ToolBox 4 Life (eBook)

The Philosophy of Life & Happiness

Life is precious. It is our vehicle to experience and learn from whilst we drive along the road that is life.

Along the drive, the scenery and who we travel alongside will always change.

Sometimes the road is bumpy and sometimes the road is smooth.

Sometimes the scenery is beautiful and sometimes it is ugly.

Sometimes we are surrounded by others and sometimes we drive alone.

Sometimes our car is luxurious and sometimes we drive a 'bomb’.

Throughout our journey we are always confronted with many choices, opportunities, possibilities and paths in which we may travel. We are always trying to find out where we fit in and where we belong amongst other people and our environment. Sometimes we choose to pretend we are somebody else, much like an actor, just so that we can fit in with a certain group or fulfill a certain social status. If we are not living who we are, we become lost because we are living a lie.

Life is a gift… it is something we should treasure and enjoy. Live for the present and 'the now' as this creates the future. All that is in the past has happened and can't be changed. All we can do about the past is change the way we feel about it.

"What the heart feels the mind will see."

We will never fully understand life. It is natural to wonder about why we are here, what we are doing and what is the purpose of 'being here'. One of our main driving emotions is 'to know’; therefore life is a continuous quest for this knowledge.

Sometimes we get confused when different emotions cross our paths. By understanding ourselves as a person it allows us to understand how we operate collectively as people. This is what society really is. But we are not a collective society - we are our own society - a free and enlightened spirit as an accumulated collection of cells that can create our own destiny and choose our own paths.

Although what makes us different is what defines who we are as a person, there is much to be learnt from the people around us that can help us on our journey. Being different makes life exciting, but sharing our similarities to find understanding, is what can make life easier.

By trying to understand people rather than judging them, we can absorb their knowledge without dismissing what they have to say. There is always something we can learn from every person, whether it is something positive where we can grow from what they teach us or something negative where we can learn from their mistakes. If we are always judging other people then we are closing our mind and we never listen and therefore never learn. If we always have an open mind then we can always see other points of view from every person and every situation.

Look at the present moment as being like a gift. This will always make life seem like a happy and exciting surprise. When we receive an unexpected gift we feel appreciated by the person who gave it to us. Look at the present like giving yourself a gift so that you can appreciate who you are and what is around you ever so more. If you don't like yourself or your environment, do something about it and change it.

"Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself." - Neville Goddard

We should learn to enjoy every moment and accept the good with the bad as there is always a ‘silver lining under every cloud’. If you spend all your time trying to change everyone else around you and get upset about everything, you will always be upset and disappointed. Live by the solution and not the destruction. Live in faith, not in hope. Where one door closes a better one always opens. If you are not living in the moment you will not be able to notice the door that opens. What we believe creates our perception which creates our actions.

Regrets are lessons that are learnt in life based on an emotion that you felt. If you don’t fulfill that emotion then it will always be holding you back. There is no time like the present to turn that regret around into a new driving force that moves you forward, because indirectly things happen for a reason and some part of you knows this reason and what drives you. A regret will always eat you up inside and stop you living in the now and moving into the future. It keeps you in the past or just stops you in your tracks. If you regret something that you did, ask yourself what is the emotion that made you do what you did? Once you answer this question you can take action, learn from it, resolve it and do something towards fulfilling that emotion in a constructive way. You can change what you regret and if you learn from it, you can stop re-doing it and understand what drove you in that point of time in your life. By looking within and revealing these things truthfully to yourself you allow yourself to grow.

Love everyone who treats you right and learn to develop an understanding of the people who don’t. Learn to be aware and forgive the people who did you wrong, as somewhere deep within themselves they do know what they did was wrong. This is the same way we know when we do something wrong to others. Unfortunately it is the unresolved emotions that control this fog that blinds us from the truth, until such time that we decide to remove what fogs us and see the sunshine. It is love for oneself and understanding that will eventually set us all free. Every day is a new chance to change your direction. Grab each day by the horns and flow with it.

There is no use having regrets. All the things we should have done right in the past, we can do right now in the present. There is no time like the present to turn your life around and by doing this your ‘should have’ mentality will begin to fade away. What you change today will flow into tomorrow. Remember that we are all human and that every day we are all growing and going through different stages at different times in life. It is only when we learn from these stages that we move forward and can close the different chapters in our life behind us. What has happened has happened and every day a new day begins. Make a decision now to change the way you feel and the rest will follow. Do not listen to what everyone else thinks and says because that is what will keep you in the past. It is your true friends that will accept and support you throughout all your different stages of growth.

If you have a ‘want', you will only get a desire with no completion. If you make a choice, you have made a decision and ‘will’ use all of your resources towards obtaining success. Life’s obstacles are an opportunity to victory, they are there to bring about a balance and make us better, stronger people. This is where our wisdom comes from. Remember that we all make mistakes. It is what we learn from these mistakes, and do with this new knowledge, that can make a remarkable difference to our lives.

We all experience the ups and downs of life as we embark on a journey of learning and discovery. We all have our good days and bad days and this is perfectly normal as it is part of our human experience. It is how we perceive our bad days and what we learn from others that sculpt the way we view ourselves. Sometimes when we have a problem, it is good to look at that situation through someone else's eyes that has experienced that same problem. To live is to learn, and learning is best done through experience.

You can always judge the strength and character of a person by how they act during their darkest moments in life.

As Sylvester Stallone once said in the movie Rocky:

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward."

There is much to gain in your darkest hours by sharing how you feel with someone who has been there themselves before you. If you can be truly honest with yourself the truth will always set you free. This is one of the tools to stop your mind rehashing the past. In the moment of adversity, simply changing the way you look at something by as little as 1% could later change your life by 100%. It is always the first step of any journey that is the most important.

When we obsess about something bad in life we become blinded and cannot see the solution. This is when we become the victim of our own emotions and live in the dark far from the light. When we step out of the dark and take a look at ourselves honestly from a different angle, this is when we can see the light.

Sometimes when we look at ourselves and what we are doing, it is best done by becoming a self observer. This can be likened to imagining that you are watching a movie in which you are the main character. By doing this and playing out your own story from an observer's point of view, you are able to more effectively judge what you are doing because you are not directly involved. This is useful because when we view ourselves directly we often make up excuses, justifications and try to find reasons for what we are doing that we know is wrong.

Be aware that what we ask ourselves determines the answers that we receive. We should always ask ourselves a question for every decision or action: "Is what I am doing constructive or destructive?" Remember that the better the questions we ask ourselves, the better the answers we will receive. With better answers we will always choose more constructive actions. Questions can also help with the way we feel too. When we can see through the fog, we can see there...