It depends upon your perspective

There is no objective way to tell you if you have had a good life, a good day, or a good hour. Your life is a success based only upon your judgment.

A study was done recently in which people on opposite sides of an issue where given the same newspaper article to read. The people were asked to read the article carefully and to offer their reaction. On average, people said they thought the article was biased—against their own position. That is, people on both sides of the issue thought the exact same article was biased against their side. The article could not possibly have been biased against both sides of the issue. Obviously, it wasn’t the content of the article that drove the reaction, but the perspective of the readers. Life events have the same effect. The same event can be seen positively, or it can be seen negatively. It depends upon your perspective.

Better Busy than Bored

Find something to do, because the feeling that we have too much to do is much more pleasing than the feeling that we have nothing to do.

A philosopher once noted that people long for immortality but run out of things to do on a rainy afternoon. If we planned out our time in long chunks, say twenty years, we would never consider penciling in five or ten of those years for wasting time. Yet during the average day, we often let a few hours slip away.

Time is a strange commodity, because we seem to have so much of it, until the moment we have none at all. We often complain about having too much to do. Yet having too much to do is a positive problem of abundance, while having too little to do is a negative problem of shortage.

Metro Plastics Technology in Indiana tested out this principle by cutting the length of the workweek for its employees from forty hours to thirty hours. And do you know what happened after the switch? The quality of the company’s products improved, and the company actually made more money.

Management found that giving workers more to do in less time made the workers more efficient, energetic, and enthusiastic and gave workers more free time outside of the workplace.

Evelyn Glennie: How to listen to music with your whole body

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created. –Brenda Ueland

Glennie on Ted
Deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s music challenges the listener to ask where music comes from: Is it more than simply a translation from score to instrument to audience? How can a musician who has almost no hearing play with such sensitivity and compassion? The Grammy-winning percussionist and composer became almost completely deaf by the age of 12, but her hearing loss brought her a deeper understanding of and connection to the music she loves. In this soaring video demonstration, Glennie leads the audience through an exploration of music not as notes on a page, but as an expression of the human experience. Playing with sensitivity and nuance informed by a deep understanding of and connection to music, she illustrates a richer picture that begins with listening to yourself. [ Watch Glennie in action ]

Be The Change:
Practice listening today.

Tribute to teachers

Be thankful for all those in your life who have taken the time to share their gifts and knowledge.

I once had a teacher who taught me to read
and how to spell words that I someday would need.
How could she have known where that someday would lead
when she shared her gift with me?

I once had a teacher who taught me to sing.
A song in your heart is a wonderful thing.
I wonder if she knew how much joy that would bring
when she shared her gift with me?

I once had a teacher who taught me to draw.
She opened my eyes to the beauty I saw.
She taught me to see there is beauty in us all
when she shared her gift with me.

I once had a teacher who taught me to play
as part of a team - not always my way.
He taught me a lesson on sharing that day
when he shared his gift with me.

All of these teachers shared gifts that were free.
What I do with these lessons is all up to me.
If I share them with others how thankful they will be
that they shared their gifts with me.

- Author Unknown

Think in Concrete terms

Perceptions that life is meaningful, and therefore worthwhile, increase 16 percent with concrete thinking. (Lindeman and Verkasalo 1996)

We need to be able to measure our progress, to know that things are improving. You can’t accomplish an abstract goal, because you’ll never be sure if you’re finished or not.

I want to be a better worker. I want to be a better parent. I want to be a better friend. Many of us have these kinds of hopes—vague hopes. The problem with these kinds of ideas is that they are not specific. They include no step-by-step directions and no outcomes. You want to be a better worker. Well, what does that mean? How does someone do that? How will you know if you’ve succeeded or not?

How to make your goals clear and direct? Think about what you care about, and then think about what you can actually do to accomplish that.

You might set as your goals: I want to finish this weekly report an hour faster; I want to make this task 5 percent cheaper;I want to have dinner with my family one more night per week; I want to make it to all my son’s basketball games. Here your goals come with built-in directions. These are goals that you can work toward and successfully complete. Completing any goal we set for ourselves improves our confidence and satisfaction and steadies us for the future.

Accomplish Something Every Day

In research on hundreds of college students, individuals were found to be happiest when they felt they were moving closer to achieving their goals. Students who could not see progress were three times less likely to feel satisfied than students who could.
(McGregor and Little 199

Sometimes days fly by without anything standing out in your mind, without any tangible improvement. Every day make sure, no matter how small the effort, that you do something to make your dreams come true.

We’ve all heard the proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But that same journey is vastly easier to make if the scenery changes.

If you keep moving and see different surroundings, you know you are making progress. If you can’t see the progress you are making, if every step seems to leave you in the same place, then you will have trouble believing that you are moving forward.

Every day in your life you have to see the progress. Ask yourself, What did I accomplish today? If you have an answer, if you can see the progress you have made in your journey, then you have had a valuable day, a good day.

You Can Do A Michael Jordan

We need self-reinforcement, a belief in ourselves that is strong and unwavering. Be ready to pick yourself up when you are feeling down.

The young man walked up to his high school gym. A paper tacked to the wall listed the players who had made the varsity team.

Fifteen-year-old Michael Jordan looked up and down the list. He could not find his name. Michael Jordan had not made the team.

Michael Jordan is considered by most experts to be the best basketball player ever. But he had to believe in himself to get there. By the time many basketball players reach the tenth grade, they are receiving hundreds of letters from college coaches seeking to recruit them into their programs. Michael Jordan didn’t receive a single letter, because Michael Jordan didn’t make the team.

Michael Jordan didn’t give up. He believed in himself and in his ability, and he practiced and practiced. The next year he made the team. And he became its star.

Rejection spells failure only if you do not believe in yourself. For those who believe, it is only a challenge.