What I do?

I have been asked several times over the last few weeks about what I do. It is rather simple really. What I do is educate people in the health benefits of practicing gratitude and happiness.
For example, Your life exists at your point of focus. If you focus on illness, poverty, obstructions, problems, disease or financial issues then that is where your life is emergent.
This is true of all people in all places at all times. Having said that, I now need to continue with the mirror image. In the face of grinding poverty people can still have a joyous and fulfilling life. We often see smiles in refugee camps or small villages in India. Everywhere we look we will see people enduring the unendurable and proceeding through life with happiness and joy.
If you choose to focus on positive things, then that is where your life will emerge.
This is in no way a denial of the need to address the issues of life as they occur in our lives, but that we can condition and control our minds to see the positive aspects of all events.

There is an old Indian proverb about a boy and a wise man. The boy is given a horse for his fourteenth birthday, everyone is all excited and says what a wonderful thing this is, but the wise man’s answer is “We shall see.” One day while riding the boy is thrown from the horse and breaks his leg which does not heal well. Everybody says what a terrible thing this is that has happened to the boy, the wise man’s reply is, “we shall see.” Sometime later wa is declared in a distant land, all the young men in the village are conscripted and ride off to war. Only the young man with the damaged leg is left behind. Everyone gathers around him and says what a lucky young man he must be avoiding the war. The reply of the wise man is “…………….”

This proverb is a good demonstration of my point. It is very difficult if not impossible for us to know enough about future events and outcomes to judge what is good or bad. Hence all judgment of events is flawed and without integrity. The truth is that we choose how and when we respond to or what we think about events. Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi and Rosa Parks all simply acted with integrity as they saw it. All three changed the world. They could have believed that their beliefs could not make a difference. However they saw a different future to the one all others saw and they stood resolute in integrity with that future.

We can do the same. Perhaps not on as big a scale as these three , but we can choose health over illness, happiness over depression, joy over nihilism. We can choose to exist in a mindset of gratitude for the options and challenges that come our way. We can treat them as opportunities to express our highest self.

We can focus on being healthy and active, we can go and find an activity that we love and pursue it with joyful abandon. We can focus on being healthy and fit rather than focusing on our depression and weight. We can focus on the opportunity to make a difference to others. We can choose our own spirituality rather than what is wrong with the faiths of others. In short, we can be responsible for our own thoughts and cause for ourselves a life that expresses who we choose to be.

A friend once asked me why I get involved in all sorts of things that he considers brainwashing. He sees what I do as something weird and valueless. However while he works everyday and sees great value in showering everyday after work, he cannot see the value in washing off the accumulated depression and negativity that is so ubiquitous in our daily lives. He also cannot see that he lives depressed and miserable always focused on what is wrong with his job, family, government, country, world and religion. He spends most of his time moaning about opportunities missed because of someone else’s choices, but never sees the opportunities for a wonderful life that continually present themselves to him.

On the other hand I have a wonderful life, married to my girlfriend, doing what I love, sharing opportunities for a better lives with others and experiencing the profound privilege of watching new lives unfold for others.

I prefer the way of Ghandi. To live an exciting and joyful life full of opportunity and significance.
Come and join me.
Francis