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Daily Gratitude: Do you know someone like this? Or maybe it’s you? The person wanted to be a musician but his/her parents kept saying there would be no future and no income from that profession. They refuse to pay for any education in that field. So the child becomes a lawyer or doctor or whatever the parents want. Is this person ever going to be happy? Probably not. How sad that is. I was so fortunate that my parents accepted that I wanted to be a doctor and never tried to change my mind. In fact I am so grateful that they defended me against the naysayers who kept saying “oh you really mean you want to be a nurse?” My parents stood up for me. I would have been miserable had I had to follow some other course in my life. Stand up for your own self and follow your own dreams!

Daily Gratitude: It’s so true that there are twists and turns in life. You can hold on but often the strength required to hold on can wear you down. Learning to bend in the wind and flow with the turns can allow you to get through your life more easily. Remember William Shakespeare’s important quote “nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so”. Take some event and put it before two different people and one will see it as a terrible thing that will ruin their life. The other, though, will make the best of all that’s going on and not blame his fate on the adversity. There’s a story about two brothers whose father was an alcoholic. One brother didn’t do anything with his life and was always down on his luck. When asked why, he replied “because my father was an alcoholic.” The other brother was extremely successful and happy. When asked why he was such a success, his answer was “because my father was an alcoholic.” Two sides of the same coin. Learn to go with the flow and stop resisting (holding on tight).

Daily Gratitude: How often do we just hold on to things? Refusing to let go? What a source of regret for many people. What good does it do to continue focusing on things that have happened and about which you can do nothing? It doesn’t do any good. When you focus on the past, you tend to think about it frequently and then you tend to talk about it to those who will listen. Why? What do you get out of it? If you are prone to thinking about the past, try to find some lesson you learned from it and how you can avoid Re-experiencing the same. Your thoughts determine what you bring to your life. If all you have is negative thoughts, then all you’re going to bring into your life is negative events and people. I can point to reference after reference about this. My own experience demonstrates it as well. You have to monitor your thoughts constantly and switch the negative to positive. One way to help that is to just let go of whatever happened in the past. Spend that time enjoying what’s happening now. Even if there’s adversity, play Sherlock Holmes and look for the positive – what’s called the “seed of equivalent benefit”. You may have to look hard but make it a project, a game, even a ritual and see what happens in your life. Remember, though, that this won’t happen overnight. You’re trying to change life long patterns and habits and that does not occur right away.