Doing The Right Thing Always Benefits

There are times when a person doesn't do the right thing in order to gain some temporary benefits and most of the time that person doesn't even intend to do something wrong but he/she simply doesn't understand what do in a particular situation especially when he/she is getting some benefit from that situation but doing the right thing always has its benefits in the long run. I would like to share a story of my childhood friend's father. 

When my friends father was in his teen age he didn't have enough money as he belonged to a lower middle class family and was not educated at all. At that time he use to purchase motorbikes from a different city as they were available for cheap rates there, bring it to his hometown and sell it there to earn a living. After few years when he entered his 20's he rented a small motorbike spare parts shop in a commercial building and started his business, time passed but he was still struggling to make both ends meet. One day the owner of the building died and he had no successors. The tenants who had shops in that building continued their business without paying rent because there was no owner but my friends father despite being uneducated felt that it was totally wrong to continue his business there without paying any rent so he went to the court and informed the court about the situation and deposited the rent in the court so if they may find any successor of the owner they may pay it to him after the transfer of property. He also urged others to do the same but no one listened to him as they were enjoying their business without paying any rent for the premises. The court put an ad in the local newspapers to find any possible successor but no one claimed the property and as my friends father was depositing the rent monthly in the court the court ruled in his favor and made him the owner of the building, all the occupants of the building were shocked and my friends father became a millionaire in a blink of an eye.

Doing the right thing changed my friends father life and fortune forever, had the other occupants also listened to him and deposited the rent in the court they would also have become owners of their own shops but they choose not to and as a result paid the price for it. My friends father despite being uneducated had great sense of right and wrong and what he thought was the right thing to do changed his life and he is a very happy successful businessman now and whatever he earns from that building he give 10% of it for charity on behalf of the deceased owner of the building. This is how doing the right thing always benefit.

Too Much Positive Thinking Can Get Us Doomed

We talk and hear a lot about positive thinking and how it can help us in various phases of our life but we don’t talk much about the negative side of positive thinking which is that too much positive thinking can actually drive us away from practicalities and we start to ignore the reality believing that everything will turn out to be good. This too much positive approach can cause some severe damage which we don’t realize in the start and by the time a person realizes the side effects of excessive positive thinking it’s already too late.

I have a friend who had a decent job,wife and three kids. He was not very happy with his job as he wanted to earn more money and improve his lifestyle further. He started a dairy business with his savings and expected that it would give him good returns. At first he was very happy with his business and worked extremely hard to make his business a success, in this process he quit his job thinking that he will invest more time in his business and that would help the business grow even bigger and better. Immediately after quitting the job he started facing hardships as his monthly salary was not there anymore and the business was just in the building up process but he believed that this problem is just temporary and will pass away in a few months when his business will start to make profit. Months passed by but things didn’t get better as his business was still struggling and faced financial crisis but he didn’t want to quit, he stayed positive and borrowed some money from his relatives and friends to invest in his business, unfortunately his business made a loss and all the money he borrowed went in vain but he still believed that his business will soon start to make profit and got small loans from micro-finance banks. He once again invested that money in the same business and was hoping to make huge profits but once again he suffered a loss so bad that he had to close his business and sell all his assets to pay the creditors but still was unable to return the whole amount back to his friends,relatives and the banks. Everyone was after him to recover their money but the problem was that he didn’t have any money so he filed for bankruptcy.

By the time my friend realized that he made a huge mistake by staying positive about his business all the time that it will turn profitable one day it was already too late and he ended up in debt and is still making efforts to pay them back and going through financial crisis and along with him his family also has to suffer who did nothing wrong. Staying positive about things is a great source of motivation but too much positive thinking can also lead us to take wrong decisions as we are driven away from reality and start to live in a world of fantasy. Stay positive, stay motivated but stay close to reality.

Motivation Can Help Us Achieve Unimaginable Things

There are certain capabilities in us and sometimes even we are unaware of them but motivation can help us find that hidden talent and improve it further and these hidden capabilities can take us to unimaginable heights in life. Motivation is the most helpful tool for self improvement as it gives us the courage to do something positive and creative. I would like to share my personal experience that how motivation helped me achieve something that was unimaginable for me.

I was working as a finance officer in a private company. One day my CEO called me up and told me he wanted to implement an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) computer program for accounting in the company and for that he wanted to recruit an ERP specialist and asked me if I know someone for that job? I called a friend of mine for an interview who was an ERP specialist. Few days after the interview my friend rejected the offer because the company for which he was already working wanted to retain him and offered him a higher pay so he informed my CEO about it. The next day my CEO came to me and asked me that if I can try and implement the ERP program myself as I also had a lot of interest in computer and softwares. I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond because it was a huge responsibility and I had no idea what an ERP was until my CEO told me about it in a meeting about a month a ago. He told me that he believed I can do it, his believe generated a lot of confidence in me as I was only an accounts officer and he was the CEO of the company and he said that he believed in me which was actually a huge honor for me. The next morning I stared and learned how things work in an ERP system, at first I struggled but once I gained knowledge of the system things started to become easy and then I got a few colleagues involved with me. There were some people in our organization who wanted to do things the old way and were allergic to new technology and they created some trouble as they wanted the system to fail but the CEO kept on motivating me and as I was highly motivated I was not bothered by any obstacles. I figured out how the whole system worked and now it was the time to implement it and it was an enriching experience as now I had to train the whole organization to use the system which included all my serious as well and this motivated me even more and boosted my confidence as now I was actually training my seniors. After that I went to another city to train the staff there and conducted sessions for training the salesmen as well.

It took me 6 months to implement the system completely in the company but that experience changed everything for me. I got promoted for two consecutive years and from just a finance officer know by only a few people in the company I became an ERP implementer know by each and every employee of the company across the country. There was only one thing behind it all and that was motivation. It is also very important for the bosses to motivate their employees if they want to achieve their desired result. Motivation always proves to be a powerful tool for success.

Don't Waste Too Much Time Thinking, Just Do

We all make plans, sometimes we plan and act accordingly and sometimes we just daydream about our plans and never act. Daydreaming gives everyone a lot of pleasure but we get more pleasure when we achieve what we desire. Making plans or setting targets for ourselves is good but I have seen some people who just keep on planning or daydreaming but never actually work to achieve those targets which is a huge waste of time and mind. I mean the time spent making plans or daydreaming can be utilized for doing something productive rather than just wasting it doing nothing.

I have a colleague who is always busy making plans about moving abroad and starting his own business there. I know this man for the last six and a half years in these six and a half years not a single day has passed by at work when he did not tell me about his plans and I motivate him a lot to pursue his dreams and even gather and provide him information about things he talk about doing but he never tries to achieve anything at all. This guy is working with the same organization for the last twenty seven years and that’s a huge amount of time and never once tried to follow his heart and pursue his dreams. One day a senior employee of the company told me that this guy is telling his plans to go abroad and all other things ever since he joined the company and I was really shocked to know that. How can a person talk about a particular thing for twenty seven long years and never once try to achieve it? I personally believe that he has wasted twenty seven precious years of his life thinking and dreaming about something that he never made an effort to achieve and now he regrets that when he had time he never tried and now time is not in his favor as he has grown old and has a lot of responsibilities now but still he continues to think about it.

If a person wants to achieve something in life and is passionate about it then he/she should not waste too much time thinking about it and must at least try to achieve his/her aim. Life is too short for regrets and if we waste a lot of time thinking than one day we will regret it but the time will not be on our side. We should struggle to achieve our ambitions while we have the time to do so or else we will regret it later but by then it will be too late and that will be very painful and we will end up cursing ourselves for never trying. So, don’t think too much and just do.

Motivation & Positive Thinking Can Defeat Depression

The most common mental problems these days is depression. According to WHO (World Health Organization) more than 300 million people of all age groups are suffering from depression globally and it is the major cause of disability and disease and it can lead to suicide. Nearly 800,000 people commit suicide every year, that means one person every 40 seconds. The main cause of depression is tension and fear. If people start to think positively and not fear things before they actually happen or do not lose hope after something has not turned out to be in their favor then they will not fall prey to this deadly mental disorder.

Strong willpower can be the most useful weapon against depression, it is something that destroys depression and makes a person go through the toughest of times to achieve his/her goals. Just like Steve Jobs said “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick: don’t lose faith” having faith in oneself is essential to keep your focus on the goals you set for yourself. There are times when we feel low like everything is going wrong and nothing can go right and that is where we fell prey to this deadly mental disorder called depression. No matter whatever happens we must stay focused believing that hard work pays off and one day everything will be as we planned it to be. We will not live forever so it’s useless worrying over anything that went wrong. Learn from mistakes and move on in a positive manner. Failures and difficult circumstances are a part of life that cannot be skipped but there is a lot we can learn from them. One should not ponder too much over the difficulties he/she faces or else it can lead to depression. Life is short and precious and one must not waste it by getting depressed. Depression can also slow down the healing process in an illness. I personally know some people who just cannot recover from their illness as they are too much worried and depressed about it. Depression is making them more ill and hindering the recovery process as they think too much about their illness and the human mind is very powerful it can either make or brake a person. At worst a person attempts or commits suicide which is ridiculous, one cannot just end his/her life because he was alone or something he/she desired did not happen. If you feel alone than go and volunteer for some social work or join a noble cause, make your life useful for yourself and others by doing this you will feel great and if you failed at something than work even harder to achieve it or move on. Neither failure nor success is permanent and in the end it will all end with life so live your life to the fullest.

A person who is suffering from depression needs a lot of support and motivation from his loved ones and surroundings as well. So whenever you meet a person who is depressed try to motivate him and distract him from his worries so that he may feel better. Positive surroundings have a huge impact on how we feel and it’s a huge source of motivation being surrounded by people who believe in you, support you and are there for you when you feel low and share your happiness with you. Stephen hawking is one of the greatest examples of courage, he got paralysis at the age of 22 and for the next 55 years he did such great work that will be remembered for centuries to come. He didn’t let his physical disability overcome his mind and this is what we all should look up to for inspiration. Just like Christian Nestell Bovee said “When all else is lost, the future still remains”. So stay happy, stay motivated and stay positive.

Overachieving Goals

Almost everyone set goals in life and work very hard day in and day out to achieve them. People put in a lot of effort to make their dream come true but sometimes people don’t realize that the goal they wanted to achieve has already been achieved and now it’s time to rejoice instead they continue to work towards making things better and better and in the end they don’t even get the time to enjoy the taste of their hard and tireless work.

It is very important to have goals in life but it is also significant to rejoice once the goal has been achieved, for instance I know a family with three brothers and parents, they belonged to a middle-class background and lived in a small apartment. One day the three brother realized that now as the time is passing they cannot continue to live together in that apartment as the family was growing and they had no room to accommodate so many people there so they decided that they will buy a big house where all of them along with their wife and kids will live together with their parents. One of the brothers went to US for work, the other two stayed with parents and worked in the same country. After earning enough money they finally bought a big house within a few years time where they could all live together with their parents but the brother who went to US stayed there and got married there while the youngest left to get settled in Germany and the eldest moved to some other place as his workplace was far away from the house they bought. In the end the old parents were left alone in the big house which there children bought so they all could live together. The three brothers had a dream but they actually overachieved there goal and never rejoiced their achievement and moved further in life.

It’s good to have goals in life and work hard to achieve it but it is also important to enjoy when one achieves his/her goal or else all the efforts become meaningless. The mistake we make is that instead of enjoying the result of our efforts we simply switch our focus to something else and strive to make things better and better, this struggle for betterment never ends and when a person realizes that now he/she has done it all and can relax they don’t have the time on their side. Achieving goals feels great but overachieving them can be regretful.

When Things Don't Go Right, Goes Left

As a young boy I have faced a lot of bullying, sometimes from some naughty friends and sometimes from my own cousins as I have a huge family and I was the youngest amongst them at that time but this doesn't mean that they didn't love me, they did but they use to make fun of me and the most irritating part was that they used to ask me to fetch water for them in every gathering, telling me that it will add to my good deeds and God will reward me for it. I never said no to them as I was a shy little boy but as time passed and I grew a bit old around 14-15 I started to get more and more irritated by them asking me to fetch water and soft drinks for them at family gatherings and making fun of me.

Then one day I realised that things are getting weird as I was not a little boy anymore and this has to stop now. So I started to ignore them at family gatherings and if any of them would ask me to fetch anything for them I would just vanish from their sight and never comeback with whatever they asked for. I continued this practice for sometime and felt the difference, then they rarely asked me to bring anything for them now what's left was the “making fun of me part” so I actually started to make fun of them in front of other people. I use to make jokes on them and intentionally humiliate them in front of other people because at that time the only way I could have saved myself for bullying was to become a bully myself but this doesn't mean that I support bullying, I am totally against bullying of any kind but at that time I guess that was the only option I had. With me bullying them the jokes on me stopped completely and since then things are quite good and even my relation with my cousins has improved a lot and is based on mutual respect.

When I started to stand up for myself my confidence also increased. Standing up for myself actually helped me gain confidence and believe in myself which proved significant in dealing with difficult problems. I did the same thing which I was offended by to help myself get rid of it. Always remember one thing that if you don't stand up for yourself no one will and Sydney Smith said “heaven never helps the men who will not act.”