Dont Be Busy

Don't be busy....Enjoy Life !!!

I saw a dear friend a few days ago. I stopped by to ask her how she was doing, how her family was. She looked up, voice lowered, and just whimpered: “I’m so busy… I am so busy… have so much going on.”

Almost immediately after, I ran into another friend and asked him how he was. Again, same tone, same response: “I’m just so busy… got so much to do.”

The tone was exacerbated, tired, even overwhelmed.

And it’s not just adults. When i moved to Europe (Rome Italy) about 3 years ago, we were thrilled to be moving to a city with a great school system. I found a diverse neighborhood, filled with families. Everything felt good, felt right.

After i settled in, I went to one of the friendly neighbors, asking if their daughter and our daughter could get together and play. The mother, a really lovely person, reached for her phone and pulled out the calendar function. She scrolled… and scrolled… and scrolled. She finally said: “She has a 45-minute opening two and half weeks from now. The rest of the time it’s gymnastics, piano, and voice lessons. She’s just…. so busy.”

Horribly destructive habits start early, really early.

How did we end up living like this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this to our children? When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?

Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy — just like us?

What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?

Somewhere i read, “The examined life is not worth living… for a human.” How are we supposed to live, to examine, to be, to become, to be fully human when we are so busy?

This disease of being “busy” (and let’s call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.

Since the 1950s, we have had so many new technological innovations that we thought (or were promised) would make our lives easier, faster, simpler. Yet, we have no more “free” or leisurely time today than we did decades ago.

For some of us, the “privileged” ones, the lines between work and home have become blurred. We are on our devices. All. The. Freaking. Time.

Smart phones and laptops mean that there is no division between the office and home. When the kids are in bed, we are back online.

One of my own daily struggles is the avalanche of email. I often refer to it as my jihad against email. I am constantly buried under hundreds and hundreds of emails, and I have absolutely no idea how to make it stop. I’ve tried different techniques: only responding in the evenings, not responding over weekends, asking people to schedule more face-to-face time. They keep on coming, in volumes that are unfathomable: personal emails, business emails, hybrid emails. And people expect a response — right now. I, too, it turns out… am so busy.

The reality looks very different for others. For many, working two jobs in low-paying sectors is the only way to keep the family afloat. Twenty percent of our children are living in poverty, and too many of our parents are working minimum wage jobs just to put a roof over their head and something resembling food on the table. We are so busy.

The old models, including that of a nuclear family with one parent working outside the home (if it ever existed), have passed away for most of us. We now have a majority of families being single families, or where both parents are working outside the home. It is not working.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is yourhaal?

What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, “How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?” When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.

I teach at a university where many students pride themselves on the “study hard, party hard” lifestyle. This might be a reflection of many of our lifestyles and our busy-ness — that even our means of relaxation is itself a reflection of that same world of overstimulation. Our relaxation often takes the form of action-filled (yet mindless) films, or violent and face-paced sports.

I don’t have any magical solutions. All I know is that we are losing the ability to live a truly human life.

We need a different relationship to work, to technology. We know what we want: a meaningful life, a sense of community, a balanced existence. It’s not just about “leaning in” or faster iPhones. We want to be truly human.

“It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.”

How exactly are we supposed to examine the dark corners of our soul when we are so busy? How are we supposed to live the examined life?

I am always a prisoner of hope, but I wonder if we are willing to have the structural conversation necessary about how to do that, how to live like that. Somehow we need a different model of organizing our lives, our societies, our families, our communities.

I want my kids to be dirty, messy, even bored — learning to become human. I want us to have a kind of existence where we can pause, look each other in the eye, touch one another, and inquire together: Here is how my heart is doing? I am taking the time to reflect on my own existence; I am in touch enough with my own heart and soul to know how I fare, and I know how to express the state of my heart.

How is the state of your heart today?

Let us insist on a type of human-to-human connection where when one of us responds by saying, “I am just so busy,” we can follow up by saying, “I know, love. We all are. But I want to know how your heart is doing.”

Be with Nature

Why we need Nature ...to a reality

Encounters with nearby nature help alleviate mental fatigue by relaxing and restoring the mind. Within built environments parks and green spaces are settings for cognitive respite, as they encourage social interaction and de-stressing through exercise or conversation, and provide calming settings. Having quality landscaping and vegetation in and around the places where people work and study is a good investment. Both visual access and being within green space helps to restore the mind’s ability to focus. This can improve job and school performance, and help alleviate mental stress and illness.

The myth......we all think

The experience of nature helps to restore the mind from the mental fatigue of work or studies, contributing to improved work performance and satisfaction.

Urban nature, when provided as parks and walkways and incorporated into building design, provides calming and inspiring environments and encourages learning, inquisitiveness, and alertness. Outdoor activities can help alleviate symptoms of Alzheimers, dementia, stress, and depression. Contact with nature helps children to develop cognitive, emotional, and behavioral connections to their nearby social and biophysical environments. Nature experiences are important for encouraging imagination and creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, and social relationships............but really does this true. (For me 110% just a story without base).

What I think ....what all we need

for me following few points really need to understand

1. Brain - The brain, complex and vulnerable, is the only organ that undergoes substantial maturation after birth. This process is shaped in part by response to stimuli in our surroundings (including both negative and positive conditions), and continues throughout our lives. Substantial research shows that natural scenes evoke positive emotions, facilitate cognitive functioning, and promote recovery from mental fatigue for people who are in good mental health. The experience of nature can also provide respite for those who experience short-term and chronic mental illness. The constant stimuli of city life can be mentally exhausting, and life in the city can actually dull our thinking. In navigating the outdoor environment, one must continually monitor traffic and pedestrian flow while constantly focusing on where one is going and the means to get there. Constant response to even such low-level stimuli cannot be maintained indefinitely. A few minutes in a crowded city setting can cause the brain to suffer memory loss and reduced self-control. Even brief glimpses of natural elements improve brain performance by providing a cognitive break from the complex demands of urban life. Our immediate environment can prompt both negative and positive subconscious effects. A glance at an object that even remotely resembles a snake, for instance, may initiate an instantaneous fear response. Similarly, the presence of plants subconsciously and beneficially impact how the brain responds even when we do not focus attention on such surroundings.

In today’s lifestyles and work, we must focus our attention on critical information or tasks. Maintaining that focus by screening out distractions overloads our capacity for conscious attention. Yet, exposure to settings that are visually interesting (having “high fascination”) have been found to aid directed attention recovery. Comparing memory retention in people viewing low versus high fascination scenes in built and natural environments, respectively, people viewing natural environments performed significantly better So, in the case of offices and schools, where one must focus on tasks, the addition of natural features could significantly improve attention and content retention rates.

2. Workspace - Office workers may spend entire days indoors, and many decorate their workspaces with plants or pictures of natural settings to compensate for lack of a window view. In one study, people in windowless workspaces introduced twice as many nature elements to their work area as those who had window views of natural areas.

Office workers report that plants make for more attractive, pleasant, and healthy work environments, but what impact do plants and nature views have on work performance? Studies show improved employee morale, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker efficiency result from such workplace enhancements. Having plants within view of workstations decreases both illness incidence, and the amount of self-reported sick leave. One study found that workers with workstation views that included green elements were more satisfied at work and had more patience, less frustration, increased enthusiasm for work, and fewer health problems. Not having nature views or indoor plants are associated with higher levels of tension and anxiety in office workers.

3. Children - In recent times, children have less opportunity to be outdoors, in terms of both time and space. Some schools provide nature experiences as part of a class, recess, or special activity, as they recognize the potentially significant affects on learning and mental health. Educational theory suggests that contact with nature facilitates children’s development of cognitive, emotional, and spiritual connections to social and biophysical environments around them. Ecological theory also suggests that contact with nature is important for children’s mental, emotional, and social health because imagination and creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, and social relationships are encouraged in outdoor activity, all of which improve the child’s mental health and function. Nature can provide both background and objects for play and learning. Among older children, exposure to nature encourages exploration and building activities, which can improve problem-solving abilities, ability to respond to changing contexts, as well as participation in group decision-making. Younger children often use outdoor settings having plants, stones, and sticks as props for imaginative play, which is key to social and cognitive development. One study of children’s play found that a cluster of shrubs was the most popular place to play on an elementary schoolyard because it could be transformed into many imaginary places: a house, spaceship, etc.

Now nature to your mental illness......

1.  Stress Relief - In addition to physiological symptoms, stress can lead to depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, exhaustion, and fatigue syndromes. Stress can occur at any time in life; however, such responses are especially prominent at later age due to physical, psychological, and social changes—for example, in response to chronic disease, disability, death of loved ones, or financial hardship. Stress can also negatively affect people’s perceptions of their well-being, including a poor perception of their own mental health. Physical activity has been linked to improvements in mental health and stress; many studies connect urban park use to decreased stress levels and improved moods. In one study, the longer participants stayed in a park, the less stress they exhibited. More than 100 studies have shown that relaxation and stress reduction are significant benefits associated with spending time in green areas.

2. Depression - Depression also occurs at any age and can be helped through improved social connections (to decrease the feeling of isolation) and exercise, both of which are promoted by having nearby green outdoor spaces. In one study, 71% of people found a reduction in depression after going on an outdoor walk versus a 45% reduction by those who went on an indoor walk. Another study investigated major depression disorder (MDD) and found that an exercise program can be just as effective as antidepressants in reducing depression among patients. The value of green spaces in encouraging exercise is relevant to treating depression symptoms.

DEPRESSION, CARRIER, COMPETITION, AND JOB HAS KILLED SO MANY DREAMS.......ITS JUST BECAUSE WE NEVER TRIED KNOWING NATURE HAS CONNECTION WITH LIFE.......prafulla.

Happy Relationship

Relationship....How to make it happily

Relationships like marriage, romance, live together or any of similar kinds can be sustained with a happy note if some of the secret rules are followed. Relationship is completely subjective and no clear cut rules can be executed on it, yet following certain guidelines may help proceeding happily in a relationship.

Many of these, so called, rules are based on the life experience of many happy couple and also the observation of people. When two people get into relationships, many of them wish for lasting relationships. But pathetically, a good number of them go apart after a while, in search of new partners. Let us see the secrets that constitute long lasting relationships or ever remaining relationships.

There is no relation perfect......its all perfect situation

No one can be considered in a perfect relationship, how happy the couple is, as happiness in a relationship is just the happiness of the situations created by the partners. No relationship, as a whole, is destined to be jovial and satisfying. There can be moments of happiness and moments of struggles.

The couple who learns the secrets of balancing both happiness and struggles wins the life and enjoys the best possible relationship and life. When in tension or issues, many people may think that they are fated to fall in to wrong relationship, and at the same time ignore the possible chances of making each moments in life happy by understanding the partner a bit more and adjusting a bit more.

Support ur partner.....in every situation

Never ever leave your partner unsupported. Whatever be the opinions and ideas, know that you are the only one he/she can lean for support. When both of you are alone, you can argue among yourself on points you disagree with the other one, but in public both of you have only one mind. Holding the hands, especially when he/she is sad or broken, is helpful to convey you care for the person. Once you have decided to live together, then no questions of separation may arise, even in the opinions.

Don't hide......express it

Another secret of happy relationship lies in being open and frank with the partner. Do not feel afraid to express you mind to the partner and never ever make him/her afraid of you to tell out the mind. When people communicate each other many of the issues can be melted down. An issue, how ignorable it is, when kept in mind for several days, can take forms of anger, frustration, dislike etc., and get expressed in the most undesirable manners. Let the communication between the partners be a frequent element and no one should hold the words when he/she really wants to talk.

Respect and care ......

You can just tell that you love your partner but can never express the love as it is. There is no emotion like love, but it comes as a package which includes, respect, care, share, dedication, forgiveness etc., express the emotions whenever possible to make the other person feel the intensity of your love. Do not be a miser in loving the partner and let your love be unconditional. It is rightly said that love is defined as respect and care. When the partner feels that you do not care for him/her or do not give him/her the due respect, the person may think of an alternative to you.

At the end what i feel......We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

Prafulla......

Different country, different color but still united ....this is what we developed to keep good relationship.