5 Benefits of reading fiction: 📚📖 (1) Fiction expands your imagination. You visualize the characters & scenes. 😃 (2) Fiction motivates you to be the hero in your life. In most novels, the protagonist faces obstacles to become a hero. Win or lose, you respect the protagonist for his/her tremendous efforts. Likewise, you can do the same in your journey. 👊 (3) Fiction helps you empathize for others. When you read fiction, you empathize for the characters undergoing hardship, an important quality to have in your life and career. ❤️ (4) Through fiction, you learn different styles of writing that aren't usually shown in nonfiction books. 🖋️ (5) Fiction reduces your stress by taking you into other worlds and...
Smile and the world smiles back! 😃 You've had a string of bad events. Your outlook darkens and you tell yourself, "nothing is going right." Then you connect with that friend or even stranger who flashes that bright smile at you, often followed by a warm greeting. You smile back and absorb their friendliness. It's not all doom and gloom. You feel a bit better as you see some light again.😁 The act of smiling can transform you and the world around you. Research shows us that a smile is contagious and healthy. By smiling, we appear more attractive to others. It lifts our mood, as well as the moods of those around us. Even better, the act of smiling...
Part 3 of 3: Live the middle way. From the middle, you can see the light in every dark situation. From the middle, you can see the connection between dark and light because from the middle, you can see everything, dark, light, and all the shades in-between. If you can see the light when you're in darkness, even a glimmer, then you can be grateful in your darkest moments.In fact, the more you practice being in the middle, you'll be able to expand your gratitude practice because you can always see the good (light) in all your bad (dark) situations. This is definitely a super power to have! Here are my 10 examples of how suffering can expand your gratitude...
Focus on what you can control! Don't let your anxiety control you.As soon as you wake up, express your gratitude for all the good things in your life and do a 5 to 10-minute meditation if you have time. Freshen up, listen to uplifting music, and have a nice breakfast. Avoid your phone and computer until you're charged up with positive energy because there may be messages and emails in your devices that will raise your cortisol and stress you out before you even had a chance to mentally prepare yourself for your day. It's like preparing yourself for a match in sports, you want to be mentally ready! Then when you address your challenges for the day, attack the...
Part 2 of 3: Live the middle way. From the middle, you can see the light in every dark situation.From the middle, you can see the connection between dark and light because from the middle, you can see everything, dark, light, and all the shades in-between. Darkness won't consume you because you've trained yourself to see the light, even if it's only a speck, which will make you appreciative of your life in your darkest moments. Nor will you be blinded by light and overlook the darkness hidden beneath it all so you'll be ready for any negativity that could emerge. In Part 1, we talked about how we humans are prone to judging others. We can also be very...
