The habit of meditation is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever learned.
Amazingly, it’s also one of the most simple habits to do — you can do it anywhere, any time, and it will always have immediate benefits.
How many habits can you say that about?
While many people think of meditation as something you might do with a teacher, it can be as simple as paying attention to your breath while sitting in your car or on the train, or while sitting at the coffee shop or in your office, or while walking or showering.
It can take just one or two minutes if you’re busy. There’s no excuse for not doing it, when you simplify the meditation habit.

Why Meditate?

Why create a small daily meditation practice? There are countless reasons, but here are some of my favorite:

• It relieves stress and helps you to relax.
• When you practice mindfulness, you can carry it out to everyday life.
• Mindfulness helps you to savor life, change habits, live simply and slowly, be present in everything you do.
• Meditation has been shown to have mental benefits, such as improved focus, happiness, memory, self-control, academic performance and more.
• Some research on meditation has indicated that it may have other health benefits, including improved metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and more.

Actually, some of the best benefits of meditation are hard to define — you begin to understand yourself better, for example, and form a self-awareness level you’ve never had before.
Most simply, sitting for just a few minutes of meditation is an oasis of calm and relaxation that we rarely find in our lives these days. And that, in itself, is enough.

How to Do It Daily

There are lots and lots of ways to meditate. But our concern is not to find a perfect form of meditation — it’s to form the daily habit of meditation. And so our method will be as simple as possible.
1. Commit to just 2 minutes a day. Start simply if you want the habit to stick. You can do it for 5 minutes if you feel good about it, but all you’re committing to is 2 minutes each day.
2. Pick a time and trigger. Not an exact time of day, but a general time, like morning when you wake up, or during your lunch hour. The trigger should be something you already do regularly, like drink your first cup of coffee, brush your teeth, have lunch, or arrive home from work.
3. Find a quiet spot. Sometimes early morning is best, before others in your house might be awake and making lots of noise. Others might find a spot in a park or on the beach or some other soothing setting. It really doesn’t matter where — as long as you can sit without being bothered for a few minutes. A few people walking by your park bench is fine.
4. Sit comfortably. Don’t fuss too much about how you sit, what you wear, what you sit on, etc. I personally like to sit on a pillow on the floor, with my back leaning against a wall, because I’m very inflexible. Others who can sit cross-legged comfortably might do that instead. Still others can sit on a chair or couch if sitting on the floor is uncomfortable. Zen practitioners often use a zafu, a round cushion filled with kapok or buckwheat. Don’t go out and buy one if you don’t already have one. Any cushion or pillow will do, and some people can sit on a bare floor comfortably.
5. Start with just 2 minutes. This is really important. Most people will think they can meditate for 15-30 minutes, and they can. But this is not a test of how strong you are at staying in meditation — we are trying to form a longer-lasting habit. And to do that, we want to start with just a two minutes. You’ll find it much easier to start this way, and forming a habit with a small start like this is a method much more likely to succeed. You can expand to 5-7 minutes if you can do it for 7 straight days, then 10 minutes if you can do it for 14 straight days, then 15 minutes if you can stick to it for 21 straight days, and 20 if you can do a full month.
6. Focus on your breath. As you breathe in, follow your breath in through your nostrils, then into your throat, then into your lungs and belly. Sit straight, keep your eyes open but looking at the ground and with a soft focus. If you want to close your eyes, that’s fine. As you breathe out, follow your breath out back into the world. If it helps, count … one breath in, two breath out, three breath in, four breath out … when you get to 10, start over. If you lose track, start over. If you find your mind wandering (and you will), just pay attention to your mind wandering, then bring it gently back to your breath. Repeat this process for the few minutes you meditate. You won’t be very good at it at first, most likely, but you’ll get better with practice.
And that’s it. It’s a very simple practice, but you want to do it for 2 minutes, every day, after the same trigger each day. Do this for a month and you’ll have a daily meditation habit.

Expanding Your Practice

Sitting and paying attention to your breath is really mindfulness practice. It’s a way to train yourself to focus your attention. Once you’ve practiced a bit while sitting in a quiet space, you can expand your mindfulness practice:

• When you feel stress, take a minute to pay attention to your breath, and return your mind to the present moment.
• Try taking a walk, and instead of thinking about things you need to do later, pay attention to your breath, your body’s sensations, the things around you.
• When you eat, just eat, and focus your attention on the food, on your feelings as you eat, on the sensations.
• Try a mindful tea ritual, where you focus your attention on your movements as you prepare the tea, on the tea as you smell and taste it, on your breath as you go through the ritual.
• Wash your dishes and sweep your floor mindfully.

This, of course, is just a start. There are many ways to practice mindfulness, including with other people, while you work, and so on.

Are you ready?
Are you ready to jump out of the same dull routines and move forward?
If so, consider this as your starting pistol. Because before taking action, you must make the firm decision to take action. These are five life-changing decisions you can make today to improve your tomorrow.

1. Get in shape

There is no replacement for being fit and healthy. Consistent exercise improves all aspects of health, increases your energy levels and sex drive, and builds your self-control and willpower strength; it decreases stress, anxiety, and depression, boosts your confidence and self-esteem, and makes you more attractive. Most of those benefits have been proven in hundreds of studies. There are few pursuits that can compare to the benefits of exercise. Even if your problems aren’t physical, exercise has a way of improving unrelated things as well.
Exercise is powerful because it enhances nutrient delivery and waste processing for the entire body and all organs. It creates beneficial chemical reactions in the brain: lowering your cortisol (stress) hormone and boosting your testosterone levels. These benefits are ancillary to the reason many people exercise: to look better in a swimsuit. The sense of self-satisfaction you get from changing your body in a positive way is wonderful.
As for how to accomplish this, make sure you read #5!

2. Pursue your dream job

How many people out there love their jobs? Far less than half, according to a survey of 411 people in the USA and Canada, which found that 65% of people were unsatisfied or somewhat unsatisfied with their work (source: Right Management Group).
Here’s a more important question: how many people try to do something about it? I don’t have data on this, but the fact that most people dislike their jobs suggests that it’s likely considered normal. Think about it: you’re at a party and everyone is talking about how much work sucks. Over time, you begin to accept that it’s just the way it is. There’s a secret though: if you don’t have a choice, you can create one.
Look at any successful person and you’ll see the same basic story: they overcame resistance to get there. Resistance isn’t some evil monster standing between you and a treasure, it’s a fairly comfortable, but soul-destroying job that pays your bills. When your life is a garbage heap, it’s easier to change. It’s when you get a little bit too comfortable with mediocre living that you feel resistance to change, because change is risk.
There are ways to change without risking your livelihood. You can search for jobs on the side. You can teach yourself the skills you need for your dream job. It’s a matter of if you think it’s worth the effort to get there. For people who do arrive, hindsight always says, “yes, it was brutal at times, but it was absolutely worth it.”

3. Join a group

This is vague because of the numerous things it stands for. As someone who has had a diminished social life since I left the social wellsprings of high school and college, I understand the importance of socialization more than ever. If you’re lonely, finding a group of like-minded people is a great idea and fairly easy to do if you’re willing to try it out.
You can:

• Join a church or small group
• Volunteer
• Find an interest group at Meetup.com

All of the options above present a great opportunity to meet others and expand your social circle. If you make even one good friend—a real possibility—this would turn out to be a life-changing decision!

4. Start a new hobby

Hobbies make life more interesting. Finding a hobby can boost your enjoyment of life and will give you something to look forward to when you have free time. If you’re looking for an idea of what to try, wikipedia has a list of 100+ hobbies to consider.
Your hobby can also become a powerful social tool. With a hobby, you’ll have an instant connection to other people with the same hobby, it makes you a more interesting person, and you’ll have one more interest group to search for on meetup.com!

5. Build a healthy habit

Habits are the framework of our lives. Many people try to dramatically change their lives in haste with grand declarations (e.g. New Year’s Resolutions), but it doesn’t work because the human brain isn’t built for fast change. Lasting change happens when your brain’s neural network is rewired, and to do that requires two things: time and consistency.
So, the far more reliable way to change your life is by changing your habits methodically. Habits are so special because they’re mostly automatic and come without resistance. This means you won’t need motivation or willpower anymore for that behavior because it’s become your brain’s first preference.
I used to have to get motivated to go to the gym or force myself there, but now I go because it would feel strange not to go. If you’ve been trying to work out consistently for years, you might be thinking, “good for you, but it doesn’t work for me.” But what if I told you I got to this point easily? What if I told it I started by doing one push-up a day? Ok, it’s not a “what if.” I am telling you that.
For a few months, I did at least one push-up every day (often more). Over time, my neural pathways changed. I had less resistance to exercising, and was able to go to the gym 3x a week consistently. A year and a half later, I exercise 4-5x a week and I’m in the best shape of my life. It’s because I built the exercise habit. I have also created habits this way in daily reading and writing.
Building habits this way is a strategy I call “mini habits.” A mini habit is an incredibly small task that you force yourself to do every day. For example: one sit-up, one minute of meditation, writing 50 words, or reading two pages in a book. Alone, these quantities seem like a waste of time, but when done daily and with the possibility of doing “bonus reps,” it is the most effective and reliable way to change your brain, your habits, and your life (and it happens in that order).
The power of a mini habit is that your daily requirement is low enough that you can do it even when you don’t feel like doing anything; you can meet your target on the worst day of your life. A woman who read Mini Habits told me that when her granddaughter was killed in a car accident, she still completed her mini habits. She said her mini habits were “a godsend to help me keep going in as healthy a manner as possible.” (You can see her full story here). That’s why they’re so powerful: at your worst, you can still move forward.
When your small action becomes a habit, everything gets easier; you’ll coast through these behaviors you used to have to wrestle yourself to do. Mini Habits (the book) is available on Amazon; its effectiveness has made it the highest-rated habit book on the market amongst top sellers at 4.8 stars.
If you’d like to hear more from me about mini habits and other smart life strategies, consider receiving updates from my blog, deepexistence.com. You’ll get my stress management book, 40 focus-themed wallpapers I made, and access to the “focus toolbox” instantly. It’s free. And you’ll hear from me each Tuesday morning with exclusive giveaways, expanded articles, and life-changing information.

Each day you get up and wonder, “Am I living the life I want?”
It’s a good question, possibly the best question you could ask yourself. After all, you don’t want to wake up years from now only to realize that you’re disappointed with not only what you did, but also what you DIDN’T do in life.
The question is – is there a way to ensure that you do live the life you want?
Is there a way to make sure you expose yourself to all the things life has to offer, so that you can give this life all that you have to offer?
There is, and all it takes are a few smart habits to do it.
You lack the proper habits
All of us have habits, some of which are good and some of which are bad/useless. Your problem is that you don’t have the “proper” good ones, the ones that make all the difference in life.
You never questioned your habits and purpose
If you plan on living a happy and fulfilling life, then you need two things:

1. Reflection
2. Action

You need to think about what your life is like and what you’d like out of it, and you also need to take action on those thoughts, that’s the simple formula to satisfaction in life.
But what habits can get you those things?
5 best habits to have
The best habits are the ones that combine self-examination and action together, but in general having habits that force you to:

1. Self-reflect
2. Expose yourself to new people and places
3. Take consistent action

…are the best ones when it comes fulfilling life. Take a look and find out why.
1. Journal regularly
Journaling is the perfect tool for understanding yourself.
It can be both focused and intentional, such as when you write about your goals and the steps to get there, or it can be carefree and emotional, such as when you free write and don’t stop to censor your thoughts.
Either way, journaling is perfect for those of you who feel like you go day by day automatically, never stopping to ask yourself “is this really what I want for myself?”
2. Meet new people and travel
One of the best ways of learning about who you are and what you want is by exposing yourself to new people and places.
When you meet new people, you learn about how your presence impacts them. Their reactions can tell you if you’re a happy or sad person, nice or mean, open or close minded, and so on.
Traveling is perfect for this purpose, but it also has the added benefit of exposing the mind to new cultures and customs. Traveling gives you a greater sense of the world and your place in it, which refines your worldview for the better.
3. Try out new activities
Following up on the “expose yourself to new people and places” idea, new activities also helps.
How so? For the simple idea of seeing if you like different things. That’s all. It’s the only reason you really need, and if you’re lucky, that one new thing you try might be your favorite thing in the world. It might be that one thing you want to do for the rest of your life, and you don’t want to miss out on it.
4. Work towards a personal goal
The quickest way to feeling worthless in life is to have nothing to strive for, nothing to exert your energy towards.
Ever feel that way, like life is meaningless? Then this tip is for you.
It doesn’t need to be some big, life-altering goal either. It just needs to be something that brings you genuine satisfaction. Something that when you look back on it, it brings a smile to your face and makes you feel good inside.
This post should help you find that goal.
5. Master productivity
Want to know the one thing that makes all of this possible? The one thing that without, you don’t even have the time or energy to integrate newer and better habits?
It’s productivity.
The truth is that if you can’t manage to do what you want, when you need to, then you can’t truly accomplish anything in life.
Productivity is that important.
The work that you accomplish and don’t accomplish directly affects your life outside of work. The better you are at it, the more time you have for life’s other offerings, such as family time and other things.
And just as important is being productive about what matters in life, because who among us hasn’t procrastinated on that novel we want to write or on going to the gym and earning the body we want?
Like most of you, I have. But I didn’t let it stop me.
Over to you
What habits do you think are best for ensuring happiness and fulfillment? Leave a comment below with your answer because I’d love to hear it

5 Differences Between Optimists And Pessimists

Optimism maximizes potential as pessimism squashes it. Look at these five distinguishing differences between optimists and pessimists and tell me – which one are you?

1. Optimists Believe They Are In Control

Optimists believe they can shape their future. They see no reason why tomorrow can’t be better than today was, and they’re right. Circumstances and prior failures don’t matter as much to an optimist.
An optimist’s worldview is such that life improvement is expected. This loops and strengthens itself over time through positive reinforcement, especially with the right strategies.
But pessimists often feel no sense of control over their lives. If they believed they had control, they wouldn’t be pessimists, because that would mean that they choose negative outcomes. Quite often, pessimists base their gloomy expectations on prior experiences. They fail to understand the concept of 2nd, 3rd, and 33rd chances.

2. Optimists Are Forward-Looking

Yesterday is filed away as a joyful or educational experience in the mind of an optimist. There is no day like the present, and hey, tomorrow is looking pretty good too.
Have you thought about this? The present moment is completely neutral. Anything (good or bad) can happen from this moment on. So the optimist sees this neutrality as an opportunity to make something good happen. Another optimist skill is connecting how today’s positive actions almost guarantees a better future.
Pessimists are not forward-looking in general. Yes, they look ahead and see a bleak future, but they often base it on the past, where they like to hang out and drink slurpees. Do you know of any super successful and happy people who see their future as bleak? If so, it’s probably because of some recent news or traumatic event, not their past.
Even if your past was rough, it is possible to have a bright outlook if you believe in yourself (next on the list).
The past can cripple you if you live in it. It can hold you back if you believe you’ve already hit your ceiling. Or it can teach you if you examine it.
If you want to be an optimist, let your past become weightless life lessons. It’s a choice.

3. Optimists Are Confident In Themselves

Confidence is a determining factor for optimism and pessimism. Optimists believe they can overcome whatever life throws at them and continue on their way. Pessimists don’t believe this, and so are “victims” of circumstance.
If you lack confidence, you might be a pessimist for the simple reason that you don’t believe you can do it. The best way to fix this problem is to learn the skills you need in order to succeed. Change your definition of success to progress and focus on what you can succeed with now.
Example: You want to write a Best-selling novel, but you’re pessimistic because of your current writing ability.
Solution: Get better! Change your goal to writing any book or learning how to write better. Stephen King wrote three full books before he had one published.
Remember, it’s hard to be pessimistic when you know you can do it.

4. Optimists See Possibility. Pessimists See Problems.

The positive-minded person says, “What should I do next? There are so many exciting options!”
The negative-minded person says, “What should I do next? I’ve got so many problems to deal with!”
Problems are a part of life. I’ve found it best to ignore the ones you can’t do anything about. A pessimist can see an optimist with the same problems and think, “well, if they had my issues, they wouldn’t be so peppy!” It’s not true. People with all sorts of problems cope with them and still move their lives in a positive direction.
Sometimes the best way to deal with life’s problems is to say, “so what? I’m deciding to move forward.”

5. Optimists Have Better, But Shorter Lives

Optimism produces a better life of course… but shorter!? Yes, according to a recent study.

“Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade,” said lead author Frieder R. Lang, PhD, of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. “Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions.” (study 1)

Before you pronounce optimism dead, take a closer look at how they reached this conclusion…

“Five years after the first interview, 43 percent of the oldest group had underestimated their future life satisfaction, 25 percent had predicted accurately and 32 percent had overestimated, according to the study. Based on the average level of change in life satisfaction over time for this group, each increase in overestimating future life satisfaction was related to a 9.5 percent increase in reporting disabilities and a 10 percent increased risk of death, the analysis revealed.” (study 1)

it isn’t clear which of these people were optimistic or pessimistic – it just measured their expectations to actual life satisfaction years later. The people defined as “overly optimistic” could have been slightly pessimistic and had worse life outcomes than expected. And the people defined as “pessimists” who underestimated life satisfaction could have been slightly optimistic and had their expectations exceeded.
A different study found that optimism seems to protect heart health.

“The most optimistic individuals had an approximately 50% reduced risk of experiencing an initial cardiovascular event compared to their less optimistic peers,” said Julia Boehm, research fellow in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at HSPH. (Study 2)

And a sense of well-being (clearly connected with optimism) gives many other benefits…

“They found that individuals with a sense of well-being engaged in healthier behaviors such as exercising, eating a balanced diet, and getting sufficient sleep. In addition, greater well-being was related to better biological function, such as lower blood pressure, healthier lipid (blood fat) profiles, and normal body weight.” (Study 2)

I believe there is a takeaway point here.
According to this research, realistic expectations help us to make smarter choices, and general optimism is very good for the mind and body. To go along with the obvious benefits of an optimistic mindset, it makes sense to be optimistic about your future, but not to let it blind you to life’s turbulence. Neither blind optimism or blind pessimism are good for you.
So be a realistic optimist.
My mission is to help people stay focused in a distracted world. My name is Stephen Guise and if you subscribe to my blog’s list, you’ll get my anti-stress eBook as a gift and personally written updates for new articles 2-5 times a month. I write Interactive Stories too. Play through the first one here. And I’m launching a new blog post “review” service this month. It’s going to spin the blogosphere!

 

Three Methods:1:Gaining Experience   2:Imitating    3:WisdomReflecting

Confucius once said that there were three ways to learn wisdom: "First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." Gaining wisdom, the most prized of virtues across almost all cultures, is an exercise in life learning, careful analysis, and thoughtful action.

Method 1 of 3: Gaining Experience

1. 
   1
   Cultivate the mind of a beginner. Do you remember the first time you saw dinosaur bones at the museum? Or the first time you ate a really good peach? Your world expanded at that moment by a fraction and you became a little more wise. The Buddhist concept of "beginner's mind" refers to the approach of a person just starting out, filled with the wonder of new learning, and being challenged anew by it. This is the receptive state of mind embraced by the wise.^[1]
   • Rather than prejudging situations, learn to keep your mind open and tell yourself "I don't know what to expect," which will allow you to learn and gain wisdom. When you cease to have a fixed idea of people, things, and situations surrounding you, you grow in wisdom by soaking up changes, new ideas, and don't set any person above or beneath you.
2. 2
   Ask lots of questions. Learning doesn't stop just because you might have graduated from high school or college, or that you've got kids and have lots of experience you'd like to teach them. Even if you're a teacher at the highest level, or an expert in your field, you're not done learning. A wise person questions their motivations, questions widely accepted knowledge, and learns to love asking questions in moments of ignorance, because a wise person knows when it is time to learn.
   • Anais Nin neatly summed up this need to continue learning: "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
3. 
   3
   Slow down. Be still at least once a day, to allow yourself time to rest and to stop taking in the rush of the world. Being constantly busy and worrying incessantly about being seen as inadequate may make you a paragon of workplace virtue but it does not make you wise. Stop. Stand still. Take in what the unhurried perspective brings to you.
   • Fill your time with contemplation. Fill your free time with learning rather than distractions. If you find yourself filling downtime with television or video games, try and substitute one hour of reading for an hour of television, or choose instead to watch a nature documentary you've been meaning to watch. Better yet, go outside and go for a hike in the woods. Before long, you'll be
     
4. 4
   Think first and talk second. It's not always important to voice your opinion in a group, or to contribute something just because you can. Wise people don't always need to prove their knowledge. If your opinion is necessary, give it. An old adage goes, "The best samurai lets the sword rust in its scabbard."
   • This isn't to say you should withdraw socially, or never speak. Rather, be receptive to others and be a good listener. Don't just wait for your turn to speak because you think you're more wise than everyone else in the room. That's not wisdom, that's egotism.

Method 2 of 3: Imitating Wisdom

1. 
   1
   Learn from mentors. Find people whom you respect and who emulate the values and ideals that represent wisdom. Look for people doing the things you find interesting and of importance. Ask those people questions. Listen with great care to what they have to say, for you will learn much from their experience and reflection.^[3] When in doubt, ask your mentors for advice and guidance; while you don't necessarily have to agree with what they have to say, it will certainly give you food for thought.
   • Mentors don't have to be successful people, or people you want to "be like." The wisest person you know might be a bartender, not a professor of mathematics. Learn to recognize the wisdom in everyone.
2. 2
   Read everything. Read the writings of philosophers and social commentators. Read comics. Read Lee Child adventure novels. Read online or on mobile devices. Get a library card. Read contemporary Irish poetry. Read Melville. Read as if your life depended on it and form opinions about the things you read and talk with others about what you've read.
   • Read especially about your particular fields of interest, whether it be your job or your hobby. Read about other people's experiences and learn how others before you have dealt with situations that you're likely to face.
3. 3
   Share with your mentors. It's a mistake to think that the wise are above it all. Never troubled by their emotions, wise people float above the rest of us in an unfeeling bubble of their own making. Not true.
   • When you're feeling frustrated or disappointed in something, it's natural to want to discuss it with someone who will understand. Surround yourself with willing and receptive wise people who'll give you a sounding board. Be open with them and they'll be open with you.
4. 
   4
   Practice humility. Is it wise to sell yourself? The business and marketing world have convinced us self promotion is a necessity, because we've managed to turn ourselves into commodities in need of a good sales pitch, and business language frequently reflects this. However, there is a huge difference between acknowledging to yourself and others that you are good at doing something and exaggerating a range of skill sets beyond your comfort zone just to keep up with the competition.
   • Being humble is not about abdicating your self-worth; rather, it's about being realistic and only emphasizing all that is good and capable within you. In turn, people will know that they can depend on your reliability for those traits.
   • Being humble is wise because it allows the real you to shine through. Humility also ensures that you respect the abilities of others rather than fearing them; the wisdom of accepting your own limitations and connecting with other people's strengths to bolster yours is infinite.
5. 
   5
   Be there for others. Wise people don't have to live in caves, growing wizard beards in their hermitage. Exchange wisdom with others to help guide them. As a mentor and teacher yourself, you can help other people learn about critical thinking, embracing feelings, loving lifelong learning, and trusting themselves.
   • Avoid the temptation to use learning as a barrier against others. Knowledge is for sharing not hoarding, and wisdom will only grow when exposed to everyone else's ideas no matter how confronting they may be.

Method 3 of 3: Reflecting

1. 
   1
   Learn to recognize your faults. The hardest journey is often the one that requires looking inside yourself and being honest about what you find. Try and work out what beliefs, opinions, and biases you harbor. Unless you're willing to know yourself well and learn to love both the strengths and weaknesses within you, it is difficult to be wise. Knowing yourself provides the space in which you can grow and forgive yourself as you journey through life.
   • Be wary of any self-improvement advice that claims to have "secrets". The only "secret" to self-improvement is that it requires hard work and constancy. Beyond that, you can fiddle at the edges (attested to remarkably by the massive success of the self-help industry) but you cannot change the reality of having to do the work of personal introspection and reflection on the world yourself.
2. 
   2
   Accept that you can't know everything. The wisest of people have long been those who realize they actually know very little, often in spite of decades of learning and reflecting. The more you think about people, things, and events, the more it becomes clear that there is always more to know and that what you do know is but a pinhead amid all knowledge. Acceptance of the limitations of your own knowledge is a key to wisdom.
   • Don't confuse expertise for wisdom. Expertise refers to a high level of knowledge in a distinct field, whereas wisdom refers to the broader notion seeing the big picture of that knowledge, and to live calmly reassured of your decisions and actions in light of your knowledge.
3. 
   3
   Be responsible for yourself. Only you can know who you are and only you can be responsible for your ultimate choices. If you've spent years doing what was right according to someone else's standards rather than your own, you're not being responsible for yourself. Change the job where nobody recognizes your talents and find one where people will discover the tiger within. Move somewhere you're comfortable. Find a way to earn a living that doesn't compromise your compassion, care, and interests. Self-responsibility, including learning to accept the consequences of making your own decisions, increases wisdom.
4. 
   4
   Uncomplicate your life. For many people, a sense of meaning in life is "created" from being overly busy and by complicating everything from work to love. Complexity can make a person feel important and wanted but it is not wisdom. Rather, it's a form of distraction from oneself and from dealing with issues in life that really do matter, like questioning what your purpose is and what life is all about. Complication rules out reflection, leaves you vulnerable to the mysticism of expertise, and can cause you to make things harder than they need to be. Keep it simple and wisdom will flourish.

The pain and grief of losing a loved one cannot be expressed in words. Writing few lines, discussing with someone can reduce the pain but can’t eliminate it. It remains always there, throughout the life. It is said that parents are great blessing of GOD and there is no substitute of them, very true.
Your Son's(JANETH,GREGORY,JOSEPH,CHRISTOPHER and MARIA)We are  writing these few lines in loving memory of our respected and beloved father, who left us 9 years ago on 1st July, 2005. Yes, it is his 9th anniversary and these nine years had been very hard without him. These contemptible lines are a slight effort in order to present him a tribute.We know, may not so impressive thoughts and words are nothing in front of his affection which he showered upon us. There are so many things we learnt from him. He did not spend an easy life. His life was full of hardships and struggle but he faced every hard phase of life with courage and patience.We never heard him complaining but saw him very hopeful and positive towards life. Courage, patience, optimism, determination and constant struggle were incredible traits of his amazing personality. He had such a moderate attitude that success never made him proud and failure never made him hopeless.

Lastly,we want to say to our father that we always look up to you, you are our inspiration,and role model.We want to be like you, courageous, optimistic and very positive.We promise, no matter what happens we will never give up in life just like you.We love you and miss you like anything. May GOD forgive your sins and grant you Eternal Peace.Amen!!

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