Are you tired? I' ll tell you a secret..

Years ago, I used to wake up in the morning really tired and during the day I didn't have any energy. My body was aching all the time and once a week I had to sleep 24 hours to be able to continue with me life again. Looking back I know the reasons why I felt this way.

Today I feel full of energy all the time. I wake up very easily, even I have dreams in my sleep, I am go to bed and I am not that tired. I sleep almost seven hours a day and and my whole day is full of activities. I have the same program as I have always had.

What has changed? I' ll tell you my small secrets...

1. I have a hobby.
2. Every day I do something for myself (whatever I enjoy) even if it is for 15 minutes.Time does not matter.
3. I see work as pleasure and as an opportunity to be creative.
4. I don't depend on what other people want for me or from me or even better for what I believe they want from me.
5. I have learnt to say no, depending on my priorities.
6.  I have gratitute, I have learnt to say thank you.
7. I don't think so much of what other people think of me.
8. I love people more than I used to.
9. I enjoy a cup of coffee with a friend.
10. I wear more colourful clothes.

That' s about it and I hope it is helpful...

Why get up when you have nothing to do

Whenever I get up early in the morning I feel better about myself. Why is that though? If I have nothing to do, why not sleep? I am going to analyse to you why it is important to wake up in a specific time every morning.

The human being has a body and the body has some needs that don't always agree with what the mind says. For example, the mind, which is our concious, says we need to get up to go to work. The body wants to eat, sleep and have sex. If we allow the body to do whatever it wants every time, then we have a boss. If we do what our mind says then the boss is our concious. Sometimes we postpone something that we need to do, because of our body's needs and then we feel quilty about it. Why? Because the body has won the battle with our mind. Our body is the lowest level a human being has.  Are we really free if we listen to it? It is like a small animal that needs more and more and is never satisfied. The more you satisfy the body the more it asks from you. Control your body's needs and you will get more confidence in who you are.

I have a dream...

Do you have a dream? Do you know where you want to be? How you want to be? There were times in my life that I felt depressed and nothing seemed to matter to me. The days passed in routine and I felt nothing inside. I didn't have the strength to wake up in the morning. I didn't have a reason to live.

This phase lasted almost a year.. till I remembered what I did when I was a kid. Every night before I went to bed, I prayed for what I wanted. At that time my prayers were more like "Please God, make him love me and ask me out", or "Please God, help me pass the exams". What does this prayer mean? It means you remind yourself your goal, what you want and what is this that will make you happy at the time. Every night you create a dream for yourself for the next day or more and this is clear in your head. The most important is that you make yourself think about the dream and not the problem. Imagine the difference if instead this, you are thinking "He doesn't love me", "I have exams". Which of the two ways will make you happier you think?

Dreams helps you be positive in life, set goals and many times magically achieve them. And then you say.... God helped me because I prayed. I would tell you, you helped yourself by thinking about your dream.

So, I started doing this again and my life changed. I started having faith in me and every day I could see more clearly that the problems can be solved because I believe so. Faith is a strong ally to a positive turn in our lives. If you have a dream, it means you believe..

Securiry or risk?

I am trying to find a job at a little shop as a saler. I am overqualified they said. I changed my CV, but again, my attitude doesn't help. I am too arrogant to make them believe I need a job. So... I haven't found one yet. I am pretty much close to giving up.. It is not easy to find a job in Greece but I didn't expect it to be that hard. You will be amazed if I tell you the salary of a full time job a friend of mine found. As a secretary she would get 350euros!! By law! Unbelievable! And if she has a rent of 200, what is this possible??

Anyway, my enthousiasm is diminishing... I need to learn to have more patience in what I want. If I don't have patience it means I don't want it as much as I say. Patience...when am I supposed to stop when I see that nothing happens and change my plans? And if something different from what I want comes along should I try it or should I stick to my initial plan? Distinction is the virtue I need to realize what I need to do.

It is like you are looking for the man or woman you have imagined, but you meet someone else in the meantime that doesn't quite meet your needs and it is a bit risky. The first choice brings security and the second choice is unknown where it will take you. Would you give this man/ woman a chance or  would you  stick to your dream????

Getting out of bad thoughts

How many times we feel down and after a while we feel up again.. Some external circumstances make us feel this way or the reason lies within us? Most of the time both happens simultaneously. In fact when something bad happens to us or a problem occurs this is a mirror of our inner self.

How do you get out of this bad feelings? I have tried some things and I would like to share it with you:

1. Listen to classical music
2. Write down how you feel.
3. Read a book that will make you think something else than yourself.
4. Watch a heroic movie such as the Lord of the Rings.
5. Talk to a friend.
6. Make a generous act. Make a present to someone or do something for somenone for no return.
7. Clean the floor of your house and at the same time imagine that you are sweeping away all of the bad thoughts.
8. Make a bath.
9. Take a walk and observe whatever surrounds you without thinking the problem.

Try any of these and you will see that the problem is not that big as it seems. This way, you calm down your inner self and you will be able to find a solution right for you.

Freedom

Hello my friends,

I found out that my biggest problem that doesn't let me be free is my obsession with order. Everyone has obsessions, mine is everything to be tidy always and at all times, which of course is impossible. This means I want order not only in my things in the house, in my life as well. You could say, this is good...but hear why it is not. When everything is not in order I feel depressed and stressed out! This means only a few times I am fine!

Don't you think order is a bit impossible to preserve when everything is moving and I am moving? This makes me think I dont really have the need of order, but the need of static situations, where nothing moves and nothing changes. When something is static I feel ok and secure. In other words I have a fear of change!

When you find out something about yourself three steps follow:
1. Observe yourserlf if this idea is true and where is it shown
2. Think about it
3. Realize and confirm
4. Change behaviour to improve your life

I am at phase 1.

Just wondering

Hello!
One of you has added me at google plus circles! Wow! I was wondering if anyone is reading what I am writing and if it is even interesting to any of you. I know I don't to this to be famous... haha! But it would be nice to know that someone somewhere has read it and has an opinion about what I am doing here..

Basically, in philosophy there is one common truth. It is called "right action". It means that you do things: you help people, you work, you bring somebody a glass of water, you try to be kind and nice to people and on and on, but all this... without waiting for a reward! Doing the right thing or whatever you think is right not for loving you but because you just are a good person or trying to be..

What do I mean? How many times do we make somebody's favor just to like us? How many times do we speak kindly to a person, maybe a boss (!), while all we want to do is scream. We do things to gain love or, for men... power (in any form).

If..for a while, we stopped expecting anything at all, we would be happier, and magically we would get more!! Weird eh? That's the way it goes... :)

Here is a quote from the book of Vivekananda in the book "Karma Yoga"..

Going out of my comfort zone

Remember that I said I have a small dream to work at a shop ? Maybe my karma is to continue having a business. No matter how much I try to escape what I am, opportunities come in my way to show me that maybe my dream is made of fear. In this specific event, fear of having the stress of owning a business and of course fear of the risk. Of course I prefer security.. This is what any normal person would want.

Being safe and in the zone of comfort is what most people want. I don't really know yet which of the two choices are taking me out of my comfort zone. Going out of my box will of course make my life more interesting, but it will also bring me troubles.

How to decide what is best for me? Ok, what excites me more... I know. It's hard though to make this desicion because what your heart wants is always a risk. This is where the excitement hides.

To cheat or not to cheat

Who says when you are married it is forbidden to have feelings for someone else? This friend of mine is married and happened to see her first love. This person transforms her to another person, a person from the past. She was wondering... Why would it be bad to kiss him just for this time and live an intense moment? It doesn't mean she will have a divorce to be with her husband neither she will continue to see this other guy. It will be only this moment. It would even renew her marriage if  the husband doesn't find out of course.

What is the right thing to do? What is right or wrong is very subjective. I dont't really know the answer to this. 

I could only say that there is a price for every desicion we make. So I am guessing that if she
shows temperance and stops before she makes any move further with this guy from the past, she will be rewarded from karma and have a better relationship with her husband. I see it as a test in her marriage to confirm her choices. The choices we make in our lives face obstacles that if we overcome we go closer to our goal. On the other hand if she makes this move, she would have to face some problems that would magically come up in her marriage (it could be a relationship, it does't matter). 

If you have any ideas let me know..

Quit or put up with it?

Let's say there is something that bothers you at work or in a relationship.. When is a good time to quit and thus you have won the battle?And how do you know you have done enough effort to make it work?

As I said before every difficulty we have in our lifes happens for us as a lesson. I am patient with this client for the past 2 years and every Friday that we meet, and I mean every Friday, he yells at me because I have done something that he has asked for and then he changed his mind. So, I said to myself, ok Alice, here you will learn how to control your anger every time he yells you will try to ccontrol yourself and be kind. In the beginning I used to get angry and didn't speak to him for days because of his behaviour. Later on, trying to control my emotions and doing my job I didn't react to his unreasonable demands and tried to do the best I can. He changed for a while, but not for long.

It is wise to know what you are learning from each situation and see it as a battle with yourself, but it is even wiser to distinguish which battle you have to take and which is useless. How do you know when to stop trying? When you feel you have done the best you could and you are only staying because of the fear of losing what you have.Try to think the reason you want to stay.. If the answer is I don't want to lose it, they leave. If the answer is I will find the way to make it work and it depends on me, then stay.. Take the risk to act though.

Help doesn't mean I do it instead of you

I love to help people believe in themselves and give them courage and strength to overcome any obstacles they have in their way. Two questions come to my mind though depending on my day. Does the person I want to help want to be helped? And, if it does what are the boundaries that I need to have concerning  the influence I have in the other person's life? How much am allowed to interfere if I know what is good for him/her? Do I really know what is good for him/her??

Every human has a karma and obstacles to overcome that are only made for him/her and he has to realize this opportunity to overcome the problem and come out of it stronger and with a little bit more knowledge about him. I believe the right thing to do would be to advice but accept that the challenge is not mine and the fight as well.

Magnifying Lens

Hello my invisible friends!
I got a ticket fee from the local police for parking the car. It is very usual in Greece to park anywhere you want. It is the nowadays philosophy "I dont care about others, I just care about myself and my job to be done, and the others have to understand". Even the ticket from the police is seen as a way for the police to make money and not as a way to establish an order to the society.

This culture has been built and enhanced in our minds and hearts as something natural. It has to change. And it has to change for the good of us all. Don';t we want to have a better world, a better society? This is why you will hear philosophers say, every change starts from ourselves. If everyone is doing it, it doesn't mean it is good for the society.

At Kant's philosophy there is a theory: How can someone distinguish good from bad actions? Just take your action and multiple it as if every one at the planet was doing it at the same time. How would the world be then? If the answer is better, then ok, go ahead and do it. If the answer is worse, maybe you are thinking only of yourself... again.

For example if you throw a gum on the street, you say, ok, it is one gum. Who could hurt? Imagine if everyone is doing it at the same time! The whole street would fill with gums! Disgusting? Think about it...

Is it less than me, or is it an opportunity?

Do you remember that I told you I would like to work at a little shop with clothes and accessories? I went to an interview today. It didn't go very well, because I was more than enthousiastic. I didn't have to be that much overwhelmed. He told me I am overqualified and he doesn't understand why would I work there, since I could be anywhere else. He sounded like my parents. And why does he care if I want to do something less than my qualifications? Who says is less after all?

Everything we do in our life we do it to learn abit more about ourselves. This is what philosophers do. I will explain what I mean. For example, this job will be a trial for my personality because: I will have a boss and will have to be nice and kind at all times, despite my emotions, I will have a specific time schedule I will have to follow and many more... Why these are a challenge to me? I run a business and have noone to judge me or tell me what to do. Can you see that this change is an opportunity to learn abit more about myself and my reactions?

One of the most important tasks a philosopher has to do every day is to control his/her personality, overcome the routine and grow his/ her virtues, by exercising on habits that are good for the people around him/her. 

If you cannot skip it, enjoy it

Today I had the obligation to be at a seminar that I didn't like, I didn't learn anything new and also didn't even like the person teaching it. I had two options: To complain all day about it and be negative or be as quiet as possible to let the others enjoy it and take advantage of this time to do other things I had to do online. Fortunately, I had my laptop with me and I could listen to the seminar and at the same time do my thing.

Every minute counts in our life and we cannot let it pass in boredom. We always need to find ways to give interest to whatever we do! When we do that, we don't get tired. Observe yourselves.... what do you do in a situation like this? If you tell me, patience... I would tell you that patience can be negative or positive. It is our job to turn the negative into a positive situation. What is positive? Something that makes you a better person, something that makes you overcome yourself...

xxx

Violin

When I listen the sound of a violin I feel butterflies in my stomach.. It's a feeling that I don't know how to explain..

Source: http://vimeo.com/52711779

Whatever makes you enthousiastic!

Platon, the Greek philosopher, says that the recipe for one's happiness is to love what they do for a living. Every man at an ideal society is doing the work that they are meant to do depending on the reason they have been born, for the good of the society, their virtues and their destiny. In simple words, they love what they do and they don' t do it for the money but because they feel that they are offering their services to others with love and generosity.

Basically this is kind of hard nowadays. If it is hard to find any job, it is even harder to find a job you love! But on the other hand if you are already looking for job why not try first to find the one that you love... First of all, you need to know what you want and be sure that this is your own dream and not somebody else's. Second, you need to make the dream as specific as possible and picture it with all the details (the power of thought will help you here) and third, you need to act on it.

This is how I feel these days. My family and friends know me as a business woman, someone with alot of degrees and skills that could easily have a job at a big company. But what if I just want a simple job as a saler in a little shop with clothes and accessories,  where I can talk to people and help them dress and express their own style? That would be beyond my parents' expectations.... and I mean it in a bad way.. This may never happen, but why do I get excited when I am thinking of it? I am so tired of own job?

Once I' ve heard a speech from a man giving advice to people how to live and this lady asked him what to do between two choices. His answer was " Whatever makes you enthousiastic!" No matter what the cost, this was the key answer to every dilemma the crowd had. If you are in front of a decision enthousiasm or the lack of enthousiasm will help you decide what is good for you! Always this kind of enthousiasm comes together with a little sting in the heart and bit of fear... Cause every time this happens, you have to leave something behind...