Have you watched them sleep?

This is a newspaper article written by SHAKUNTHALA DEVI in 2008 and it is so meaningful to share it.

I received a message on my Friendster account the other day. It was one of those forwarded messages, the type I would usually scan briefly before hitting "delete".

But this message, written in Bahasa Malaysia, started with a simple question that caught my attention. A rough translation of it goes like this:

"Have you ever watched your parents as they are asleep? Your father's body once big and strong but now, the big is withered and the strong weaker. Wisps of grey peek out of his hair, wrinkles now "scar" on his forehead and face."

6 Things Our Parents Wished We Knew

Our parents are the first persons we meet and trusted. We grew up, have our personal set of thinking and habits and slowly begin to unconsciously distant from our parents not physically but relationally. We're busy making friends, making ourselves look cool, playing games, watching movies, etc that we forgot and neglected the fact that our parents are also growing older as we are growing up. Some of us might not notice, but if you did like I do, have some patience with them and understand that there are some things they wish we'd knew.

1. They wished that you could be more patient with them when they make mistakes.
When they break something or forget something, don't scold them. Think of the time when they clean up the mess, the time they taught you how to wear your shoes.

Not satisfied with your life?

For those who always feel that life is unfair and it's always against us, let's see if life is really that bad.
Imagine that before you're born, give given a chance to draw a random ticket, a ticket which determines your looks, parents, nationality, health, wealth, intelligence, attitude, gender, race, etc. What would have been your chance to end up where you are now?

A rough estimation or distribution from the entire earth population gives the following results. Out of 100%,
49% are females.
51% are males.
20% in acceptable living conditions.
67% are illiterate and unable to read.
33% educated.
50% malnourished.
1% dying of hunger.
33% has no clean water supply.
16% has Internet access.

If you could turn back time, would you re-draw this ticket? I used to, but now I don't. The fact that i'm able to write and you're able to read this already prove that we've got a golden ticket whereas the majority out there who had chosen worse, are out there starving, living without a purpose, has no communication with the rest of the world!

What you get from life is a result of your actions, not your circumstances. Look at Oprah Winfrey for example, she has the success and wealth people are after, but these people doesn't want to endure through what she did. She had a very tough childhood, she could have blamed life for giving her a lousy ticket but she took responsibility instead and turned her life around!

Working with fears

I realized that there are a lot of things which I want to accomplish but I don't take action and I believe you do too. Why? Procrastination and Laziness aside, what's left is nothing but Fear.

It's normal to feel fear whenever we start to do something beyond our comfort zone, it's a natural emotion to protect ourselves. But what this protection takes away, is the chance and opportunity we had given ourselves to try. We start to think, what if I fail? What if I can't make it? What if I lose the deal? What if he/she rejects me? and the list of negative preconceived outcomes goes on and on.

7 Disciplines of Success

There are numerous audiotapes in the area of Personal Development and one of my favorites is from Anthony Robbins which he shares about certain habits you have must have in order to succeed known as the 7 disciplines of success.
There are 7 rules or agreement one must follow in order to achieve phenomenal results in the different areas of your life.

3 important choices

There are a lot of choices that we have to make in life. But what's more important, is the ones that affect you as a person and there are 3 of it.

1) People you choose to be with.
Like the saying, "Birds of a feather, flock together". Who you choose to mix and associate with, will determine your habits, behaviors, beliefs and mindsets.
If you're born in an environment where no one speaks English, you won't learn it as you believe it's useless since no one is using that language. Likewise if people whom you mix around with are lazy or have poor financial knowledge, you'll also tend to follow their habits just because you're following those people!
In order to succeed, you must surround yourself with successful individuals and people with aspirations for success.

The 6 Human Needs

The human needs I'm referring to isn't survival needs such as eating etc. But a more unexplored. Emotional needs.
Everyday decisions and behaviors are driven by our emotions most of the time rather than logic.
I believe that you wish to make a change in your life and I strongly suggest reading on as it's important to understand ourselves and how we think. So, altogether there are 6 of those emotional needs. Let's take a look at them below.