Whether stress kills or not, the talk of stress is so dominant in our lives, at home and work… be it a professional, a homemaker, or a school going child, ‘stress’ seems to the most hated, but most spoken word…

The only way to change this is to use opposite thinking whenever the thought of stress occurs.. Try this: if someone says ‘stress’, what if a couple of people around chant ‘happy, happy, smiling, smiling…’

Society and the media, not necessarily in that order have made it a fancy of our times to highlight stress…. How many times have you come across a story of people who have lived life happily, contended with whatever they could make of this wonderful journey! There seem to be no takers, or it is that stress sells better in this world! And if that is so, then, are all of us collectively driving this habit…!!

Well, this is not to speak of semantics, but directed at pushing each of us to our limits and extremes of positivity, and consequent happiness….

If you can kill yourself silently, by latent and potent ‘stress’, isn’t it much better, worthy and life saving, if we do the Opposite –  live happily, stay joyful, and enjoy every moment of life….

Should not more and more of us should go around and say.. Hey, you know I am happy, and am happy for no reason… sounds silly? Nope…. As though, “Hey I am stressed for no reason” did not sound silly and outright stupid?!

Look around and we see anyone and everyone ask if there is a reason to be happy… Happiness is a natural form of existence and hence, it needs no reason to be in that state… If you can be upset, agitated and downright negative for no reason, then why don’t you apply the same rule and stay happy…

Be happy for no reason, Celebrate for no reason, and just enjoy life and every single moment of the journey!

So, when you are not feeling nice, and feel low for no reason and for any reason, think opposite… Force happiness on you, just by quickly and deliberately placing the opposite of what you feel, and with a little time and effort, you seem to be happy, joyful and in a productive state of mind!

Some research shows that most people who carried so much of stress when they went to bed after a long and hectic day at work, suffered palpitations, and even massive cardiac arrest only in the waking or early hours of the day… and just closely observe.. you would see that in a sedentary life, all of us, sorry, atleast most of us, feel grumpy and grouchy only in the beginning of the day….. left unattended, you nurture the same feeling and so, gone is another great day of life by worrying, not even knowing the reasons for it…

It is best to use the power of opposite thoughts in such a situation… kill the morning grumpy, grouchy face by going for a quick jog, listening to an inspirational audio tape, some indoor cycling, or just anything that rushes blood to your heart and mind…

Being negative and grumpy is indeed unnatural, and that is the reason they are life taking… Only happiness if life saving, and anything which is not happiness is against life itself… precious and potent life’s of you, me, and each one of us….

And not only in the morning, this can be done any time of the day… Just change the place where you are for a few minutes, take a stroll, listen to a few lines of great music on your iPod, just do something and get out that negative flow.

So, keep this a rule… when you are not happy, just push you to think opposite… Action is the antidote to worry and negativity.. and it can be any action, even silly…. Let things be silly, its ok, but its more important to Live than anything else….

Practice this for sometime, and see your moving to your natural state… being happy, staying positive, and consequently, produce more results…

and make the best our of Life…. and this journey….!

Commandment One:   Live by the power of gratitude

Gratitude is one of the best ways to live a complete life. Gratitude is by far the most powerful positive emotion that is filled with energy to negate all ill & negative feelings in us. Just take a conscious effort to focus on filling our mind and heart with gratitude – there is no end to what we can be grateful for – you can be grateful to God, to nature, to our parents, our loving kids, our siblings, to our boss, our co-workers, to a handful of people who touched upon our life today, everyday, and possibly even in this very minute.

Think of what and who you can be grateful for, everyday when you wake up in the morning, and you will see the quality of the day improve. It is such a huge contrast to waking up grudgingly for some mean reason, or even no reason.

A thanksgiving state of mind gives you a rush of adrenalin for your mind and body! Make sure you practice conscious gratitude from now!, and you will have the most powerful fuel that will propel your life-rocket to happiness and success!

Commandment Two: Avidly visualize what you want from Life.

Imaging is the most powerful tool in creating a life of your choice. It has worked wonders to all those who have attained unparalleled success and happiness in any vocation they chose to be in! Imaging anything you chose to have and wish to be, and no sooner will you see your vision turning into reality! Sustained visualization gets etched in the subconscious after a certain period of time, and after that the power of the subconscious takes over the actual process of creation of reality as imaged.

Practice dynamic visualization – Imagine what you seek in all the color, shade, be in that situation which is the final outcome – be in the midst of your happy family, in that great getaway, in that CEO job – make the image as dynamic, interactive and colorful, and as real as it can get in your mind.  After time, you will see the same in absolute reality and even the colors and shades you created in mind will come to existence.

Combine imaging with gratitude well in advance – gratitude to the cosmic universe to giving all that your want – and you are in the pathway to a great, happy, and successful life – all of which as exactly as you wanted!

Commandment Three: Have you mission statement written.

It is a misplaced notion that only organizations and corporations of the world need to have mission statements written. Individuals – you and me – must write down mission statements for our life, and these statements must be the raison d etre of Life.

Writing down such a statement is not something that is done in a huff. A considerable amount of thought must go into the exercise, and the statement shall clearly articulate the prime intents of what we expect in the journey of life.

There is no age barrier for this – if you are twenty or fifty, such a mission statement brings in a huge sense of direction to what we do. It brings in a sense of purpose, and also makes us set goals towards achieving what is stated in the mission statement.

The mission statement is also dynamic, and can be worked on, after time frames – it can be modified with the times, as long as the core message is in tact – for example, if ‘providing everything for a happy family’ is the mission, the broader statement can encompass anything that serves this mission. The mission can be anything to do with various facets of life – personal, family, money, growing up children, running a business – anything that touches life, and living.

Commandment Four: Link your mission to Goals in Life

Goals are very important to keep life filled with positive action. Like the flowing water in the stream is fresh, the blood of life is fresh when you keep moving towards goals you set for yourself. And these goals are so potent when they are linked to the mission of our life.

Life is fun only when there are goals to it! Living without goals, is just vegetable existence, and it leads to boredom which takes the verve and fun out of life. Goals can be either qualitative or quantitative. And it is good to have a mix of qualitative and quantitative goals. Being happy and Staying positive is, for example qualitative, and reaching a professional position, earning x amount of money, is quantitative as well.

When there are written goals in place – be it personal, professional, monetary, family or whatever – we tend to work around those goals, which bring in so much of direction and power to our life.  It is important to have goals for all areas of life, and not just one part of life – that leads to imbalance, and creates pressure on only a few areas.

Life is all about being well-balanced, aimed at being happy, contended, and achieving a few things which we need to; goals facilitate that.

The happiest, contended and successful people are those who have written goals, and worked to make the goals come to reality.

A combination of having a purposeful mission, with goals, and avid imagination makes life so much purposeful and positive.

Commandment Five: Manage YOU well, and manage time well.

It is oft-stated: All of us have the same amount of time in disposal. Yet, we all keep blaming ‘not having enough time’ to do things that are most important. In reality, there is nothing like managing time – what we need to manage is ourselves, and the activity we do.

If we decide to do what is most important in getting to our goals and being happy, and staying positive all the time, the seemingly humongous task to managing the time-monster is so easy… Focus on accomplishment and not activity. Cut off all the time wasters from your schedule – needless talk, bickering, mindless TV watching, useless internet activity – just do a little analysis on how you spend time, and you will see so much time spent on ‘time-eaters’ in your life.

Packing the schedule full of work and no fun is no better self management.  To repeat, the goal of life is to be happy, joyful, and not to carry stress and sorrow to the grave. Sprinkle your schedule with a mix of work, fun, family time, social time- built around the broad goals of life.

Once this is done, managing YOU gets better, and managing time falls in place.

Commandment Six: Never spend a moment worrying.

It has been seen that the biggest time waster and the single most deterrent to a happy life is the worry habit – worrying about this thing or that thing, big or small, important or trivia, and sometimes even being worried about nothing at all..! So much time and energy is expended in this habit, knowing well that it is sheer waste of time and energy, and moreover, something that saps the positivity in each of us.

The easiest thing to kill this worry habit is action… when you start wasting even a minute worrying as a habit, just change the pattern and do something… Contrast the worry pattern by a loud laugh, a kick on the wall, a hit on the punch bag, or just something that sets you in motion.

Just resolve that you will never ever waste time by worrying. This is one of the most definitive things you can do to live a happy and successful life. And not just that – your family, friends, co-workers – anyone who is in your circle of influence and concern will feel joy and happiness radiating out of you.

Follow these 6 commandments, and you will see the difference in the quality of your life… now and always.

This is not so much for the lack on any action, but more owing to the lack of an inner desire…. A purposeful direction, led from deep in the heart, and a self inquiry into what-is-it-we-want-to-do to be “happy, satisfied, and contended”.

Owing to societal and peer pressures, most of our lives are in a sense spent in doing the motions – being on the run to climb that corporate ladder, make that so much more money, to buy that fabulous villa, to buy that expensive sedan and what not….but with very little realization that the lack of an inner sense of purpose and direction as to what we need REALLY do.

A lack of purpose and not being driven from the heart is the primary cause for the now infamous word ‘stress’…..  And the extent to which stress has occupied our mind spaces all over are mind boggling.. all over the place, day in and day out you read about stress, see stress, hear stress… and in the process imagine more stress than that actually could be in you! And what is obnoxious is the new trend that has set in – adolescent stress, stress in youngsters and kids alike… Looks like we are consciously increasing the usage of the word, by debating again and again on the cause-effect; we should, and must alleviate the usage of the word, and its cause.

Mapping our goals, and building them into our individual development plans, working to achieve them, is one way that we could build a culture of alleviating stress.  At the outset, this may seem to be making a loud prophesy, but the fact remains that creating and individual development plan at each stage of life, only fosters a positive mindset, and creates focus that is unruffled by what happens around in the external environment.

Each one of us should work on our own Individual Development plan, that clearly articulates what changes we need to seek and make in us, be in behavioral, the kind of work we do, the kind of social impact we make, the kind of growth we intend to see year on year in our career, family and life. The link this has to bust and alleviate stress is THIS – to articulate and write down clearly a plan of this kind, will take a lot of thinking and re-thinking on what we ought to do, and ought not to do. It also will naturally bring out ways of honing our innate capabilities, as the more you want to do and achieve, you also would see what the heart leads to.

Hitches in making plans for our self can be overcome by candid discussions with a confidante we would have – this could be a spouse, a teacher, a colleague, or anyone who will know some of what we are, and at times, we would need to understand our strengths from others too!

Such a well written IDP will build in it and qualify/quantity all milestones, work-in-progress, with timelines, and even state the tangible/intangible contributions we ought to make at home, to spouse and kids, at the workplace, to the organization and to the society at large.

While the broad plan will be sacrosanct for us personally, reviews would help us make the relevant and needy course correction.  The plan should also be robust, dynamic, and potent that it will essentially serve as a tool to bring out the best in each one of us.

Following such a course of action will primarily ensure that we are left un-hassled by the rush of everyday life, and an urge to follow our own plan will make us immune from a whole lot of external environment issues and how we react to situations. For any external stimuli, good or otherwise, the response will be centered on how we are governed by the plan we have.

For ourselves apart, we should also foster the culture of having IDP’s amongst family, colleagues and anyone who is in our scheme of life.

So, are you ready with your individual development plan?!

All spiritual and religious traditions, as well as the best secular value systems, teach us that life is precious. These traditions do not distinguish between individual human beings, assigning more or less value depending on race, monetary worth or any other criteria.

Yet, so often as a counsellor, I have met people who value their own lives less than those of others. I had a young client who literally couldn’t bear to hurt a bug – her mother told me of how she saved a beetle from being accidentally squashed and how they weren’t allowed to kill ants in their home. Yet this same girl often cut herself, mostly on her arms, with a blade.

I am not suggesting, of course, that low self-worth is an unexplainable phenomenon. During counselling, we uncovered certain incidents in my client’s childhood that had a very direct bearing on her lack of self-worth. Even so, is not surprising that she was so mindful of a beetle’s life and cared so little for her own well-being?

Another woman, a devoted and fiercely protective mother of two, tried to kill herself when she discovered her husband was cheating on her. Why would she put his fidelity (or lack of it) above her own life? Fortunately, she survived the attempt, got counselling and has not looked back since. Her love for her children has helped her to move on – and, I hope, also a newly-discovered love of herself.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. This assumes that we already love ourselves. That part – loving oneself – does not need an explanation. Or so one would think.

The Bhagavad Gita, which encapsulates India’s Vedic wisdom, teaches us that our innermost core, and our Highest Self, is atma, or soul, which is an aspect of God. In the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, when you fold your hands and bow to another, you are saluting that innermost Self: the Buddha within, the atma, the spark of divine fire at their centre. In return, they fold their hands in deference to the divinity within you.

All our lives are precious. In the overall scheme of things, your life is no more – and no less – precious than any other.

But to you, it should be more precious because it is a personal gift to you, for which you alone are responsible.

Whatever our beliefs regarding creation, we all know we did not create ourselves. This life, therefore, has been given to us – as a gift. Do you treat this gift of life with the love, respect, and responsibility, it deserves? Do you appreciate, do you treasure, the most precious gift that you can possibly receive on this Earth?

The dream is to find the magical fountain that will give back those days without cutting out the adult fun. The spoil sports are the other adults. Why does it have to be that whenever people get together, the social dynamics can get complicated?

And some do seem to find this fountain so it is worthwhile looking for it.

All of us have been in love. Remember those moments when the traffic always moved smoothly, spring was perennially n the air, the meal was always perfect and the object of our love was not only perfection incarnate but gave us all the cuddles and caress we could take? There was promise of joy and happiness in the air. More to the point in this state we are saying “YES” all the time. So it proves that this state is possible but then as we know life happens.

There is this little devil of selfishness & self-centeredness that acts as spoil-sport. Giving to be a joy has to be a two way effort. The world in the state it is, cannot take too much giving without wondering what the heck it is all about. Whatever the Christian Love theory may say, giving the other cheek does not work out very pragmatic in the end. Life is what we make of it. Well then, what is the pragmatic way?

I would say that we take cognizance that we have influence in a given small crowd; let us worry about this crowd. Let us also not forget that The Universe or The Lord if you refer to call HIM, put us here and we are serving a purpose. The first rule we should exercise in our life is to act without “calculation & pre-meditation”. The second being: leave, absolutely leave, the rest of the world alone. Another rule that I have found by experience is to be honest with yourself and your neighbor. Say your piece whatever it is. If you can’t afford it say so. If you want something ask it. No hypocrisy.

If you are living for “Appearance’s sake” then you are digging a hole which will eventually become your grave. This requires a bit of intelligent analysis of the situation, which means also that to say yes properly we should learn to also say no. People are selfish just as we are and out to grab whatever they can and we should not promote this attitude for as I would say it corrodes the soul of the receiver and makes the giver miserable.

I really don’t think these lectures are required. Adults will never make good teachers; there is too much of their own personal agendas involved in their lecturing. It is the children who have the answers. See their attitudes and their approach to life; sincere, always trying and learning new tricks and sharing. There is “newness” in their personal atmospheres and I feel this is the secret to it all.

Emulating them will give us the Key to the joy we are looking for and the YES will get incorporated in our lives without trying; but I warn you, the rest of the world will think of you as immature and unreliable and often “coarse”, especially when you deny them something. But then you are here to say YES to your life and not theirs! Have courage!! The Universe is with you!!!