Tag: happiness

“They’ve bought the BMW, and they have the $3 million Mill Valley house. And they still wake up in the morning and say, ‘I don’t feel good about myself’,” says Stephen Goldbart, psychologist and cofounder of the Money, Meaning and Choices Institute, highlighting the perils of Sudden Wealth Syndrome.

So, how about you? How do you feel each morning? Do you feel good about yourself?

“Plan for a better you in 2002” was the title given to my column on December 27, 2001. This was about New Year’s resolutions. Many of us promised to make changes in our lives so we can feel good about ourselves. Six months have gone by. What have we achieved? Are we better off today than six months ago?

There are many barriers to making a positive change in life. Some of these are:

-Failure on our part to accept that change is required.
-Failure on our part to have a strong will power to work toward that change.
-Failure on our part to find time to make the required change.

But if you have set certain goals in your mind then such barriers are only there to test your determination. Henry Ford says, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

The goal should be a reasonable one knowing your own strength and limitations. Rome was not built in a day. And you cannot make all the changes overnight. But six months is a good time to review the progress.

Review involves asking two questions:

-What is important in my life?
-What stops me from living my life on the basis of those important things?

“The aim of a life review is to step back and look at it as a whole, identify any problems, and consider what changes are needed to make it more fulfilling and pleasurable”, says an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The article says that we play many roles in our lives. To balance these different roles is a real challenge. Lack of balance is one of the most frequent problems people face in their lives.

How can we find balance in life?

By simplifying life!

It’s all about choice and making sacrifices. We just have to learn to choose how we live our lives instead of letting life make all the choices for us. If we don’t, then we’ll have to face the grim reality – in trying to have everything all the time, it may just end up killing us!

So where do you stand with your New Year’s resolutions? Do you feel good about yourself each morning – with or without a BMW? Have you made the right choices? Have you found a right balance in your life? Have you begun to simplify your life? Is greed dominating your agenda?

A Chinese proverb says, “Love is blind and greed insatiable”. So make the right choices. Don’t worry and be happy! And if you want to know – that’s exactly what I plan to do – without a BMW!

Start reading the preview of my book A Doctor's Journey for free on Amazon. Available on Kindle for $2.99!

Happier we are, the healthier we feel.

The key words are happy, healthy, and feel. It is easy to get these words in one sentence. But is it easy to get them together in life?

Each one of us looks at and feels about life in different ways.

According to E. M. Forster, it is not that the Englishman can’t feel – it is that he is afraid to feel.

Charles Lamb, on the death of his mother said, “I have something more to do than feel.”

But most of us would agree with George Ridding that “I feel a feeling which I feel you all feel”.

Let us look at some examples of healthy and unhealthy feelings.

Some time ago, on a Friday, there was a column in this newspaper titled “Washerwoman’s legacy helps poor students” by Margaret Wente. This is a very inspiring story of a 91 year old lady, who never went past Grade 6, never married, and never owned any book but her Bible. She made her living by washing other people’s clothes.

Dime by dime and dollar by dollar she saved her washerwoman’s money. Then in 1995, she donates $150,000 (US) to fund scholarships for poor students. Wente describes how this 91-year-old is energized to discover what her donation has done for the students.

That must be a great feeling!

Then on a Tuesday, there is Paul Sullivan’s column: More people I meet – more I like my dog. His message is clear – People do suck especially the big ones.

He was discussing the case of Nadia Hama and her daughter with Down’s syndrome, Kaya, who miraculously survived the fall off the Suspension Bridge in Vancouver. Sullivan also explores the methods used by RCMP to investigate this case.

The whole scenario does not inspire healthy feelings.

Compare this to the letter to the editor in Friday’s paper: Heartfelt thanks to a real-life superhero. Leslie Beckman writes: The fact that this man (real-life superhero) could care for a complete stranger, in such an amazing way, is absolutely unbelievable and beyond appreciation.

This superhero is one of the three men who helped a young man survive a near disastrous accident.

So there are people who do things that make us and themselves feel good. Although nobody is perfect.

But life is not about perfection. Life is about what you do with what you have been given, says Globe and Mail in a recent editorial on the new Governor General.

Let us put it this way: Good health is not about perfection. Good health is about what we do with what we have been given and feel good about it!

If that makes us happy then we should feel healthy.

Start reading the preview of my book A Doctor's Journey for free on Amazon. Available on Kindle for $2.99!