Quotes: Be The Greatest In Whatever You Do

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Managing Stress

What is stress?

Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure.

Pressure turns into stress when you feel unable to cope. People have different ways of reacting to stress, so a situation that feels stressful to one person may be motivating to someone else.

Many of life’s demands can cause stress, particularly work, relationships and money problems. And, when you feel stressed, it can get in the way of sorting out these demands, or can even affect everything you do.

Stress can affect how you feel, think, behave and how your body works. In fact, common signs of stress include sleeping problems, sweating, loss of appetite and difficulty concentrating.

You may feel anxious, irritable or low in self esteem, and you may have racing thoughts, worry constantly or go over things in your head. You may notice that you lose your temper more easily, drink more or act unreasonably.

You may also experience headaches, muscle tension or pain, or dizziness.

Stress causes a surge of hormones in your body. These stress hormones are released to enable you to deal with pressures or threats – the so-called "fight or flight" response.  

Once the pressure or threat has passed, your stress hormone levels will usually return to normal. However, if you're constantly under stress, these hormones will remain in your body, leading to the symptoms of stress.

Managing stress in daily life

Stress is not an illness itself, but it can cause serious illness if it isn't addressed. It's important to recognise the symptoms of stress early. Recognising the signs and symptoms of stress will help you figure out ways of coping and save you from adopting unhealthy coping methods, such as drinking or smoking. 

Spotting the early signs of stress will also help prevent it getting worse and potentially causing serious complications, such as high blood pressure.

There is little you can do to prevent stress, but there are many things you can do to manage stress more effectively, such as learning how to relax, taking regular exercise and adopting good time-management techniques.

Studies have found that mindfulness courses, where participants are taught simple meditations across a series of weeks, can also help to reduce stress and improve mood.

If your stress is causing serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, you may need to take medication or further tests.

Mental health issues, including stress, anxiety and depression, are the reason for one-in-five visits to a GP.

Recognising your stress triggers

If you're not sure what's causing your stress, keep a diary and make a note of stressful episodes for two-to-four weeks. Then review it to spot the triggers.

Things you might want to write down include:

• the date, time and place of a stressful episode
• what you were doing 
• who you were with
• how you felt emotionally 
• what you were thinking 
• what you started doing 
• how you felt physically 
• a stress rating (0-10 where 10 is the most stressed you could ever feel)

You can use the diary to:

• work out what triggers your stress 
• work out how you operate under pressure 
• develop better coping mechanisms

Doctors sometimes recommend keeping a stress diary to help them diagnose stress.

Take action to tackle stress

There's no quick-fix cure for stress, and no single method will work for everyone. However, there are simple things you can do to change the common life problems that can cause stress or make stress a problem. These include relaxation techniques, exercise and talking the issues through.

Source: NHS

Relaxation Techniques

Relaxation can help to relieve the symptoms of stress. It can help you calm down and take a step back from a stressful situation.

Although the cause of the anxiety won’t disappear, you will probably feel more able to deal with it once you've released the tension in your body and cleared your thoughts. 

All relaxation techniques combine breathing more deeply with relaxing the muscles. 

Don't worry if you find it difficult to relax at first. It's a skill that needs to be learned and it will come with practice.

Yoga and tai chi are both good forms of exercise that may help to improve breathing and relaxation.

Relaxed breathing

Practise deep breathing at a regular time and in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Loosen or remove any tight clothes you have on, such as shoes or jackets. Make yourself feel completely comfortable. 

Sit in a comfy chair which supports your head or lie on the floor or a bed. Place your arms on the chair arms, or flat on the floor or bed, a little bit away from the side of your body with the palms up. If you’re lying down, stretch out your legs, keeping them hip-width apart or slightly wider. If you’re sitting on a chair, don’t cross your legs.

Good relaxation always starts with focusing on your breathing. The way to do it is to breathe in and out slowly and in a regular rhythm as this will help you to calm down.

• Fill up the whole of your lungs with air, without forcing. Imagine you're filling up a bottle, so that your lungs fill from the bottom.
• Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
• Breathe in slowly and regularly counting from one to five (don’t worry if you can’t reach five at first).
• Then let the breath escape slowly, counting from one to five.
• Keep doing this until you feel calm. Breathe without pausing or holding your breath.

Practise this relaxed breathing for three to five minutes, two to three times a day (or whenever you feel stressed).

Deep muscle relaxation

This technique takes around 20 minutes. It stretches different muscles in turn and then relaxes them, to release tension from the body and relax your mind.

Find a warm, quiet place with no distractions. Get completely comfortable, either sitting or lying down. Close your eyes and begin by focusing on your breathing; breathing slowly and deeply, as described above.

If you have pain in certain muscles, or if there are muscles that you find it difficult to focus on, spend more time on relaxing other parts. 

You may want to play some soothing music to help relaxation. As with all relaxation techniques, deep muscle relaxation will require a bit of practice before you start feeling its benefits.

For each exercise, hold the stretch for a few seconds, then relax. Repeat it a couple of times. It’s useful to keep to the same order as you work through the muscle groups:

• Face: push the eyebrows together, as though frowning, then release.
• Neck: gently tilt the head forwards, pushing chin down towards chest, then slowly lift again.
• Shoulders: pull them up towards the ears (shrug), then relax them down towards the feet.
• Chest: breathe slowly and deeply into the diaphragm (below your bottom rib) so that you're using the whole of the lungs. Then breathe slowly out, allowing the belly to deflate as all the air is exhaled.
• Arms: stretch the arms away from the body, reach, then relax.
• Legs: push the toes away from the body, then pull them towards body, then relax.
• Wrists and hands: stretch the wrist by pulling the hand up towards you, and stretch out the fingers and thumbs, then relax.

Spend some time lying quietly after your relaxation with your eyes closed. When you feel ready, stretch and get up slowly.

Source: NHS

How To Deal With Negative People

The lotus has always been a symbol that best represents Buddhism. Lotus grows in the mud; a slimy and dirty environment. And yet it remains pure and beautiful as if it is not affected by its negative surroundings. 

 

Lotus is a symbolic object about life itself. There are a lucky few who grow up in almost ideal environment but most of us live in a somewhat challenging circumstances. There are people living in the slum where hygene is an illusive luxury as survival is the number one thing that people are worry about.

 

You may not be growing up in a slum but you are surrounded by negative people nonetheless. They are your coworkers, friends and even family members. 

 

If you have abusive colleagues who constantly is trying to take advantage of you, then at least the best thing you could do is to just focus on your task to get the job done and not take things too personal. After all you only have to deal with them the most 2 hours everyday in the office, the rest of the time you are just doing your work at your desk and you don't have to see him after 5!  

 

If you feel that your boss is always not satisfy with your work no matter how hard you try, then at least tell yourself that you have given your best and it is his loss for not appreciating it. You can't satisfy everybody. There bound to be someone out there who are jealous of you and feeding wrong and bad information to your boss behind your back. You can't really do much about this as you can't control other people's actions. But you can control how you react to the situation. You can complain why these things always happen to you, why is it that you always get unfair treatment in the workplace and start blaming the world for it. OR, you could react in a more positive way by understanding that nothing is permanent, thing changes every second and you are just working in this particular office temporarily. What you have is the experience of NOW and that experience cannot be taken away from you by anyone trying to ruin your day. Tell yourself that nothing will affect your appreciation of life even if people trying to sabotage your position in the workplace. Worse case scenario you just work for other people or start your own business.

If the negative energy comes from your friends, it is still manageable as you don't hang out with your friends everyday. The most is once a week for gatherings and if you don't enjoy it then simply don't attend.

 

The most difficult situation to handle is when you are dealing with your own family members who constantly giving out negative energy around them. Sometime they could be abusive too by shouting at you or physically hurting you. Of course you could at first look at the whole situation compassionately by trying to understand where they stand. Maybe there is something that makes them unhappy over time and they are now releasing all the negative energy that has until now being kept inside them. If there is the case, try to figure out whether there is anything that you could do to solve the problem. If on the other hand they are simply being unreasonable then try not to retaliate at first because if you do you would make the matter worse. Let them throw their tantrum and soon they would cool down as they feel better. Only when you sense that they have ease down, then you could try and talk to them, make them understand how their actions made you feel. Try to find a mutually beneficial solution.

 

Life is never easy because every individual is unique and different. When ideas collide, argument arises and emotions are being attacked. Try to keep a cool head all the time so that you have a better perspective of the situation.

Love Yourself

The Buddha said: "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

This sentence sounds very logical and reasonable but do we practice it everyday? Do you constantly feel wonderful about yourself and happy with where you are at in life? You would most likely answer NO to the above questions. Most of us think that we are not good enough our lives are not good enough; we haven't found the perfect job; our salaries are not high enough; we don't have good husbands or wives; our bodies are not fit enough and the list goes on. The fact is that we unconsciously sabotaging ourselves everyday without even realize it.

This pattern of thoughts are not good to us psychologically and physically in the long term. It may even cause problems to our health. If you think that you are not earning enough, then instead of keep blaming yourself, why not think of what other ways where you could make additional income. Negative thoughts consume lots of energy and we should re-channel this energy into activities that could empower our lives.

If you love yourself, then you would be grateful for what you have in life right now. Maybe you already manage to live in your own house while others are still renting or homeless. Maybe you have a descent job while others are still desperately looking for work. Feel grateful that you have children while others pray to God to have one.

Once you start practicing feeling grateful about your life, you start to feel good instantly. The key is to get it started, the hardest part of the journey is always the first step. If you manage to practice it regularly, you will feel positive energy building up within you. Your new positive thought pattern would gradually replace the negative and unhealthy emotions that you used to have. The wonderful thing is that it can be contagious too. People around you would started to feel the changes in you and they in turn will start to feel different as well.

The most valuable part of us is not those material stuff that we possess; it is our outlook of life in general. It is important to maintain a positive outlook on life for it we don't, we could well end up in some very dangerous territory such as depression and some may even develop suicidal behaviour. So to love ourselves is to protect our conscious measurement of our quality of life. To have good quality of life does not necessarily means that you must be living in a big house with multiple cars. A truly happy person does not need to rely on external materialistic stuff to satisfy his inner longings. A truly happy person is the one who achieves balance between himself and the world he lives in. He is happy for who he is, not what he has.

In today's world where everybody is engaging in the social media, most people have very little time left for themselves. They are busy reading gossips about other people. They are too busy changing from one channel to the next thanks to the huge amount of TV programmes made available by fast internet. Their minds are fixated either on their mobile phones or TV. As a result, they feel empty inside. They can't stand being alone. If they ever find themselves idle for even 1 second, they will start taking out their mobile phones and check out what is the latest news online. If you ever put them in a remote resort without any internet connection, they would go crazy because they just would not know what to do. 

To love yourself is to slow down, not being nosy to find out what's happening to other people and start reflect upon your own life. Meditate if you have to or simply spend some real quality time engaging with real people; not chatting online with your virtual friends. Sometimes we just have to discard the technology and to get closer to nature. Give yourself some quiet time so that you could do some thinking to get back your bearing. Just think of it this way, are you more important or your mobile phone? If your answer is you then why are spending more time with your mobile phone instead of yourself? It doesn't make sense isn't it? And yet most of people simply let their life drifted away by doing exactly that.

You definitely deserve more than that, start to spend more time with yourself, nourish your soul through reading or mediation and engage more with your family and friends. Start to live like a human again and not some digital animal. 

Life is short and every second is precious. Don't let it drift away in front of you without doing something useful and productive. 

Experience NOW

The Buddha said: "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." This is probably one of the most effective teachings in history which applies from ancient times right to our modern days. 

In fact it is actually more appropriate and suitable for our today's busy lifestyle where most people would regret about their past while worry for their future. It is actually a very simple message which makes perfect sense but somehow we just don't get it. Despite the fact that most people know that this statement is true, they somehow fail to practice it on daily basis.

Just think about it logically if you are a sensible person, your past is gone and you could no longer do anything about it so why still keep thinking about it. Your future hasn't arrive and no matter how well you plan you could never be able to predict an accurate outcome for tomorrow simply because there are so many other things that could affect what happen to you the next second. Since we all have no control of the future, then why should we keep worrying about it?

To be mindful is to live in the present moment. If you are drinking wine right now, feel the chill of the wine glass while you are holding it, enjoy the scented taste while you are drinking it and experience the wonderful sensation as the liquid travels down into your body. You do this without thinking, just feel it instead. Let yourself get lost in the moment. Forget about how your colleague shouted at you this morning, forget about how your wife nagged as soon as you stepped into your house and definitely forget about the meeting tomorrow. Instead enjoy the beautiful music that is being played on radio or listening to the sweet melody produced by the cricket in your backyard.

Ajahn Brahm said that the future is a dream, the past is a memory, only now is the truth. Everything else is not real if you can't experience it right NOW. It is very important to wake up and know this right now as time does not wait for us. Our life clocks just keep ticking away and before we know it, it may be too late for us as most of our potential meaningful moments are wasted away when our minds indulge in regrets for our past and worry for our future.

 

Punishment Will Not Help

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have been executed by the Indonesian firing squad for drug smuggling this morning. Australians are outraged and both the TVs and radios have broadcasted people's reactions to the incident. The Prime Minister Tony Abbot even withdraws the Australian ambassador from Indonesia. This shows how serious the situation is.

Most people are of the opinion that the duo should be given opportunity to reform through reflections and transform themselves into productive human beings that could contribute to the society in a positive way. And by executing them, the only chance for them to do any good in the future has been snatched away.

However, there is the other side of the coin where people who stand by the Indonesian side feel that no one is above the law and has to be punished when law is broken. If the Indonesian government were to have exception and let the duo go this time, then they could never be able to uphold their legal institution in the future. People would then use this case as a precedent for not abiding the law. Most people are aware of the death sentence in most Asian countries and if they still carry out criminal activities despite their awareness of the law, then they should be punished. Someone even commented on Facebook that if they choose to live by the sword then they should die by the sword.

Having said that, I do not believe that death sentence would do any good to both of them or improve the drug smuggling situation in general any better from now on. Buddhists don't believe in killing any living beings, this is just not our way. Punishment does not solve the problem. And in the case of the Australian duo, it just goes to show that by executing the both of them, the problem is simply being swept under the carpet. It is like saying we don't even want to try to make you a better person. In fact it is a very lazy approach to simply kill another human being and not trying to guide them towards a proper path.

Killing another person does not improve the situation. It is like the story that I'm going to tell now. One day there was a man taking an evening stroll along a beautiful river bank. He felt so relaxed as the gentle breeze kissed his cheek. He was almost walking in a meditative state and he felt so peaceful until he heard someone screamed for help. He took a look around and realized that the noise was coming from the river itself. He quickly went closer to check it out and saw someone was drowning in the river. Without any hesitation he jumped into the river and rescue the poor man. As soon as he dragged the man onto the river bank, he heard another scream coming from river beyond. He was surprised to see another person was drowning in the river. Again he jumped into the river to rescue the second person. And as soon as they were both safe on land, guess what, another scream coming from upriver. The same situation went on for hours until there was now a dozen of people being rescued by this man. He was tired and had no energy left when yet another scream was heard before he could even catch his breath. He realized that something strange was going on and he ran upriver to see where all these bodies came from. He was shocked to see that there was actually someone kept throwing people off the river! 

The above story tells us that in order to solve the problem, we should go upriver and catch the culprit who has been throwing people off the river, that is to tackle the root cause of the problem. By executing people who smuggle drugs is like trying to save the endless people that is drowning in the river without getting rid of the source.

The main source of the drug smuggling business is still not tackled by executing two individuals who are probably just performing their jobs instructed by the main culprit in the background. It is probably because of the breakdown of society that contributes to so many people want to buy drugs in the first place. The social problems need to be addressed first and foremost through education and raising the living standard of the population in general. These are just some of the thing the government should be focusing on instead of pointing guns at people.