daughter to ask the grandma the reason.

When the young child next met the grandmother, she asked her the same question about why the end of the lamb was always cut.

The grandmother replied that when she was younger and preparing the dinner, the oven she owned was not big enough to fit the whole lamb inside, so she had to cut a bit to make it fit.

I found it a beautiful and inciteful anecdote which I considered worth sharing.

"Why" and "because" are two of the most important words in our vocabulary so let us never forget that and strive to use them as regularly as possible, because if we don't, our actions will not have a solid foundation built on knowledge.

The power of questions

Morning everyone

Have you ever stopped to consider how awesome the power to ask questions is?

One of the main ways that we learn anything is from attaining answers to questions that we ourselves have posed.

As children, we are blessed with an unlimited supply of curiosity that drives us to constantly ask questions. "But why?" is the favourite choice of words from so many young children who are beginning to find their way in life.

The sad thing is that as we get older , our will to ask questions seems to diminish for so many of us as we get busy surviving day to day.

I would like us all to reflect on a few questions about our power to ask questions.

1) How many questions do we ask daily?
2) who do we ask these questions to?
3) What benefit do we get from the answers?
4) What information are we lacking because of the failure to ask questions?
5) who can answer these questions?
6) when is the best time to ask?
7) What has stopped us asking until now?
8) who is to blame for my ignorance?

I would like to end this post with a couple of quotes and a short reflection of my own on the quotes.

1) knowledge is power.

2) knowledge is a lock and it's key is the question.

Power is one of the most sought after and admired things in the world and yet the key to its lock is available to each and every one of us, but we don't care to utilise it.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this and it has inspired you to ask more and better questions.

I will hopefully be back in the next week or so with a new entry.

The power to chart your daily activities

Morning everyone.

Have you ever planned to start a simple new habit like eating a piece of fruit every day, but found yourself failing to keep it going for longer than a few days?

This has happened to me countless times. I have always ended up frustrated and disappointed with myself. This is because most habits I have sought to make a part of my life are easy to do, but also easy to skip as well.

Just over a week ago, I purchased a white board and white board markers. I used a permanent marker to create a 10 by 7 grid and on the left hand side of the grid I put the days of the week. Across the top, I put in the 10 habits that I want to be measuring myself on daily.

Each day, if I do the task, I put a green tick in the grid. If I fail, I put a red x. What I have found over the last week that I have been using this chart is a lot of green ticks.

It has led to both increased productivity as well as greater happiness.

I hope that I have the discipline to maintain the using of the chart.

It is a system that I would recommend to everyone. It takes very little time to set up and maintain and could help focus your day to day activities beautifully.

I hope that you have found this post useful. I will hopefully be back in the next week or so with another post.

The power to reflect

Readers,

How often do we utilise our power to reflect?

Too many of us are too busy surviving day to day without ever taking time out to actually ponder
upon life's most important questions.

Where did we come from?
What happens to us after we die?
Are we going to be held accountable for our actions?
How are we supposed to know how to live our lives?
How are we supposed to know if we are living successful lives?
What is the barometer for success and failure?
How do I even know that my barometer for success and failure is correct?
Is everyone free to make their own barometer for success and failure?
What if I have thought about these things and come up with the "wrong " answers?
What about if I haven't even bothered to think about them and the whole point of my existence
was to reflect on them?

Life is very short and very important. We only get to live once so it's imperative to do it right! If we get it wrong, we have to live with the consequences forever thereafter.

Be thankful for the opportunity to reflect and utilise this most important gift that has been
bestowed upon us.

Remember that there are multiple
religions with multiple sects within each religion. It may not be
possible to study them all. However it ought to be the goal of every seeker of truth to explore the
world religions with as an open mind as possible in the hope of finding a way of life that
brings about peace, hope, tranquility and the confidence to be able to defend your beliefs if and when
we are questioned and/or challenged about them by the creator who bestowed upon us the
power to reflect.

The necessity of feeling uncomfortable

Morning readers,

How often do we engage in activities that make us feel uncomfortable?

How often do we deliberately avoid activities because they make us feel uncomfortable?

As children, our parents constantly made us do things that made us uncomfortable in order for us to expand and yet the moment we are left to our own decisions, many of us shrink away from participating in activities that force us to grow.

Could you imagine if a parent didn't ever cut their child's hair or give them a bath because they always cried out of the discomfort and the parents wanted to safeguard the child's comfort?

Why are we then so negligent when it comes to facing our own discomfort?

Just under a week ago, I was sat in the dentists chair with a bib on drooling while holding my mouth open wide and it dawned on me that so many people never go to the dentist because of the fear of this discomfort. Yet these same people are able to overcome discomfort on a daily basis when it comes to things like not eating as soon as they feel hungry or not sleeping as soon as they get tired.

Everyone hears sayings like "no pain, no gain" often enough, but the sad reality is that so few try to implement this monumental and yet so simple rule of growth and development.

I will leave you with a quote that I find particularly useful on this subject:

Everything you have ever wanted is one step outside your comfort zone.

I hope that you have found reading this uncomfortable :-)

I will hopefully be back in the next week or so with a new post.

Reflections from Ramadan

Morning everyone.

With the Muslims from around the world having completed a  month of fasting which has been observed by Muslims around the world for one month every year for the last 1400 or so years, I feel that it is important for everyone who participated to reflect on what they sought to achieve through this action, why they wanted to achieve whatever the objectives were, what actions were taken during the fasting month to meet the objectives and most importantly what actions and lessons can be exercised and learnt to take forward for the next 11 months before the fasting starts again.

The thing that I personally wanted to achieve was a closer relationship with the Quran. As Muslims, we believe that the Quran is the final revelation of God Almighty and contains within it the answer to all of human beings important questions. The sad thing however is that too many of us are unwilling to read it.

The sadder reality is that as a people, Muslims are negligent in reading period! We live in a world of mass distraction and quick access and entertainment. How ironic it is that in the first revelation we are commanded to read and we often want to ignore the first command and debate others.

Anyhow, I wanted to have a better relationship with the Quran in that I wanted to be in the habit of reading from it in Arabic, listening to it in Arabic, reading some translation and listening to fragments of lectures available online improving my knowledge and application of the book.

The reason for this objective is that I shouldn't be shy when I am asked about how I treated the book that was revealed as a source of guidance for me when I am to be judged after I die.

In Ramadan, I started reading the book in the original Arabic text for at least a few minutes a day. I really enjoyed the experience. I also discovered that the YouTube app allows you to filter your search for short, long or any duration forthe length of videos. This has eased my ability to watch short punchy messages from the Quran being explained by lecturers and teachers.

After Ramadan, I have found a shift in my focus from what time the morning prayer expires to what time it starts. This is because in Ramadan, we start our fast at the time of the morning prayer so we were typically awake to pray as soon as it became time to do so.

This has created more time in the mornings, but I do get tired quicker in the evenings. I think there is still a learning curve of trying to maximise my productivity in the mornings, but I am thoroughly enjoyingthe journey.

As I often do, I will share with you with a quote. This is from imam Ali  (as).

He said that many people get nothing from fasting except the experience of hunger and thirst.

I would hate to be included in this group as it would represent a huge waste of the opportunity to make some lasting change!

A lot more could be said about the subject of fasting but I will end it by urging you all to reflect on your own experiences of Ramadan.

Peace

Reflections from my birthday

Morning readers,

As many of you will probably be aware, my birthday was yesterday and like most years, it got me thinking and reflecting on my achievements, current situation, goals and most importantly my mortality.

I remember speaking to a family member a couple of years ago or so about his 30th birthday "party". I put the word party in air marks because he celebrated this birthday by playing a game with his friends that required everyone to write a eulogy for their own selves.

The purpose of the exercise was to make himself and his friends think about what kind of people they want to be remembered as when they die and how close they are to becoming that person.

Now before you all get nervous or excited,  I didn't do that yesterday and am not about to post my eulogy here. I just thought it was a wonderful conversation that I had that deserved a mention in this post.

The things that I would like to talk about are a bit abstract so there will be no particular order as to how these thoughts come out.

1) with each birthday, I have seen more of life and should therefore be a more patient, humble, forgiving and cheerful person.

If any of these things are not increasing with each birthday, then my lifestyle would need a huge evaluation.

2) No matter how old you get, you can still take lessons from the innocence of children. Their satisfaction with playing with packaging rather than the toy that came out is bewildering. Happiness is making the most of what you have rather than finding fault in it by comparing it to others.

3) life is short. If you blink, you can miss it. Therefore it is important to not be stuck in the monotonous routine of day to day existence without making time to work on projects that are important, but not urgent.

4) it is not so important that you have a large number of years in your life. It is infinitely more important to have a large quality of life in your years no matter how many or few they may be.

5) Age well and truly is just a number. People die at all ages. People achieve amazing goals at all ages. I read about an 85 year old woman who learnt to read and write. I have seen pictures of old men with 6 packs. I have read about children who achieve amazing academic success. We are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream.

6) finally life is a gift. I didn't do anything to justify my coming into existence. For me to make the most of the gift, I need to become the most of the good potential that sits within me.

This year, eid  (the Muslims celebration at the end of Ramadan) and my birthday were within a few days of each other.

God willing, I will share some reflections on Ramadan in the next few days.

Peace.

The power of observation

Morning readers,

How powerful is our ability to observe?

How often do we reflect on this great power?

With great power comes enormous responsibility. The gift of sight is one of the greatest assets that we will ever possess and yet the sad reality is that most take it for granted neither appreciating it as a gift, nor reflecting on the responsibilities that it comes with.

How much would you sell your eyes for?
1 million pounds?
10 million?
100 million?

How about just one eye? You would still have one left.

What can we observe? The obvious answer is everything. Open your eyes and there is the whole world to behold.

It is how we take in most information and also how we remember things too.

There is a lesson for us in everything we look at if we are only willing to pay attention to it.

With the great gift comes great responsibility. Do we spend our time looking at things that will grow and develop us into better people or do we waste the gift looking at things that merely entertain us? How often do we make a point to utilise the gift to make our lives or others lives better? How often do we express gratitude out loud or even silently internally for the gift?

For some people all the money in the world could not buy them sight. For others, they have it for free and spend a lifetime wasting the gift without ever having even thought about it.

I would like to end this post with a quote:

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

The power of controlling our emotions

Readers,

Have you ever stopped to consider how much control you have over your emotions?

When you are feeling sad, you are the one who eventually decides when to stop feeling sad.

Likewise when you are happy, you decide how much you are going to let bad news affect you and for how long.

The ability to keep your emotions in check and under your control is known as emotional intelligence or emotional quotient  (eq).

Most people have heard of an intelligence quotient  (iq) and yet so few have been told about emotional intelligence.

The beautiful thing about emotional intelligence is that unlike iq, it can be learnt through practise and concerted effort.

Emotional quotient plays a far greater role in our success both in terms of our income and happiness than our intelligence quotient and yet is so sadly neglected by so many.

Does emotional intelligence mean to suppress ones emotions?
Not at all. A true master of their emotions is able to express all the emotions.

The difference then is the ability to express the right emotion to the right person for the right amount of time and for the right reason.

Any fool can get angry with anybody at any given time. It takes emotional wisdom to express anger at the right time and to the right degree.

I would like to leave you all with a quote by Aristotle :

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

The blessing of role models

Readers,

When was the last time you stopped to consider who your role models are?

In life, we have the choice to ponder, reflect and choose who we want our role models to be or we will be attracted to what is sold to us as good role models in the media.

To determine who the best role models will be for us in our lives, we must first naturally determine what our goal in life is.

If we want to become rich financially for example, we should seek out role models who are rich.

If we want to become physically fit, then we should seek out role models who are the fittest.

What about if we want to become honest, truthful, humble, honorable, wise and brave? In my life, I have found no role model greater than the holy Prophet Muhammad  (peace be upon him and his family).

The question we must ask ourselves as often as possible is:

How am I modelling my own behavior on the person I claim to be my role model?

You see if we are impressed by someone, but don't try to model our lives on their lives, then we can't really claim that they are our role models. Rather we are simply fans or a more polite word is probably admirers.

I summarise by saying that as a human race, we are blessed with the ability to achieve success through imitating the actions of  people we have seen produce the results we desire so let's try and utilise this blessing more consciously for greater results.

The pitfall of pity

Readers,

How often do we engage in self pity?

Has it ever been a productive use of our time or energy?

How often have you encouraged your children, sibling, parents or friends to engage in self pity when things are not perfect in their lives?

I have personally never met anyone who has encouraged me to engage in self pity and hope that no reader has either.

The difficulty that self pitying people have is that they are stuck in the problem rather than working on a solution. The reality is that any problem that anyone is facing is only a problem if they choose to see it that way. A better way to perceive non ideal situations are as challenges or opportunities for growth.

The interesting thing about pity is that though people almost universally agree that it is counter productive when done for yourself and generally don't like to be pitied by others, they often grant themselves an exception to pity others.

The problem with pitying other people is that you create an impression that you are better than they are and that the person you are pitying is helpless and incapable.

I would like to share a story to help clarify the point.

Wilma Rudolph who suffered a very difficult start to life was famously told by her doctors as a child that she would never walk normally for her whole life. If ever there was a good reason to pity someone, it's your child daughter who has received such heartbreaking news.

What happened? Her mother didn't pity her and didn't allow her to engage in self pity. Not only did she learn to walk normally, she learnt to run and incredibly fast. In fact, she became the fastest woman in her life.

Could this have been achieved through receiving pity from her mother?

I would like to conclude by saying that although pity is a bad thing, showing and feeling mercy and compassion are both good things. What's the difference between compassion and pity?

Compassion is a feeling shared about somebody you consider equal to you and you actually do actions to help.

Pity is a feeling born out of feeling superior to someone with no real desire to make their situation any better.

To conclude, the only people who should be pitied are those who themselves engage in self pity and even then it should be because of their engagement in self pity rather than the reason for the self pity and the pity should be felt in the heart rather than expressed.

Well, that's my opinion anyway :)

The power of discipline

Readers,

How much self discipline do we have?

How disciplined are we in terms of what time we go to bed every night?

How about what time we get out of bed?

How disciplined are we about what we put in to your stomach?

How about how often we exercise our bodies and minds?

Are we busy surviving day to day or are we engaged in building and carrying out the disciplines that will carry us to where we want to be in the future?

The power of discipline is probably one of the most important skills in the whole world because nothing great can come about without it.

The obvious question is how to become disciplined. What has worked well for me in my personal experience is the necessity of making very few changes at a time and constantly reviewing why you want these disciplines.

As I often do, I will end this post with a quote from Jim Rohn that I found particularly profound.

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment"

Peer pressure

Morning readers,

How often are you a victim of peer pressure?

How often are you a perpetrator of peer pressure?

It has been mentioned in an earlier entry that the power of our associations make a huge impact on our habits and ultimately who we are.

Peer pressure is a continuation in the same line as that entry.

The questions we must continously remember to ask and as often as possible are

Who do I spend my time with?

What are they doing to me?

Is that OK?

If we are not willing to practise limited associations with people who are going to pull us away from the better vision we have for ourselves, then we should not complain about not being where we want to be.

Many people strive for increasing the quantity of their friends.

How few worry about the quality!

One good friend who is a positive influence on you is better than 50 whose company sees you corrupting your health, wealth and spirituality.

The good news is that you are able to make the decision to choose your friends more carefully as soon as you want.

As I often do, I will end this post with a quote. This is from Will Smith:

“TOO MANY PEOPLE SPEND MONEY THEY HAVEN'T EARNED TO BUY THINGS THEY DON'T WANT TO IMPRESS PEOPLE THEY DON'T LIKE.”

The power of encouragement

Morning readers,

How often do you go out of your way to offer encouragement to your friends and family?

How often do you seek out information in the form of books, articles or videos that encourage you?

A wonderful quote that I recently read stated that encouragement is oxygen for the soul.

It is fascinating that when teaching a child a new skill such as walking or talking, us human beings have unlimited patience and offer huge encouragement even with the smallest of progress. However, when the child gets older and older the encouragement dissipates and all that remains are scowling orders and unreasonable expectations on how well it should be achieving compared to their peers.

Experiments conducted have shown that people learn quicker and retain more when encouraged yet as a species we still don't take heed and are all too quick to criticise.

From a religious perspective, it is interesting for me to see that God almighty praises a nation in the Quran as being the best nation and gives 2 reasons for the praising the nation.

None of the reasons include education, affluence or health.

In chapter 3:110 of the Quran, God praises a nation for its people  encouraging each other towards righteousness and discouraging each other from evil.

In today's world, there seems to be a huge focus on ourselves and doing the best that we can. There is nothing wrong with wanting the best for ourselves. It is in our nature.

What I am really trying to convey is that each of us possess the power to provide oxygen to the soul of each other with words of praise, recognition and encouragement and we should be mindful to not neglect this beautiful gift that we are able to offer that doesn't even cost us anything. We should also be mindful to find people and sources of encouragement to ensure that we grow and develop into our full potential.

As often, I will end this post post with a quote:

9/10ths of education is encouragement.

The power to be enthusiastic

Good morning everyone

What makes you enthusiastic?

How often are you enthusiastic?

How often are you indifferent or luke warm instead of being enthusiastic?

One of the biggest keys to success is to be enthusiastic.

Why?

The reason is that enthusiastic people are the most influential. If a foolish idea and a wise idea are both presented to masses of people, but the wise idea is presented with a lack of interest and the foolish idea is presented with huge enthusiasm, which idea do you think will win the hearts of the people?

If you think it is the wise idea, then you are dreaming about an ideal world and one in which I certainly do not live.

The reality is that enthusiasm is contagious. One of the easiest ways to stand out from your peers is to become the most enthusiastic person you know.

It is also one of the most important skills to master to become more influential in both personal and professional matters.

Edward Appleton even stated that he values enthusiasm above professional skill.

If you can't become enthusiastic  about what you do, then think about what you could do instead that you could be enthusiastic about.

Life is short and we all have things that we could achieve with passion and enthusiasm if we are only brave enough to follow our dreams.

Do you want to get to the last days of your life and think about how large parts of it were spent going through the motions rather than living a life of passion and enthusiasm?

I will end this post with a quote by Abraham Lincoln:

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

The ripple effect

Good morning everyone.

Have you ever stopped to consider how often and how well you utilise the ripple effect?

For those of us who have not heard of this concept before, the ripple effect means that just as ripples spread out when even a small pebble is dropped into the water, the actions of individuals can have far reaching effects.

Another quote that beautifully explains this concept is:

Remember there is no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

It is also my belief as a Muslim that the greatest good deeds I can perform are actions which cause ripple effects that can continue to benefit God's creation after I die.

If for example I pray, I get one good deed recorded. However if I lay down or pay for one brick to be laid down for a hospital, I will have a share of the reward for every person cured in that hospital so long as my brick is going strong.

So with this in mind, I ask everyone including myself again - how often and how well do we utilise the gift of the ripple effect?

We will only live on Earth for 60, 80 or maybe if we are lucky 100 years. When we check out of here, all that will matter will be who did we become and what positive contribution did we make.

It is therefore my suggestion that whenever you find an opportunity to produce a ripple effect, take it.

It could be sharing an article or quote on social media that one of your friends or family read that changes their life and teach it to others.

It could be planting a tree.

It could be raising righteous children.

It could be writing a book.

It could be contributing financially to building a school or hospital.

The possibilities are endless and they are all around us every day.

I will end this post with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.

The power to wake up early

Good morning readers,

Have you ever stopped to consider what time you wake up every morning?

I am going to list some questions that I asked myself a few months ago and I will reveal some of my answers after listing the questions.

I think that everyone can get maximum benefit from this post by taking the time to write down their own answers or at least verbalise them.

Here are the questions:

1) What are your current morning rituals?

2) What do you think the perfect morning ritual looks like?

3) How much time would it take to perform what you think would be the perfect ritual?

4) How would you feel if you carried this ritual out for a week?

5) what changes would you expect in your life if you took on the perfect ritual?

6) should this ritual be different on days that I am working and days that I am off work?

7) won't waking up so early result in feeling tired really early and sleeping earlier?

The reason I have recommended to write your answers to the questions is because writing things down is empowering and clarifies ones thoughts.

It would be ideal to write your own answers down before reading mine, but it is up to each reader whether you want to read for entertainment, motivation to change or a bit of both.

1) my routine was to get dressed, brush my teeth and leave the house within 15 minutes of getting up.  I would usually have woken up to pray the morning prayer and then go straight back to sleep.

2) perfect routine is very long to describe so I will summarise it.

It needs to have a spiritual element  ( prayer, reading from the scripture etc)

It needs to have an educational element like reading / watching an educational programme.

Hygiene element: brush teeth, shave etc

Exercise

Journalling.

Helping the wife with some household chores.

Breakfast.

3) it takes around 3 hours

4) tiring, but fulfilling.

5) Happier and more spiritually fulfilled.

6) it should be the same on days on or off. Time wasted is life wasted.

7) yes it will, but you end up sleeping different hours rather than more hours. Sleeping from 10-30 to 5-30 instead of 12 to 7 for example. However, you can be more productive from 5-30 am to 7 am compared to from 10-30pm to midnight.

I will end this post with an ancient old saying that's wisdom still holds true:

Early to bed,
Early to rise
Makes a man  (or woman!) healthy, wealthy and wise.

The power of smiling :-)

Readers,

Life can be so busy, stressful and competitive. Keeping up with the Joneses is seriously hard work.

The problem with a life lived this way is that life's most precious treasures that money cannot even buy are neglected.

Have you ever stopped to think about how often you go out of your way to smile at someone who did not bother to smile at you?

It could be neglect to smile at your spouse as you leave the house in a hurry.

How about the shop keeper you buy your bus pass from?

The bus driver who drives you to work?

Your boss as you meet or is it almost always straight to business?

I think we all get the point. This blog entry is to serve as a reminder to myself first and then others that smiling is such an easy, free and beautiful gift that we can give away as often as we decide to multiple times a day.

It is such a blessing that the prophet Muhammad  (saww) famously said that smiling is an act of charity!

Who amongst us doesn't wish deep down in our hearts we had the inclination to give more away? Let us start by giving away our smiles and perhaps it will inspire further charitable activity from us.

Some people believe that due to the important nature of life, it is necessary to be serious. It is true that joking too much is disadvantageous, but smiling is not a sign of joking. It is a sign of mercy and compassion.

Let us try and remember how great we feel when someone smiles at us and try to share that feeling with as many of God's creation as possible.

I will end this with a quote that probably everyone has heard before because it is that good  :-)

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

Spiritual nutrition

Readers,

How often do we pay attention to what we feed our soul and how often we feed it?

One of my favourite quotes is from the grandson of the holy Prophet Muhammad  (saww) whose name is Hassan ibn Ali (as).

He said:

“I wonder about the person who contemplates about his nutrition but he does not consider (the food of) his intellect. Thus, he avoids of what hurts him in his stomach but he lets his mind to be filled with what destroys him.”

The beauty of this quote never ceases to amaze me every time I remember it.

The obvious question that should arise is "well what should I fill my mind with?"

The answer to this question is unequivocally knowledge. Our emphasis in this life must be to gain as much knowledge about things that benefit us as we can.

It is my personal belief that the number one thing to be gaining knowledge about should be where we came from  (created and if so for what purpose  or the result of chance with no designated purpose?), where we are going  (post death - judged on our life choices by a creator or disappear forever?  and why.

There are lots of world views - secular and religious and I believe it our responsibility to explore as many as possible and dedicate our lives to find the path that best fits the intellect and emotions that we possess.

However my favourite saint - Imam Ali  (as) said that the value of each man depends upon the art and skill which he has attained.

Therefore we should also spend our time becoming the best at what we do and acquiring new skills.

I would like to end this blog entry with a quote from one of my favourite speakers - the late Jim Rohn.

He said:  Successful people have libraries. The rest have big flat screen TVs.

I hope that this post has been educational and motivational. If you have found it beneficial, please feel free to share it with your friends and family so that hopefully they can benefit from it too.

I will hopefully be back with another entry in the next few days.

The 90/10 principle

Readers,

The 90/10 principle is based on the premise that it does not matter what happens to you, but rather what matters is how you respond to what happens.

Therefore only 10% of your success or failure can be attributed to things that happened to you, but 90% is dependent on your responses to the happenings.

The first question to ask is whether it is true. Percentages for things like this are opinion. It is not a principle that can be measured empirically so if you are the type of person who dismisses such principles on the basis of it not being empirical, you would have missed the point of this post and blog in general.

However, the question whether it is broadly speaking true is a better question. I would like you to think of something in your life that didn't come naturally to you... something that maybe you even considered giving up, but persevered anyway.
Think back to what your response could have been and what impact it could have had. Hopefully, this exercise brings home the truth of the principle.

Here is my example:

I failed my UK driving test 4 times before passing it. Every time I failed, I felt sick to my stomach at the shame and wondered if would happen for me. After 3 tests, I started reading about other people's experiences of passing after multiple failures and it gave me hope and confidence that I too could do it.

Failure happens to everybody in life.  However it is important to always separate your act of failure from your perception that you ARE a failure.

The second question is how to apply this principle. The problem with today's world is that knowledge is widespread, but wisdom is lacking.

We as a collective race know so much, but apply so little of our knowledge.

Imam Ali  (as) said that knowledge which remains on the tongue is useless. The intrinsic value of it is that you act upon it.

We humans are forgetful so it is important to always seek reminders to keep our minds positive as that leads to higher energy levels and hopefully greater levels of productivity.

I will leave you with a quote:

Do not get upset with people or situations. Both are powerless without your reaction.

Thankfulness

Readers,

How thankful are you for the blessings that you have been endowed with?

Are you able to even count the blessings that you have?

Have you ever stopped to think that every breath that you are able to take is a blessing that a person who has all the wealth under the sun would sacrifice it all for if they were drowning or choking to death?

Have you ever considered the blessing of being able to see? How much would you pay to get your sight back if you lost it?

How thankful are you for your ability to think, learn, grow and develop?

How thankful are you for your ability to be thankful?

Imam Zain Al abideen  (as) beautifully said that if you prostrate to God out of thankfulness for a favour, you need to know that the ability to  prostrate out of thankfulness is itself such a blessing that requires a prostration of gratitude.

Imam Ali  (as) beautifully said that if man knew how many blessings have been given to him by God, then he would not be able to come out of prostration for their whole life.

Many people mistakenly believe that focus on thankfulness means acting oblivious to your problems. It is simply not so. It is easily done to remain thankful while trying your best to improve your health, wealth, education etc.

Worse still are people who lack thankfulness because they think that the world or God owes them something. We came from a drop of bodily fluid and will end up under the ground. We have been given the opportunity to use the time we have been given, though we did nothing to earn the opportunity, to be thankful for the opportunity and do great things or resent the things that we were not given and wallow in destructive self pity.

I will end this blog entry with one final thought/question/quote on thankfulness for today:

What if you woke up today with only the things that you thanked God for yesterday?

3 steps to build rapport quicker

Readers,


Building rapport is the skill of being able to bond with people. It is one of the most important skills because any great human dream requires the cooperation and assistance of other people to help realise it. Gaining this assistance requires the ability to engage people to not just your ideas, but also to you. Today's entry will look at 3 simple steps to building rapport quicker.

The first important step to building rapport is to smile. You look your best when you smile and it's contagious. It is one of the most neglected easy things to do when meeting people for the first time.

The second step is to treat others how you would like them to treat you. The important thing to remember with step 2 is that it should be applied even if the person who you are talking to is not treating you how you would like to be treated. If you are only good to those who are good to you, then what good are you? True goodness is being good to those who are good to you and those who are not as being good is a part of your value system. I am reminded of the level of goodness of one of my greatest role models - Ali ibn Abu Talib (as). When he was the caliph of the Arabian Peninsula 1400 years ago, he was struck on the head with a sword causing a wound which he eventually died from a couple of days later.

What was most fascinating about the incident is that when the perpetrator was caught and brought to Ali (as) shackled, he insisted that the shackles be loosened and that the perpetrator be given something to drink as he was looking nervous. Nowadays, we lose all compassion for our fellow humans and express deep hate for merely cutting us up on the road. It is something to ponder upon.

The final step is to ask lots of questions. As mentioned in a previous post, people love nothing more than to be given the opportunity to talk about themselves and have someone take a genuine interest in their lives. Like all things, practice makes you better and better. I don't believe in perfection as there is always room for improvement!

I hope that you have found this post informative and enjoyable to read. I will hopefully be back in the next few days with another post.

The skill of networking

Readers,

One of the most important life skills is the skill of networking effectively. No human being regardless of how strong or smart they are can live a life without being in need of help from other people.
Therefore, the stronger network of people that you have, the easier it makes your life.

The most effective way of networking is by striving to help as many people get what they want. From the outset, this appears to be an impossible mission as we neither have the skills or time to help everyone get what they want.

However what you will find is that the more people that you associate with, the easier it becomes to match people who can be of help to each other up. The beautiful thing about this is that the more matching up you do, the more appreciated you become by your contacts and can eventually become the "Go To Person" for everything.

Once you have set about trying to help others get what they want, this creates the desire in others to reciprocate and give you what you want.

Remember the golden rule of networking is that people love nothing more than to talk about themselves. If you can become interested in someone, they will begin to find you interesting. Once this happens, the path to building a network has started.

I hope that you have found this post informative and enjoyable to read.

I will hopefully be back in the next few days with another post.

The skill of listening

Readers,

This post will look at a thumbnail outline of how to be a better listener.
We live in a time when listening is like a lost art. There appears to be a greater emphasis on multi tasking and getting as much done as quickly as possible than giving our loved ones the gift of listening to them.

The thumbnail is the word CARE.

The C is for concentrate. You cannot listen to someone if you are not able to hear what they are saying. You will not be able to hear what they are saying unless you concentrate. How often does it happen that someone has to call your name a few times before they get your attention. The general rule is that the ears follow the eyes so if you look at the person you want to listen to, you will be able to concentrate on what they are saying.

The A is for acknowledge. This is done by maintaining good eye contact, verbal prompts such as "ok, hmm, ahuh" etc and by body language such as nodding.
It happens very often nowadays where people are able to concentrate without acknowledging to the level that the person speaking doesn't actually even believe that they have listened and become surprised when the person is able to repeat back what was said.
The bigger problem is that many people who are able to listen without acknowledging think it is an acceptable way to listen. The problem of course is that the speaker has no way to distinguish between knowing when they have your attention or not.

The R is for respond. Most people think that being a good listener doesn't involve taking. The reality is however that it is not a one way thing. If one person speaks for too long, they can become self conscious and feel that there is an imbalance of information. After all, the person who has listened for long has found out a lot about the person who has spoken and their views, but the same cannot be said the other way. This is why it becomes important for a good listener to paraphrase back what has been said,  add their own input and perhaps ask some questions. This keeps the conversation flowing better and makes the person speaking feel the conversation is being valued.

The E is for exercising emotional control. Everyone has triggers which make them switch off when certain people are talking or when certain subject matters are being discussed. This is just a part of being human. However, it is very important to think about and know what our triggers are and how to best deal with them so that we do not appear rude or proud when in a trigger situation.

As always, this blog entry is not supposed to be exhaustive information on a subject. If anything, it is hopefully educational, enjoyable and prompts a desire to learn more about the subject.

Thanks for reading. If you do find it educational, please feel free to share the blog link with your friends and family. The aim is to remind myself and others to strive to learn to become the best versions of ourselves that we possibly can.

I will hopefully be back with another entry in the next 2-3 days.

The power to be a better spouse/ partner

Readers,

One thing that everyone wants is a loving and compatible partner who can help you to grow into the person you want to become.

However, most people are too self absorbed to try and become a more loving and compatible partner for their own significant other.

This short post will focus on 3 simple things that every reader can do to become a better partner for their loved one.
Actually these three things can be done to improve relationships with any close family members or friends.

The first one is: Attention.

Every person has a need to feel important and valued. One of the most important and easy ways to achieve this is by giving someone your undivided attention. This means putting down your smartphones, switching off the tv and maintaining eye contact allowing your loved one to express what they desire to express. It is such a simple thing to do and yet gets neglected by so many.

The second one is affection.

Many people think that affection is limited to one action. However, the reality is that people love to be hugged, have their hand held, be smiled at etc etc which a lot of is done in a completely non sexual way.
Ask yourself how often you consciously make an effort to show affection to your partner and other people you love.

The third and final one for today is appreciation.

Every person needs to be appreciated for the good things that they do. Studies have shown that people are far more likely to continue to do good things if praised and rewarded compared to the likelihood of people changing after being criticised and punished. At the start of most relationships, both parties are eager to thank and praise each other. As the relationship gets older, both take each other for granted.

This list is not supposed to be an exhaustive list of advice to have a healthy relationship. Rather it is supposed to act as a springboard to carry on studying the subject to continuously improve in this area.

Best wishes.

I will hopefully be back with another post in the next 2-3 days.

The power of action

Morning readers.

Today we will be looking at one of the biggest powers we possess as human beings. It is a power that we take for granted and don't utilitise as often as we should.

This is the power to take action. It is the power to actually do what you want to do and be who you want to be.

Most people put off what they can do to become successful today until tomorrow. Why? Because the decision to delay taking action is easier than taking action immediately.

Remember though that the most successful people take action immediately and take action daily.

Other people don't take action because they don't know what to do or how much to do.

A great tactic for overcoming this problem is a 3 stage process:

1) plan. Make a plan to do something. It doesn't matter what it is, if it is the right action or the right amount

2) do. Action the plan. Do what you planned.

3) review. Assess how the action worked out in line with your desired result and adjust the plan accordingly putting you back to stage 1 of the 3 stage process.

An example of this is wanting to learn about world war 2. You plan to read for 1 hour from your text book every Friday night for 1 month.

You do it.

When you review it, you realise that Friday night is not a good time to read as you are in a rush to finish reading because you want to meet your friends. So you change the plan to read on Wednesdays instead.

Then when you review it, you find reading for one hour too tiring and you are not retaining enough information you are reading so you change it to reading for 30 minutes.

I think you get the idea.

The beautiful thing is everyone can do this and with different tasks they want to achieve.

We live in a world where we can make excuses or we can live empowered lives full of action. The choice is ours.

Have a blessed day and I will hopefully be back with another post in the next 7 days as I have a busy week ahead.

The power of belief

Readers,

What do you believe is possible for you?
It is very common for people to give up on their hopes and dreams when they face some turbulence. They forget how much the power of belief changes everything.

There is a popular old saying that states "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right in most cases "

The question becomes then how do can we alter our beliefs?

The first answer is simply deciding on changing our mind. We have the power to do this whenever we want to.

The second answer is probably a bit more helpful though.
We need to find experiences in our lives where we achieved a goal that didn't happen easily or naturally but we persisted anyway and eventually succeeded.

We also need to keep on seeking out opportunities to channel our new beliefs.

Until a few weeks ago, I was too nervous to put screen protectors onto phones at work in the fear of messing it up and yet now I can do it (and improving all the time ). What changed? I decided to first of all try knowing that the worst thing that could happen is really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Secondly, I remembered things that I have done before that I didn't think *i* could. Remembering things that you found hard to get yourself to do and using them as motivation to get yourself to do new things is a cyclical road to success that leads to more and more confidence which results in greater levels of action.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post and learnt / refreshed your memory at least a little.

I am going to be busy for the next week or so. My next post will be in 5 to 10 days, God willing.

Power of associations

Readers,

It has been proven through many studies that the associations that we keep form a huge part of our personalit . We are all typically the combined average of the 5-10 people who we spend the most time with. This principle applies to every facet of our llives.

If you think  about your 5 closest friends and then compare your income,  your health, your integrity, your religious beliefs and even  your sense of humour with theirs, you will be amazed at how well this principle holds up.

The real question then becomes  what to do with this new found information. Clearly, if you want  to improve certain aspects of your life, you need to get friends who are better than you in the areas that you want to improve so that their influence can bring you up.

The only challenge with this is that successful people consciously or unconciously are also aware of this fact and so are looking for friendships that will help move them to the next level for their own development.

The key thereforeis  to know , develop and hone one's own keysstrengths and use them to leverage friendships with people who are able to pull them up in one area but you are also able to pull them up in a different area. It is mutually beneficial and thus likely to be possible.

The other thing to remember is that we  are blessed to live in a world where technologyccan serve us so well. We have access to thousands of videos, books and articles from very successful people in all aspects of life at thetips of our fingers on our smartphones every hour of the day.

How well are we utilising the resources that we have? As much fun as it is bantering on Facebook and WhatsApp, is it how i want to look back at my youthful years when I am old and questioning how well I have exercised the gifts that have been bestowed onto me by my creator for my time on Earth?

It is something to reflect upon.

That is all for today. I shall be back in the next day or two with another post, God willing.

Have a wonderful day.

The power of personal responsibility

Good morning everyone.

Today I would like to talk about the power of personal responsibility.
The wonderful thing about this power is that it exists in each and every one of us already and the challenge is simply to rediscover the power and secondly use it more regularly.

The power of personal responsibility is our ability to decide to do whatever needs to be done to achieve a goal and keep adjusting and learning until the goal is achieved.

I myself for example had to take my UK car driving test 5 times before being told that I was successful. Each failure was a lesson to keep me moving forward to achieving my goal. One philosopher stated that he has not failed, but rather he has succeeded in finding 1000 ways that don't work.

I am a Muslim and it is therefore my belief that nothing can happen without the permission of God almighty. Therefore if something is not destined for me, I won't get it no matter how much personal responsibility I take.

However having said that, I don't know what is or is not destined for me, but I do know that I am 1000 times more likely to achieve a task by taking personal responsibility rather than relying on fate.

Chapter 13 verse 11 of the holy Quran very beautifully states that "Verily Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition"

A  (probably fake but very apt ) story illustrates this point beautifully.
There was a pious man who publicly begged God to make him win the lottery every day for several weeks . Every week, when the balls were drawn people asked him if he had won and he always cried and wailed that he hadn't and continued beseeching God for success.

Then eventually he heard from God in his dream telling him thathe needs  to at least buy a ticket!

The moral of the story is clear.

I urge you all and myself to continually remind ourselves of the great  power of personal responsibility that we possess and exercise it more and more often and encourage others to do so too.

Have a splendid day and I will be back in the next day or two with a new post, God willing.

The slight edge

Good morning everyone.

Today I want to have a look at a principle  called the slight edge and discuss how we can utilise this idea to make quantum leaps in progress in any area of knowledge that we desire.

The principle of the slight edge is that performing a simple and easy to do discipline every single day will result in a compound effect of progress with staggering long term results.
An example of this is a person who goes for a run in the morning. Will this person become fit by going for a 10 minute run once? I am sure that everyone will agree that they will not.

However, if this same person goes for a 10 minute run every day, will he soon be able to run faster and for longer and be regarded as a fit person? I think everyone has to agree that this is the case.

Is running for 10 minutes a day out of the 24 hours  (1440 minutes) easy or hard? I think everyone who is fair minded and keen to actually make positive change would have to agree that it is easy.

The key to the slight edge is that it is easy to do AND easy NOT to do.

It has been said that dedicating just one hour a day to studying a subject will result in becoming a worldwide expert on the subject being studied.

Running was merely an example. The principle can be applied to whatever you want to achieve. Remember though, you can apply it to multiple things at the same time.

I hope that this post has been both enjoyable and educational.

Have a blessed day and I will hopefully be back in the next day or two with a new post.

Making a dream come true

Good morning.

Making a dream come true is a 2 part process.

The first and most important part is actually having a dream to begin with.
The clearer the dream, the greater the potential to achieve it.
The greatest way to make it crystal clear is to write it  down and also write why it is your dream so basically what impact realising the dream will have on your life.
Many people believe that it is not necessary to write their hopes, dreams and goals down because they have them in  their minds. The problem is that humans have tens  of thousands of thoughts each and every day and so relying on the mind to store your dream clearly and in the perfect level of detail is naive at best and ooutright foolish at worst.
I urge you all to take the time to write down your dream goal in as much detail as possible and do it today. Time is of the essence.

The second part is to experience an emotion based on the goal. The important thing to remember is that sometimes the emotion will not  be satisfied even if the dream appears to be achieved on the surface level. A quick example to illustrate the point would be if someone has the dream of driving an expensive car. If his relative sells him the car very cheaply because they bought a new one, he will outwardly have achieved the dream, but he will not have made his dream come true as his dream was really to reach  the status to be able to buy the car for what the car is worth as buying the car was supposed to be a symbol of his social status rather than a fortunate purchase at mates rates.

Therefore, think very carefully what your dream is and why to ensure that you get the emotional pay off at the end.

Have a wonderful day.

Personal philosophy continued

Good morning everyone.

Yesterday's discussion sought to cultivate an internal dialogue with ourselves about our personal philosophy. This blog is aimed at people who like myself desire to their potential and utilise the gifts that have been bestowed onto us in the best possible way.

One thing that I have found is that whenever I wish to achieve anything, there is an inner voice telling me that it is not possible. It is too difficult or I am not smart enough or I don't have the time or resources etc and I am sure that many of you will have experienced the same anxiety when even thinking about taking on a new task.

The thing to remember is that no matter what your current situation is,  the dream that you want to achieve has either already been done by people before you proving that it is possible or is something that has never been achieved by a human being before.  Let us examine each one in turn.

If your dream is to achieve something that has been achieved before, then it is definitely possible that you can do it to. Every skill is learnable. Nobody came to the world with a fullyffunctioning skill set. We came as babies and grew up believing what our families believed to be possible for us rather than the reality of our potential being much higher than what our families or even what we ourselves place upon us.

When I was a teenager, I was playing football with my cousin in his estate and I accidentally kicked the ball over the fence into the neighbouring school. I was too scared to climb over the school fence to retrieve the ball until he told me that he had done it before and had no problems.  Upon this new information, I had a new belief about the objective of climbing this fence and managed to retrieve the ball with minimum fuss.

When I got back over the fence, my cousin told me that he had lied earlier and had never had to go over the fence I had just climbed. The irony is that apart from telling me that he had done it before, there was probably nothing else he could have said that would have convinced me to do it.

Remember whatever your goals are - people have done it before you so it's possible that you can do it too. Better job? Weigh less?  Pass exams?  They have all been done by people who are only human just like us.

The second type of goal which has not been achieved before is a little more challenging. The important thing to remember is that if no one can achieve anything unless it's been done before, no one would ever have achieved anything worth emulating to begin with!
Whatever dream that has been put in you has been put there for a reason. Every great venture has started with a step into the unknown with a giant leap of faith.

I hope that this discussion has been educational or at least served as a reminder and I will hopefully be back in the next day or two with a new post.

Have a wonderful day.

Personal philosophy

Good morning everyone.



Yesterday's introduction began the discussion on personal philosophy and today's post will seek to progress this topic a little more.



In order for us to decide whether we want to live the life of an optimist seeking to fulfil our full potential or just continue to get by, we need to ponder over 4 questions. I heard this from a motivational speaker by the name of Jim Rohn quite some time ago and feel it is a fantastic method of taking stock of your lifestyle choices.



The first question is:



Why bother to fulfil your potential? Why try to maximise your skill set? Why try to become the most educated that you can possibly become? Why earn the most possible money you can earn? Why inspire the most possible people you can?



This is a question that only you can answer for yourselves. One thing that I have heard and resonates deeply with me though is that if the why is strong enough, the how becomes easy!



My personal reasons for wanting to fulfil my potential are  two fold.



The first reason is that it is my religious beliefs that everything that I have does not belong to me, but are rather gifts that have been bestowed onto me by my creator for the limited time that I am on this planet and that I will be judged by how I utilised these gifts when I die.



My second reason is that wanting to be the best at everything is a natural human desire (which once again I believe has been implanted in to us by our creator).  The proof that it is a natural human desire is that even the person who is illiterate and completely uneducated would  loathe to be called ignorant and would love to be called clever even if they know  that they are not. Even the miser likes to be called generous even though they know that they are not. It is something for us all to ponder upon.



The second question is why not?



Why not achieve everything that you are capable of?  This is also actually a great answer to question one by the way!



We all have to stay here on Earth until we go, so why not do the most while we are here?



The 3rd question is why not you?



Again it is my belief that every single human being is special because God chose to create YOU.



Chapter 17 verse 70 of the holy Quran says:



And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things.



This verse doesn't differentiate between men, women, races, ethnicities or classes of people. We have all been honoured so we can all be rest assured that we are worthy of fulfilling our potential.



Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (as) said :


Your sickness is within you -- but you do not perceive it.


You presume that you are a small entity --


whereas within you is concealed the vast world.


You are indeed that magnificent book --


by whose alphabet the hidden becomes evident.


Therefore you have no needs beyond yourself


Your essence and secrets are in you -- if only you can reflect.

The final question is why not now?
There will always be stuff going on to make you think that you can start working on your goals later,  but successful people take action immediately.

This post has been a little longer than I anticipated so thanks for bearing with it and hopefully I will be back in the next day or two.

Have a wonderful day.

Introduction

Hello everyone.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope that you are able to derive some benefit out of it.

The reason for starting this blog is that I have found in my 3 decades of experience in this world that the vast majority of people who I interact with are going about their lives without knowing what they would even like to achieve with their time on Earth, let alone how they would go about achieving the things that the great people of our world have done.

This blog aims to serve as an educator and a reminder to myself and others that each and every one of us has great potential to wonderfully impact on the world that we live in to leave a lasting legacy for the people who come after us, but it is up to us to decide how we are going to use the opportunity of the time that we have been given.

The introduction today is for ourselves to look at ourselves and establish what our personal philosophy is.

It can either be a positive, energetic, determined and focused philosophy with a mindset to fulfil our maximum potential in our time here or it can be a lazy and lethargic philosophy of simply surviving one day at a time and doing just enough to get by.

The wonderful thing about us humans is that regardless of who we were yesterday or what we did, we have the power to decide to change everything at a moments notice.

I will leave it here for today, but will hopefully be back in the next day or two with another post.

Peace.