What is the measure that allows people to willfully suggest “Wow! That’s Progress”! How do we calculestimmate progress within ourselves?

Does leniency toward ourselves help or hinder our progress? How can I best enable progress?

Firstly, consider success, not as total and complete success. no; but yes to little successes. Daily successes. Hourly successes. Now successes.

Progress is often seen as steps along a journey which, let’s face it; not so inspiring! Plodding! When we measure progress as little successes, enthusiasm and spontaneous actions could be expected spinoffs, further supporting our already  enthusiastic efforts.

Determination on its own can move mountains, but…enthusiasm with determination can joyfully move mountains. A large part of our life experience is the art of enjoyment and if our enjoyment factor goes up by realizing small successes along the way, then make those mental adjustments, cause that’s all they are . . . little mental things … (’if I can think it, it’s sorta so . . .’)

Therefore, our perception of our reality is just as valid as reality itself; in our own mind anyway.

JvP

On the path; waiting for the wind to blow.

If we imagine what it might be like to be constantly happy, most of us would envision it as ‘enjoying every moment to its fullest’ and ‘Having what you want’. Now, when we think about ‘enjoying each moment to its fullest’, even the happiest people have routines very similar to the ‘common’ peoples routines, each and every day. And everybody always has a reason to want more; like another day of life…right? Remember, ‘wealthy or commoner’, we are more similar to each other than dissimilar.

Much of our daily regimen would stay the same, even if we won the financial and emotional lotteries. We’d still rise up, shower, eat, sleep and so on. By simple logic, we can reason that most of the time we have the same opportunity to be happy, like those we imagine are happy all the time.

We know that many people who are much better off than the ‘common folk’ in financial terms are not happy campers at all! What does it take to be one of those individuals that does transgress the ‘ordinary’ life into one of continuous joy? If it’s not money, if it’s not circumstances, what is it? Even good health is not enough to keep some people happy all the time.

Well, aside from giving oneself the opportunity to learn, to be healthy and to be sociable, it takes an inner appreciation of life and the world around us. I call this Found Beauty.

Look Closely for Found Beauty

Found Beauty is something which was given to me by my mother, when I was young. Back then, I was about eleven and living in a dreary afternoon; it was shivery, cold, wet and dim. I bemoaned my displeasure to my mother, “it’s shivery, cold, wet and dim; I hate days like this!” and she came back her typical smile and happily said, “No, that’s your thoughts about it, the trees and plants like it, the birds and animals like it, the people that ski in the mountains like it!” I was about to come up with more reasons to validate my displeasure with the day and she continued, “Come here, by the window…take a look at the branch, what do you see?” Well, that was easy. I told her I saw a droopy, wet branch with a gray sky behind it. I won’t forget what she shared with me next. She said, “Look at just the end of the branch, right where the water droplet is forming. If you move this way and that you can see it sparkle, even with just the little light we have. If you look even closer, you can see the whole front yard upside down in miniature; the water droplet is like a lens…it’s really interesting!  The image in the water droplet is brighter than it really is outside . . . if you look close enough”.

I looked closely and sure enough, I could see a beautiful world inside the water droplet, I just had to look close enough. Next, I wanted to go outside to look even closer. I put on my jacket and boots and eagerly marched out the door to investigate in detail. When I came back in, full of enthusiasm,  I realized what had just happened; my lousy day had just turned into an interesting day, just with me changing my perspective, by looking closely enough, I found the good… ah, found beauty. Smart Mom,. huh?

Now, I have lived many years with the awareness my mother gave me. Often, when I am ready to allow unhappiness to overtake my mood I think to myself, “Where is the good? What is joyful about this?” By simply asking myself those questions my mind automatically goes to work (subconsciously) and begins looking for the good. Our subconscious pays attention to what we ask ourselves, what we want to learn, and acts on those thoughts, with purpose . . . unrelenting purpose.

It’s been decades since my early lesson in Found Beauty and now I must admit that I can still be amazed at how the question ‘where is the good?’ always seems to have an answer; we simply have to look close enough … just like the water droplet. Someone once asked me, “OK then, so where’s the good in your mother passing away?” I thought for less than a heart beat and remembered the times she would say to me “It’s not how long you live; it’s about how you enjoy each and every moment.” Obviously, the good was that indeed she did live, and enjoyed living. Death is simply a stage of living. How she lived was the glory. I then thought of so many happy times, the joys of our family life…before I knew it I was beaming and bingo! … Found Beauty (thanks Mom).

Finding beauty fuels happiness; do you want to be happy?

Today, among other things, I photograph Found Beauty. Through the lens I find things for my creative self. I realize wonderment on a continual basis; finding beauty in the world around me. Others see a rusted wheel rim in an alley; I find the colorful dandelions growing through the hole in the middle, both weed and wheel composing their own beauty. Others see spilled oil on the ground; I see a brilliant, detailed reflection of the sky within the black oil spill. When I choose to clean up the oil spill, I enjoy that result. Found Beauty just doesn’t have to stop, ever. Found Beauty works with any and all situations. If you can’t afford to go inside the Art Museum, find beauty in the building itself. You see, we must be the willing ones, that’s how we reap the riches.

The best thing is this: Found Beauty is therapeutic for every level of the human experience. The more beauty you look for, the more you’ll find. Beauty can be found in any or all situations, things or thoughts. It is a Right of Life; heck, it’s even tax free!

Found Beauty reduces stress. A mind that looks for Found Beauty will be in a state of gratefulness more often and will tend to drift toward pleasant thoughts when idle. With a relaxed mind our health is demonstrably better, we sleep sounder and we enjoy life more…isn’t that what we want when we ask for happiness? A pessimistic mind outlines problems, like what isn’t right about something, or it will count the days it has been raining and then complain when the days are too hot. When a mind like that is idle, it turns to less than happy thoughts; automatically, resulting in a less than happy person.

The owners of these pessimistic minds often say, “I can’t help it, these thoughts just come”. I don’t believe it! It’s about what you condition yourself to find in life’s situations. A gold miner doesn’t find gold because he’s a gold miner; it’s because he’s actively pursuing gold, using all his knowledge to maximize the chances of finding the gold. So too is it with your life. Will you enjoy ‘Golden Years’? Will you become one of the ‘lucky’ ones?

Don’t wait to win a lottery; Found Beauty is there for everybody, just like the gold has been there for everybody. The difference is; the ones that find gold are the ones that look for it. Become aware of the power of your thoughts and the power of the questions you ask yourself; allow your mind to serve you, not enslave you. Allow yourself happiness through the gift of Found Beauty. It’s everywhere, always.

Jos Van Poederooyen

ViewsandMuse.com

Enable Akismet

Akismet is a Wordpress plugin that comes default with every installation. Akismet is a real-time adaptive spam filter which scans all incoming comments and helps you automatically filter spam comments by stopping them at their source.

In order to use Akismet you must first get an API Key from Wordpress. The API Key is free, but it does require you visiting their site and creating an account. Please visit http://www.wordpress.com/signup. Enter your personal information and at the bottom choose “Just a username, please.”

Once you have created and verified your account, log in at http://www.wordpress.com/wp-login.php. Click on the “Profile” link and you will see at the very top, your WordPress.com API Key. We’re going to use this soon so keep it available to you by recording it somewhere.

Go back to your Netfirms Wordpress installation:

1. Log in to your Wordpress Dashboard and click on the Plugins link
2. Click “Activate” for the plug in Akismet
3. You will see a yellow box with a link asking you to enter your Wordpress.com API Key that you created earlier.
4. Once entered, click “Update options” to enable Akismet.

For the vast majority of blogs on the Internet, Akismet alone will eliminate 99% of the spam comments that are generated. There are some other features you may enable on your blog to increase your spam protection.

For more information on Akismet, as well for further assistance should you find Akismet reporting a large amount of false-positives, please visit http://www.akismet.com

Discussion Settings

Under the Settings menu in the “Disucssion” subsection you will see a section which lists 3 options that will apply before a comment appears on your blog. The bottom two options ‘Comment Author must fill out name and email’ as well as ‘Comment author must have a previously approved comment’ are by default checked. We recommend leaving this checked however you may, if you find spam getting past Akismet often enable the option that an Administrator must approve all new comments.

Comment Moderation is another option you may use. You may change the amount of allowed URLs or links from it’s default value of 2 by setting it to 1. This allows the comment to contain 1 link before it is placed in a moderation queue. Setting this to 0 will mean all comments will be placed in the moderation queue.

Be careful with the word lists offered in Comment Moderation and Comment Blacklist. If you were to type the word “ass” it would block the word assistance or assume. Wordpress offers a list of words you may use in the Comment Moderation box available at http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words

Require users to register in order to comment

This is a setting available under Settings menu in the “General” subsection. Most spam bots are not designed to register on a Wordpress site so this will effectively put an end to any spammers, but it may also decrease the amount of comments people leave on your blog. This should only be a last resort.

Going Further Beyond Wordpress

Wordpress’ plugin archecture means you can increase your anti-spam protection even further by using plugins which are available for free at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/. Typical plugins that are used to increase the protection of your account would be to add a CAPTCHA image or security image test on each comment. You can browse thousands of freely available Wordpress plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.