Do you have hope for the future? If you don’t, you should! Hope is a crucial first step in building a better future. Make that hope realistic by believing in a positive future for yourself. Believe that good things are coming your way. Know that you deserve it. You really do. If you don’t believe that, then you have another step to work on – acceptance of your inherent worthiness.

Since you are wondrously made, isn’t it only natural to believe you deserve to live a satisfying and contented life? The universe is open to you! Just ask and, with the right thought patterns, you will receive.

Sounds simple, right? Well, yes and no. The key is “right thought patterns.” Those thought patterns mean being positive in all your thoughts, whether it be your self talk or your visualizations. Thinking positively can be difficult, especially if you’ve grown up with a lot of negativity surrounding you. In order to think positive, you will have to make a concerted effort to do so. It takes practice, as well as setting aside time each and every day to practice that underused “muscle.” Once you have mastered positive thinking, you will have hope for the future. And having hope will lead to bigger and better things: the manifestations of your dreams. Pretty soon you’ll be thinking: “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!”

Hope for the future. Build for the future, and believe in that future you so richly deserve! And get some good sunglasses while you’re at it. *wink*

Generation after generation of migrating birds will follow the same flyway to their destination. Each new flock of geese is guided by their elders on their first journey and after that, they always know their way. It’s fascinating to think about the great journeys that these birds take year after year, like clockwork.

I mention geese because I recently came across a beautiful movie that I had seen a while back. Fly Away Home is a 1996 film, directed by Carroll Ballard. It is about the young daughter of a widower (Jeff Daniels) who, with her father, leads a flock of Canada geese from Canada to a wildlife refuge in the US.

When the geese hatch the first living being they see is young Amy Alden (Anna Paquin). They believe that she is their mother and start following her around. As the geese grow and mature, it becomes obvious to Thomas (Jeff Daniels), Amy, and all their friends that the birds must migrate or the game warden will return to pinion their wings.

Her father, Thomas Alden, comes to the rescue. He devises a plan, to get the geese to follow Amy in an air craft, and so begins their great journey. Amy is not happy to lose her companions but she realizes it is for the best.

The movie is an absolute delight to watch. With spectacular visuals and stunning performances from the entire cast, it is no wonder that Fly Away Home was the most critically acclaimed movie of the year. There is a lot to love about this evocative family oriented film.

What I love most, is the message of the film. More than taking care of someone, sometimes the best thing you can do is teach them how to take care of themselves.

A few days ago, I heard the latest song by ‘Flipsyde’. The song is called ‘When it was Good’. Produced by ‘Red-One’, it’s a catchy tune. What really got my attention, wasn’t the foot taping, head bobbing beat; it was the lyrics belted out by new band member, Chantelle Paige. In the song while reminiscing about the good days of her relationship, she sings, “I wish it would, would be that good, when we were sitting on top of the world.” This line reminded me of the countless people who say the same thing.

We’ve all met those people, who have fallen on hard times and love to talk about the good old days. The guy who dropped out of college and now talks about how he would have been a superstar, if he’d stuck to his education. The woman whose business is suffering from the economic slowdown and say’s that she used to have it all; she used to be on top of the world. They talk about the things they used to do. How awesome everything used to be, but what are they doing now? Nothing. They seem to have accepted their fate. They think they’ve missed their chance and lost it all. I don’t agree.

There is always something you can do. If you think, a better education would get you a better life; find a way to go back to school. If your business has slowed down, expand your field, try a new strategy, and get creative. There is no point in reminiscing. All you get from reminiscing is nostalgia.

I think it’s always better to get proactive. It’s good to remember past accomplishments, but you cannot live in the past. Stop thinking, ‘When it was good’ and start saying, ‘let’s make it right.’

We all enter this world with nothing; innocent, untainted and naked. Then we start to live our lives and the innocence gets rubbed away. We go from stage to stage, always looking for something, a good college, a good job and a good companion. We look for approval, validation and most importantly, we are constantly looking, for meaning. We slog day in and day out, in the hope that we will leave a mark on the world, that when we are gone, we will leave behind a legacy. When our life cycle comes to an end, we leave this world with nothing. Naked as we came. Why is it that we are always looking for meaning in the external, in the after life, in a higher place?

They say our deeds make us immortal. The legends of the past will live forever because of the legacy they leave behind, but time erases all. Even the greatest and the mightiest are forgotten over time. A lot of things are done in their name, things I don’t think they would approve of. So, if you will be forgotten anyway, why do anything at all? Why live? We live because only living can give life, a meaning. There is no need to look for meaning in the after life. Do good things to feel good. Have fun to have fun. Be nice because it’s nice to be nice.

We come into this world and we leave this world with nothing. I believe that life can only have meaning in the ‘now’. So live each moment to the fullest. Your life will have meaning only if it means something to you. After all, when it comes down to it, we would be lucky to even end up as specks in the grand tapestry of time and even then, those specks would fade away as more time passes.

A 26-foot-long dying shark washed ashore Tuesday on a Long Island beach. I’m sure the first reaction to this news will be fear and worry. After all 26 feet packs a lot of bite; but there is no need to fear, the basking shark is not a threat to humans as it feeds on plankton. There is cause for worry though. The cause of death of this mighty beast is still unknown; but the lack of any obvious outer injuries to the fish, raises some very troubling questions. We cause so much destruction to the planet, even by simply carrying out day to day tasks, that we can no longer tell if something is our fault. It is very possible that authorities will discover, some kind of human interference is the cause of the shark’s death.

There was a time when we would pray to God for rain. After all a drought was an effect of the environment, we had no hand in it. Today we blame our governments for water shortage. We cause the droughts. We have even started cloud seeding and cloud farming. Though these are environmental issues they have a very profound effect on our society and hence on our businesses. We leave such large footprints on the environment these days that it would be disastrous for any business to not be environmentally conscious.

For all the harm we do to our environment there is a price to pay, If not by us then by our children. Every time there is no rainfall in India, the price of cotton worldwide goes up and clothes get more expensive. Today our environment affects our economy and our actions affect the environment. It is time each person thought of the consequences of his actions. Ask yourself ‘What have you done?’

They say that perception is reality. If you accept this to be true, then it stands to reason that by changing your perception, you can change your reality.

Most of the world around us is influenced by our perception. For example ‘Fear’ is born when we perceive something to be scary. The same thing could be an object that brings immense peace to someone else. For example a swimming pool is thought of as a ‘death trap’ by some people. On the other hand the same pool would be anything but a death trap for someone like Michael Phelps. The pool itself is not scary nor is it peaceful in nature. It is nothing more than a body of water; it is our perception of this very same body that makes it either a thing to be feared or to be reveled in.

It is nothing but an extension of this thinking that brings us to the new philosophy of ‘manifesting’. Manifesting is the art of creating what you want at the time that you want it. One of the techniques of doing this is ‘visualization’. This entails visualizing what you want and then actively making it happen. For instance, if you are having trouble riding a horse, visualize yourself on the horse riding well; following all the instructions you were given. Visualize it so clearly that you believe it is actually happening. The next time you get on a horse you should have no trouble riding your steed. So the next time you want something try ‘manifesting’ it into your reality. By telling the universe what you want, visualizing it happening and perceiving it to be true. You can bring into reality anything you want.