Kenrick Vaz

The Grass Is Greener Where You Water It!

We’ve all heard the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” cliche. It’s a great saying that keeps us aware that we tend to compare ourselves and think that other people have it better. It’s perception. Because the people on the other side of the fence are thinking your grass is greener!

In life, we find ourselves constantly looking around for something better — better job, nicer house, bigger clients, faster car. It starts to seem like we’re standing in weeds, and all around us, there is lush green grass.

In fact, the more attention we pay to the green grass all around us, the uglier the weeds under our feet become, and why wouldn’t they? We’re watering everywhere but where we are standing. We wish we could work on something more exciting. We spend hours lamenting “what if,” and all the while ignoring what is. As this vicious circle continues, we assign all manner of causes to our plight, and the most common is blaming other people, circumstances, or just bad luck. While there may be external factors, the primary cause is us.

Relationships, whether business or personal, are like gardens. They are fragile things and require attention and nurturing. The moment we stop tending to them or take them for granted, they begin to wither. The decline happens slowly at first and often goes unnoticed in the early stages. Oh, sure, there will be subtle signs, but in the hectic pace of the day, we overlook them.

I came across this lovely graphic to illustrates how to keep the grass always greener

The weeds we see in our own backyard are green fields to others, and vice versa. There is nothing wrong with seeking new pastures and bigger, better opportunities. The mistake is not recognizing that the greatest opportunities are often right under our feet. Don’t let your relationships perish from neglect. The grass is always greener where you water it.

Lighten your Load

Have you seen the 2009 movie “Up in the Air”? It’s a movie starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham travelling around America firing people whilst living out of a suitcase, only to find his beloved lifestyle threatened by the presence of a new hire and a potential love interest.

The film also featured a fantastic monologue which contained enough snappy sound-bites such “Moving Is Living” and “The Slower We Move, the Faster We Die”.

We all carry around unnecessary ‘baggage’ with us which makes each day harder than it needs to be and holds us back from really doing what we want which is what makes the “What’s In Your Backpack” so relevant to each and every one of us.

Here is What’s In Your Backpack? Speech:

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel ’em? Now I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. You start with the little things. The things on shelves and in drawers, the knick-knacks, the collectibles. Feel the weight as that adds up. Then you start adding larger stuff, clothes, table-top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV.

The backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. And you go bigger. Your couch, bed, your kitchen table. Stuff it all in there. Your car, get it in there. Your home, whether it’s a studio apartment or a two bedroom house. I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now try to walk. It’s kind of hard, isn’t it? This is what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we can’t even move. And make no mistake, moving is living.

Now, I’m gonna set that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it? What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it?

So what is this proverbial backpack? And how can we prevent it from filling up to the point where we feel like we can’t carry all of our “stuff?”

The movie has a one very interesting, crucial, absolutely essential point: your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. His message is to get rid of those relationships as much as possible, because they slow you down. In reality, you don’t need to get rid of people. You just need to say no a lot more.

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.
Warren Buffet

You can’t actually be friends with everybody. Your life revolves around 3 main circles of people:

Family
Friends
Acquaintances

A lot of us spend way more time than necessary in the 3rd circle, and that’s what slows us down. If you want to make any sort of progress in a given direction, you have to say no to people, and mostly the people in the 3rd circle.

Say no to events.
Say no to distractions.
Say no to late nights.
Say no to one more drink.
Say no to people.

Then sometimes, say yes. Say yes to things that matter, and most importantly to the people who matter. Saying yes doesn’t necessarily mean taking ownership of a task that would clutter your calendar. You can yes and direct people to other sources of help. You can say yes, but later. You can say yes, but only when you’re done with your current task.

Letting go is a process that takes time. But the sooner you move through the process of letting go of what is hurting you or not letting you soar, the sooner better days are to come for you!

The Power of Words

Words have power. They can destroy and create. Sometimes a single word can change everything. Do you remember the words and kind acts that encouraged you when you were young? Perhaps a teacher, a coach, or a relative changed the trajectory of your life, all with the way they spoke to you. Hopefully, he or she spoke positive words of love and acceptance that encouraged you. I still fondly remember the encouraging words from my teachers in school :)

A 21st century Jewish Rabbi shared this striking statement about the power of words: “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively use words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

Our thoughts also impact what we manifest in our lives. But it can be argued that the real power lies in our words. It is our words that provide a bold affirmation of our innermost thoughts. They are a confirmation to the world of how we see others, our lives and ourselves. It is this powerful affirmation that our words provide which enables our thoughts to manifest into a reality.

The words you speak with your spouse is so powerful that it can literally make or break your relationship. Your words literally decide the happiness quotient of your marriage.

Here are a few examples to portray the different moods of words you speak!

1. Depressive words make your spouse gloomy.

Are you a person lacking in confidence?
Do you feel that you are destined to fail?
Do you always utter negative words of depression?

Your attitude makes your spouse feel downcast and gloomy. When there is depressing atmosphere at home, there is no real happiness worth the name in your relationship. Your miserable and negative comments makes your spouse terribly bored to interact with you.

2. Angry words make your relationship crash to failure.

You are always stressed and tensed by your work related problems. You are constantly pressurized by family issues. You do not share your feelings with your spouse. Instead, you thrust your frustration and disappointment on him/her.

Angry words always hurt your relationship. It makes both drift far away from each other. Both feel unloved and uncared by the persistent use of angry words.

3. Humorous words can enliven your marriage

Do you joke with your spouse?
Do you make your spouse laugh by your humorous words?

Then your marriage is indeed lively and total fun.

Humor is the best way to relieve the tension and stress of your day-to-day interaction. It makes your relationship thrive with fulfillment. You enjoy your time together. When you are amusing and witty, your spouse wants to keep on communicating with you.

Your home echoes with laughter and fun. When you make light weather of family problems, your spouse loves you for this.

4. Caring words binds your relationship

Is your spouse feeling downcast and pulled down?
Do you overlook it as none of your business?

Your indifferent behavior makes your spouse feel that you do not care enough for him/her.

‘Is something wrong?
‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine.’
‘I am there for you.’

These words depict how much you care for your spouse.

5. Encouraging words build confidence.

Everyone wants success. Your spouse is no different. But success never comes easily. He/she feels let down when he/she faces persistent failures.

He/she feels terribly upset that you do not support him/her. Never shatter the morale of your spouse by browbeating or nagging him/her with discouraging words.

When you utter encouraging words, your spouse literally feels energized about his\her ability to be successful. ‘You will do it’, I know you will succeed’, such encouraging words make your spouse feel worthwhile and valuable.

6. Words of love make your relationship strong

Your spouse never outgrows the need to be loved by you. He/she literally craves for visible show of love from you. Your spouse feels uncared when you live through your married life with routine and mundane interaction.

Your spouse adores it when you have many loving words to say to him/her.

‘I love you’.
‘I do not know what I would do without you’.
‘You are the best thing that has happened in my life’.

Such beautiful words make your spouse melt in happiness.

So choose your words bravely, consciously and lovingly. Always speak from a place of love; for yourself, for your life, for your spouse and for others. Your words equal your world, so use them wisely.

Is it better to give than to receive?

Money will not buy you love but it might buy you happiness if you spend it in the right way. We may have heard the old adage “it’s better to give than to receive”: spending money on others or giving to charity puts a bigger smile on your face than buying things for yourself.

Usually, a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation is responsible for us feeling less happiness every time we experience some event or activity again. We get used even to the best things and want more. But when we give to others, something different happens. Psychology researchers Ed O’Brien from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Samantha Kassirer of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management carried out two studies. They discovered that the happiness of the subjects declined much less or not at all if they repeatedly gave gifts to others as opposed to getting the same gifts themselves.

If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what we’re currently consuming and experience something new. Our research reveals that the kind of thing may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical others, may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more that we do it.
Ed O’Brien

One of the experiments consisted of having 96 university students getting $5 every day over the course of 5 days. The catch – they had to spend it on the same exact thing either for themselves or someone else (like donating to charity or putting money in a tip jar). At the end of each day, the study participants had to reflect on their spending and level of happiness.

This study showed that over the 5 days, the levels of self-reported happiness decreased for those who spent money on themselves. Those who gave money to someone else did not show such a fade in happiness, however. The joy and satisfaction of giving is just as powerful every time you give it.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mahatma Gandhi

For the second experiment, the researchers had 502 online participants play 10 rounds of a word puzzle game. The 5 cents they won each round could be either donated or kept for themselves. After each round, the subjects reported how joyful the winning made them feel. Those who gave the won money away reported their happiness decrease much slower than those who hung on to the gains.

The fuller explanation for why people react this way to giving may lie in the fact, say the researchers, that when we focus on an outcome like a paycheck, we are setting ourselves up for being less happy. Paychecks can be compared to one another, which reduces our sensitivity to each such experience. When we focus on actions, like donating to a charity for example, comparison becomes less important. What happens instead is that we treat each instance of giving as a unique event that can bring us inner satisfaction and elation.

The value of giving to others was one of the themes reiterated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In arguably his finest sermon, The Drum Major Instinct, King notes that personal greatness and service to others are intertwined. In a world filled with people’s selfish endeavors and nations’ destructive engagement in war and violence, King emphasized that a desire to be the best (the drum major) can be transformed from a selfish impulse to an instrument for justice if people adopt service to others as their goal. In King’s poignant words, “Everybody can be great, because everyone can serve.”

It does not matter whether you give a lot or a little, give gifts or intangible things. What matters most for meaningful happiness is appreciating the importance of those around you — family, friends, and community — and do so each and every day of the year.

Your Mind is like Water

When water is ‘still’, it has a natural ability to let go of all the dissolved sediments. With time the sediments settle at the bottom making the water pure and clear.

But if the water is stirred again, the sediments re-mix with the water making it muddier once again.

This is exactly what happens with your mind as well.

When your mind is agitated, it gets filled with thoughts and in all that chaos, it becomes difficult to think clearly. You become confused. But just like water, your mind has the ability to let go of thoughts and become calmer when in a state of stillness or presence.

Understanding anger

Anger is an influx of angry thoughts in your mind along with an associated emotion in your body.

The emotion of anger drives more thoughts and the thoughts in turn strengthen the emotion thus creating an endless cycle.

The fuel that keeps this cycle going is your unconscious attention. The more unconscious attention you pay to your thoughts, the more powerful these thoughts become and so becomes the associated emotion.

There comes a time when all that emotional energy in your body will prompt you to take action as this energy needs to be dispersed. But most action taken in this state will be destructive in nature because your mind is clouded with thoughts and is in a state of confusion. This is exactly similar to being under the influence of alcohol or any other substance. This is why we usually regret the actions we take under the influence of anger.

Therefore, the wise way is to wait out the anger, allowing it to calm down. Anger subsides with time and when you no longer fuel your anger by paying unconscious attention to angry thoughts.

The solution is allow your thoughts to settle down

The solution is to allow your thoughts to settle down.

A simple way to achieve this is to no longer focus on the thoughts, but to shift your attention to something neutral, like your breath. You can go into nature, listen to the birds, become conscious of your sense perceptions, or even become mindful of your thoughts. By removing unconscious attention from your thoughts, you allow your thoughts to settle down. Soon you will feel calmer and clarity will return.

When your mind becomes calmer, thoughts being to settle down and you begin to think clearly and hence attracting the right answers.

Be Patient! Growth Takes Time

We live in a fast-paced world where no lines and no waiting are common. We can now have anything delivered to our doorstep in a matter of hours and get information with the click of a button.

While the convenience factor of the fast-paced world can be appreciated, it can also have a negative effect on us. The no lines no waiting world causes us to underestimate how long change takes when it comes to personal growth.

We tend to expect feel better or to change our habits in a week or two. Real change however takes much longer. Expecting immediate results can be disastrous when it comes to personal achievement. It often leads to unhealthy shortcuts or giving up on a goal way too early.

Our unrealistic expectations may also cause us to draw incorrect conclusions. You may think you’re not good enough or that you aren’t able to succeed. But the truth might be that you have simply not given yourself enough time.

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or you’re launching a new business, results always take time. If you’re always in a rush to see results, here are two mental strength exercises that can help you develop the patience you need to stay the course:

1. Celebrate milestones along your journey.

If you’re trying to pay off a 20 lakh loan, your goal can seem unrealistic. It’s important to establish short-term objectives and then celebrate when you hit smaller milestones. Those celebrations can help motivate you to keep going.

Perhaps you celebrate each time you pay down 1 lakh. Or maybe you pause every week and reflect as you pay off another 1000 rupees toward your goal. Just make sure your celebrations don’t interrupt your progress.

You might be tempted to do things like spend money to celebrate your debt payment or eat junk food to celebrate your weight loss. But if you use this as an excuse for a celebration, it can actually be self-sabotaging. So make sure your celebrations honor your progress without derailing you from your long-term goals.

2. Create a plan to resist temptation.

Establishing a goal won’t make your temptation disappear. There will inevitably be days and times when you lack motivation and you want to give in to immediate gratification. So create a plan ahead of time that can help you steer clear of temptations.

Being mentally strong isn’t about surrounding yourself with irresistible temptations just to prove you’re strong enough to abstain. Instead, it’s important to build a life conducive to building mental muscle.

If you’re trying to lose weight, then get rid of the junk food in the house. If you want to pay off your loans, don’t go shopping.

Removing temptations frees up more mental energy to focus on your goals–and you won’t waste all your brain power trying to resist temptation.

Of course, there will be times when your emotions get the best of you, times when you believe thoughts that aren’t true, and times when you engage in self-destructive behavior. But these times will grow fewer and farther between when you’re actively working to build mental strength.

Also, keep in mind that progress doesn’t always come in a straight line. Sometimes, things have to get a little worse before they can get better. But if you establish realistic expectations for yourself and commit to the long haul, you increase the chances that you’ll be able to reach your goals.

Don’t forget that you are your own hero and you can do this. You can accomplish all the goals you set for yourself and you deserve the life of your dreams. Go get those dreams!

Staying Positive

You probably hear it over and over again how important it is to be positive, think positive and only engage in positive activity. In this day and age, being positive isn’t always an easy task. Turn on the news and the first thing you will usually see is something negative. Head into work and a negative coworker is already complaining about the boss. Watching most of our leaders often makes me just shake my head in disbelief. The list goes on and on.

The point is that negativity is all around us. No matter where you look, you will always find either a negative situation or a negative person. However, you don’t have to let what happens on the outside interfere with what happens within you.

Being positive each and every day is an inside job that consists of intentional effort even at times when you don’t feel like it. No, being positive won’t guarantee that you will be a success or achieve a major goal of yours, but it will help you a whole lot more than what being negative will do for you.

Here are some ways you can become more positive regardless of what is going on around you.

1. Make the choice.

All of life consists of choices. In order to be incredibly successful, stay positive, and reach your full potential, it all starts with a firm choice to do just that.

You can listen to the cynics and doubters and believe that success is impossible or you can trust that with faith and an optimistic attitude all things are possible.
Jon Gordon, The Energy Bus

2. Talk to yourself like a champion.

Talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself. Instead of listening to your complaints, fears and doubts, talk to yourself and feed your mind with words of truth and encouragement you need to keep moving forward.

3. Be strict with energy vampires.

Association is everything. It’s an absolute must that you have zero tolerance for negative energy vampires. Post a sign that says ‘No Energy Vampires Allowed.’

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
Gandhi

4. Live your purpose.

Nothing helps you to come more alive and radiate positive energy like living out your purpose. Remember why you do what you do. We don’t get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it.

5. Change your perception of adversity and failure.

Being able to redefine what failure really means and learning how to capitalize off of each and every setback. The next time you ‘fail’ remember that you aren’t failing, you are becoming. You aren’t failing, you are growing.

6. Smile and laugh more.

Very simple things to do, but so many forget the power of just smiling and laughing more. Smile and laugh more. They are natural anti-depressants.

7. Protect your inner world.

It’s important to remember that regardless of how bad or negative a certain situation may be that you don’t have to let it dictate your level of happiness or positivity.

Remember that outside circumstances and events have no power over you. You create your world from the inside-out.
Jon Gordon, The Energy Bus

8. Be patient.

A great majority of the negativity that holds many people back is a major lack of patience. Greatness takes an extraordinary amount of time putting in the work behind closed doors before anything blossoms. There’s no such thing as an overnight success. Anything worthwhile takes time to build.

Set yourself on a path to a positive, refreshing attitude on life. And maybe, just maybe, it will help you find more happiness in your life, allowing you to be more productive and face failures head-on.

Paint your own Rainbow

The sky above us is often filled with so many dark clouds that the idea of ever being able to find a rainbow seems impossible. We know that one is there. . .somewhere. . .but where oh where? When I first saw the film, “The Wizard of Oz,” I felt really happy listening to Judy Garland singing, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”? The mere idea of a rainbow fills most of with joy, perhaps because rainbows are magical jewels of nature, rather than manufactured marvels. Sure, a Hollywood production studio helped provide a rainbow to inspire Judy’s song, but, for us, rainbows are those exquisite jewel-like ribbons of color that appear in the sky after a storm.

If you want to experience a rainbow in your life and you’re waiting to see one until a thunderstorm clears, you may never have the privilege of enjoying one. For, they don’t just pop up whenever we desire them. In fact, I have come to see that there are times when we actually have to paint them ourselves, out of whatever materials we have on hand. Whether we use crayons or paint or colored pencils or magic markers, we can paint our own rainbow. And we don’t have to be a Pablo Picasso to create a rainbow that is worthy of admiration. Even children paint rainbows. In fact, a child is much more likely to draw or paint a rainbow than an adult is. Why? Because children believe in impossibilities. They haven’t yet been conditioned to have ceilings on their dreams or lids on their fantasies. This is one reason that children are so creative. Oddly enough, scientific studies have shown that between the ages of five and seven, a child’s creativity level decreases at an enormous rate. The reason for this is thought to stem from the fact that, when a child first attends school, he or she begins learning about all the things that he/she cannot do. . .all the things that are “impossible” or “illogical”. Prior to being told that he or she cannot do something, a child tends to believe that anything is possible.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Picasso

I still vividly remember hearing actress Jodie Foster’s acceptance speech when she on her second Best Actress Oscar in 2002 for Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of The Lambs”. Jodie thanked her mother for enabling her to believe that she could make any of her dreams come true—for convincing her that “all her fingerpaintings” were “Picassos”. And, perhaps, Jodie’s unfailing determination to go after the roles she has wanted, in spite of those who have tried to held her back, has something to do with the seed of self-confidence her mother nourished within her beginning at a very young age. Ironically enough, Jodie wasn’t the first choice for either her role in “The Accused” or “The Silence of the Lambs,” and yet, her performance in each film was impressive enough to garner her an Academy Award.

Although some people would say that thinking “big” is unrealistic, I think that only when we step outside so-called “realism” and dare to have big dreams, can we truly get enthusiastic about life. David Schwarz in his classic book, The Magic of Thinking Big, promotes the theory that the main thing holding people back in life is actually their “small thoughts”. According to Schwarz, whether or not you dream big dreams or small dreams is actually more of a factor in your ultimate success than talent, education, or connections.

Who says we have to remain strapped in by the seat belts of probability? Who can predict what is possible or impossible? Sure, there will always be well-meaning friends and relatives in our midst to tell us when we are engaging in what they call “wishful thinking”. But we make the choice whether we decide to believe them, or whether we continue to pursue our dreams, no matter how many people tell us we’re being illogical. You see, one of the problems is that the people who tell us that we have to be “logical” are generally people who have chosen to repress their own dreams themselves. Now they may claim they had no choice in the matter, but, the truth is, we all have a choice. Some of us may have to be more patient than others to make our dreams a reality, but all of have the chance to paint that rainbow.

Seeing Beauty in the Ordinary

Sometimes we get so bogged down by the challenges of life that we stop seeing the beauty around us. We become myopic. The goal being, to make it through the day. Some may be facing complex challenges in their lives that caused them to become numb, but beauty is omnipresent. We need to take a moment to notice the blessings in nature and in our lives. It can transform the way one feels and also offer hope and peace at a time of upheaval.

No one is immune to problems. There is no person with a perfect life. We need to change how we perceive things to feel that there will be an end to the turmoil. When we step out in nature, we need to open our eyes and really observe the miracles.

Magnificence is everywhere a rainstorm, a bird’s nest, the intricate design of a spider web, the vivid color of a flower, the ebb and flow of the ocean, or the spiral in a whelk shell. The examples are endless. When we notice the natural phenomena and how nature renews itself, it’s a reminder that we can too. We are capable of metamorphosis, just like the caterpillar that becomes a butterfly.

When we spend time in nature and appreciate the beauty, we understand that we are uniting with a higher power. We become aware of what matters in life. We recognize our connectedness. A simple walk in nature can help put life’s problems in perspective.

How you can begin to notice more beauty in your everyday, ordinary life

We live in a vast world full of beautiful things, if only we would only look up and notice. And this noticing, it takes a little practice, so don’t be hard on yourself if it doesn’t come easily.

Make space for it

I’m talking about white space. Time where you have nothing planned. Nothing pressing to do. Few weekends back we only had a couple of things planned and I was able to notice how tired I felt. Two daytime naps later and I’m very thankful for noticing what my body needed to tell me.

Invite curiosity

As adults, laden with responsibility and other boring adult duties we forget the magic of a curious mind. When I was little, my curious mind had me experimenting with potions to ward off ghosts. Or creating a tiny army of robot friends from Lego.

But as an adult, when I get a whiff of curiosity I often ward it off with some kind of ‘busy work’. What happens when we embrace curiosity? We become attuned to the beauty in our ordinary lives.

Curiosity is a tool for the scavenger hunt
Elizabeth Gilbert said

Unschedule (a little)

I’m a planner, a scheduler, someone who always calls first and expects you to too 😜 But I’ve realized that allowing a little more spontaneity into my life means I get to notice things I wouldn’t have.

What I gained when I started to notice more

When I made way for more noticing, I gained more joy, and more delight. I felt gratitude more.

You can’t help but be thankful when you are noticing the beautiful in the ordinary. In fact, I feel more grateful for the ordinary beautiful than the extraordinary beautiful. As if it’s earned it’s place by just simply being.

Happiness is a CHOICE

Happiness is a choice. Whether we want to believe it or not, we are responsible for how happy we are. There is a lot of power in realizing that we are in charge of our own happiness. No one else gets to call the shots. And while our friends and family can be a part of our “happiness team” they don’t get to decide how to play the game or what that game even looks like. The best cheering section is the one that will cheer you on no matter what.

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

One theory in psychology research suggests that we all have a happiness “set-point” that largely determines our overall well-being. We oscillate around this set point, becoming happier when something positive happens or the opposite, afterwards returning to equilibrium.

But this set-point, to a certain extent, can be reset. Although our general mood levels and well-being are partially determined by factors like genetics and upbringing, roughly 40 percent of our happiness is within our control, according to some experts, and a large body of research in the field of positive psychology has shown that happiness is a choice that anyone can make.

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.
William James

There isn’t one right way to be happy. There isn’t a specific formula that everyone must follow to find true happiness. There isn’t a secret recipe on the back of the Lucky Charms box. In fact, what works for one person may not work for another because finding our happy is deeply personal. But it is possible and is entirely up to each of us.

Here is a lovely poem by Vanessa Hughes

Choose Happy

Choose to be happy
Take that option today
Find delight
In a contented way

We opt for ‘If only’
We had this or that
Our lives would be better
Instead of being flat

‘If things were different’
I’d be so content
But if things were different
About other things we’d vent

So be mindful of what
You think you need
Happiness doesn’t come
From material feed

Nor does it come from
People or praise
It comes from within
And with you, it stays

Choose to be happy
It’s by far the best way
Then watch how your life
Improves every day