Remember the dew drops on the grass in the cold winter mornings on your way to school? And that smell from the trees and the fog, your bag of books, your grey school pants, and a white shirt over which you wore a navy blue blazer and it had that school insignia? Some times you would run, and then again walk, and you had that excitement in your nature and the nature around, all over? I think you remember the squirrels you fed with the bread you used to save for them from the lunch box that your mom had always put in your bag. Your friends, and that teacher who you loved when she smiled. You remember the rain? When it came, gave you immense joy that only you could feel deep inside? Those evenings, crimson-red horizon, the coziness of the warm house and the smell of food from the kitchen? You loved to watch "CHIPS", and " A Highway to Heaven". You loved All things. Laughter, fun, play, and more play.....was the life all about. What has changed? Things? or you? Or May be both? ( A Sigh).

Alone time is the time when we reflect upon us inside out, the ideas recollected and explored in those late night hours when the peace rules, it’s the time of creation, introspection. Aloneness is a pleasure of one’s own companionship. It’s the time when you meet you for a close conversation, the things reveal, answers to the questions show up, those knots untangled, burdens released. Only if we know what aloneness means. It’s about self-discovery, a journey you’ve embarked upon, and sometimes you take a break from the din and outside noise and pay heed to the whisper from the inside. Who you are? What do you exactly want? What’s Important, and what’s not?? How much time is left? Where you heading to? What’s attractive there? What do you ultimately want to achieve and your purpose for being here. Aloneness is the best company if you make it so.

After all, love is about giving. If you can’t have an awesome time by yourself, you will never be able to be happy in a relationship. It’s really all about your inner music and focus on the purpose. The real core issue here is loving yourself first and having a great relationship with you first, focusing on your life and your life style, creating a life that you’re proud of. If you’re not happy, a relationship is not going to make you happy. You’ve got to get to a place where you can enjoy being alone by yourself. In order to be successful in your intimate relationship you must love, accept value and have a great relationship with yourself first. You can’t give away what you don’t already have for yourself. Why? When we depend upon people and things outside of ourselves in order to be happy, eventually, we will realize that we are unhappy and it will become nearly impossible to sustain the relationship. Therefore, in order to have great relationship, we must create a life and life style that’s compelling, fulfilling that we are proud of. When you’re proud of yourself, your life and journey, even if you’re not where you ultimately want to be, you make yourself so attractive that others will become excited about joining you to be a part of it. Attract, rather than chasing. As Jim Rohn said, ‘You can attract more by becoming more.

Many of us people feel anxious and discomfort when we think about the things we don’t have and we want to have them, and sometimes it frustrates us. Lost in this thought pattern, we seem to forget about the things that we have which many people dream to have. I met with a man today with no legs and he rode a small four wheel cart pushing it with his one hand. As I walked passed him I greeted him with a ‘Ni hao’. He looked up at me and greeted me back with a big smile on his face. Later on my way I saw a shoe-shine girl sitting down by the side-walk with her shoe-shine tools and I decided to avail her services. She also greeted me with a great smile as I sat down on a small wooden stool in front of her. She shined my shoes carefully during which she talked and asked about my life, job and stuff. I could see the contentment and happiness through her body language and tone of her voice. She earns only 2 Yuan per customer. Not sure how much she makes in a day but I know it’s not so much. I feel a sense of gratitude toward what I have today. I am healthy. I can walk and talk, work, read and write, create the life for myself, the life I dream to live, but as I look around me I come to realize that I must cherish my possessions, relations, love and Everything I own, because many people don’t have it. That’s one way to feel good about myself. I am sure we can live happily if we choose to. What do you think?

Do you happen to know someone whose favorite phrase is ‘I hate (……….)!’ and they say it so frequently about most of the things in life? They love to complain, moan and groan about weather, food, people, culture, and they complain about something which is not even related to them directly. For example, you hear them say, ‘I don’t like her hair, or I don’t like the way she dresses.’ They happen to be very opinionated about Everything that is related to them or not. The thing is, it becomes almost impossible to hold a conversation with them on any subject because they Hate so much. That sucks! Right? These naysayers come in all shape, sizes and relationships. They can be found at work place, in close family, friendships which we’ve been keeping for many years but not recognizing the negative effects that it’s rendering upon us. Dealing with such energy-drainers can be really tough. How do you deal with such people? I seek your advice on that please! Peace!

Not sure if we should call it an addiction but it, more or less, renders similar effects as any addiction. It pushes you to check face book alerts and all kinds of alerts time and again, before, during and after anything you’re busy with. May it be your work, eating, writing a homework assignment, and even sitting by the most loved person, you find yourself punching on your phone keys. I googled ‘Internet Addiction’ in order to get more info and found that it exists as a disorder by the terms ‘compulsive Internet use (CIU), Internet overuse, problematic computer use, or pathological computer use, or Internet addiction disorder.’ There are further complications related to the internet addiction which are discussable. Cyber Relationships are a common place practice today. Online dating services and social networking create a place to communicate with new people. Virtual online friends start to gain more importance over time to the person than real-life family and friends. Visuals are removed as it is communication through text. People suffering with social anxiety or issues regarding shame and guilt may be drawn to text relationships-which may be true for some people struggling to contain the over-stimulation of past trauma. Text becomes a transitional space, an extension of their mind that blends with the extension of the other person’s mind. They feel they can connect more directly to the mind and soul of the other person. Cyber-relationships can often be more intense than real-life relationships, causing addiction to the relationship. With the ability to create whole new personas, people can often deceive the person they are communicative with. I’ve a couple of real-life friends who have been the victims of such kind of relationships. It took them awhile to recover from that on line love affair. Everyone is looking for a perfect companion but the perfect companion on line is not always the perfect companion in real life. There are people who deliberately create fake personal profiles online with the intention of tricking a person into falling in love with them. There are money scams and all kinds of fraud happening on the internet. I have received emails from a few scammers claiming to have multi-million dollars in a bank account which they want to transfer into my account for some odd reasons. My post particularly addresses young people who are studying and pursuing their careers at colleges and universities. They must devote themselves into education and learning and avoid falling into time wasting stuff. When you’re successful in your life, you will get what you want. You can attract anything by becoming attractive. Things and people will find you. You don’t have to waste time looking for fake and artificial satisfaction. Peace!

We would play baby games when we were together. We would go out in the rain and walked in the streets, soaking ourselves laughing out loud crazily with no care for tomorrow. We lived in the moment and made it perfect as if it would never come back, and it never did. It wasn’t like romantic as in the movies but very natural as if spontaneous love happening at all times, it was more like two five year old kids playing in the mud. She was the wind beneath my wings, taught me how to fly. But now we’re strangers, don’t know where she is. It’s been many many years now. Things change, places change, people change, and changes Everything. Memories Remain.

I’ve been teaching English for over two decades now and it brings me lots of happiness and satisfaction. This keeps my spirits young and enthusiastic at all times because hanging out with young people is the part of my profession. This also invites so much fun and humor in my life which becomes a memory. I want to share some such occasion when a lesson turns out to be Laughter Episode. This happened at a training school a few years ago. It was my first day at that school. I was with a bunch of kids in their late teens, teaching ‘Directions’ as topic. Having explained basic commands on Directions i.e. ‘ turn left, turn right, walk straight on, turn around etc, I asked the students to blindfold me and give me commands and I would follow. As rule, each student had to give me at least three different commands so that everyone could participate in the activity. The game started. I had to follow the directions now. Blindfolded, I kept turning right and left, and around, walking straight and so on for about three to four minutes. I had no idea where I was moving to as it was my first day at school. All of a sudden I heard a female voice (kind of loud) saying something in Chinese language. Embarrassingly, as I removed the blindfold, I found myself standing in the middle of the female’s restroom, surrounded by five females laughing out loud. I got a bit confused at the situation first but did not show that. A successful lesson on Giving Directions ended up in the ladies restroom. All of us had a good laugh.

There are a few things in life which we don’t choose because we’re born with them. For example, place of birth, race, color of the skin, religion or belief, nationality, name, parents etc. And, there are a lot of things we which can choose, as we grow up and begin to see life differently. We can change our character and improve our self in education, attitude and behavior. We can improve our looks by keeping an exercise routine and healthy diet. We can choose to be A Giver, a compassionate person, a loving-kind individual, who’s always ready to give a helping hand to the one who needs that, offering a one- time meal to the hungry. It’s our choice to leave the chair for elderly, let the lady go first and hold the door for her. It doesn’t take a million bucks to smile first when eyes meet eyes on the way to work. It feels good to say, ‘Ni hao’,’ Hello’, ‘Good Morning’ to a stranger. Happiness, right? You’re looking for happiness. We all are. Happiness lies in giving. Give what you can. It comes back in abundance. if not immediately, but soon. most things do not cost money, but words and kind actions, just little bit loving gestures, a touch, a hugs, a smile, saying what you want to hear….it’s simple. It’s just a matter of choice. Drop the ego. It stops the life, coming to you. Your nationality, skin color, your faith and religion, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you live in, the money in your bank are also important. But You! You’re above all that. You are precious! Choose humility. It is remembered when we leave here. Peace!

Life is a chance. It depends upon how we avail this chance. It depends if we choose to live in the comfort zone and settle in at a phase where we keep complaining, moaning and groaning but we never make a move to get out of that zone which is killing us every day and night. There’re only two ways. Either we’re living the life or the life is living us. Most of us break promises which we make to our self. We decide on starting a new hobby, habit but when the time comes, we back off and put it off on ‘I will start it later’. Then this ‘later’ brings in more ‘laters’ and it becomes a never ending cycle until we forget that we had decided on doing it. This breaks our self-esteem, trust in us, and it invites anxiety, frustration, anger and a sense of un-fulfillment deep down our soul. When soul is dissatisfied, what else is there? Procrastination is a killer of dreams. It damages self-respect when we find our self breaking those promises that we make to us. Life begins to change, when we chase the words we say to our self. It’s a war within. No one will fight it for us. You’ve got to be a warrior to fight this war. The enemy is not out there. It’s inside us. Notice the rituals you do every day. Slow but consistent, that’s the game! That emptiness replaces happiness; your fake smile turns to genuine one. That’s beautiful! Isn’t it? Be at your command; parent yourself because your life depends on it. Set short, achievable goals, and keep on achieving them. You’ll be happy. Love more, work hard, and play harder. Leave toxic people and relationships and surround yourself with the people who bring out the best in you, love you and know you.