Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XIX


The Common Denominator: Resilience

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,

but is rising every time we fall.

... Nelson Mandela

If asked to recommend one quality that ensures happiness and success, I will say it is resilience - coming out of the effects of negative consequences of an experience in as short a time as possible and coping with change.

A traumatic event like the death of a near and dear one, a natural disaster, loss of job etc. will always generate a sense of uncertainty, worry and anxiety. It is a normal reaction to such events. What is not normal is high levels of stress arising out of minor discomforts and deviations from the plan.

Almost everyone adapts to the fallout of a traumatic event at some point at which point the decision is made to move forward with life. This adaptation is resilience. People with greater resilience will come out of the effect of the consequences of a traumatic event faster that those who are weaker in adapting. It is established scientifically that the people with higher resilience are happier and more successful. Such people "bounce back" even stronger than they were prior to the fateful event. 

"Being resilient does not mean that a person doesn't experience difficulty or distress. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress."  (American Psychological Association).

Resilience is a skill which means that it can be learned like any other skill.  Becoming proficient in resilience requires self awareness and practice. There are certain triggers which can help in developing resilience. The American Psychological Association lists the following triggers:

Make connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens resilience. Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations, or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. Assisting others in their time of need also can benefit the helper.

Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. You can't change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations.

Accept that change is a part of living. Certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.

Move toward your goals. Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly — even if it seems like a small accomplishment — that enables you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, "What's one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?"

Take decisive actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away.

Look for opportunities for self-discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardship have reported better relationships, greater sense of strength even while feeling vulnerable, increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality and heightened appreciation for life.

Nurture a positive view of yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience.

Keep things in perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion.

Maintain a hopeful outlook. An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.

Take care of yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience.

Additional ways of strengthening resilience may be helpful. For example, some people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings related to trauma or other stressful events in their life. Meditation and spiritual practices help some people build connections and restore hope.

The key is to identify ways that are likely to work well for you as part of your own personal strategy for fostering resilience.

In conclusion I reproduce a story that I had read quite sometime back.

The Story of Two Wolves

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said, “A battle is raging inside me…it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The old man looked at the children with a firm stare. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee replied: “The one you feed.”

With this post I conclude my series on happiness.

  

Namaste

Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XVIII


Small Wins

In the previous post, I had mentioned that the small setbacks are as powerful, if not more, as the small wins. How do we manage a situation where minor setbacks recur and put use down thus causing energy drains which then feeds further set backs. The solution is this is how we look at a setback. Do we look at setback like at a set back as a learning point or as "I always fail" issue? This is a mindset issue which brings me to the common denominator for happiness and success - resilience. We will look at this subsequently. I have learnt to look at a setback very objectively which enables me to dissect it. This helps greatly. This approach has not matured overnight but has taken time and determination.

The power of small wins gains momentous proportions when these gains come in an area of work which is very meaningful to you. So the common wisdom is "do what you love to do". Again this is easy said than done. How many of us have the opportunity to follow a course which is close to our heart? How many of us can take the risk of dumping the current assignment and strive towards getting engaged and succeeding in an assignment which is close to our heart? The uncertainty of the fundamental needs like a home, food and clothes is a big drag. Where lies the solution then? I have learnt to see this differently. I have learnt to give my best in whatever I am doing now, even if it is not I would like to do. I have learnt to see my current reality as an opportunity to create conditions which will finally enable me to get engaged in work I love to do. I have learnt to see the current reality as my support system to get me in to what love to do. This is all about perception. 

I have defined what is meaningful to me in my current assignment. I have defined what I would like to achieve in my current assignment. I have broken down my goal in to baby steps. Any gain that I make takes me forward. Any setback that I have makes me think differently. I make all efforts to claw back to the path to progress - the path of small wins. It pleases me no end that with this approach I am about five years ahead of my goal and had to recast my goal to higher levels. I have fallen in love with my current assignment.

I was fortunate to have a coach, without his knowing that I considered him as my coach, who manged to do things smoothly, more often than not, on time and was supported by a very efficient team. I subsequently understood that he had created conditions for his team to become a learning and efficient team. I emulated his methods. It was not a cut and paste route but a understand - re-engineer to my situation - implement route. The methodology - in principle - consisted of four pillars.

I understood that occasional set backs are guaranteed, No body wins 100% of the time. I learnt to dissect my set backs and move forward. I did not allow a set back to paralyze me. This also taught me never to play the blame game in the face of a setback.

I set up a network of friends, peers and a few family members who could provide me with inputs in the areas that I was short and to whom I could provide inputs where they were short. In essence this means that I formed a group of collaborators who brought something to the table and took away something from the table. This is the essence of any support group.

We set a behavioral norm within our group that whenever any member of the group comes across a piece of information which may be of importance to one or more member of the group the same will be communicated to all members of the group without delay. With the advent of electronic media this had become easy.

I have learnt to trust. Suspecting the motives of others is a big problem. It is a drain on energy and a a steep barrier to creating a meaningful relationship with others. You will not have a close support group unless there is an element of complete trust in others. It may so happen that you may get zapped once in a while. The solution to this is not to trust. The solution is to correct the composition of the group. Remember that getting zapped once in a while is part of life - trust or no trust. Use the power of trust.

The status of your being drives performance. In turn your performance improves the status of your being. It is a loop.

Namaste

Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XVIII

Small Wins

Who does not like to succeed. Success and Happiness are mutually causative, If you succeed you become happy, if you are happy you will succeed more often than not. To enter this mutually causative loop, I have found that it is best to start with small wins - small successes - those which do not take much time to mature to fruition. Each such small win sets in motion and deepens the formation of "success" neural pathways in the brain, thus paving the way for undertaking real blockbusters. 

Let me illustrate with a personal example. At the age of 60, it suddenly hit me that I had a poor body - full of flab and out of shape. I wanted a lean body with good endurance levels. I consulted some of my friends on the "how" and was discouraged by everyone. they advised me not to stress my body at this age. Anyhow, I decided to start with a morning walk. Since I am residing in a metro, I found that the best time to walk was early in the morning when the vehicular traffic is scarce. I decided to start my morning walk at 4.30 AM. That required me to get up at 4 AM; so I set the alarm for 4. In the first few days, getting up so early was really difficult. I persisted and started my walks. After a couple of months I decided to add light free hand exercises. After six months or so, I went for some weight exercises and other cardio exercises in Gym. My body resisted and made it known by aching at different places. That gave me the excuse for skipping the exercises and hugging my bed for longer time. I noticed that I felt good on the days I did my morning exercises and felt a little depressed when I did not. I had read that on exercising, some "feel good" chemicals like endorphine is released in the blood. I suspected that this was not the only or major cause for linking my exercises with feeling good. I have now come to understand that one of the most important cause for the feel good effect was my success in exercising - an objective which I had set for myself. When I met the objective, it gave my self-esteem a good boost and made me happy. It also gives me the confidence that I need to take up other tasks. 

I have also subsequently come to the conclusion that, the best way to complete a complex task and achieve the goals out of such tasks, is the break up the task into smaller steps and set up small wins. As  professionals we have been doing this quite often in our professions but  ignore this when in our personal development. In our personal lives, we normally fall into the trap of trying too much and giving up when we fail to reach our goals.

I have found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.

... Rosabeth Moss Kanter

"Of all things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.....every day progress - even a small win - can make all the difference in how they feel and perform". (Harvard Business review, Amabile et al, 2011 May). The small wins are a form of progress.

In the professional field, there is a common belief that high levels of performance are achievable when a fear psychosis is created. It has been scientifically proven that high levels of performance on a sustainable basis is possible when conditions are created for a person to feel happy sustainably. The HBR research article (referred above) lists out events which could create or shatter sense of well being or happiness.

When comparing the best and the worst days of the control group, the researches found that the "best day" was triggered when some progress was perceived and the "worst day" was triggered when a setback was perceived.

The presence of two triggers are often seen on the "best days" - help or support from  a person or a group and show of respect and words of encouragement. There is a reason behind exploring these issues in this post. Each of these issues could be used by you to create your small wins within your family, society and workplace. Support people, show respect, utter genuine words of encouragement and you have created a win for you. When an individual is in a "best day", his motivations levels are high and he enjoys his work.

The quality of perception also changes on how a person feels. On a good day, he sees constructive challenge in his work, he is more open to suggestions and ideas. On a difficult day the same challenges are perceived as intimidating and other's ides and suggestions are perceived as interference.

Do not fall in to the trap of evaluating progress as making a breakthrough and achievement of something spectacular. Surely such an achievement gives tremendous satisfaction and goo feelings but such are rare phenomena. The small wins are equally powerful in impacting the levels of our happiness and well being. Minor gains, in the desired direction, are capable of generating a big boost. One of my friend was working as a coder i,e. writing the code for a computer to follow and generate the necessary outputs. After almost  two weeks of coding, he merged his coding with one of his colleague's code who was working on a different part of the same software program. They broke their heads over the next three days as they could not locate the flaw in the code which prevented the programs to integrate properly. After a couple of days, I suddenly found my programmer friend trotting back to his house with his collar raised and hailing everybody on the street. He had solved the problem and he was on top of the world. In the next three days they fine tuned the program and the graphic displays to make the program a business benchmark. 

There is a catch here. as the small wins are powerful, so are the small setbacks powerful, if not more. Unfortunately, the human psychology is such that the impact of a negative experience has much more severely felt than the impact of a positive experience.

We will examine this in the next post.

Namaste

Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XVII

Stay in the present - Mindfulness

It is most important that we live a wakeful life in the living present with an unencumbered free mind honestly trying to live according to our highest convictions. He who suffocates this moment with the worries of the moments that are past or moments that are yet not, is making everything possible to make his future unhappy and unfulfilled.

"In the heart of this moment is eternity"

.... Meister Eckhart

And if this moment we have lived well, done our best, we may very well leave the rest. For nothing better can be ever be done for future than always doing our very best right now. We may, however, always examine our doing best and trying to find methods of even bettering our best-doing. Worry for things gone past and for the future is futile, to counteract which is to live in the present with all or powers poised and applied. Those who want to increase their well being must scrupulously avoid living in the past and the future, and live in the living present.

Stay in the present. Easy said than done. The mind of ours is a monkey jumping from one branch to the other, from one tree to the other. To restrain it at one place requires some doing. The hardest task in life is not bringing up children, but bringing up oneself. To one who knows how to discipline oneself his other tasks become easy. I do not have nor do I know of any sleigh of hand or mind which can improve mindfulness. But I do know a process which, if cultivated over a period of time, works wonders. 

Let us put a definition to mindfulness.

Mindfulness is paying attention

in the present,

on purpose, and 

non-judgmentally 

Mindfulness is essentially staying in the present not letting what has happened in the past and not permitting our worries and plans for the future to interfere with what we are engaged in now. This is how we can best execute our present engagement with all energy of our mind, body and soul focused on what we are doing now. It is very often said that "the past is gone and the future is not yet, so do not think about past and future". As I had said earlier that this is easy said than done. Mindfulness, per se, does not demand that you do not think of the past and the future. It says that when you slide back to the past or reside in the future, be consciously aware that you are doing that. It is another matter that the habit of thinking much about the past and worrying about the future is at the cost of the present moment.

There is a difference between mindfulness and awareness. That difference is defined by "on purpose". What do you do when you eat your lunch or dinner? Do you talk with the people with you? Do you watch the TV? Do you plan your next plan of action? Do you read a book or a newspaper? If you do any of the above or more, you are not mindful of your food. You are just aware that you are taking your food. While one part of your mind is aware of your taking food, all other parts of the mind are busy elsewhere. If you are mindful, your complete concentration will be on the food in front of you. You will taste every morsel and relish the taste and fragrance of your food. You will put small morsels in your mouth and chew well. When you are mindful, your entire world is the food in front of you. Even when you get distracted once in a while, you will drag your focus back to the food. Purposefulness is a very important part of mindfulness. Having the purpose to stay with the present engagement, howsoever trivial and mundane, is an essential part of training the mind to be mindful.

The last component of mindfulness is "acceptance" or being non-judgmental. This is a  very sensitive issue with most of us. This has been explained differently by different faiths some of which ask us to achieve very high levels of detachment and spiritual development. i will put it in a perspective which can be appreciated by a common person with willingness to become mindful. Acceptance or being non-judgmental essentially requires that we acknowledge an experience, accept that such an experience has happened, dissect the experience for its true nature, put  into motion necessary actions to neutralize the negative effect if any and let it go. I expressly forbid you to fall in to the emotional loop which goes on building up if you continue to dwell in the domain of any experience. In other words I warn you against the dangers of wallowing in the experience if its effect on you are not favorable or dancing in euphoria if the the effect of the experience is favorable. Let the experience or stimuli live for as short as possible and let it go as soon as possible. Always keep in mind that an experience is just that - an experience. Only 1 % of our total daily experiences have a direct power over us in the sense that we can truly categorize them as having the power to make us sad or happy. For example if someone dies in the family, you will naturally be sad for some time. Whether this will have a favorable impact on us or an unfavorable one, is not for us to dwell on because we do not know. But we waste lot of time and energy doing precisely that - dwelling. All other experiences are branded and given color by our paradigms - our mindset. Developing acceptance empowers you to treat the experiences neutrally without permitting them to take control over you.

Meditation is one of the most effective tools for developing mindfulness. I prefer two meditations. In one I just feel my breath coming in and going out. In the second one, I visualize myself out of my body, and see me meditating. I have found another one in youtube which is also quite helpful. See what works for you. You must be comfortable with your choice of meditation. If you find meditation difficult, you may also go to nature at a time when you are not disturbed by the presence of others or car honking. Just stay with nature quietly.

Namaste



Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XVI

Appreciate

Appreciate what you have. You are privileged for what you have.

Expressing sincere gratitude is a very positive emotion. The qualification "sincere" is very important. An empty word of appreciation does not tingle our emotions. The words of appreciation must be heartfelt.

By the very fact of our current reality, we are enjoying some privileges. We have no problem with those who have less. We have problem with what we have because we tend to take these privileges for granted with our strong sense of entitlement making constraining us from recognizing what we have, We have greater problem with those who have more because that makes us feel under-privileged. The emotions associated with the last two closes our mind and heart. To create positivity we need to put a brake on such thinking. The best way to do is to start appreciating what you have. Everyday there are numerous experiences where someone behaved honestly with us, someone helped us to pick something up, someone opened the door for use, someone put a hot cup of tea in front of us after a hard day etc. Everyday we get the advantages from the gadgets in our houses where by a flick of a switch we get hot water, we talk to our near and dear ones who are far away on audio and video, we travel a great distance in comfort by hiring a car or driving our own car etc. After all we are privileged to be in a position to possess these gadgets. We have a group of people - family and friends - who provide support to us unquestioningly. We have a civic support system which maintains the roads and sewerage for us, provides us electricity, provided cheap public transport etc. We have lot of things to be thankful for. I insist that we put a structure in place for expressing our gratitude. 

Expressing gratitude is a very potent mindfulness - to be aware in the present - exercise. The mindful cultivation of gratitude is perhaps the most easily executable practice of staying and being aware of the present. It is also a strong antidote to counter mindsets of self-defeating thoughts, depression and a strong negative bias.

I am very clear when I say that the practice of appreciating or expressing gratitude does not mean denial of the difficulties and challenges of life. I am not saying that you close your eyes to the negatives for negatives are realities of life. Ignoring them, not learning from them is going to be suicidal. I am only suggesting that do not let the negatives drive out the joy and happiness from your life and overwhelm your life with feelings of loss, scarcity and fear. I treat the negatives as teachers. I have experienced many times that what appeared to be negative in the beginning turned out to be the launching pads for my growth. The practice of expressing gratitude gives me balance in the way I think and process stimuli. It gives me strength in the difficult times and gives me a boost always.

A Sufi Story

A man's  son captured a strong, beautiful, wild horse, and all the neighbors told the man how fortunate he was. The man patiently replied, "We will see." One day the horse threw the son who broke his leg, and all the neighbors told the man how cursed he was that the son had ever found the horse. Again the man answered, "We will see." Soon after the son broke his leg, soldiers came to the village and took away all the able-bodied young men, but the son was spared. When the man's friends told him how lucky the broken leg was, the man would only say, "We will see." 

Gratitude for participating in the mystery of life is like this.

In the practice of gratitude, you should notice things you are grateful for during your day. You do this not with the primary intention of feeling good but with the true intention of seeing things as they are. Those of you, who like me, had to stand in long queues in our earlier years for any thing and everything are surely aware of the irritation we felt, especially when the weather also played truant. Did you notice that in those very queues there were a few - very few indeed - who maintained their position calmly talking pleasantly to the next in queue. these were the persons who realized the true situation and did not permit that to upset the balance in their inner world? These were the people who appreciated the effort put in by the lone security man to maintain orderliness in the queue.

I quote from Phillip Moffit's article on gratitude. Phillip, was the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Esquire Magazine.

"You might ask yourself about your "gratitude ratio." Do you experience the good things in your life in true proportion to the bad things? Or do the bad things receive a disproportionate amount of your attention, such that you have a distorted sense of your life? It can be shocking to examine your life this way because you may begin to realize how you are being defined by an endless series of emotional reactions, many of which are based on relatively unimportant, temporary desires. When you look at how much griping you do versus how much gratitude you feel, you realize how far off your emotional response is from your real situation. The purpose of this inquiry is not to judge yourself but rather to motivate yourself to find a truer perspective. Why would you want to go around with a distorted view of your life, particularly when it makes you miserable?

Without instruction, reflecting on gratitude can seem boring or sentimental, evoking memories of your mother admonishing you to eat all the food on your plate. Part of the confusion is that many people have come to equate gratitude with obligation. But real gratitude begins as appreciation for that which has come into your life. Out of this appreciation, a natural, spontaneous emotion arises that is gratitude, which is often followed by generosity. When gratitude comes from indebtedness, by definition what's been given cannot have been a gift.

There is a shadow side to gratitude, in which reality gets distorted in yet another way. It manifests as a hopeless or helpless attitude disguised as gratitude, and it expresses itself in a self-defeating, passive voice-"Yes, these things are wrong and unfair, but I should be grateful for what I have," or "At least we have this," or "Compared to these people, look how much better off we are." This voice, whether it is an inner voice or comes from someone else, is not to be trusted. Gratitude is not an excuse for being passive in the face of personal or societal need or injustice. You are not excused from working to become a caring person, creating a better life for your loved ones, or protecting the innocent. Acknowledging the great gift of a human life through gratitude is just the opposite; it is a call to action to be a caring human being while acknowledging the folly of basing your happiness on the outcome of your actions."

I suggest a structure for acknowledging gratitude sincerely. I suggest this because we  need to build up a habit. I suggest that before going to bed every day thank that and those who have enriched you on that day. Better still to write it down in a diary. It should not take more than 10 minutes a day. Feel the boost of positivity that you get from this simple action.

Namaste

Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XV

Kindness

The first behavioral change which I recommend is inculcating a habit of doing kind acts. Those acts of kindness where there is some personal cost involved have greater impact on positivity. Say you are driving to your home after work. You notice that an old person is begging for alms by the roadside shivering in the cold. There could be various scales of your response to such an event. You could drive by ignoring the individual or you could drop a few coins into his begging bowl or you could give him some snacks that you always carry in your car and a bottle of water or you could take off your jacket and wrap it around his shoulders, give him food and water and some money, or you could do all that and determine to find shelter for the man in an old age home all costs paid. the action that you will take depends on your level of empathizing with the individual. The duration and intensity of positivity that your action will generate inside you is proportional to what it costs you - not necessarily in terms of money. It could be in terms of your effort, it could be in terms of inconvenience caused to you, it could be in terms of re-prioritizing your day etc.

Those acts of kindness which help in making an individual self-sufficient are perhaps the best. Such acts take time and a tremendous amount of personal commitment from both parties. And when the trees bear fruit, the taste is heavenly. The process is highly envigorating and is a continuous source of positivity.

The extent of your involvement, in terms of cost or effort you put in to make a difference to the life of the individual, is the driver. The acts could be simple and one-time for each beneficiary or drawn over a long time and repetitive in nature for the beneficiary. The choice is yours. I only insist that you act.To illustrate my point I am attaching two short videos that I came across in youtube. The videos explain what I am trying to say. 

I have my own way of putting in my acts of helping out people. Whenever I am travelling, I keep my eyes open and my mind focused on the surrounding, looking out for situations where I can make a difference. The act could be as simple as opening the door for an aged or disabled person, or helping someone find an address though I do no not know the address. I have found that dedicating a particular day of the week for concentrated actions on kindness is of greater help. It does not mean that you ignore being kind on the other days. It means that on one particular day in a week, you deliberately look for opportunities executing kind acts whereas on other days you could do it whenever an opportunity pops up before you. The acts of kindness are genuine only when there is no expectation of a return payback or there is no advertisement. 

You may have some friends who will discourage you from making such efforts with a very cynical way of thinking that such individual acts of small kindness do not make any difference to the society and the world at large. When such a view is taken, the larger picture is missed. The larger picture is that you do not do it for making a difference to the world but for making a difference to your world - you. And you do make a huge difference .

Practised over a period of time, the act of helping people becomes a habit. You start doing it without conscious effort. You set up a positivity loop inside you which fuels your well being and happiness and feeds on your happiness and well being for increased poistivity. This phenomenon is termed as mutual causation or reciprocal causation - each becomes of the cause of the other.

There have been people in my life who have very lovingly tried to pay me back for some act of goodness that I may have done for them. I have experienced these payback responses a long time after I had done my bit because these people took time to reach a stage where they could pay back and more. In most of the cases my memory had faded and I could not recollect what I had done. I have one clear thinking process which I apply to cases where a payback comes up. I ask such people to pay forward. I ask them to promise to help someone they come across in need of help and I make it clear that when they do that their obligation to me, if any, is wiped clean. This way I multiply the force of kindness and increase not only my positivity but those of others too. Paying forward is a win-win for every one. It creates a ripple effect which can touch people far and wide.

Donations to charity are a very popular and convenient way of showing kindness. This is a necessary mode of showing kindness in situations which require massive interventions covering a large number of recipients and, therefore a large number of donors. The acts of kindness ,where personal involvement is substantial, score way above the donation driven charity in terms of generating positivity. Personally I don't experience the influence of donations on my positivity level - the strings of my heart do not vibrate as they do when I am personally involved. 

Namaste

Prabir

Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XIV

Losada from his work on team working derived a non-linear equation which generated a positivity ratio of about 3 which essentially means that in any team working if the positive content is three times the negative content, the team will flourish. Fredrickson applied this equation to her huge database on emotions of individuals and held that the Losada equation applies equally well to individuals as well. This means that any individual who is able to maintain the positive content in his day to day living to at least three times the negative content, that individual is likely to flourish else the individual shall languish.

The Losada equation, which is essentially based on fluid dynamics, has generated lot of controversy on its trueness and Losada has also opted not to defend his equation. However Fredrickson has repeatedly stood by her declaration that the tipping point of 3 is true and good. Considering the huge data that has been collected by Fredrickson over a period of two decades on human emotions and the sensitivity of human emotions to 

stimuli, her conclusion of a tipping point of 3 does make sense and deserves serious consideration. Fredirickson also maintains that the upper tipping point of postivity ratio is between 11 and 12. This means that when the positvity ratio exceeds the upper tipping point, the individual is living in a false world with probably his head in sand. Such a person ignores all negatives and is not prepared to face the challenges in his life.

I categorize negatives in two ways. One kind of negative is the realities of our lives and environment which we need to encounter and meet to survive and grow, I like to call these negatives as challenges. Such negatives help us learn and grow. Some of these negatives are within our control and some beyond our control. Let me explain this with an example. The interest rates on bank deposits is coming down in my country progressively. The rates which were at 12% about  two decades back now stand at 7.5% or less. This coupled with the falling real value of money due to inflation is causing severe constraints on the senior citizens of the country most of whom are not active earners. The difficulty is further aggravated by a non-existent social security system in my country. One way to handle manage the situation is to send petitions to the government explaining the woes of senior citizens. The premise in such petitions could be that the government is not aware of the woes of the senior citizens, which is not a correct premise. The other premise could be that unless a baby cries, it does not get mother's attention. There may be some truth in it. I, and quite a few of other senior citizens, had decided to think from a different level and continued to upgrade ourselves to keep ourselves relevant and earn actively well beyond our retirement ages. 

The second kind of negative is the wallowing kind. Some like to remain in the negative zone, post trauma, for prolonged periods. I suspect that at the extreme end of such negative behavior there is a love relationship between many of such individuals with their grief. 

Negatives are realities of life. They are ignored at our own peril. Their management makes us grow. Wallowing in the makes us sick - psychologically and physiologically.

To know you current positivity ratio, use this link. This will take you a maximum of 5 minutes every day. Take this test for fifteen continuous days. Find out the average of these fifteen days. The result will give you your current positivity ratio. This is the starting block for you to sprint forward. We will see how to increase the positivity in our lives.

Positivity ratio is a division of (P)ositivity by (N)egativity. To improve the ratio you need to increase P and/or reduce N. I suggest increase P and reduce N. 

We will start looking at the "Hows" from the next post.

Namaste

Prabir