Freedom for All; Is it Possible?

 by: Jesse S. Somer

Freedom for all species and people, and freedom of stress; is it possible? Could the Internet be a tool to getting there?

Freedom, what is it? I am an Internet writer whose job is to write about the Internet. Does that mean I am locked into this one area? Am I allowed to write about other things? Well today I am going to test out my supposed freedom, by writing about freedom. Some people say freedom is a state of mind, but I don’t know. What if you are a refugee locked away in a mandatory detention center waiting years for governments to process bureaucratic rigmarole? What if you live in a democratic society where you have to sign and have documents for everything from dog licenses to foreign visas? Are we really free, and if we are, how free are we?

Life on Earth for the privileged nations has become quite a comfortable existence. Or has it? Materially we have more than we could have ever imagined, but spiritually, how are we doing? If we are honest, each one of us has to live with the knowledge that for every creature comfort we have, someone in the world is having a little bit less; and then there’s the effect we have on the environment. So how free can we be with all this on our collective consciousness? The fact that we have more stress, anxiety and youth suicide today than ever before is a testament to the fact that life isn’t necessarily wholly better than our previous generations.

So why think of freedom? Why think of the problems of the Earth if I don’t have the answers. Everybody wants to hear solutions, but not many people are giving them. I once heard a guy called Professor Peter Sellars say,

“I’m now proposing the new period is the ‘Culture of Focus’, you find something that needs to be done and you do it.”

Could this be our ticket to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual freedom? If we focus our intentions as a society in an altruistic fashion, maybe all our strict social doctrines and rules will become less apparent in our minds and thus in our reality. If we are all thriving on the fact that we are doing our little part to make the world a better place for all concerned, maybe we wouldn’t be so obsessed with some of the issues that seem to pervade our minds today: war, greed, economics, racial and religious differences; all these may just become focuses of our past perception of reality.

I’m not pedaling easy answers and I’m not giving many examples of how all this change will come about; and I’m definitely not saying it shall be an easy task, nothing worthwhile ever is. The fact is, humans are always evolving and changing and it is easy to see that we still have a way to go before we live in a sustainable, positive global community. These thoughts are on my mind and I’m sure as I’ve spoken to many others, that it’s on a lot of our minds.

O.K., my job is to write about the Internet so I guess in the end I’ll follow orders. I mean hey, these words could incite a few positive thoughts out there in our collective community across the globe. The Internet is a pretty cool tool for communication across present borders and boundaries of our constructed systems. Just think about how much information and knowledge is now available at your fingertips. You can find out about nearly anything imaginable. For instance, if you did want to research the question about whether you are free or not, it’s the perfect place to start your search. It actually could take a large part in the development of true freedom for all species. That’s all I am going to say about that. Maybe we are already free, but could we become freer? Think about it my brothers and sisters.

About The Author

Jesse S. Somer, M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

Jesse S. Somer is a human wondering when freedom will, if ever, reign supreme in our world and in our minds.

Source: High Quality Article Database – 365Articles.com

The Man In The Looking Glass

“When you get what you want in your struggle for self
and the world makes you king for a day
Then go to a mirror and look at yourself
and see what your face has to say
for it isn’t your father, or mother or wife
who judgement upon you must pass
the one who means most in your life everyday
is the face looking back from the glass
you may follow the whole world down the pathway
of life and get pats on your back as you pass
but your final reward will be heartache and tears
if you’ve cheated the man in the glass.”

Every successful person knows the vital role that their self- image,
or the picture they hold of themselves, plays in their success. This
snapshot is probably the most important single factor, which will
determine how successful you will be in life – it is your destiny.
I firmly believe that holding a poor self-image short-circuits a
person’s chances of success.

Your self-image is what you feel about yourself at the deepest
level. It is your truth – because you subconsciously believe it
about yourself. One’s self image (especially with sensitive
people) is a very fragile thing. It can be severely damaged by
the loss of job, separation, divorce, mental breakdown
or other trauma. Once broken it has to be slowly rebuilt,
brick by brick, which sometimes can take a number of years
before the person becomes their old self once again.

The people closest to you have a significant impact on ones
self-image. If they don’t believe in you, it makes it very hard
to move forward in your life.

How you see yourself personally and professionally also
determines the level of your own motivation. A positive
self-image means that your sub-conscious mind can be
controlled by eliminating negative thoughts and attitudes.
Your subconscious mind determines your ATTITUDE to events
and experiences. It is not what happens to you that is important –
it is HOW you react to events: The “90% – 10% rule”!

“I am upset not by events, but rather by the way I view them.”

Holding a good self image means seeing yourself as a unique and
significant person – one who has a meaningful part to play in the
world. You then add greater MEANING and PURPOSE to your life.

If you have a strong inner belief in yourself and your values, you
can change your behaviour subjectively by changing your
attitudes of mind or your inner beliefs. This is what is known
as “self talk”. For example:
You can turn a negative attitude about your weaknesses
to a positive one regarding your strengths. Don’t get bogged
down with circumstances. The ‘loser’ with a negative self image
often blames others for their adverse circumstances in life and
usually suffers from feelings of depression. This negative self image
then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as failure follows failure in
their life. So that a “cycle of despair” sets in. Very hard to break out!

On the other hand, the person with a good self image EXPECTS
to live up to their expectations and achieve success, which is what
usually happens. If you feel good about yourself, the brain sends
out positive messages to your body (as seen in one’s body language);
so that you can act confidently and give off positive “vibes”.
This in turn develops confidence, which makes you feel more
positive about “having a go” at something you would not normally
tackle.

A positive attitude (ie. spirit of optimism ) is absolutely
essential in the path towards success in whatever endeavour in
life you may choose.
We all know and envy those people who project an aura of
confidence and success. Don’t we?

Thus, self image is a vital self-management skill… and, like all skills,
it needs constant exercise to nourish, strengthen and grow:

“Water the flowers, instead of the weeds in your garden.”

How long has it been since we visited ourselves by looking closely
at ourselves?

The technical word for this is introspection (loved by those “psycho types”).

How Do You See Yourself Now?

1. What do you do well?

2. What do you like most about yourself?

3. What results/achievements are you most proud of?

Your self image can be an ‘invisible ceiling’. Don’t sell yourself short,
because everyone has the potential to do anything.
“If you can think it, you can do it.”
Aim high. If you train fleas to jump in a glass jar, even if you remove the jar,
they do not jump any higher (it’s a conditioned response).

Don’t be a flea! Say to yourself:

“I need to lift the lid of my unlimited potential.”

Lifting the Lid

Unlimited Potential

Self Image

Self imposed ceiling

Limited Potential

HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE FUTURE?

Write a short note to yourself on who you want to be and
what you want to achieve by the years 2003 and 2005
(perhaps even 2010, as the years fly by so fast, as we get older).
Utilise visual imagery (or mental pictures) and talk to yourself
in a quiet place. Stillness is the key.

Make a decision to change (if you want to) and where you want
to go in life. Involve yourself in clear specific goals.

Enough about goal-setting. That’s the subject of another article!

So work on your self image daily by affirming that you are
“unique and special” . A person with individual gifts and talents.
You DO have something totally unique to contribute to the world…
by “simply being YOU.”

Craig Lock

The Special Person You Were Meant to Be

If you can value truth above approval, and friendship over power,
wealth, or fame,
If you can share your gifts wisely, leaving someone better off than
when you came,
If you find happiness, simple pleasures, and see the rainbow,
not the falling rain ,
If you have faith to keep on believing in miracles that no one
can explain,
If you live every day to your potential and find the goal in everything
you see,
Then you’ll be, not just happy and successful, but the person only you
were meant to be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When you were a child, or maybe even when you were older, did you ever toss a pebble into the water and watch the ripples that emanated from the point where it broke the surface? Or watched the effect of raindrops falling on a body of water? I have done these things and have since found myself pondering on this process, and just how much it can be compared to our lives.

The pebble splashes in the water and affects the surface surrounding it. A circular ripple spreads outwards and in turn produces another and another and so on. Have you noticed also, that just how far this effect travels is dependant on the magnitude of the impact of that initial pebble? As you read this, take a moment to consider yourself as being that pebble.

You may make more of an impact on people’s lives than you think. When I say “people’s lives”, you can include your own. The impact you make in any territory, whether it be yours or that of others around you, helps to determine what I would describe here as: circles of destiny.

You may perhaps have seen a photograph portraying the ability of flash photography to capture movement and freeze it in time. I am thinking particularly about a photography that shows something being dropped into a pool of milk. That initial impact of the object being dropped causes a “crown” to form as the milk splashes upward with a ridge having milky “jewels” suspended above it. As that “ridge” falls back to the surface, the radiating circles begin to commence their motion. This is the more dominant radiating force, but in the meantime, the milky jewels also land back upon the surface with each of those giving birth to their radiating existence. Such results commence a dance with multiple circles of destiny.

Logically, before you were conceived in the womb, you had no effect on anyone or anything upon this earth. From the moment you were conceived however, your very existence began to cause an impact not just on other people, but on life and human development too as interaction, cause, and effect, began. During such early years, you of course, had little if any control on such interactions and reactions of those to your existence. You might have protested with the odd kick or two, but that was about your lot until you were born.

As the years passed and you grew to the point where you could readily communicate with those around you, your impact on society took a more earnest stride, but let us leap forward to another time…now.

How do you feel about the impact you have on the lives of others from day to day? Do you recognize that impact? Are you happy with the impact or effect you have on others? There are those amongst us who would like to be considered as more significant and yet others who would rather not be in the limelight and just quietly live out their lives. The odd thing is, that even by quietly living out your life behind the scenes as it were, you still have an impact on those who know or who are aware of you. There is no getting away from it – we are all at the centre of our own ripple effect. How much of an effect we have though, is dependent on two factors: force and resistance.

If I were to drop a “Water Boatman” insect on the surface of a pool, it would happily scoot around on the surface and not sink once! If I jumped onto the surface of the same pool, I would do very little scooting around unless it was on the bottom of the pool! My impact on the poor Water Boatman would be pretty severe!

At the point of impact, there is always resistance – a result of surface tension. It gives way dependent on the force exerted. How much impact you have on the life of another is dependent entirely on your approach i.e. how much weight you put behind it, how much insistence; how much determination.

People do not always want help. They do not always want to feel of the impact you may provide, no matter how good or well intended it might be. The trouble is that once you have launched yourself in this way, you cannot retract it. Like it or not an impact will occur, all that you can do is attempt to lessen it. So how do you go about lessening the impact you are making on someone’s life? There you are, already launched. How are you going to restrain the impact?

I recall watching a film a while ago, in which some overeager person hit a missile launch button. The missile was enroute to target when it was realized that it was a mistake! What’s the more, the self-destruct button failed to initialise the onboard sequence. They had two choices left open to them – evacuate or use another missile to destroy the first that was launched manually from an aircraft.

So what are your options if your “missile” has been launched and you want to avoid the impact or at least lessen it? They are as follows:

1.Send an auto-destruct sequence – can you say or do something that will stop the “missile” in its tracks and thus prevent any impact?

2.Manually destroy the “missile” -Can you say or do anything that will cause any previous situation to be totally dissipated or deflected out of harms way?

3.Lesson the impact – What can you say or do that although will not prevent the impact, so that it will cause the least amount of damage possible?

4.Evacuate the area of impact – Can you move the target so that although they are aware and damage may be done, lives are salvaged?

Personal impact is not all bad though. Notice how the ripple of impact in fluid (and even in some examples of solid impact), does not change the matter itself but simply the form the matter takes and the direction it takes. Ripples in liquid, form circular ridges flowing outward, in line with the strength of impact. In people’s lives, we often cause ripples that do not change the character themselves necessarily, but do affect their direction and strength. An important factor to understand here is that such affects may be for good or bad. We all need to offload our cares and trials from time to time, and when we do this, it makes us feel good. We feel so much lighter for doing so. Our problem or concerns may not be solved, but somehow we just feel better for doing so. It is good to have friends who can share our burdens. It is important though to remember that our friends too will have their own concerns. What’s more your problems will be a concern to them simply because they are your friends! Oh dear! Does this mean that we should not really be burdening our friends with issues in our lives? No not all. What it means is that we all need buffer zones. We, if you like, make ourselves targets for points of impact for each other.

Impact upon the lives of others exists as natural fact. How we deal with the impacts when they occur is softened by the simple task of listening to each other. Being the listening ear – providing the shoulder can sometimes be all that is required. You may not be a “professional” in dealing with the problems of others, but one thing you can be – one thing that really lessens the impact of less thinking people upon people you know – you can be their friend – their true friend. Your impact then really does change people’s lives. It changes them for the better. Go and be a friend, play a part in their “circles of destiny”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Time Is Everything

 by: Hifzur Rehman

Time is wealth;

Time is health;

Time is power;

Time is strength.

Time is the essence of life

Time is everything

But time is nothing,

without proper planning.

Its just the wastage of time

And God never forgive those who waste their time

All influential people,

All important people,

All successful people,

Have one thing in common

They all value their time.

For them,

Time is everything!

Do you value your time and the time of others?

About The Author

Hifzur Rehman is the editor of http://www.selfimprovement.ch This site offers everything for a successful living.

hrehman@selfimprovement.ch

Source: High Quality Article Database – 365Articles.com