Fighting Emptiness

One of the most common question that everyone would ask himself is the meaning of life. Humans have been pondering upon this timeless question since the beginning of history. It is wonderful if you are curious about life and therefore search deep down for an answer. However, most of us are not so wise that we usually feel hopeless, helpless and the scariest of all - empty.

There are times when we wake up in the morning and wonder what is the meaning of all this. A sense of losing direction grip us tightly and our emotion spirals downward. It is very important that whenever you feel empty, you must cut short that feeling as soon as possible and do not allow it to linger on inside you. Find something you enjoy and do it immediately. If you like reading, quickly grab hold of any book the moment you feel empty. Indulge yourself in the book mindfully and you will soon forget about that empty feeling without even noticing it. If reading is not really your thing, then just do whatever you enjoy, exercising, fishing, gardening or whatever that could raise your spirit while doing it.

The key here is to not let our mind idle for too long for the mind would wander wildly in any directions whenever we have nothing to do. Keep yourself busy by engaging your mind and body in activities that could give you sense of fulfillment.

An idle mind is like an vacant building. If a building is left unoccupied for a long period of time, it gradually becomes haven for drug addicts, rats and all sorts of pest. This will not happen if the building is occupied and maintained by people residing in it.

I remember when I was just a kid and was asked by my teacher to write an essay on 'Hobby'. It was a good exercise because when you are writing something that you enjoy doing, you feel good instantly.

Find as many activities that will make you smile and try to at lease do one of them each day to have a purpose driven life.

Your Mentors In Life

We all need mentors to guide us through the often challenging journey of life. Mentors come in the form of your parents, teachers, authors, religious leaders and even friends. If you were born with wise parents then you are one of the luckier one. And if you couldn’t find role models in your parents or teachers then you could read books written by authors that you admire and respect.

For me I always listen to downloaded lectures by Ajahn Brahm whenever I face challenges in my life. In fact I’m listening to it right now on “Dealing with Emotions” as this is the part that I find most difficult to manage most of the time. Our emotions can run wild sometimes and trigger uneasiness, insecurity and even fear within us.

When you have mentors you won’t feel lost as you know that you will always have guidance whenever you face any adversity that is thrown upon you. That is one of the reasons why religious people are often more calm, peaceful and able to handle their problems easily. This is because they know that they have something to fall back upon whenever they feel that life is giving up on them.

By having mentors, we don’t put all the loads onto our shoulders alone as we can share some of the load emotionally with our mentors. It is as if they are guiding us through the murky waters of life. That way we feel more confident to solve problems ourselves.

It is important to have role models in life. If you can’t find it from among the people around you, then at least you should try to find them from books.

Don’t let your ship of life to sail without a captain.

Never Underestimate The Small Details Of Life

If you have lived long enough you would notice that things around us happen progressively. Whether it is your health, wealth or relationship problems, they don’t just happen out of the blue. There are always signs there and it is important for us to pay more attention to those signs when they first appear.

In fact it happened to me very recently when I suffered from terrible sore throat. I got sore throat all the time but usually I recovered after visiting the doctor and taking antibiotics. This time around I delayed seeing the doctor due to my busy schedule and I only paid him a visit on the fourth day. By that time the pain in my throat, ears and head were so extreme that I couldn’t actually work normally. The doctor then prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics for me due to the seriousness of my condition (the longest prescription I had before was only 5 days). 

However, it was just too late that now the virus has grown so strong and it started to spread to other parts of my body. I felt tightness across my chest one evening and quickly called the ambulance to my house. They then sent me to the hospital immediately. Doctor diagnosed that my tonsillitis (the bacteria that infected my tonsils) has actually spread to my heart! My heart’s muscle was actually inflamed and that was the cause of my chest pain. I ended up spending 2 nights in the Coronary Care Unit for close monitoring and diagnosis. I was eventually discharged after 3 nights at the hospital.

This incident shows me that trivial condition such as sore throat could actually leads to life threatening situation if we do not tackle the root of the problems soon enough. The same applies to all the other aspects of our life that we must constantly keep an eye on them and making sure that they are in healthy territory.

Never ever underestimate the small details of your life. Bushfire often started off from just a tiny spark.

Don't Be Swayed By Others

The availability of social media has created many instant ‘experts’ in all sorts of fields. Suddenly everyone think that they could just post any of their ideas online and are so proud of themselves as if they are the experts on the subject that they are talking about. 

A lot have expressed their views on politics complaining this and that; giving ‘advice’ as to what the government should do. There was once I came across such people on social media that I immediately told him off that since he has so much ideas about politics, he should join a political party and make his voice heard instead of shout about it on social media. I always have the view that if you can’t do it, then just shut up and let others take care of it. If you could do it, then stop talking and start taking action because talk is cheap.

Most people dine out nowadays and like to share what they eat on social media. It is fine to share good things around so that others could enjoy them too. However, some think that they are culinary critics and start criticizing everything they eat. They think that by giving verdict to what they eat, people would think that they are experts in culinary and respect their views. It is fine if they are invited to give comments to the menu. But if the restaurant owner does not ask for comments, then it is unethical that subjective views are spread around without giving the accused a chance to defend himself. In fact it is a cowardice behavior to talk behind people’s back. 

If you just started a food business, you would soon discovered that a lot of people come to give you feedbacks and advice on how you should run your business. They may say things like you should certain ingredients more or you should have more items in your menu and so on. It is so easy to give comments when you are not actually doing it. Just be humble and listen to them but you don’t have to follow exactly what they told you. You have to think what is right for your business and no one else knows it better than yourself.

Stick to your principles and do what is right for you and your customers. You can’t satisfy the world but you would know it when you do certain things the right way.

Rebooting Your Mind

All our mobile phones today have a lot of apps in them. Most of these apps are automatically opened whenever we connect our phones to wifi internet. When this happens, you will noticed that suddenly you have lots of notifications from all different apps informing you about current news or simply asking your permission for updates. Suddenly your phone has all these tasks that need to be completed and its performance slows down dramatically. Sometimes it may even hanged if it ran out of memory.

Our mind is a bit like our phones. Sometimes we find that a lot of thoughts appear out of a sudden in our mind as if we have switched on our minds' wifi reception and we are receiving all these information from all directions. There are both positive and negative thoughts appear at the same time. During times like these, we find ourselves powerless and seemingly unable to get anything done. It is as if the end of the world and we can't do anything about it. So how can we overcome this problem? Before we try to solve the problem of our minds, let's see how we troubleshoot the slow performance of our mobile phones first.

When your phones are overloaded with tasks to complete, there are basically three simple steps you can take. First open up the task manager and end all those apps that you don't need it at the moment. Then you can try clear your phones' RAM memory. If the above two steps fail, you can always reboot your phones. You will find that when all these unnecessary apps are closed, your phones perform faster and much more efficient.

We can do the same to our minds. Instead of keep all these worries in our heads, focus on those that we could do something about it right now. Don't worry too much about the future because it is uncertain. Only concentrate on the things that we have control right now. Start taking action instead of remaining in your mental worrying state. Once you start doing something, you would have much clearer vision of the overall picture and it doesn't appear to be so gloomy and doom after all. After one task is completed, we simply forget about it and move on to the next task just like how we end the apps in our phones. Soon, more and more tasks will be completed and our minds are now not so crowded with thoughts. 

If after taking some actions you still find yourself worry sick and remain in a negative state, then you should 'reboot' your mind by retreating to meditation. Choose a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for at least half an hour and start meditating. Think of nothing as your main goal is to seek peace in your mind. To say that you are seeking peace is less accurate because you should be free from doing anything at all and looking for peace is an exercise in itself. So just let things be for the next half an hour and simply enjoy the peace and quietness that you would experience. After that half an hour, you will find your mind completely refresh as if it has been massaged by invisible hands.

So next time when you try to improve the performance of your phone, don't forget about your mind.

We Are The Source Of Our Stress

Road rage is a common scene in cities throughout the world. Even in first world country like Australia, you would expect that commuters are more educated and behave in a more civilized way but the contrary happens to be true.

I stopped my car at an intersection waiting for the opportunity to turn left. I saw to my right the oncoming traffic just got there green light and I know that I would have enough time to make the left turn because the oncoming car was still at least 50 feet away. As soon as I made that left turn, the first oncoming car suddenly accelerated his car to make it looked like he almost hit me and made a drastic right turn to overtake me. I could then see from his rear mirror that he was shouting and cursing in his car as to why I made the left turn. He continued his restless driving for as long as I could see him. With all his urgency, he still needed to stop at several traffic lights and he wasn't moving any faster as he wished to. To me, he was creating unnecessary stress for himself over a trivial incident. He could have just let me made my left turn as he was still far away from any major collision. Instead he just wanted to show that no one should intercept his way while he was moving. 

In this fast paced society of ours, people always try to get ahead of everybody else in whatever they do. There is never a sense of community where you look out and care for each other. Everyone is looking solely after themselves. There is no love and compassion in our modern world. You see all the people go about their daily lives without paying attention to what is happening around them. And the convenience and luxury of mobile phones worsen the situation. People are now having a relationship with their iPhone than with real people.

Knowing that stress comes from within ourselves, we should cultivate the habit of watching closely our emotions and keeping them in check constantly. Most illnesses comes from negative emotions that are accumulated within our body. The prerequisite of a healthy body is a healthy mind. 

We can't stop negative emotions from creeping into our mind every now and then. But we can just let them pass without indulging ourselves in them. Whenever a negative thought appear in your mind, look at it as if you are watching birds flying across the big blue sky. Watching them passing by your vision and disappearing out of sight. Gradually you will be able have a much better control of those negative thoughts and experience peace in your mind. 

Once you have mastered the control of your negative emotions, you can start to feed your mind with healthier and positive thoughts. But you must never reject those negative thoughts in the first place because they are part of you. Just accepting that they are there without passing any judgement and you would feel more comfortable with all the bad things that you experience in life.

Don't blame others for your stress because nobody has control over your mind and body other than yourself.    

Keep Life Simple

Most believe that technology has made our lives more convenient and enjoyable. Imagine an evening without electricity or trying to contact your love ones without a phone. Especially with regards to communication, now we can instantly talk or send messages to our friends all over the world via the internet without having to pay a hefty sum for it. These conveniences were not possible just 20 years ago and that shows us how advance technology has progressed.

But are we much happier with all these luxurious conveniences? The answer is sadly NO. Nowadays I see people are having closer relationships with their mobile phones than their human partners. In public transports, cafes and even office, they can't seem to pull their eyes off their mobile screens. If there is a message coming through when they are talking to you, then they would excuse themselves and attend to those messages. The very technology that was designed to create a global village has in fact separate us apart and making the fundamental physical relationship less intimate.

And what about Facebook? Just take a look at your Facebook's newsfeed now and see what you get. They are all junk information and most of them are untrue. But we love checking our Facebook all the time just to see what other people's are posting. Or constantly checking minute by minute how many likes we have generated so far with the photos that we just posted.

All these extra activities are taking up too much of our time and they are eating into our lives. I remember when I was very sick earlier this year, I completely detach myself from any social media because there were just too much negativity from them. Technology didn't help me stay connected but disturbed the serenity of my life instead. '

I found it much more peaceful just to hold onto a book and read it. I got so much fulfillment and productivity out of it. Every time when I read, I feel that I'm learning and growing. That I'm not wasting the time that is given to me. You should know by now that our existence here is impermanent and there is an expiry date to it. It is indeed crucial for us to cherish every moment that we still have and do something meaningful for us and others. 

You don't have to climb the Everest or build the tallest building in the world to prove to others that your life is meaningful. Meaningful life comes from all the little things along the way. You can definitely feel it when you have done something meaningful. 

I hired two contractors to pave my driveway yesterday. I have a little chat with them and found out that they are also from the same country. They are just been here for two months and have never stop working 7 days a week. Furthermore, they are only paid $110 per day by their boss instead of the standard hourly rate that is common in Australia. I thought that was terrible, their boss must be really taking advantage of them. Most new migrants are often taken advantage of by the locals. I know that because I have also experienced it personally when I first came here. Most people thought Australia is a compassionate and friendly country but the reality is unfortunately quite the opposite. You would only feel their compassion and friendliness if you have money.  

So I feel very bad for these two guys and I offered to cook them a nice hot noodle soup. And when I brought the two bowls of noodle soup to them, I simply felt so good. I was happy to send loving kindness to two complete strangers. I felt I have done something meaningful that afternoon.

If we consistently perform these simple act of kindness to everyone we meet, then our lives will be much more fulfilled and we are a happier person. Simplify our lives, get rid of all the junk information that are being fed to us on a daily basis. Watch less news because you don't learn much from them other than knowing about other people's mishaps.