Don’t make a mistake of not learning from a mistake

Ever seen a baby learn to walk without falling down?

No!

You never will see either.

Mistakes are part of a process called SUCCESS.
Almost every mistake is a gift if you learn from it.

Forgiving others is the best attitude to take

A kindergarten teacher decided to let her class play a game. The teacher told each child in the class to bring along a plastic bag containing a few potatoes. Each potato will be given a name of a person that the child hates, so the number of potatoes that a child will put in his/her plastic bag will depend on the number of people he/she hates.

So when the day came, every child brought some potatoes with the name of the people he/she hated. Some had 2 potatoes; some 3 while some up to 5 potatoes.

The teacher then told the children to carry with them the potatoes in the plastic bag wherever they go (even to the toilet) for one week. Days after days passed by, and the children started to complain due to the unpleasant smell let out by the rotten potatoes. Besides, those having 5 potatoes also had to carry heavier bags. After one week, the children were relieved because the game had finally ended.

The teacher asked: "How did you feel while carrying the potatoes with you for one week?" The children let out their frustrations and started complaining of the trouble that they had to go through having to carry the heavy and smelly potatoes wherever they go.

Then the teacher told them the hidden meaning behind the game. The teacher said: "This is exactly the situation when you carry your hatred for somebody inside your heart. The stench of hatred will contaminate your heart and you will carry it with you wherever you go. If you cannot tolerate the smell of rotten potatoes for just one week, can you imagine what is it like to have the stench of hatred in your heart for your lifetime???"

Throw away any hatred for anyone from your heart. Forgiving others is the best attitude to take!

Reason we are tempted to put others downReason we are tempted to put others down

You have chances to point out to someone their mistakes, things they could or should have done differently, ways they can improve. You have chances to “correct” people, privately as well as in front of others.

However, most of the time, the reason we are tempted to put others down, correct them, or show them how we’re right and they’re wrong is that our ego mistakenly believes that if we point out how someone else is wrong, we must be right, and therefore we will feel better.

Actually, however, if you pay attention to the way you feel after you put someone down, you’ll notice that you feel worse than before the put-down.

Avoid putting others down, correct them, or show them how you are right and how they are wrong. Do it only when it is absolutely necessary and when it is your duty as a parent, guardian or a friend to do so.

Fish Out of Water

Everyone in the material world is engaged in all kinds of political, philanthropic and humanitarian activities to make material life happy and prosperous, but this is not possible. One should understand that in the material world, however one may try to make adjustments, he cannot be happy. To cite an example, if you take a fish out of water, you can give it a very comfortable velvet bedstead, but still the fish cannot be happy; it will die. Because the fish is an animal of the water, it cannot be happy without water. Similarly, we are all spirit soul; unless we are in spiritual life or in the spiritual world, we cannot be happy. That is our position.

Everyone is trying for that spiritual realization. But we do not know. Therefore, we are trying to be happy here, in material conditions. We are becoming frustrated and confused. Therefore, we have to withdraw this understanding that we shall be very happy by making adjustments to this material world. Unless you take to Krishna consciousness, you cannot be happy. That is a fact. Therefore, we invite everyone to study and understand this great movement.

Try to put your problems on your back burner

Using you back burner means allowing your mind to solve a problem while you are busy doing something else.

The back burner of your mind works in the same way as the back burner of a stove. While on low heat, the cooking process mixes, blends, and simmers the ingredients into a tasty meal. The way you prepare a meal is to put various ingredients into the pot, mix them up, and leave them alone. Often the less you interfere, the better the result.

In much the same way, we can solve many of life’s problems (serious and otherwise) if we feed the back burner of our mind with a list of problems, facts, and variables, and possible solutions. Just as when we make soup or a sauce, the thoughts and ideas we feed the back burner of our mind must be left alone to simmer properly.

Whether you are struggling to solve a problem or can’t remember a person’s name, your back burner is always available to help you. It puts our quieter, softer, and sometimes most intelligent source of thinking to work for us on issues that we have no immediate answer for.

The back burner is not a prescription for denial or procrastination. In other words, while you do want to put your problems on your back burner, you don’t want to turn the burner off. Instead, you want to gently hold the problem in your mind without actively analyzing it. This simple technique will help you solve many problems and will greatly reduce the stress and effort in your life.

Learning to forgive

Kathy, a girl, became physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually ill by justifying her hatred towards her father. Her father reportedly abandoned the family - Kathy, her mother & six other children.  While at home, he physically abused everyone and they were all terrified of him. None of them knew when he would lose his temper and turn violent.

Kathy was affected by chronic state of anger which caused lots of imbalances in her own life more than anyone else's. She would lash out at those nearby with only the slightest provocation like her father. Her actions cost Kathy heavily, ending up with strained, unhappy relationships and changing job after job.

Hatred and bitterness percolated to her physical levels and she suffered from headaches, stomach problems and eventually developed arthritis. By her twenty-fifth birthday Kathy looked middle aged. She would re-live the miseries of her past each day and cry out that 'he was a terrible person'.

She knew she would be better off if only she could learn to forgive her father, but she just couldn't do it, nor did she wanted anyone else to forgive him.

Kathy started the process of forgiveness. Lead by her inner guidance and persistent effort, tried to soften her emotions and change her thought patterns. Slowly she came to understand how her father could have acted so violently, she began to feel pity for him, then compassion and then love.

A person can move forward with a renewed sense of peace when there is no longer the burden of withheld forgiveness. When Kathy learned to forgive her father, she began to forgive and love herself. Her life transformed into a better one and her physical problems cleared up.

Think of what you have than what you want

One of the most pervasive and destructive mental tendencies I’ve seen is that of focusing on what we want instead of what we have. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how much we have; we just keep expanding our list of desires, which guarantees we will remain dissatisfied. The mindset that says “I’ll be happy when this desire is fulfilled” is the same mindset that will repeat itself once that desire is met.

We want this or that. If we don’t get what we want we keep thinking about all that we don’t have -- and we remain dissatisfied. If we do get what we want, we simply recreate the same thinking in our new circumstances. So, despite getting what we want, we still remain unhappy. Happiness can’t be found when we are yearning for new desires.

Luckily, there is a way to be happy. It involves changing the emphasis of our thinking from what we want to what we have.
Each time you notice yourself falling into the “I wish life were different” trap, back off and start over. Take a breath and remember all that you have to be grateful for. When you focus not on what you want, but on what you have, you end up getting more of what you want anyway.

Make a note to yourself to start thinking more about what you have than what you want. If you do, your life will start appearing much better than before.

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita 2.70
A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires—that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still—can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.