Nourishing Reads For Mental Well-Being

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. - William James Our days are made up of tiny and numerous chores. Some are of our liking, some we have to do because there is no other choice.  We do have one choice - we can either work grudgingly and let it show in the not-so-satisfactory results or we can do every work with focus, concentration and perfection, and let our efforts show in the exuberant results. And this is applicable to not just working people, but homemakers too! When we have to do a chore, why not do full justice to it? May be we will get some appreciation, may be our efforts will go unnoticed. But we will have the satisfaction of having done a wonderful job.  I have often come across a phrase - Excellence is a habit that we inculcate. By excelling at every minor chore that we undertake, we can make it a daily part of our lives. By giving our best to every task, by being particular about how we do it, we can achieve excellence in everything we do. It coul...

'If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.' - Jonathan Winters There are two ways to live life - either take control of it yourself, or to let life control you. By taking control, we just do not take over the rights to our life, but we also take up all the responsibilities it brings. Have you read the book The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People? It has been written by Stephen R Covey and is an international bestseller under the genre of self-help books. The author begins by highlighting the habits that successful and effective people follow, and the very first habit is - Be proactive. Being proactive means taking control of your own life and the situations. It means not waiting anymore for the 'right' opportunity or the 'right' moment, but creating one on your own. It means recognizing and seizing the millions of tiny chances that spring up in our daily life and make good use of them.  The lure of victim-mentality is too strong to resist, I know. How co...

Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will - anonymous quote. I have a personal connection to this quote.  You see, I am very fond of traveling. Visiting new places, meeting new people and coming across new cultures and traditions is nothing short of euphoria for me. Living in India, I have often dreamed about visiting any one foreign country, just out of curiosity and wonder.  I am yet to do this! And the thing that has stopped me from pursuing this dream is my fear of flying. I had a terrible experience with a turbulent flight, about four years ago. I haven't stepped inside a plane thereafter. While the prospect of traveling to a foreign country is immensely tempting, the prospect of flying in an airplane is equally daunting and overwhelming! It is sort of a crippling fear that has held me back all these years.  The purpose of the above personal reflection was to simply show how disabling and crippling fear can be, if we let it overtake our mind. I have always believ...

Not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness. - J.M.Barrie The days follow one after another, and we find ourselves meandering through them, doing our routine work and chores, which, after a while, bring in a sense of stagnation and boredom. Everybody has to work and toil, and as the saying goes, there are no free lunches! Some people are blessed with the knowledge of the path they want to take, right from a young age and they set out on it. Their work becomes their passion and they not only do what they love, but they love what they do! This is not the case with most people, however. For some, work soon becomes a mundane routine, something they 'have' to do at any cost, whether it excites them or not.  I came across this beautiful quote that reads so - 'Not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness.' How true is this! When it is inevitable that we work, why not do it with enthusiasm? The secret is t...

'If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else.' - Booker Washington Most of the times, the human spirit prevails over the tough struggles of life. Knowing that this too shall pass, the spirit keeps moving in life, undeterred by the obstacles that it finds on its way.  Yet, sometimes, the human spirit surrenders. It does not even take a tough situation to bring the spirit down; sometimes, we feel low just like that. No reason at all! Boredom, lack of enthusiasm in life, inability to deal with our emotions, loneliness - these manage to bring down our zest for living. You find yourself meandering through the days without any purpose, wondering what can be changed about your life, or about yourself, to feel better again and to regain the zest to live.  When we are in deep misery, it becomes difficult to think about anyone or anything else. And yet, this is exactly what will get us out of our misery! We can sit and brood for hours, thinking about everything that is going wron...

  'Don't let yesterday take too much of today.' - Will Rogers We sure are living in chaotic times! There are fears of resurgence of a pandemic. There is the usual household drama occupying most of our minds. There are anxieties and worries about the future - both for ourselves and our kids. The kids are a whole new level of anxiety and worry combined. If you are dealing with teens, you know what you are dealing with. There are the usual health concerns that drop in and make their presence felt from time to time. It sometimes amazes me - the sheer capacity of the human mind to carry so much weightage and not sink under it. We really must be made of some tough stuff to handle life! And yet, there is something that succeeds in crushing our spirit, in robbing all joy from our life and in imprisoning our mind. It is REGRET. It is one of the most overlooked yet potent factors that manages to restrain our zest for life.  It goes without saying that regret is for something that hap...