Let's Connect!

Achieve Your Best Life

Live your life your way

Kindness

Are You the Best Friend You Can Be?

by

Ladies Having TeaIn these days of Facebook friends, where people can have thousands of friends viewing and perhaps contributing to their lives, it can be difficult to not only remember, but also to appreciate the real, physical friends that inhabit our day-to-day world.

It’s becoming a bit of a cliché to admonish those of us (yes, I’m included too) who spend too much time on social media at the expense of maintaining our real flesh and blood relationships, but in many cases, social media has in fact provided a means for people to reconnect after years of little or no contact which in most cases is a good thing. [Read more…] about Are You the Best Friend You Can Be?

To Give or Not To Give – A True Story

by

homeless1I’ve read that there is good evidence to support the premise that if you give to others in some way, it will enhance your own wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of the receiver.  On a purely common sense level, I have to agree with this because I seem to experience gratification when I give to someone and particularly so if I give to someone who I am very unlikely to see again (in other words, (s)he will have no way of repaying me).  I can float through the rest of the day when I feel that I have been kind and so the positives for me far outweigh the gift given.

I’m not sure what the science or psychology is behind this personal reaction (and really, I’m not that concerned to understand it), but I am the first to admit that I feel so much better about myself if I’ve been able to help in some way as opposed to the other option where I feel guilt for neglecting to help when I know I probably could have done so.

[Read more…] about To Give or Not To Give – A True Story

To Lead a Rich and Meaningful Life

by

quapanAs we go about our daily lives we cross paths and interact with people almost continuously.  Sometimes these interactions are obvious – we have a conversation in person or on the phone, we connect via email and social media etc.  Other times, our interactions are far less obvious, for example when we take an action which has an indirect effect on someone else or where we take no action and maybe someone was hoping we might connect with them.  These latter interactions are silent and invisible in our everyday lives and we may remain completely unaware of them, or, they may come to our attention in unexpected ways.

In this vein I was thinking about how we enrich, or add value to our or other peoples’ lives, directly or indirectly.  There are many different ways of looking at this, but I’m interested to consider how our actions or lack of action can enrich our lives and those of the people around us.

On looking up the word ‘enrich’ in the dictionary, I came across the following definitions:

  1. Improve or enhance the quality of
  2. To make fuller, more meaningful, or more rewarding

[Read more…] about To Lead a Rich and Meaningful Life

Why Should We Be Kind?

by

why should we be kind

Why Should We Be Kind

Why should we be kind?  This thought was on my mind as I was recently intrigued by a quote from Mother Teresa, which has got me pondering…are we a kind generation?  And, could we consider ourselves kinder now than in previous generations?

Here’s the quote:

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Simple and true.  How many times have a few kind words helped you through the day?  But are they frequently outweighed by words that offer far less empathy?  In either case, the effects linger.

Kindness and Entertainment

My original reaction was that we no longer live in a kind society and I wondered if this thought was truly justifiable.  I’m not much of a television fan, and in my home there are just a few themes that rattle across the airwaves.  These are sport and cooking programmes, the benign choice of the man of the house.  But in previous years these benign programmes were interspersed with what I now consider to be cult shows such as The Kardashians and horror-of-horrors, The Jeremy Kyle Show, the preferred choices of my (then) teenagers.

I’m not sure if you’ll be aware of these ‘cult’ shows, but in a nutshell, the first is a reality tv show and, to my mind, relates to the very wealthy, (not that I have a problem with wealth), but the show certainly appears to give a very distorted and selfish view of life.  My cynical view would be to say that the stars of the show manipulate the masses who watch them into believing that instant gratification is an acceptable lifestyle choice. [Read more…] about Why Should We Be Kind?