The benefits of a new year.

It is great that we look towards the moon to calculate the number of days in a lunar month and the seasons to get twelve months in a year.

However, why do we have seven days in a week and see the moon twice in a lunar month-on the first and fifteenth day of the month. Since it is a lunar month, why not put that as two months? Then we could have 24 months in a year. Well, I used to wonder a lot about such things.

However, I know the good reasons we have a new year day, be it lunar or Chinese, Muslim or any other kind of calender.

The first day of the new year gives us a new beginning. If the previous year had not been good, we can have another try at it. That is why people think of new resolutions, another chance, another twelve months to achieve what we failed to accomplish in the past year.

Besides that, the knowledge that the new year is just round the corner gives us the impetus to clean up not just the mess in improving ourselves, also the mess in our house. it gives us new vigour to remove all the cobwebs from the ceiling and hidden corners of our rooms. It gives us good reason to clean up the whole house as we know there will be visitors and our house-proud ego demands that our home looks presentable to all those who come.

And that is the reason the eve of the Chinese New Year is the time relatives come a calling or gather at one of the houses to have reunion lunch or dinner. Reunion dinners are important as it is the time of the year when all the close relatives get the opportunity to meet each other and overcome whatever distance that could have occured the last twelve months.

It is also the time for friends to have the chance to gather to exchange news and information about each other. Sometimes, we defer meeting with friends due to our presumably tight schedule. Thus, when the new year holidays come, we feel obligatd to visit, removing all excuses for not doing so. Sometimes, we just need such a reason to be closer with our friends.

Well, is not the celebration of a new year so beneficial to us? To all those celebrating the new year, let's look forward to better things to come.

Enthusiasm, responsibility and effort did the job.

You would think it difficult to find people to do work in which there can be no hope of a pay or reward. However, strange as it may seem, that was what the deputy chairman of our Sungai Petani Art of Living did. She found sufficient volunteers who were willing to sacrifice their time and other personal benefits to come forward to do the job.

Here is an enthusiastic lady who does things with all the vigour she could gather together from her diminutive figure, very short, slim, little girl-like body. But, in terms of energy, she is a giant, ever so exuberant and joyful.

It all started with a phone call from her just as I was having my lunch. In her laughing, joyful voice, she enquired about my whereabouts and my programme for the day. Having confirmed that I was available, she requested for help so sweetly that I immediately replied in the affirmative.

When I reached the Art of Living Centre, we continued our task of cleaning the centre, and redecorating it. For my part, I painted one part of a wall and painted happily dancing plants swaying upwards along another wall. Then, there was the seemingly impossible job of removing cob-webs from the very high ceiling, some thirty feet above the stairs. Fortunately, there were sufficient long poles to assist in accomplishing the task.

In just two days, we had done the job of painting and redecorating our centre with just a handful of volunteers. And it all began with the enthusiasm of just one tiny little lady with enthusiasm and a lively personality.

Once enthusiasm got us to the place to start work it was each person's desire to do whatever he/she could to improve his/her own centre. Yes, the centre was our responsibility. It was the responsibility to have the job well done.

Finally, it is our capable effort to ensure that our centre would be the most attractive centre possible that got us to put in our best and complete the job well. Satisfaction was our reward. Looking at what we had done, a sense of achievement permeated throughout the body and that brought us immeasurable joy and happiness.

Vital ingredient to achievement of highest potential.

How many times have we fallen down on our buttocks when we were learning to walk? If there was pain, we naturally cried. Yet, we struggled up onto our wobbly legs and continued to walk. If we had given up then because of the pain, would we be walking well today? We are, by nature, resilient.

After all, the child who feels the pain each time he/she falls could have thought, “Since it is painful, what is the point of trying? And is it not the logical thing to do? There is always someone to carry the child anywhere he/she wants to go. Hah.. That is not exactly true. Parents may carry him/her but not certainly to the place the child has in mind. To reach the intended place, the child must put in some effort of his/her own. The ability to choose the place to go to is the motivation for the effort.

Yes, resilience has to be encouraged. There must be motivation. So, through motivation, children can be encouraged to be resilient; they must be shown or taught that losing a battle does not necessarily mean the loss of a war.

Tell our children of the numerous times Edison failed before his electric bulb could brighten our nights.

Tell our children of the Canadian doctor who was knocked down by cancer. When her doctor told her she had only three months left to live, she did not sit down and moan her fate. She searched for recovery and attended the basic course of The Art of Living. During that first course, she was carried in on a stretcher. In time to come, she walked in by herself. She recovered from her cancer! What resilience she has!

I have heard of another woman who recovered from 3rd stage cancer by eating flaxseed and other healthy food. What enthralled me most was the fact that this 3rd stage cancer patient did not give up regaining her health. She had the resilience to pick herself up again through positive action with the knowledge and experience of other people!

In gymnastics, there are many times when the beginner might just have given up with the difficulties encountered achieving certain movements of agility and balance as well as vaulting. Success lies in the hands of the coach. Assistance and encouragement are necessary to have the gymnast put in further effort and gain that little bit of extra confidence to pull himself or herself through; to help him/her to be more resilient.

To achieve our highest potential takes a lot of effort, time and the conquering of the many potholes in life. These could mean some kind of failure or obstacle on the way. If we falter or give up before the goal is reached, the potential can never ever be realized. To reach the goal, to accomplish whatever we can, we have to be resilient; we must have the strength to carry on despite the pain, despite the obstacles, despite the odds, despite anything.

The great inventors such as the Wright brothers did not give up when things did not go the way they wanted. They persisted and their resilience saw them through to give them a place in history and also us the planes to take us places.

Without a doubt, we must be resilient in achieving whatever goals we dream of. If ever we fail, and we are sure to have to face failure every now and then, we must get back up and going for whatever lies ahead. There is still so much to learn. As we learn, with the new knowledge that we gain, we discover there is so much more we can do, so much to achieve, so much more to accomplish, so much more meaning in life to experience!Wow!Let's look forward to whatever God has in store for us.

Own wonderful mind..

A visitor to my blog emailed me with this comment: 'I think a leap of faith is required to believe that we will create whatever we thought. I am sure many parents think of great things their children will achieve, or even the good looks their children will process but they probably never materialised. Otherwise, every child will be athletic, intelligent and good looking. A paranoid parent on the other hand, will have a disastrous child.'

Thoughts are powerful and possess energy to create. You can create what you think if you believe it is possible and then follow through with actions. All inventions began with thoughts. Thoughts energises the mind to produce ideas, ideas provoke actions and actions lead to creations.

Sales people and motivators can tell us how every successful salesman thinks of closing a sale before he goes to a client.

Read or watch 'The Secret' on its website and you are told how powerful the mind is, how powerful thoughts are. In 'The Secret' we are shown how thoughts in our mind attract happenings. Your thoughts put out signals to the universe and this law of attraction responds to your thougths. Search the website for 'The secret.' It is worth watching and understanding how thoughts and the law of attraction can help you.

Regarding 'good looks', psychologists believe it is possible. Take a visit to the gynaecologist's department in hospitals or clinics and you can see the beautiful baby pictures they put up for the pregnant mothers to see and think about.

But, do you think parents would think of or visualise those babies as their own? No, I certainly do not think so. They will see their own image in their child. After all, they would not have their child look like somebody else, certainly not like the face of their neighbour! What would their friends think?

When it comes to intelligence, if parents put enough thought into it, it will happen. Again I refer you to 'The Secret' for further reading on the matter.

Furthermore, according to science, most intelligent people merely use a small portion of their potential. Here, thoughts with strong desires certainly would lead to action and this action would bring results.In this blog, I would like to tell you not only of potholes but the actions to be taken to achieve the desired results and improve the chances of your child achieving greater success.

As for paranoid parents, it is possible for such inferior thoughts to be passed to the child. The child will grow up with thoughts very similar to the parents, unless there is some other stronger influence from someone else on the child. After all, the poor children have to hear such thoughts so often that they seep slowly but gradually into the mind. We have seen this happen in families in our society. Positive parents with positive children, insecure people with insecure children and negative people with negative children.

On a positive note, negative children can change if they come into contact with positive thinking people whom they respect or like, if not loved.Sometimes, books with good examples of positive people may get children to realise their unfavourable position and inspire them to act so as to overcome their weakness.

Let me tell you a true story about myself. I was born into a poor family. Seeing other children enjoying things I could not have, I developed an inferiority complex. I liked to read and from knowledge I gathered from books even during that young age, I understood my problem. I read books by Napolean Hill and Norman Vincent Peale. They helped me to realise that I could overcome my problem and be a more positive person. That belief attracted ideas, materials, happenings and people into my life. Believe me, it was tough to overcome such a complex. I just could not do it on my own. Not that I did not try. So, I read a lot on nutrition, fitness and health. I took up weight-lifting. I developed physical strength. It helped a little when I realised that with my strength, I could be good at some sports. What was even more important, that which helped me to sweep aside my inferiority complex forever, were my friends. They helped me to realise that I could be popular with the boys and girls. Since then, I have such confidence and so positive is my thinking that there is no stranger I cannot approach to talk to. Such friends as mine are a gift from God, attracted by the belief in my mind that it could be achieved.

In a way, it is my own thoughts, thoughts of a better me that drove me towards all the above actions and created a new, very much better me. If I had not thought it possible for me to overcome my problems, I dare not imagine where I would be today. Would I be writing this? Would my ego allow me to even reveal this to you? Thoughts are indeed powerful!