Thursday, May 7, 2015
MANIFESTO OF AN AVERAGE GIRL (a.k.a Maithry’s Manifesto)
TALK
TO EVERYONE, TALK TO ANYONE, TALK TO NO ONE. DO YOU WHAT YOU LIKE. REPLACE
TALK WITH EAT/SMILE/FRIEND/”DO”. BE JUDGEMENT FREE, OF OTHER AND OF YOURSELF.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Lewis Carroll on Happiness and How to Alleviate Our Discomfort with Change
“There’s no use in comparing one’s feelings between one day and the next; you must allow a reasonable interval, for the direction of change to show itself.”
A now-legendary 1978 adaptation theory, found that both lottery winners and people rendered paraplegic by an accident not only return to their baseline happiness level within a few months but also have similar baselines overall, regardless of whether they had great or terrible fortune.
And yet most of us find this difficult to believe because, despite what we may know about the psychology of resilience and our hardwired optimism bias, we dread change enormously. Change — be it negative, neutral, or even positive — is hard; more than that, it’s usually unwelcome — in no small part because we’re stitched together by our routines and rituals. But change is also how we stretch ourselves and grow, and in the tension between the resistance and the necessity lies one of the great paradoxes of the human condition.
In his letter to friend named Isabel Standen, Lewis Caroll writes about how to deal with changes
“Don’t think about loneliness, or happiness, or unhappiness, for a week or two. Then “take stock” again, and compare your feelings with what they were two weeks previously. If they have changed, even a little, for the better you are on the right track; if not, we may begin to suspect the life does not suit you. But what I want specially to urge is that there’s no use in comparing one’s feelings between one day and the next; you must allow a reasonable interval, for the direction of change to show itself. Sit on the beach, and watch the waves for a few seconds; you say “the tide is coming in” ; watch half a dozen successive waves, and you may say “the last is the lowest; it is going out.” Wait a quarter of an hour, and compare its average place with what it was at first, and you will say “No, it is coming in after all ” ...
This is an excerpt from Maria Popova's article in www.brainpickings.org
And yet most of us find this difficult to believe because, despite what we may know about the psychology of resilience and our hardwired optimism bias, we dread change enormously. Change — be it negative, neutral, or even positive — is hard; more than that, it’s usually unwelcome — in no small part because we’re stitched together by our routines and rituals. But change is also how we stretch ourselves and grow, and in the tension between the resistance and the necessity lies one of the great paradoxes of the human condition.
In his letter to friend named Isabel Standen, Lewis Caroll writes about how to deal with changes
“Don’t think about loneliness, or happiness, or unhappiness, for a week or two. Then “take stock” again, and compare your feelings with what they were two weeks previously. If they have changed, even a little, for the better you are on the right track; if not, we may begin to suspect the life does not suit you. But what I want specially to urge is that there’s no use in comparing one’s feelings between one day and the next; you must allow a reasonable interval, for the direction of change to show itself. Sit on the beach, and watch the waves for a few seconds; you say “the tide is coming in” ; watch half a dozen successive waves, and you may say “the last is the lowest; it is going out.” Wait a quarter of an hour, and compare its average place with what it was at first, and you will say “No, it is coming in after all ” ...
This is an excerpt from Maria Popova's article in www.brainpickings.org
Monday, January 12, 2015
HOPE for the day
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose INFINITE HOPE.
Martin Luther King
Friday, January 9, 2015
Hope is the only cure...
Every new year's eve I make resolutions for the new year (follow them till good 6-10 weeks before giving up) and welcome the new year with new hopes, dreams and desires.
But as the days unfold the reality hits me, that there is nothing actually new about the new year. My work hasn't changed, people around me haven't changed and there has been no difference to my lifestyle.
Slowly the hopes and dreams and desires to achieve new goals crumble under the reality of unchanging monotonous life.
I keep asking myself, what is that I can do differently to change how things are in life?? What is it that every other happy person (which seems like everybody else other than me) doing because of which they have such satisfying happy lives?? How do I change the way I think, the way I feel and the way I live to be happy or happier?? What is the cure for all this despair??
The answer is in the question. The only cure for the way I feel and to change the way I feel is HOPE.
Sometime HOPE is the only thing you have and nothing else. But as long as you have hope, you need nothing else. Hope is the driving force of life which keeps us going. And I belive that if you are honest to life, if you ask life what you truly want, life gives it to you.
So I confronted myself to ask what I truly wanted from life. Is it happiness, success, love, friends and family or adventure, passion, fun and prosperity. For I know that if I truly, honestly and wholeheartedly hope for what i want from life, it will find me...
I am now hoping to Hope more... Dream more.... Trust more..... and Live more every single day....
I wish you the same and wish you a very hopeful new year :)
But as the days unfold the reality hits me, that there is nothing actually new about the new year. My work hasn't changed, people around me haven't changed and there has been no difference to my lifestyle.
Slowly the hopes and dreams and desires to achieve new goals crumble under the reality of unchanging monotonous life.
I keep asking myself, what is that I can do differently to change how things are in life?? What is it that every other happy person (which seems like everybody else other than me) doing because of which they have such satisfying happy lives?? How do I change the way I think, the way I feel and the way I live to be happy or happier?? What is the cure for all this despair??
The answer is in the question. The only cure for the way I feel and to change the way I feel is HOPE.
Sometime HOPE is the only thing you have and nothing else. But as long as you have hope, you need nothing else. Hope is the driving force of life which keeps us going. And I belive that if you are honest to life, if you ask life what you truly want, life gives it to you.
So I confronted myself to ask what I truly wanted from life. Is it happiness, success, love, friends and family or adventure, passion, fun and prosperity. For I know that if I truly, honestly and wholeheartedly hope for what i want from life, it will find me...
I am now hoping to Hope more... Dream more.... Trust more..... and Live more every single day....
I wish you the same and wish you a very hopeful new year :)
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
"Hope" for the day
Do not dwell in the past,
Do not dream of future,
Concentrate the mind on the present moment; for present is the best present that you could get today.
Buddha
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