The practice of gratitude involves intentionally focusing on the good things in our lives and expressing appreciation for them. It can be as simple as thinking about the things we are thankful for or writing them down in a journal. While it may seem like a small and insignificant act, the benefits of practicing gratitude are numerous and far-reaching.
One of the gratitude’s most significant benefits is its effect on our mental and emotional well-being. Focusing on the things we are grateful for helps shift our perspective from a negative to a positive one. This can lead to increased happiness, contentment, and overall satisfaction. Gratitude can also help to reduce stress and anxiety, as it allows us to see the good in our lives rather than dwelling on the negative.
In addition to the psychological benefits, practicing gratitude can positively impact our physical health. Studies have shown that appreciation can improve sleep, a more robust immune system, and even lower blood pressure. It can also lead to increased energy and motivation, which can help us be more productive and achieve our goals.
Gratitude can also have a positive impact on our relationships. When we express appreciation for others and what they do for us, it can strengthen our bond with them. It can also make us more likable, as expressing gratitude is often seen as a sign of good manners and a positive attitude.
Finally, practicing gratitude can have a ripple effect, as it can inspire us to be more giving and compassionate toward others. Being thankful for what we have can inspire us to pay it forward and help those in need.
In conclusion, the benefits of practicing gratitude are numerous and far-reaching. It can improve our mental and emotional well-being, physical health, and relationships and inspire us to give more to others. We can significantly improve our overall well-being and happiness by simply focusing on the things we are grateful for each day.
No matter what things you create in life or how intelligent you are, you don’t have anything if you haven’t got your health. Everything we experience is through the senses of our bodies, and greatness is achieved through the use of a keen mind, a fit body, and a spirit that will guide you in all sorts of weather. Each day your health should be one of your highest priorities. To lack health on any side of the sacred triangle of body, mind, and spirit will limit what a person can accomplish and how they experience life. Work to keep yourself in peak mental and physical condition throughout your years, or your years will be much shorter and less enjoyable than they should be. My contention is to find a way to improve myself by at least .01% each day. That is to make sure that I am physically, spiritually, and mentally at least .01% better than yesterday. It is a simple philosophy; if you are not getting better, you are getting worse.
The Human Body was Built to Move
You have been given a gift of a body, and through this gift, you experience the world. How well you maintain your gift will determine what you can do and how you can do it. So it makes sense to treat your body as the most valuable asset it is, and this is done by getting regular periods of exercise and eating a reasonably healthy diet.
The human body was designed to move. It enjoys movement and exercise and will respond favorably to this experience. The body releases endorphins that reward exercise, which improves your mood throughout the day. For me, the exercise I love is lifting weights and some cardio. For you, it may be yoga, running, mixed martial arts, aerobics, or any other workout. Start doing it today; if you don’t know what you like, start with just walking. Do something. The human body was not designed to sit down all day and do nothing. Too often, our activities are voluntarily sedentary. In moderation, there is nothing wrong with that. As a lifestyle, it will lead to poor mental and physical health. If you want to be sharper mentally, raise your self-esteem, and enjoy life more, participate in regular exercise. The earlier you start, the easier it will be to maintain throughout life.
You Are what you Eat
Food should be looked at as something that sustains your body and allows you to perform. As Americans, we have an unhealthy attachment to the foods we eat. Eating is a social thing, and certain foods become activities of comfort. Each time we eat for reasons other than to provide energy, we are in danger of overeating. When you overeat and take in too much food, you will put on weight. When you carry too much weight, the human body starts to break down, the cardiovascular system has to work harder to service the body, the skeletal system is pushed to the limits, and your overall wellness suffers. Human beings literally wear their decisions about what food they put in their mouth.
There are thousands of diets that people try to sell you, and I am not wise enough to tell you this or that it is the greatest way to lose weight and be healthy. If you are mindful of what you eat, why you are eating, and how much you eat, most diets will provide positive results. Finding the right mix for yourself will lead to a lifestyle change around food which will be long-lasting. That is the healthy change you are looking for. What will work for you may not be something that works for everyone.
Make choices today which will benefit your health and allow you to live a life as your best self. Be conscious of your health in thoughts, words, and actions. Get started on an exercise program and be mindful of how you eat. The life you improve will be your own.
To enjoy good health, bring true happiness to one’s family, and bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind, he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. ~ Buddha
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
In a conversation with a friend, they mentioned that they always kept a pack of items in their vehicle, just in case there was a cause to go on an adventure that day. It got me to thinking that each of us should create our own “Adventure Packs” for whatever each day might bring us. There are many things that you could do every day to make your life more of an experience if you wanted to. I figured that why not set the tone and expect something adventurous by carrying an adventure pack, just in case. Think of all of the adventures you might be missing out on just by not having one. The pack doesn’t have to be fancy or anything, it can just be a bag with a few of the necessities an adventurer might need. I think there are many different experiences that can qualify as adventures, here is a short list of adventures you might have.
Physical Adventures Are Good For You And Fun
My pack is always ready.
These are the most prevalent kind of adventures, I think, the ones that take you somewhere, on a hike, or a walk, or around the bend to see what is there. In your daily activities, you might see a road that you wanted to walk down, or even a park you wanted to visit, to see what was there. What is stopping you? If you have an adventure pack with a bottle of water, sun screen, a light jacket, then you will be ready for this type of excursion. The benefits of these types of activities are improved health which is good for your heart, your mind and your soul. The difference between a thought and an experience is action, so don’t be afraid to take that action step. Make sure you keep a snack in your adventure pack so that you will always have the energy to carry out the adventure in front of you.
Social Adventures Good For Your Mind
Adventure packs are light weight and make you smile
These are the ones that involve getting together with someone in a social situation, going for coffee or breakfast just for the sake of socialization. Your adventure pack doesn’t even need to have much in it to carry on this type of excitement. If you have a strong desire to connect then you really don’t need to do anything other than a little money to pay for whatever you eat. Most often when you visit with old friends you will have revelations and memories about yourself and them that you had forgotten a long time ago. Life is a can be a long road and it is a much happier experience when you travel it with friends. So always keep a little extra cash in your adventure pack, just in case the opportunity to connect comes up.
There are a bunch of simple adventures that you can experience with just a little bit of energy and imagination. On any clear night, you have access to one of the grandest adventures on earth, the night sky. When you make the effort to get where the lights of civilization are not a factor you can view the stars and any time you do this, you can’t help but be swept up in the power and wonder of the vastness of space. Each star billions of miles away has a story, and you are just a very small and insignificant spec to whatever story is happening there. You can also have the same kind of adventures at any natural wonder, a river, a lake or the ocean. You will have to travel with your adventure pack to get to these locations most likely, but keep a map in your adventure pack and you will never get lost on your journey.
Doing Something for Others
My pack usually has enough to share, if not we’ll make due.
Having an adventure pack handy should allow you the freedom to help someone else. There are many people who don’t really need anything other than a visit and a kind word. This adventure is very low-cost and will never be out of demand. If you don’t know who needs this type of adventure from you, look around. There are hospitals and nursing homes with people in them who would like nothing more than a friend to talk to and share their stories with. This is why it is always important to keep a handy list of topics with you at all times. Remember that any commonality is a conversation in and of itself. A sport, a team, a performance or anything that you can relate to in any way can create a conversation that will pick up someone’s day. This type of adventure is doubly good because it is good for the person you visit and it is good for you.
In the end, there is no shortage of ways that you can enjoy life more than you do right now. If you are already filling your life with adventures, then perhaps it is time to add new people to them. The more the merrier is a great theme to follow as you move through life. It is true that the more people you share your life with, the richer you will feel. So create your own adventure pack and hit the streets, life is nothing more than an adventure waiting to happen.
Are there any depths that most people wouldn’t go to save a loved one in most cases? Yet this may not be the best philosophy to follow in many cases, but we do.
That is the answer that I am going to give, that I would, but I am not sure that in all cases it is the best thing to do, because the repercussions may ultimately be a negative for the person you love. Sometimes loving someone is allowing them to learn the hard way.
Health and Physical Harm
I think in the most basic forms, most people wouldn’t hesitate to break the law to protect
I would even watch these guys to save you! These guys are really annoying!
the physical well being of someone we love, from a spouse, a relative or a child. That is the easiest one to quantify.
I would break the law to do this, because as important as the law is, it does not mean a thing when you compare it to the value a loved one has in my life. There is no limit to the length that I would go to do this. I think of the loved ones that I have lost, due to old age and illness.
If there was something I could do to save them and keep them in my life longer, it would have been worth it, no question about it. Unfortunately we are not given this choice very often. Most often we are resigned to accept what fate deals us.
Learning the Hard Way
Saving a loved one can come with a heavy price sometimes when it becomes a blurry line of what people need to actually be saved from.
In life we all have to make decisions each and every day all of which come with a corresponding result. Since we made the decisions we are responsible for the result. Sometimes I think people want to save their loved ones from any kind of “bad experience” at all.
Even when the decision that led to any trouble was there. building a line between where a person needs to be saved and where they need to learn is very difficult to do. Many parents today seem to struggle with this, and that is not a criticism, just an observation.
I am not sure that I would be a good judge of this line or not. Sometimes a lesson will only sink in when you have to experience the full weight of the choice that you made.
It Hurt But It was Good For Me
In my life I have been fortunate to have people in it who cared about me and in many ways looked out for me to keep me from harm. Yet I was also allowed to learn lessons, on my own.
Throughout my development as a human being, I have found that the hardest lesson to learn is that the only person responsible for your actions and the resulting mayhem is you. Not anybody else, you and you alone.
You can blame others all that you want, they did this or that was unfair, but in the end the good, bad, the joy or the pain are all laid directly at your own feet. That lesson needs to be learned by everyone at some point, in order to continue to evolve.
There is only one way to learn this and you have to let all of your loved ones learn it for themselves. You can be there to support them and help them put the pieces back together but I think you have got to let the lessons be learned.
It could be the Best Thing
Life has a way of giving us experiences that we need to have in order to grow and that is the case for everyone. Sometimes the choice that we make, seemingly moves us backward.
Yet with the wisdom of time we see that the event or experience we first identified as bad, in the long run it provided us with the motivation or the skills to move to a height we never dreamed was possible before.
There is a motivation is failure that has been spring boarding people to great heights since the beginning of time. I always hope that I have the wisdom to know the difference between saving and enabling. That is one of the lessons we must all learn in life.
What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
Are you truly living?
by Jonathan Hilton
All people are going to answer this question differently depending on where they are in their life. To me being alive is a fact of nature, and enjoying life and living for a purpose is truly living. But how do you enjoy life?
Other people will answer this very differently. It only takes a few visits to any number of blogs to experience the wide variety of philosophies and beliefs that exist.
Young people are struggling to master life, yet so hopeful about living it is encouraging While older people are resigned to the fact that you may never figure it out everything there is to know about life, but they share their thoughts and experiences.
One of the things I like about reading so many different people’s opinions is to be exposed to ideas that are different from mine. Valid yet different and I think that is a powerful force of growth. These are my thoughts on truly living.
The problem with Life
For me there is a question that came to me as I got older and thought that I was on the
We all have questions, I know I did.
path I should be on. After carefully contemplating the experiences I have been fortunate enough to have in life I came to the conclusion that being alive was not enough and that I needed to start truly living and for me that meant I had to make a lot of changes in my perceptions of people, life, God and everything that at one time I was sure of.
I wasn’t sure what was “right”, but I knew there was more to life than a conditioned accumulation of material goods to supply comfort to life.
What comfort did I ever give to others? What did I contribute? Even as an educator, I was contributing stories about living which happened long ago, espousing the morals and actions that young people should aspire to follow, with the awareness of the world around me the size of the head of a pin.
I don’t think I consistently enjoyed what life gave me. There are easy things to enjoy and appreciate, like those we love, and those that love us, a sunny, beautiful day, a large sum of money, all of these can be easily enjoyed, but how many people pass through a day without having gratitude for anything in their life, because they are too busy looking at what they don’t have.
I was one of these, searching for the right amount of stuff that would bring happiness with it. I never found that.
The Past
Which direction do you follow?
One of the biggest problems people face,when trying to truly live is that they always seem to distract themselves from the moment they are currently experiencing.
Perhaps spending time with someone you love, reading a book, exercising, or doing whatever it is you do, because you allow yourself to be distracted by things that make you feel the moment you are in is not a good enough thing.
One distraction is the past, which often allows you to reminisce about the past and feel that things were so much better back then, when you were happy.
Often the past is not quite what we remember it to be and it really doesn’t matter in the scope of today. It is over and gone, good or bad and to short change today for yesterday is selling something tangible and of extreme value for nothing but a fantasy.
Often I had looked to the past to the good old days, which were nice memories, but other than lending experience to today, couldn’t help make me very happy or allow me to truly live.
The Future
Others choose to focus on the future, planning and scheming the best way to route their lives to get to the point where finally they will be happy. They think that if they do this particular thing, at this particular time then I will be happy, satisfied, successful, or whatever.
The problem with this is that when you put all of your focus onto tomorrow you miss the great things that are happening today. You can prepare for the future with the actions of today and enjoy today at the same time, the difference is that you don’t put anything off, like being happy and satisfied with life or anything else. Tomorrow may never come and rarely does it happen as you plan, so putting happiness off is a bad gamble that will most likely never pay off.
I’ll Be Happy When I am Rich
Materialism is another distraction that keeps people from enjoying the moment, often it goes hand in hand with waiting for the future, but tying your happiness into the acquisition of some material thing is going to stop you from appreciating today, because you are going to be thinking that happiness is going to come when you get that house, or car, or Ipad or whatever.
The satisfaction of that acquisition will be short-lived and soon you will be looking for the next thing that should bring happiness and satisfaction to your life, as you ignore the opportunity for happiness that you have in your experience today. Being grateful for what you have will allow you to enjoy the day. If you don’t believe me, then try it. Be truly grateful for what you have.
Your Choice
You can choose if you are alive or truly living
So truly living to me is the appreciation of what life is giving you right now in this moment.
That doesn’t mean that it will always be perfect. Sometimes there are painful things in life, and we have to deal with feelings that are not so nice, people get sick, accidents happen, people die, life is not perfect and there is no guarantee that everything is going to go your way.
However, there is a choice that comes pinned to each of those experiences to make it a positive or a negative factor in your life. Only you can decide for yourself the difference between being alive and truly living.
The practice of gratitude involves intentionally focusing on the good things in our lives and expressing appreciation for them. It can be as simple as thinking about the things we are thankful for or writing them down in a journal. While it may seem like a small and insignificant act, the benefits of practicing gratitude are numerous and far-reaching.
one. This can lead to increased happiness, contentment, and overall satisfaction. Gratitude can also help to reduce stress and anxiety, as it allows us to see the good in our lives rather than dwelling on the negative.
relationships. When we express appreciation for others and what they do for us, it can strengthen our bond with them. It can also make us more likable, as expressing gratitude is often seen as a sign of good manners and a positive attitude.
Adventures Based on Song Lyrics
Let’s go on an adventure today.
Honeymoon Beauty, Part III: The Adventure Seekers
The Lessons of Life
Lesson 8: Death Ends a Life not a Relationship
Wiped Out
Sharing some wisdom…
Shut Up and Be Grateful
8 ways money can buy happiness