“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”

MARCEL PAGNOL

I am sure there will be others who will resonate with my thinking. It is easy for our expectations and illusions to lead to disappointment, particularly in relationships. How many of us begin to fill in the gaps between what we think we know about those relationships and what we hope is true about them?

We tend to paint a picture that relationships are the things we hope them to be; then we apportion blame when they’re not. The irony is that no one ever claims to be all that we think they are.

I had many hurdles to climb growing up. I grew up in a dysfunctional world with very little support. I used to wish that my life was different and would often hope subconsciously that the way I was with others, they would be with me and when that didn’t happen, I became very disillusioned. I lived like that for many years.

It’s usually us that expect others to behave as we behave and when they don’t we become disillusioned.  Of course there is the train of thought that says we should do unto others as others do unto us, and that you get back what you hand out. I agree with that. If we treat someone with respect, they should treat us with the same respect back; if we treat someone with compassion, they should be the same way with us. It’s common decency.

I was always taught that we have to work at relationships and friendships. If the other person isn’t going to change and you cannot accept the relationship then sometimes choices have to be made. The less we come to expect, the less disappointed we will be; the more accepting we may be.

From my own experience, being disillusioned sets in when we expect support and we don’t get it. We can’t ask others to change, therefore it’s us that must become stronger so we either learn to cope, or just become more accepting of what is. Others may choose to walk away.

There is always the option of talking things out and telling family or friends how we feel, in the hope that they’ll listen and want to change.

I’m not sure many of us will choose to live with chaos in our lives if we could choose to live with calm instead. The problem most of us have is that achieving peace of mind is not so easy to achieve. It takes practice.

The definition of peace of mind is the absence of anxiety or mental stress. It’s conducive to emotional and physical well-being. It also gives us increased energy, improved memory and will help us adapt quicker in difficult situations. Peace of mind allows us to concentrate better; stay more focused; meditate better and brings about a deeper understanding of our life and the lives of other people. It also helps us become better individuals as we learn to be more patient and tolerant with others.

I believe that to achieve all of this mentally, we have to be prepared to change not only our lifestyle, but our mental attitude too. Over the years we tend to build a wall of unhappy feelings, resentment and anger towards others, that if left begins to eat into the core of our being as we struggle to deal with our lives.

Building a wall will add to how we already feel about ourselves; about friends and about family. Start by taking out as much negativity as you can. Learn to meditate; recite affirmations as often as you can. Down size on stress and stressful situations and put yourself first. Time out always helps.

I believe we have to think of ourselves and be at one with us, before we can be at one with anyone else. Only then will we have peace of mind.

“There are those people today who live the same life, day-in day-out predictable, risk-free, dreamless. They are the harshest critics of those who choose to break free from this mundane existence. In this world, too many people are afraid to pursue the life they truly desire, too afraid of being criticized by others, too afraid of failing, too afraid of not knowing the way. However, there are also those who choose to follow their dreams, those who choose to rebel; those who strive to be free, those who live. Stay true to yourself. Break free from the chains of society and live. May you too have the strength and courage to pursue your dreams.”

ROGER CHAO

As we live our lives we begin to find new things out about ourselves and of other people. We may also begin to understand the world a little bit more. We’ll take stock of some of our experiences, which will alter the way we see and do things. Other experiences we will choose to ignore.

My revelations help me see and deal with my life differently:

• Never apologise to yourself or anyone else for being you. Don’t feel you have to explain why you do things a certain way or why you dress a certain way. You don’t have to justify yourself to others. People need and should accept you just the way you are;

• Everyone may suffer at some point with a lack of confidence, which tends to interfere with our self-belief and how we see ourselves. Learn to perceive yourself and your life so that you become more confident about things. Work on your self-esteem so that you become more confident. Affirmations can help with that;

•  Life should be about making your OWN choices. Too many of us make choices based on what other people want for us without thinking about what we want for ourselves. It’s fine to accept other people’s advice, but the final decision has to be yours;

• As hard as it is, let go of our past and any indiscretions we’ve made. At the time we don’t usually see our indiscretions as indiscretions, so why would we look back and see them? Don’t feel bad and beat yourself up. I believe indiscretions make us stronger. Close that chapter of your life. Don’t let the past and your indiscretions interfere with any future choices you go on to make;

• Learn to love the simple things in life and stop looking over your shoulder, or making excuses for yourself for the way you are. Try to stop looking at what others have and what you’d like that they’ve got! Stop also trying to make up for what you didn’t have in your childhood by providing your own children with those things;

• Stop trying to live up to other people’s expectations of you. The minute we’re born we’re expected to achieve and behave a certain way. The pressure is on us until we learn to take the pressure off.

Finally, never let other people’s words make you feel a certain way. Dictate your own rules. If you learn to let go of everything you don’t want, you will learn to keep in what you do want. You are the master of your own destiny.

Unfortunately we have to face and conquer our anxiety or our anxiety will control us. Feeling uneasy about any situation leads to anxiety and our first reaction to that is to avoid the situation altogether.

We need to understand why we have anxiety so we can focus on those responses. That way we get to sort the problem out and/or achieve our goals instead of walking away from them. Apprehension and fear are usually the reason we walk away.

In my formative years my life was based on negative situations, which were constantly being reinforced. As a child my inability through fear to take control meant that I would constantly remove myself from situations where I needed to accomplish or take control. I was constantly reinforcing my negative actions, making excuses not to do anything. I talked myself into not doing things, so I didn’t have to experience the fear and anxiety in trying to accomplish them.

As an adult I take a different view. I believe that when we face the fear, however tough we feel that’s going to be, there’s always the possibility that things will work out. Situations will be resolved and goals should be achieved.  However painful it is to do, with experience it will always get easier.

Of course overcoming any form of fear or avoidance takes patience and practice. It’s never an overnight fix… but one thing is assured and it is my belief that the more you practice it, the easier it becomes.

“Maturity is the ability to stick with a job until it’s finished, the ability to do a job without being supervised… the ability to carry money without spending it and the ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.”

ABIGAIL VAN BUREN

I am sure there will be many of us out there just like me having to live and watch this same scenario. I have ever only wanted what is best for my father. At the age of 83 years of age dealing with Lymphoma there is no point in my mind to going through chemotherapy, to suffer all of its side effects just to live one more day.

I know life itself is a precious gift, but clutching to life in this way not only brings more stress to the patient, but to his/her family as well. My thoughts are based on common sense and doing the right thing, even if the right thing means letting go.

This has nothing to do with my spiritual beliefs. My spiritual beliefs not only help me understand life and illness distinctively, it also helps me separate and understand the way forward even if moving forward isn’t to save a life, but to spare suffering of one.

I believe that the chemotherapy route my father chose to take with some help has meant that his body is slowly shutting down.  He’s already dealing with the mandatory side effects and is struggling to stand or walk now. He’s taken the slow route to what will be the inevitable stage with anyone his age dealing with cancer… and it gets harder to watch as the days go by.

If my father was 20 years younger with the same diagnosis, his chance of survival would be very good.  Now as we watch him struggle to find a comforting place, I still believe this was the wrong route for him to go down.

He needs peace and in my mind this isn’t where he’ll find it.

That wasn’t going to happen. I needed those around me to work from the same page and that wasn’t happening either. It sounds ideal, we have a problem we all help sort the problem out. The reality is that life isn’t as easy as that… and some of us aren’t always able to do that.

For that split second I couldn’t focus let alone move forward with my thoughts. I just didn’t seem to be able to find the motivation to get going. I had a psychological wall build up in front of me. Things began to seem more daunting as the day wore on. I wanted to hibernate, hide away from things. I wanted my life to be different.

It’s amazing how the mind builds such powerful associations between places and how we feel in those places. Being happy and productive doesn’t change the way we feel, but being frustrated, unhappy and unproductive usually means we begin to associate those feelings with the place where we felt all those things. I didn’t want to be where I was.

I should have gone for a walk to clear my head, but I just couldn’t move. I began to talk my thoughts out; then I took some quiet time for myself reflecting on where I was. By the time evening came, the psychological wall was beginning to crumble.

I woke up this morning to very different feelings. I felt calm again.