Did you ever feel like you wanted to do something completely different to what you actually ended up doing? With all the right intentions and the will in the world, you could not stop the actions you took and were helpless to observe yourself destroy the things you treasure? Welcome to the dark side. There is a part of you that you that you should meet.

photo credit: bbsc30

We can become different people depending on the friends we are with at the time. So different sometimes that it would be hard to recognise yourself in the mirror. This is simply because there are many sides to us. We have many personalities. Each of our friends has met a different side of us. It is no wonder that if you invited them all to a party, they might not have anything to talk about apart from you.

Varying degrees of emotions

A simple example will help. There are three primary colours: red, blue and yellow. All other colours come from varying degrees of combination of these primary colours. For example, red and yellow make orange. Percentages of the primary colours in the mix will determine the resulting colour. Just like that, you have some basic human emotions and feelings in you. Love is one of them. But so is anger! And there are many more. A combination of the varying degree of these emotions influence our experiences and create the different sides to us that people meet. It is therefore possible to meet the same person in two different settings where they act and behave completely differently.

photo credit: JP<3!

Love, hate, compassion, anger, patience, tolerance, greed, etc are all inherent parts of our personality. They co-exist to bring balance to your life. Survival for example is our prime instinct and but comes with a degree of selfishness about it. Just like that, you need an element of ego to maintain self-respect. But increase the level of ego and the self respect turns to pride and boasting. Increase it still further and you become a conceited and selfish individual. Similarly, anger is necessary to stand up to injustices in life. But anger also has the power to destroy your own life. Combine it with alcoholism in a wife beater and watch it rip that family apart.

No doubt there is a part of you that is the dominant personality and defines your general behaviour. But other parts of you are not sleeping. Given the opportunity, they will try and take control of your life and change its course.

You cannot get rid of them

It is foolish to think you can beat them and get rid of them. You cannot get rid of the ego because it is the force behind you maintaining your self respect. You cannot get rid of the anger because it is the power you will need to fight injustice. You should not get rid of them. In fact, it is good that they are there. They bring balance to your life. But what you want is to bring them under control and to prevent their surprise attacks on you. When you least expect it, they creep up on you and make you loose control. You become someone else. Someone you would despise when you were sober. All because the surprise caught you off guard and you become a slave to the emotion before you knew it. You were powerless and could only watch as the emotions got the better of you and wreaked havoc.

The only way to prevent such a scenario is if you retain control and not let your emotions control you. The steps in defeating a powerful enemy are acknowledging it, not underestimating it’s strength and getting to know it. The strengths and the weaknesses.

photo credit: lisadragon

Know yourself

Get to know yourself. Know the anger, the greed, the selfishness, the power hungry animal and the vindictive person you are capable of being. You might have met this person before but just not realised it. Acknowledge it and become conscious of it. Know that it is there, it is powerful and is waiting for an opportunity. Become friends with him so you understand him. This way when he tries to creep up on you, instead of getting surprised you welcome him. Ask him to take a seat and wait until the storm is over. And if it needs to speak then to keep the voice down.

Once you get to know him, keep him in your vision. Don’t loose sight of him. For he might go and learn new tricks and then turn up and surprise you anyway. Or you might become lazy and complacent and forget the power it yields. Keep track of him.

Intention is considered to be the motivation behind any action. And good intentions are considered important for a positive outcome. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So are intentions really enough to bring change to your life.

What is an intention?

Intention is more than a wish and a desire. It is the cause (conscious or unconscious) with which an action is carried out. The desire to hurt someone physically or emotionally may have roots in self protection and the intent may be survival. Intention is significant enough that even though it is intangible evidence, effort is made to establish it in a court of law. Judgements get passed on the findings.

photo credit: simonella_virus

More about intention

To understand intent, you need to look at choice as they have a powerful relationship. Whilst intention is the cause, choice is an action – even if it is a mental one! And intention dictates choices we make – the effect! Add commitment to this and the trajectory of your life can change because not only have you made the choice but have put your will behind it to see it happen. Without commitment, choice carries no value and without choice, intention is of no significance.

Your whole life functions around these three elements. People you meet and the lifestyle you lead are by-products of your intentions and choices. If you stop to look you will see the pattern emerge. You keep meeting people who think like you and share your intentions. Why is that? Because similar intentions attract! People don’t, intentions do. Your actions may be different but your intentions are the same. Your creativity might be different but your intentions are the same. Your passion might be different but your intentions are the same.

Disguised intentions

Intentions are very good at disguising themselves and are not easily understood. For example a man who committed suicide may have been trying to find peace. It is easy to be judgemental about something like that. Sadly, without the knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the event – it is a shot in the dark. Your chances of being right are about the same as your winning the national lottery next week. And perhaps those who do judge harshly have their own intentions to understand.

photo credit: kenjonbro

Engineering change

A conscious manoeuvring of the intentions to take a more optimistic view in life is not possible without changing the supporting structure. It is like building a house with no foundations. The first storm will blow it over. To instigate change, you first need the will. You need to free your mind from the limitations you have imposed on it and the boxes you are used to thinking in. Put a pair of sunglasses on and view life differently. A focused mind is the most powerful instrument in this universe. Let it be free and live free. Contain it with labels, judgements, anger, etc. and it will create a world of pain and suffering.

We learn to be angry, jealous, vengeful and deceitful at a very early age. We age in time but not in our habits. Demonstrating the same animal instincts that we were born with: territorial and afraid. A survival instinct above all that keeps us ticking. But if we truly see the world for what it is, transient and beautiful, you soon realise the futility with which we defend our territory.

We have a choice!

Further reading: Positive intention

A man is known by the company he keeps they say. It sounds really simple but then perhaps it is. There is a simple law of attraction in play here.

photo credit: Haags Uitburo

Identifying with collectives

We are attracted to and surround ourselves with people who reflect our views, mood or some other part of our life. But this choice has less to with the person you are attracted to and more to do with who you are. To understand this you only need to look at your own life. If you were to pick one word to identify yourself, what would it be. Would you identify yourself as a man, woman, child, parent, black, white, American, Indian, doctor, yogi, Christian, or something else. There many be more than one word to describe you from that list and many more. But, which one would you pick first. And having done that, which one would you pick next. In fact do that right now. Make a list of all the words you identify yourself as and write them down. Then put them in a sequential order.

Done? Look at the top 3 word and hold them in memory.

A number of people identify with the keywords on your list. And together they become a collective. For example if you are a woman, then all the women in the world form a collective. If you are also white then white women also have a collective but a smaller one. Within that smaller collective are women from the middle class backgrounds who are single professional women.

Collectives are great and psychologists suggest that all your friends are people who also are a part of that collective in some way. Your closest friends are in the collective associated with the top keywords in your list. Examine the top three keywords in your list now and see how you identify with them.

photo credit: ervega

Fear

Many groups and collectives are formed for a common purpose but need something to hold them together. And there is nothing like fear to do just that. That emotion is so powerful and strong, and yet so easy to come by, that it is exploited in virtually every angle of our lives – sales, media campaigns, political speeches, and so on. Fear of the unknown. In a collective there is comfort in familiarity as there are known factors to work with. In the unknown, there is fear. And the most common manifestation of fear is in declaration of superiority. Be it colour, sex, race, religion or anything else! To believe that your idea or belief is somehow better than someone else’s.

It is not easy to overcome fear. To overcome it you first have to admit that you have got it and most people don’t even know it is there. The stronger the fear, the stronger the need to defend it. In the extreme case, to defend it violently. Take any of the extreme groups and you will always find fear at the heart of it. And the fear feeds the extreme mentality making the collective much stronger.

Universal law of attraction

Universal law of attraction means that similar energies will attract each other and people with common purposes will find each other. In anger you will find people to be angry with and in fear you will find other people who are also afraid. If you are an optimistic person then you will find other people like you and vice versa. If you change as a person and the people you relate to does not change in the same way then the friendship falters and you seek new companions. The thing that dictates the universal law of attraction and your friendships is in fact you! You are at the heart of the world you create for yourself.

A choice

But you have a choice! Turn the other cheek.

We all have a choice. We can become a part of the collective but don’t have to wear their values like labels. As an example, if you are a single professional white woman from middle class background then those are your features but it not who you are. You are a human being trying to connect to another. As long as religion, sex, colour, race, sexual orientation or anything else is the description of your features and not of you, you are free from the fear and the prison of your mind. When you become a white woman, fear creeps in. Fear of anything non-white. The unfamiliar – the unknown. Instead you could be a person who happens to a woman and she in turn happens to be white.

The labels will never unite the world. When you identify yourself with a label you enter a prison. When you break free of the labels, you are on your way to overcoming fear and freeing the mind.You have a choice! You have the key to break out of this prison. Free yourself of the labels.

Your mind can completely change your experience of any situation. The difference between a person who is paranoid and some who is not draws a parallel between someone who is wearing sunglasses and someone who it not.

Have you ever been wonder struck by a simple invention like the sun glasses. It is fascinating that the world can look so different by simply putting on a pair of glasses. It can seem more red, green or some other shade depending on the colour of your lenses. In the afternoon on a bright sunny day in the summer, wearing sunglasses is a welcome relief from the blinding sunlight. Wear them at night while driving on a moonless night in the countryside and it is a recipe for disaster.

photo credit: Xabier:M

What if you wear prescription glasses? Ever wonder about that? What if you and your partner have very similar glasses and one day you accidentally put on the wrong pair. The world does not seem right – does it? Everything is blurry and out of focus. It does not work! You need your own pair of glasses. Sometimes the world seems more harsh with the wrong glasses than if you were not wearing any.

The world did not change

The world does not change because you put on a pair of glasses. The world is still the way it was. But the way you look at it has changed. Your experience of the world has changed and your reality has changed with it.

Transpose that example to your life now. The world is the way it is but your mind can change the way the way you see the world.

The wrong pair of glasses can distort your vision, cause accidents, death and destruction. Just like that the wrong frame of mind can distort your view of life and relationships, cause accidents and ruin lives in a very different way. It is not the truth but your perception of truth that creates the reality you live in.Your mind can change that perception. Think about someone with paranoia. What may be harmless to a normal person becomes a threat to someone who is paranoid. The mind changes the perception and therefore the view of the world! And suddenly a harmless situation becomes a threat.

photo credit: slaup

But we have a choice!

Scientists proven time and time again; in pharmaceutical trials, in psychological experiments, in medical research, and various other situations that our perception can influence our behaviour. All holistic healing technologies revolve around this idea. If the mind can be tricked into believing something then the rest of you will go along with what the mind believes. The trick is in the mind.

We create the experience we want for ourselves. If you want to see the world in a more positive light then that feeling has to come from within first. Put the mind in a positive state!

If our mindset is positive, we become more positive ourselves and interact with people differently. People remember us as positive human beings. Our negative emotions on the other hand do not take long to surface either and people are quick to react to that too. Our sensory perceptions will always lie to us and make us think that people are behaving differently. Whereas people are merely reflecting our own mood. It is not people but we ourselves who need to change.

Change the way you see things

To always see the glass half full, change the mind that view life with. Become a more optimistic person and strive towards a state of happiness. The objective is to change the way you look at the world. If you are feeling angry, introduce a bit of calmness into the mood. If you are feeling anxious, introduce a bit of calmness. Breathe! If you are experiencing lack of confidence then think of all the things you have got right in your life and inspire a bit of confidence. Trick the mind!

Bottom line – we have a choice in every situation. How we colour our vision will determine the lives we create for ourselves. Which one do you want?

Pursuit of happiness is rated as THE most important part of life. The only difference – the definition of happiness!

Ask a hungry person their vision of happiness and they will tell you it is food. Ask a man standing out in the rain in a cold wintery night and his happiness is warmth and a roof over his head. Happiness, as we know it, is relative to our state of existence.

The Faces of Happiness

Happiness is not a moment of joy but is in fact the a state of existence! It is a state of mind! You cannot be happy one moment and unhappy the next because that is not how happiness works. It is not a short term thing!

photo credit: greekadman

A number of people tell you about the happiness they experienced when they got a pay rise or a new car or something else. To quantify happiness through a materialistic achievement diminishes the value of happiness. It makes happiness sound very shallow. Acquisition of a new car is a moment of joy. Finding out that you won the national lottery is a moment of joy, not happiness. Your state of happiness will be determined by the life you create despite the lottery win. The lottery win by itself will do nothing. It is no wonder that the lottery winners are quoted as saying that the lottery was the worst thing that ever happened to them. They foolishly thought that the money alone would bring them happiness.

In modern day society we all want more. More from life, more from our jobs, more from relationship, more from healthcare… more from everything. So each time we get more, we have a moment of joy. Once that moment has passed and the adrenaline rush the joy created in our body has calmed down, we come down from the highs. How far we fall is largely dependent on how high we were and what put us there in the first place. Wanting more is healthy and has been the motivation behind some great achievements in human history. But when the desire for more turns to greed then it begins to affect the state of our existence. It begins to cloud our judgement and we fail to see the misery it begins to create for us.

photo credit: seeveeaar

The Factors

Perhaps the single most important factor in determining the state of happiness is the level of contentment. Being content in what you have. Relationship, life, money, job, etc. Does not matter what it is but just being content in it. That should be said tongue in cheek because there are exceptions to the rule. For example contentment is not an excuse for laziness or lack of motivation. You cannot use contentment as a blanket cover nor can you make it interchangeable with happiness. Simply that contentment is a factor!

Conclusion

Happiness can perhaps best be described as a state where you learn to draw a balance between the highs and lows in your life. Where the peaks and troughs become less noticeable and the state of your mind becomes a more straight line. Where you realise that joy and sadness are two contrasts of life like night and day. And like life itself, neither one of them will last. When that happens – you realise what happiness truly is. It is heaven on earth!

Overcoming addictions requires some simple steps. I am not a psychologist and I have no medical degree but I have a wealth of experience in overcoming my own addictions – big and small!

What is addiction

Addiction is a repetitive behaviour marked by physical or psychological dependency. It is a part of human behaviour and visits us all. Addiction could be to something as simple as chocolate or something more serious like cocaine. It might even be a habit, like watching pornography or gambling. There is no doubt that addiction of any sort can affect self esteem on the low end and destroy lives at the high end. Many have tried to quit the habit. A minority of them have the will power and succeed in breaking free. But a large majority experience the frustration as they fail. Overcoming it is not easy! The addiction often returns with a vengeance after a failed attempt and leaves damaged self esteem and low self worth in its wake.

photo credit: Foxtongue

There are many established ways of overcoming addiction. Group therapy, a good counsellor, 12 step programs, hypnosis and many others. They all have their place in the scheme of things and because we are all different, we find some methods work better for one person whilst the other does not see the point in them. Try and get an atheist, for example, to overcome his addiction using spiritual methods.

Why do we become addicted

Understanding the reasons for the addiction and the failure gives us an insight into why we fail and why going back is easy.

You become addicted for one of the following reasons.

• Social and peer pressures: In an environment where everyone is drinking and taking drugs, it becomes hard to say no as it is seen as the means to get ahead in life
• Genetic: It is in your genes and you are chemically designed to become addicted
• Mental health issues
• Trauma: A life changing experience that you are unable to cope with
• Need for alternate reality: You cannot find the satisfaction in the life you have and the addiction gives you an opportunity to escape

To fight genes and mental health issues, you need the advice of a medical expert and there is no getting around that. But the rest are choices we make. Let me say that again - they are choices we make!

Pleasure seeking mind

Your mind and your ego are caught up in three primal instincts:

• Survival
• Pleasure
• Avoiding pain

Your ego constantly needs food for survival and this food comes from generating emotion. It does not care if the emotion puts you on a high or a low. As long as there is movement, the ego is happy! This is why depression can also become an addiction. A need to take drugs to get a high is the opposite end of the same spectrum. Inability to let go is a product of the same school of thought.

photo credit: darkpatator

The mind is a slave to your ego and will find ways in which to feed it. The mind seeks pleasure to satisfy the ego. Think about it for a moment. Would you eat that chocolate if it did not taste good? Would you take the drug if it did not put you on a high? The mind craves for habits and substances that will take it to the alternate reality it seeks and will fight you bitterly if you get in the way. If you try and resist, you will end up in self inflicted war with your mind. A war that your mind has no intention of loosing! Your common sense will tell you that these things are not good for you. You will also be aware of the damage they are likely to inflict but feel powerless to stop. The mind trapped by the ego will do this to you.

Overcoming addiction

To overcome addiction, you have to understand how the mind works and how it wants that pleasure at any cost. And the only way for you to break that addiction is to separate yourself from your mind and from your ego. There! I said it! The moment you realise that you are not your ego, you begin to realise the tricks the mind is playing on you. You are working for the mind, the mind is not working for you. And what is worse is that you don’t even know it. Why should you? A thought inside our head belongs to us and we never pause to realise that in fact there is a speaker and there is a listener inside our head too! The mind speaks and we listen.

To overcome any addiction,

1. Know that you are not your ego and you are not your mind.
2. Become aware of the dialogue inside your head between you and your mind. Observe it in the initial instance. The first step in overcoming your ego is to become aware of it.
3. Take control of this dialogue. The mind has been running the show. If it was not running the show, you would not be reading this right now.
4. And finally, STOP listening! You cannot mute the sound of your mind but you can chose not to listen. You have struggled because you did not know who was running the show so far. Now that you are aware, there is no reason to carry on as before. Is there?

photo credit: christine [cbszeto]

The mind will fight you when you first ignore it. Not very different from a spoilt child who is in need of discipline. It does not know that the rules of the game have changed. There will be tantrums, sulking, name calling, and lots more. If you want to win this fight,
don’t take the bait. There is no need for the argument. Simply – DON’T LISTEN! There is nothing like a bit of meditation that will help achieve that. Read the beginners guide to meditation and see how you can still your mind.

Every morning we wake up, we have a choice to do something different. To make the day go differently, to make our life go differently. And each day we succumb to our desires and our life carries on as normal. Let this day be the one that changed your life.

WARNING: When dealing with substance abuse of any kind then seek advice from a medical professional. “Cold turkey”, fast track systems and other substance removal processes can be life threatening if not properly managed.

Anything is possible – provided you put your mind to it!

Speak to anyone who works in a hospital and they will tell you all about mind over matter. The patient’s will to heal is far more important than any medicine that a doctor can prescribe. Speak to anyone successful in any field and they will repeat the story from a different angle. There is little to dispute that in a war between the mind and the body or mind and matter – The mind always wins. So the question is how do you tame the mind.

The science behind this comes two fold:
a) Thinking about the end and not the means. Think about why you are doing something rather than the what, how or when. This fits in very well with having life goals and goals generally in life. It brings about focus and gives direction to your energy. Setting a goal has also been the subject of a previous blog entry on this site.
b) Affirmations. Reminding yourself of the why and the core values that you want to focus on help bring about the self control again. By using a bit of psychological techniques, you are also committing an refreshing things to your long term memory. This then helps the message become a part of your sub conscious mind and a part of you.

photo credit: Shahram Sharif

The road to mind control and success is easier than it sounds but it starts with a few basics.

1. Set a goal - First and foremost set a goal. What is it that you want to achieve. How detailed is your goal? Is it something vague like, I want to have a happy life or is it something more specific like you want to have your mortgage paid in 10 years.
2. Visualise it – You have to see the achievement of your goal and visualise it. Close your eyes. Meditate on it. Think it. Dream it. See it happening! You will be amazed what this does to the unconscious mind.
3. Surround yourself with like minded people. Become friends with people who want and are thirsty for the success. Get ideas from other people. Hear the success stories and use the ideas to further your cause.
4. Start the action plan. Start with the self control and the discipline needed for the success. Work on the detail but do not leave the big picture. If you followed the steps 1 to 3 above, you will have the picture in your head where you want to be. Great! You have a destination, now start planning the route that will get you there.

photo credit: ePi.Longo

Make each day count
Start a routine for the morning that brings about your focus and starts the day off in a manner that you intend to continue. Make each day count. Somebody once said, “if you think a day of your life is not important – try missing one”. Think it and believe it. Now that you have your goal. Every morning, remind yourself the goal that you have set yourself. Make the day count towards your goal.

And the best way to do it – meditation! I bet you really wanted to hear that. Set aside 30 minuntes of your morning each day for your morning meditation on reminding yourself the goal and staying on the path. You are setting out on a journey and you need a navigator. You cannot have a navigator taking coffee breaks at crucial junctions en route this journey nor can you afford for this navigator to fall asleep. So use the 30 minute sessions each morning to give a sanity check and pep talk to the navigator and make sure it is prepared for the next leg. Also have a look at this book as a started guide 8 Minute Meditation: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life..

A 30 minute morning routine to re-align with your objective and focus your mind can change your life.

There is a nice article on self control on All Considering. which seems to go some way in explaining Katinka’s (the author) take on the subject.

To achieve something, you have to want it enough. If there is a desire to get there then the mind will take you there. SO, what is it that you want?

Six different kinds of thoughts tend to preoccupy us. It is not till we understand these different kinds of thoughts that we can begin to conquer them and work on stilling the mind.

photo credit: Eneas

The mind is a fascinating thing. It only sleeps when you do and it’s job is to give your ego a sense of purpose in life. If it works for you, the mind becomes your biggest asset but if it becomes your liability then it has the power to destroy you. So your single biggest worry in life is how to convert the mind into becoming your friend and your biggest asset. You start by understanding it and then slowly controlling it so that it stops the noise, the story telling and engages in working productively for you.

• Observation: The mind uses the five senses to observe what is going on in the physical world around you. This task lasts no longer than the moment itself.
• Judgement: The observed moment is judged to protect the self. The ruling can be something that the ego needs to know on understand how to deal with the observed moment. Good, bad, right, wrong… these are all calls made by the mind. Sometimes without realisation.
• Record: Recording and storing the information for later access is a key to who we are and information relating to the ego is a key function that the mind engages in.
• Recall: Recalling stored events and memories to relate to present day events and understanding what is going on also gives relevance to present day moments. Again the recalled thoughts are also become a part of your experience and can colour present day judgements – e.g. avoiding accidents whilst driving your car has involves recalling previous experiences and relating them to present day moment.
• Analysis: The mind needs to make sense to itself and the ego to explain the world it observes through the senses. To do this the mind observes the present day momemnt, recalls experience that relates to the present day moment and explains why things happen. This helps it make a better judgement!
• Predict: Using all the stored experiences and the with the aid of the judgemental and analytical skills that it has developed, the mind tries to cook up scenrarios to predict what will happen under different circumstances. This can be done for various reasons and take virtually any shape. For example day dreaming is nothing more than an attempt by the mind to create a fantasy world.

It is 10pm – do you know where your mind is?

Who are you asking, the man or the woman. The men think they are. Guess what the women think?

Many books have been written on the subject and the topic has been debated for decades if not centuries. My most favourite book on this topic is Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by Allan Pease and Barbara Pease, and it brings home the message like nothing else.

photo credit: DMahendra

We have evolved from when we used to live in caves where men were hunters and women were gatherers. All our life skills have developed from there. This does not cover any single aspect but the entirety with which we function. We were integrated into the animal kingdom and functioned as such. With the aid of modern science, we have evolved into the society we live in today. That does not however change our roots. And the roots are reflected in everything we do. From something simple to function in life like driving, navigation and shopping to social skills in ability to communicate and get on with one another! Then there is the desire to reproduce that drives our sex lives to the point of obsession in many cases. Are our skills that different from the hunter and gatherer skills displayed by the male and female lions? Do our mating rituals not mimic those of the peacocks and many other animals?

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

There are charachterstics that make us different and make us do different things. For example men generally are overconfident. Women on the other hand are less confident and tend to get on with the task. You have to ask yourself, how is it that men could go hunting if they did not have the confidence of winning. Bringing home the kill was then demonstrative of the need to feed the ego to maintain the confidence. In its time, it was a valuable asset but now it is considered a liability and an ego driven need to show masculinity. Women on the other hand had to protect the young ones and all their skills were targeted towards safe guarding the infants. Watch the lioness look after its cubs. The senses are on full alert and they are in tune with everything that goes on around them. To better protect and serve the needs of the cubs, the lionesses move in groups. Is that so different from the mothers who take their children to school today?

So really the question is not who is superior but more about the different roles we play. An experiment has yet to prove the superiority of one sex over the other in the gender war. But there is no doubt that our brains have evolved to cope with the pressures of generations and if you are a follower of the Darwin school of thought on evolution then this one definitely fits the bill.

Have you ever felt lost in life and in that moment of darkness and insecurity, found a sign that leads you to your answer.

We often say “life has a way of working itself out” or “when one door closes, another opens” and so on. Pointing therefore to a force that opens doors and suggests things along the way. If only we were quiet enough to listen.

photo credit: Bohman

A friend of mine recently offered me a business proposition in a hair salon. I was still thinking about it. Something did not sit well with me but I could not put a finger on it. In a train journey, I struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger who happened to talk about business in hair salons. The conversation and the details are not relevant. But the randomness of this conversation in the train is. Should I call this coincidence or was it a hand of God.

The poem “Footsteps in the sand” jumps to mind. I think people life works in different ways. Sometimes it carries you in the darkest hour and sometimes it simply gives you a sign.

I think life does give us all signs and life give us all opportunities. We all get them. It is what we do with those opportunities that determines the course of our life. Will we remain unconscious beings or will we awaken to the force that guides us.