Happy April Fools' Day!!!

I’d say that the fools of this world must have done a thing or two right in order to deserve a special day to commemorate their foolishness. J J. . . No, I am really serious about this because how is it that there is April Fools’ Day and not Wiseman/Smart-ass Day. Only one answer comes to mind; may be, . . . just may be,  these people we term “fools” may in fact be the smarter people of the world who simply choose to play the role of “the fool” for the betterment of all.  If I were to go by the definition of a “fool” as it is in the dictionary, these people cannot remotely be deserving of a special day universally set out for them; or would they?

This was my precise thoughts today as I was driving back from work and thinking how this month of March raced past me so fast and I am staring April 1, 2011 in the face in the next couple of hours! I tried to dig up a dignifying definition of “a fool” from the dictionary but did not find any definition that was dignifying so I give up :-(.

In the context of love, relationships and life generally, I think the so called “fools” fare better than any other category of people that I know.  I remember my Dad always saying that for every successful relationship, there is in it, in fact, someone who acts/plays “the fool”.  Why is that the case I remembered asking my Dad, and his reply; “because acting the fool means overlooking a lot; being quick to forgive your partner, and most importantly, looking to the future instead of looking to past mistakes”. Most importantly,  he said that these so-called “fools in love” always seem very content and happy in their relationships. on the other hand, playing “smart” in a relationship on the other hand would entail using the past as a sure predictor of the future which translates to the fact that one major mistake on your part will effectively seal your destiny if you happen to be in a relationship with these so-called “smart people” since they will never let go of your past mistakes. We know that a fixation with past mistakes of your partner is a sure recipe to the demise of any relationship.

OMG . . .; how profound is that! I totally agree with my Daddy!

As a young adult in my pre-marital days, I was always fascinated by people in loving relationships.  I was and still am a hopeful romantic:-) I would secretly seat back and watch them to see if I can figure out the party “playing the fool” as I always thought they were really great people! It usually was difficult for me to figure out given that everyone appeared happy plus a few minutes or hours just isn’t enough timeJ!  These people purposefully played the role of “the fool” for the betterment of their relationship or may be for the love they had for their spouses and partners J.

Let’s fast-forward to the adult years when we are in actual relationships; either a marital relationship or simply dating someone we really care about.  A full commitment by both parties in the relationship to “playing the fool” will almost always guarantee the picture perfect relationship. Right?  Well . . .  the truth however as we know it is that it never quite happens like that.  L What if we really genuinely and deeply love the other person? Can we invest in the role of “playing the fool” for the sake of the love we have for the other party?

For me, “playing the fool” does not in fact make you the fool. It does make you ultimately the smarter one in the relationship because you choose to look forward and not backwards. You choose to be more forgiving, and to overlook a whole lot, and of course to complain less about everything that we see that is wrong with our partners. (Which of course can be millions of things) LOL!!!

In relationships, you’d always hear people generally say that a ship with two captains is always a doomed ship!  Personally I think that a ship can have two captains and sail perfectly fine provided these two captains agree on their ultimate destinations, (yes I say destination(s) because it is perfectly fine to sail to two totally different ports once the captains are in agreement); one of the captains choosing to play foolish for the sake of the journey (commitment), the passengers, and hopefully the captain!  (whom he or she still loves despite their obvious foolishness). J

Choosing to play the fool does not mean you become unhappy and begrudging about it. It is a conscious choice and must be embraced wholeheartedly since it comes from a higher place, a place of selflessness and love!

I do not, in any way, shape, or form advocate that a person stays in a relationship in which the other party is verbally, physically and emotionally abusive!  For me, abuse of any sort tips the scale and is a major deal-breaker unless the perpetrator is rehabilitated! What I do advocate however, is a situation where we are all willing to play “the fool” in our relationships in order to nurture that picture perfect and ultimately positive and loving relationship we all crave! When we return fire for fire in our relationships, we obviously create a fiery explosion and hope the fir-department comes soon enough to quell the damage. LOL;. . .J Playing the fool mean pouring water on a fiery situation, which almost always quenches the flames.

“Playing the fool” does not mean we are weak! It means that we are strong enough to appreciate the challenges in a relationship and smart enough to avoid destroying that which we have created and invested a lot in”! It is almost a divine role to play in any relationship!

Everyone that I know of desires a picture-perfect relationship! Few of these people are willing to assume the roles of “the fool” for the sake of their relationship! 

April Fools’ day is here guys!!!!  As we are pulling off the baddest April Fools’ jokes on our family and friends, Can we also commit to “playing more of the fool” in our relationships?  It is almost like being child-like! Children will forget that you disappointed them or hurt them a minute after the fact and will still love you nonetheless! Children rarely hold on to grudges.

Can we all commit to playing this role even if it is only for this month of April? It is therapeutic and can heal our relationships even if it appears really rocky at this time!  You are choosing something divine over something human!  Your partner will marvel at the new you! I think we can do it.

Have a Wonderful April Fools’ Day and a wonderful month as you assume your new role J wink . . .wink. . . wink. . .

Lovingly yours,

Ogor

Our Feelings are Everything;. . . What are you currently Feeling?

Happy first day of spring! Spring is such a wonderful season. Tis the season of re-birth and re-awakening of all things that appears dead or dormant! Everyone of us needs a re-awakening at some point in our lives. The thought of the first day of spring made me think about this topic!

If someone were to ask you now to describe your pervasive mood today, what would your answer be? Would you answer happy; stressed; anxious; sad; down; excited; tired; angry; grateful; joyful, ? Hopefully you are at a good place. If you happen not to be at a good “feeling mode”, today is just perfect to usher in the right feeling mode with springJ Lets do it!

Why is this so important? Because our “feeling mode” usually influences most of the experience, people and circumstance that we encounter during the course of our day. We’ve all had it at one time or another.  You just wake up from the farthest and wrongest side of your bed and watch your whole entire day go from worse to “WORST” a/k/a, “the day from hell”. Did you know that what you choose to feel at any given time charts the course of your day, your week, your month, your year, and eventually your life? As long as you let the “bad feeling mode” from your morning remain with you throughout the course of your day, you are definitely on the guest list for “the day from hell”. You and I know that it is the worst party to get an invite for!

Our thoughts are everything. It slowly evolves into our feelings. Feelings are very potent emotions. We vacillate and process millions of thoughts throughout the day at really rapid successions. Most of these thoughts end up not influencing our feelings at all. There are however some thoughts that we choose to pay attention to (because they bother us more or for whatever reason) that eventually evolves into our feelings and dictates our pervasive emotion. This is the critical point where we are called to Action!  I say “called to action” because at this point, it demands a conscious effort on our part. What thoughts amongst these millions of thoughts that we think throughout the course of our day should we allow to evolve into the “feeling mode”.  Sad, stressful, negative thoughts should not make that list. They are constantly the ones’ that try the hardest to evolve into the feeling mode. Resist, Resist, and Resist! Turn it back to a great feeling mode because you can and you need great experience and circumstances in your life!

Remember this, thoughts evolve into feelings; feelings are potent creatures that can grow wings and take flight; choose to create only productive and positive feelings that can only gather positive and productive experiences for your life.

I am always painstakingly sifting through my thoughts throughout the day and trying to make a conscious effort to stay on a great feeling mode and be happy even when the odds are stacked against me. (It is so funny because there are times that the odds are not only stacked against you, but has you pinned under it, (LOL!) and the worst thing to do is to allow it also to stomp you on the head through feeling hopeless and down).Think about this carefully,  . . . everyone of us has enormously stressful situations in our lives that bother us a lot. Most times, there is simply not a lot we can do to change it. Right? Why in the world should I stay stressed about a circumstance that i have no control over especially when I have done my part. In such situations, the best we can do is to remain optimistic and usher happy feelings into our “feeling mode”.  Fussing and stressing about it keeps us restricted to a negative place that will as usual, grow wings and take flight by ushering similarly situated events and experiences into our lives.

One of the most significant realization for me in embarking on this journey of finding peace, happiness and success is the realization that the people that are currently in our lives are usually mirror-images of what our feeling mode or frequency has been for a while. If we have people that are constantly whining, pessimistic, hyper-critical of others, negative, etc.; chances are that WE are the same way or slowly drifting to the same feeling mode and frequency. 

Let me share a somewhat funny experience that happened to me in the past week that epitomizes this topic. I wake up late and have to get 3 children and a toddler ready within half an hour; drop everyone off, and be in court that is 25 minutes away.  Pheww!!!! J Great! . . . I woke up screaming at how messed up my day is shaping up to be! I screamed at the older children for not listening to their alarm clock. (When mommy is in this mood, they know there is fire on the mountain, RUN!RUN!RUN!J.  I finally get to put everyone in the car only to realize one of the children is covered in mud because they decided to play for the 5minutes that it took me to get ready. (We had a crazy winter and the snow on the ground recently melted and exposed a substantial layer of mud that my child decided to bath himself with).

 Great!  . . .I come outside to the shock of the mud splatter and spent another 10 minutes cleaning him up while still screaming and lamenting on how hard this stupid day is shaping up for me! I finally dropped the kids off and made it to court (late) only to realize that my case was on the list for the next day (even my calendar had it right but I saw it wrong because of my “bad feeling mode”)! I left the courthouse even more upset at myself and the 25 minutes journey back to my office should have been spent turning my feeling mode around by listening to my inspirational songs CDs but NO, I am still mad at myself!

As I was driving to my office, I thought about the kids’ appointment with their dentist later on that day. I have to pick the kids up early from school for their dentist appointment at 1:15pm. I have to be in their school around 12:30pm. Still mad, I still managed to pick them up from school at 12:30pm. We were in the dentist’s office nice and early at 1:00pm. It took me at least 15 minutes to complete the usual long intakes for the children. I handed it over to the receptionist and then she said, “did you get our message”, “which message” I asked her, “we left you a message that we had to change the time to 3:15pm because the dentist had an emergency but will be back for the 3:15pm slot”. 

OOOOOOOOO;MMMMMMMMMMMMM;GGGGGGGGGGG! !! “What are you saying”, was what I heard myself mutter under my breath! Then and there, I did not need anyone to tell me that I needed to change my frequency for the day from a negative mode to a super duper positive mode! I am thinking how I wasted a perfect day! I pulled the kids from school and they are missing school and it’s too late to take them back because school will be over soon and did she say 3:15pm? I rescheduled the appointment with a huge smile on my face.  I noticed the receptionist staring at me unsure of what to make of the big smile!

Ok, I put the kids back in the car, and explained to them the events of the day and the lesson that I learnt as a result! They got it, thankfully! They reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, “you must be joyful and happy before joyful and happy things can happen to you”. Yeah, my babies needed to remind me of my quote! On our way home, we blasted our inspirational song CD which I should have blasted the minute I came out of my house this morning. I should have accepted the fact that I was late and that no one will die and that the world will still be there and be thankful for a day that I woke up healthy with my entire family and no one had any aches and pains. I should have just been grateful for a new day! I switched it around and we stayed up making home videos of everyone singing their favorite songs! I was feeling really happy and content by the time I put them to bed and hit the pillow myself! I woke up with a huge smile as i reminisced about the events of the previous day:-)

Here are my top must must dos’ to change from a bad feeling mode to a great feeling mode:


1.      When your negative thoughts want to influence your feeling mode, turn it around to a great frequency by thinking about something that you love or someone that you love! Follow it up with an action that puts you back on a positive frequency! Play a song you love or call a friend that you love!


2    Appreciate and be grateful for the blessing in your life especially when it looks like things are going really wrong. It could always be worse. Think about people in Japan, Libya, in hospitals, etc. Your pitiful and negative feeling pales in comparison to the lives of individuals in the afore-mentioned situations!


3.       Constantly check in with your feeling mode and ask yourself what you ‘re currently feeling. If you have drifted to the negative side, turn it around! You gain nothing by being there and everything by being on a positive frequency.


4.       Surround yourself with people on the happy and positive frequency. They will influence your feeling mode for the better.


5.       Give your possible best to every situation and infuse good positive thoughts to the “rest” that you have no control over. It almost always gives you a great outcome.

Now, are you ready to start off your day with a refreshing burst of “Great Feeling Mode” it keeps you and people around you happy and makes your day easier and fun! Constantly check in with your feeling mode/frequency during the course of the day! How are you doing? Take stock at the end of the day. Did you do well? Could you have done better? If your answer is a yes, then you should be getting to work NOW! Let’s all usher in a great feeling mode with Spring! 


Happy first day of spring!

Lovingly yours,

Ogor

Making sure you are “Banking Right”...

So, I am sure we are all wondering what “banking” has to do with the topics explored by this blog and yet the truth is that “banking right” has a huge impact on our lives; on a personal and on a business level. Maya Angelou put it succinctly when she said, "when we know better, we tend to do better". A lot of people that I have spoken to through the years are good people in the core of their beings and yet inadvertently are “banking wrong”. They usually recognize the natural law of action and reaction or cause and effect, yet they fail to understand the magnitude and implication of this law. Christianity and most religions believe that you can only reap that which you sow.  

For me “banking right” means that it is usually what you put into your bank account that you get out from your ATM card. It may, depending on the precise nature of this bank account come back with huge interests and dividends. This holds true in personal relationships as well as in business relationships. As long as we are breathing, we are constantly banking every second, of every minute, of every hour of our lives; through our thoughts, words and actions towards others. The most important question we should be constantly asking as these seconds and minutes tick by is whether we are banking “right” or “wrong”. Life constantly tosses at us random banking transactions and gives us the opportunity to “bank right” and yet, some of us persistently choose to “bank wrong”. The most profound thing about banking “right” or “wrong” is that the result in each case has far-reaching consequences given that we are all inter-connected. Our families and friends are affected by our banking choices and consequences of the choices for good or for bad. Now, isn’t that enough reason for us to “bank right”.

For me, the number one reason why we should be kind, loving and nice to each other is simply because it is the right thing to do. You enrich the life of another and they in turn are happy and wish you well. It does not end there; you have also just completed a “right banking transaction!” You have banked away in your character vault, a wholesome, kind, and good gesture. Listen to this, it gets even better, it adds to the strength of your overall character and also comes back to you (may be not right away) in form of people, events and circumstances that replicate that good deed!

Check out the reverse scenario, people who constantly stick it to others and simply refuse to show love or kindness to other people, end up seriously hurting others through their actions and are never quite able to find peace or tranquility in their own lives even when they experience the pathetic satisfaction of seeing another human hurt or humiliated by them. They deplete their already ravaged character and most importantly ended up with the most horrid bank transaction! Life being the ATM machine will replicate their actions and channel it right back at them through similar events, similar people and similar circumstances.  

If you understand this law of banking right, it will no longer seem like a coincidence that someone like Oprah Winfrey is blessed beyond her wildest imagination. We see her “banking right” most of the time.

So what should we do when someone sticks it to us so badly and hurts us so deeply that we are really left with no other alternative (at least, we tend to think that) but to meet them at their horrid banking level. I will share a really personal and somewhat still raw experience that I encountered recently. An individual whom I called a friend and whom I brought into my home took advantage of me in a business transaction. I might also add that people warned me against this individual and I did not listenL. I trusted this person enough to believe that this individual would be fair, open and honest given the history that we had and the wonderful experiences that we shared.  I was devastated when I got the exact opposite result from this relationship. I was taken advantage of to the extent that I am still paying the monetary price of that mistake. My first gut reaction ( and what many advised me to do) was to file a suit against this person and have this person disgraced and pay for all that I was put through. However, given that I knew about the concept of banking right and the profound benefits to it, I chose to forgive this individual and set me eyes on higher grounds. 


You know, we often times fail to appreciate and be grateful for our lives and tend to let simple glitches or hiccups we encounter distract us from what we should do on a daily basis – show gratitude for the immense blessings in our lives.  A lawsuit would be “banking wrong” as it will result in more bad blood and negativity. Even as the monetary cost of this mistake weighs down on me, I am at peace knowing that I chose the higher road and that even though I am seemingly the fool in this transaction, I banked right in this scenario. This individual had just banked away some really negative and hefty stuff and I cannot help but wonder what waits this individual at the ATM.

On a business level, the truth remains that it is the way that you treat your clients that is a huge determinant of how far your business will grow. If you take advantage of them, stiff them with unnecessarily high and hidden fees, or treat them poorly, you might experience a huge temporary success but then you quickly dwindle to nothingness. If Bernard Madoff understood this law of “banking right”, he would have thought better about his Ponzi scheme and would not be seating in jail on a 150 years sentence. If these billion dollar companies understand the law of “banking right” they would do right by their customers and not be charging incessant hidden and unnecessary fees. If politician and leaders of the world understand this law of “banking right” the economic and social map of the world will be a lot better.

We do not have to be multi-millionaires or uber rich to apply this law of “banking right”, we only need to do it at our little level of actual day to day encounters with strangers, customers, family and friends. Instead of always frowning, opt to smile a little more and meet people’s glances as you pass them with our usual quick, “Hello, Good Morning, how are you. . .”  People generally never expect a pleasant greeting. you know they are pleasantly surprised when you see how their faces light up. You have infected them with the right mood! Bravo! You have just successfully completed the right bank transaction! Instead of sticking it to the person who has constantly stuck it to us, let us opt to play the fool who ultimately banks right!

Life will constantly throw your way banking scenarios through your thoughts about others, your actions towards another, and your words to others.  Would you choose to bank it “right”?

Lovingly yours,

Ogor