Be in Life

In a coincidence, some radio host was talking about the book The Power of NOW one week ago, which sparked my interest to re-read the book. It's one of my favorite books in my bookshelf. Maybe the universe or divine(whatever words you want to call it) want to send some valuable information to me through this book, and it does.

I am amazed once again on the author's point about our mind.

"Question: Isn't thinking essential in order to survive in this world?

Answer: Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy." --Author Eckhart Tolle

I do agree. When I observe my own mind in a relax state, I am usually thinking stuffs either from the PAST or the FUTURE. For example, as I am sitting in my room and typing blog contents, my mind is wandering about the future: 'Am I going to do good on Wednesday for my work presentation? I should check my class schedule for tomorrow. Should I do the resume formatting next week?...' and so on. As I observed my mind, I resumed my self back to the NOW. Still need more practice for me to focus more on the NOW because everything is happening in the NOW moment. The PAST happened in the NOW moment. The FUTURE will happen in the NOW moment. The NOW moment is like a scanner line, scanning from the the past to the future. Once you focus on this thin but powerful line, your life will be enlightened

An interesting note here:
"According to a 2007 Gallup poll, workers' average round-trip commute is 46 minutes in a typical day. The poll also showed that the longer the commute, the more stressful the commute was to the worker." Happy by Ian K. Smith

My commute takes me about 30 minutes round trip, which is below average. This implies that I may have more time to spend with my family and doing things I enjoy after work. Sounds good to me

I started reading the book Happy by Ina K. Smith two weeks ago. I found an list of things that might make us happy:

1. Family, Friends, and social companionship
2. Helping others
3. Appreciating what you have and not feeling wistful about what you don't have
4. Making a difference in someone else's life
5. Pursuing a passion
6. Taking pride in one's work
7. Forgiving someone for an offense and moving on
8. Not trying to keep up with the joneses (which I searched the definition from the web, means: "referring to the comparison to one's neighbour as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods")

Over the last weekend, I experienced one of the happiness factor above(Family companionship). My cousin Ting came over from LA to visit me, and I showed her around SF and Sac. I learned that my cousin and I had a lot of similarities. We both like to read psychology and subconscious books, and we get along with each other very well even though the last time we met was 8 years ago

Anyways, back to the happiness topic, what's better than spending some time with your family, when laughing together at the dinner tables and talking about the past, present and the future. To me, I am very grateful I can spend the past weekend with my cousin (-:

I like Barry Schwartz's point on why too many choices are sometimes bad for you. You encounter this paradox when there are a lot of different jeans in store for you to choose, or there are thousands types of insurances for you to pick, and so on. You name it. Almost every second you are making decision on something. Below is a video by Barry Schwartz in TED conference. I would like to share with you.