You can't change others

For years I kept trying to change some of the people in my circle only to get frustrated at the end. I thought they could use some of my wisdom that was derived from my years of experiences--being with the people of various races and backgrounds. My experiences have helped me change my views of the world drastically. I thought those people who I think are lacking integrity and empathy could learn some of the "mannerism" for their own wellbeing, I thought.


In my mission to 'change' others, I lost quite a few hours for a quite few years. I must have gotten older a few years in this mission of mine. I had frustrated me also to see someone doing the same old nuisance again and again. "


Finally, with the help of someone and the literatures I read, I think I got the answers now.

I've realised that we can't change others since everything people do come from within themselves--presumably from their mind, they themselves consciously have to seek for change. Nobody can change their mind for them!


I'm a Gemini. I love to share things--whatever I've, so I was offering my unsolicited advise to people. But I didn't know that people come to this world with their own past "sanskar" to live the life they had built in past life. They inner-ears can't hear me, or anyone else, in that matter. They will hear what they need to hear and will do exactly that!


My new found wisdom has released me from thinking about others and try changing them :-) 

The Have and have-not are not equal

My mother used to say “hune ra nhune lagdaina joda”. In English it translates to "the haves can’t compete with the have-nots".

I see that true in every field I look at. I see it in financial sector,  in knowledge, in looks, in experience, in skills, and so on.

Although these are natural phenomena and and existed always, realisation of this phenomena stunned me this afternoon after reading a few stories that were heart achingly terrible!

Dreams are explained!

I woke up from an incessant laugh in my dream this morning. I found a couple of my toes bended backward that pained me when I tried straightened up quickly. I was petrified.

It wasn’t that my toes pained me, it was the thought of me laughing in my dream that sent a cold chill in my spine!

My bended toes were not the problem, they slowly straightened up and I was fine after a few minutes. But the superstition I grew up with was my problem.

You see I grew up hearing we shouldn’t do a lot of things. I was told that our dreams are future messages, but these messages are presented backwardly to us. For example, if we see someone sad, that person’s good time is coming. If we see someone in a clean attractive outfit and looks happy, that person is going to get ill or his/her misfortune is coming.

Not showing our joy in the public was another thing we were well versed on. For instance, we were told that we shouldn’t show our emotions in the public. Being happy is sort of crime—not just in mine but many other cultures. 

Our societies expects us to keep the good news to ourselves and share our problems. Because they don’t want to jinx their good luck and attract bad one!

Despite the fact that happy people spread good vibration—happiness is contiguous—we continue preaching to hold our happiness within ourselves.

In a recent UC Davis study finds that happy adolescents commit less crime and take less drug. In another study Vivian Moussa writes for Odyssey (March 2018): 

 “People are accustomed to things not going a certain way, and quite frankly, our generation is full of complainers. We like to talk about every little thing that seems to be going wrong in our lives, and then when someone is actually happy with how their life is going, we suddenly don't know how to react.” 

In many culture we’re—especially  the girls—are taught to be modest and that may be for a good reason. But showing only the Sad faces and hiding Happy faces has created distrustful  society.

The Law of Cause and Effect

My car got hit by a taxi from the second-lane a few weeks ago. With God’s grace, nothing happen to me, but our car is totalled. Since I was making the left turn, I got the ticket of $172.50 which I paid without any.

Accidents happens. Nobody consciously wants to make an accident. It just happens, and I don’t know it has anything to do with the God/Goddess or  by the power of the Law of Attraction. Car accident happens every second of a day, if not in this town somewhere else. It’s not a big issue considering our fast-track mobile-world that we’re living today! Besides, our insurance paid us more money than our car was worth.

This accident made me ponder a few serious issues: If our car was irreparable, what or who saved my life? If I had died or seriously injured, what would have my husband do? What would have our children said to their dad? What would have others made out of the accident?

My husband was seriously thinking of retiring four years ago. With that thought, we sold our house, my husband took one year of sabbatical leave and we moved our residence to Ottawa, Ontario. But my husband decided to postpone his retirement for a few more years, and we returned to our old town after one year.

Accidents are bad. They’re risky of life, reputation and money. But this accident has taught us so many things. Our whole outlook in life has changed:

1) We walk more now and enjoy the fresh air—probably got healthier

2) We  don’t feel “pity” on those who doesn’t have a vehicle—we did before

3) We discovered the local shops and restaurant—appreciate our surrounding more

4) We now think vehicle is a luxury, not a must have thing—learned to appreciate vehicles

5) We learned that driving is a privilege, rather than a birth-right—learned to appreciate our luck

6) Learned to be less “cynical” to those who have expensive vehicle.

Our car was perfectly fine, but since we’ve to make frequent long-distance trips from home to work and vice versa, we thought of trading our car with a new more luxury one last year. Then, we noticed our colleagues were purchasing expensive cars and bragging about them. We didn’t like that, and we postponed our car purchase for two more years. 

Now, we’re forced to buy a car urgently since the winter is approaching very soon. Living in a country which gets cold half of the year, we can’t do without a car at our age. So, we looked and searched for a sturdy car that drives well and gives us a good gas millage with open-mind. The dilemma for us is that we’ve only 10 or 15 good driving years, and this is our opportunity to purchase a car we like. Financially also, we can afford an expensive car. So, what are we to do?

Purchasing an expensive car means violating our own philosophy. All these years we talked about people who paid a hefty sum for a car they couldn’t afford, just so they could “show-offs”. We gave examples of the business tycoons such as Zuckerberg and Buffet and said they drive 30 or 40 thousands car. We didn’t know that some people purchase expensive cars for “legitimate” reasons, also!

Every cause has an effect, and every effect has a cause.

Leadership is an art

For years I took "leadership" as a title that comes with certain skills and seniority. I thought it was a title to which junior employees report or listen to.

Leadership was nothing like that! Just because someone report to, or compelled to listen to, doesn't make the person a leader. No one suddenly becomes a leader once he/she reaches a certain status or pay grade. Leadership title doesn't come with an authority, control or seniority, either!

Leadership is an art of persuasion (Max DePree).   A true leader motivate people to do much more than they ever thought possible in pursuit of a greater good.

A true leader influences others to be the best. Leadership is about social influence and confidence, springing out of EQ (emotional quotient/intelligence) and IQ (emotional quotient/intelligence).

Ocean of emotion--Bob Proctor

The little kid inside of a grown man

My husband suddenly paused eating and didn’t make conversation with me this evening.  I noticed him looking lost. He seemed to be trying to find a way to say or do something. 

After observing him in that situation for a few minutes, I asked my husband what he was thinking about. He smiled, and told me:

 

“I’m trying to figure out how to avoid eating this awful food you’ve given to me without making you scold me back.”

 

My husband’s response made me laugh. I found his arguments so funny that I couldn’t stop laughing for at least ten minutes. 

 

For the first time in my entire life I saw the other side of my husband. I always thought he was strong, demanding, and got everything he wanted from me or anyone else. I never knew the little kid residing inside of him.

Culture and Character

Build your character not your personality. Character strong on at least one ethical ground, “ethical” such as “s/he doesn’t lie” or “we can count on her/his words” or “s/he can keep secrets,” are built into your character. These personal traits help others understand who you are and how they should treat you.

These traits are instilled in us by our family and also by our close circle of friends. These traits are later reinforced by the society in which we live. We carry these personal traits with us wherever we go. 

We also carry some outward character traits to which I call "personality traits". Traits such as giving, kind or politeness help us make our living because our societies like them.  Although, our societies are fooled time and time again by the people who carry these traits (the deceivers), the only way to find out who they are is to deal with them and learn for the future.

Personality traits and Character traits sound like a person’s identity, but they’re not!

I see Cultures the same way: There are phony cultures and there are real ones. How do we know which one is which?

All cultures started with the “paganism”. Paganism is the oldest non-categorized, non-politicized and none manipulated religion in the world. This is the original  and most authentic religion in my opinion!

Pagan religion is based mainly on nature. Followers of paganism focus on nature and spirituality, not so much dogma and doctrines. 

Most literatures define paganism as “not one of the main religions,” because they only recognize events from the medieval period. But the human history didn’t start from the medieval period. Even with the “black hole” period, a lot had happen on the earth and some of them were recorded. Unfortunately, these records located outside of the Western world. Because of that the western literates rather ignore them!

Since religion is one of the major issues of cultural equation, I want to  establish a simple definition of religion before moving into what I want to say about a real culture and a phony ones. 

Most of the visual cultures posted on the FB are based on the phony religion which are based on certain gods/goddesses. These cultures are based on a lot of dogmas and doctrines.

But think about those personal traits for a minute. Do you like if somebody says something and does something else? Do you feel like going back to the person who deceives you not once but two or three times?

Similarly, why do my immigrant friends living with the “failed-culture” that you thought was not good for you? 

You left your birth country to start a brand new life in a “just” society where you and your family would make a better life. But if you build a society just like the one you left behind, what mission have you accomplished?

I termed failed culture because you youself have talked so much against your birth-country. You’ve said the people there being dishonest, family-values being broken up, politicians taking part in crimes and corruptions… 

Hypocrite maybe too strong word to call you, but how do I describe you if you've two standards: One for you and another for others to follow?