The process of living

Happy Monday,

How are you all doing on this fabulous Monday afternoon? I hope if your in one of the hot zones that you are able to keep cool. Remember, if you don’t have air and your in an area of extreme heat, much of the time, your local libraries are open and do allow folks to come in and keep cool while reading a book, especially for the senior generation. Local malls are also open and they usually have benches through-out as well as a food court where you can generally go and sit to escape the heat. Check with your local authorities to see where you can go should you be in a heat affected area and you don’t have the means to keep cool at home. Stay safe out there my dear readers.

How was your weekend? Shoot me a text or drop me a comment, I love hearing from you all. Thank you to all my new subscribers. I really appreciate you taking the time to subscribe and to everyone out there who has subscribed to this blog site, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support. I feel blessed everyday to be a part of the writing world.

Today I wanted to talk about living life. What is the process of living? I’m sure there are so many more meaning then what I’m going to give, but for today, this is my take on the living process and how can we live life to the fullest?

According to Baylor College of Medicine’s, Dr. Karen Lawson says, “a great way to live your life to the fullest is to take care of both your mental and physical health. This means paying attention to what role others play in your life, which may mean solving any dilemmas or grudges you may be experiencing or clearing your mind of stresses.

What does this mean? Well, we all need to have relationships that are healthy, enjoyable, pleasant and reciprocal. Our healthy relationships will bring us pleasure and they won’t be burdensome. So to be clear, I am talking about relationships of all sorts, not just the partner/couple ones. Any type of relationship that we are in, be it couple/partner, friend, family member, co-worker, they all should be healthy and not causing us any harm.

If any of you are in an unhealthy and harmful situation, relationship of any kind, seek immediate help. Nobody should ever be or feel unsafe in any relationship, this especially includes children. If you know or believe a child is in any type of dangerous home or situation, call the authorities immediately. You might just save a life today.

Back to the blog:

When it comes to living the best life, I don’t think any one person has all the answers. Some would tell us to pursue our happiness at all costs, but is that realistic? I suppose for some it is, but for most of us, we have families, lives that include taking someone else into consideration. In the romantic type of relationships I think we all hope we are with someone that wants to be on the journey of happiness with us. One would hope that our partner would want us to pursue our dreams and heck, even help us accomplish them and vice versa.

Dr. Lawson had this to say about why we should periodically assess our happiness and take self-inventory. “If you aren’t happy with where you are or where you are going, then you have to decide if change is needed,” she said. “We can almost always achieve satisfaction by changing our mindset or by simply deciding to make the best of a situation. We should all keep in mind that the grass isn’t always greener somewhere else.”

Lawson cautioned that although it can be helpful for some people to make a bucket list or a dream board, others might find this does not work for them. However, if items on your list are realistic and within your means, it can give you a sense of accomplishment after you complete an item.

Hopefully we are working in jobs or careers where we find pleasure and are enjoying what we do. If not, is it possible to work towards finding a job that we love? Are we willing to relocate and work in a field we love if that’s the only way possible?

If we can’t up and quite our jobs and we are in some way in need of staying with our current employment situation, is it possible for us to find activities outside work that bring us pleasure and help us enjoy life?

Enjoying life and being happy isn’t always about doing whatever it is that makes us happy at the cost of everything else. Balance may be needed, actually, having a balanced life is in my opinion always a good thing. I believe being balanced helps us learn appreciation for the things we do have.

I saw this beautiful poem this morning and I wanted to share it with you:

You start dying slowly ;

if you do not travel,

if you do not read,

If you do not listen to the sounds of life,

If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly :

When you kill your self-esteem,

When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly ;

If you become a slave of your habits,

Walking everyday on the same paths…

If you do not change your routine,

If you do not wear different colors

Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly :

If you avoid to feel passion

And their turbulent emotions;

Those which make your eyes glisten

And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly :

If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain

If you do not go after a dream

If you do not allow yourself

At least once in your lifetime

To run away from sensible advice

Don’t let yourself die slowly

Do not forget to be happy!

~ Pablo Neruda♡

I think the author of this showed how balance is needed, at the same time, he’s saying to take those risks, go after your dreams, embrace the emotions of life, greet strangers, or try something new and along the way, he’s reminding us to be happy.

Happiness in many ways is a frame of mind, or our outlook on things. “There is no path to happiness; Happiness is the path.”-Buddha

“Life is a process of becoming a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”-Anais Nin.

“The process of living is like taking a very long road trip. The destination may be important, but the journey experienced day to day and week to week is what is invaluable.”-Steven C. Hayes.

I’m sure we’ve all heard it said, “it’s not about the destination, but the journey.” The process of living is the journey of life and that is so amazing. We will all tumble and fall from time to time. We will all face trials and tribulations. Whatever our lives look like, I suppose it would do us well to ask, what lesson can I take away from this experience and what can I do to help others and on the flip side, what can we learn from others? What good and bad can we take away from those that tread the path before we came along? Maybe one of our purposes in this life is to learn from those that were before us and to teach those behind us. Maybe through our stories we can help someone not suffer the pains we did. I believe it’s true, when we listen to the stories of others, we do see ourselves in some way.

I hope we are all on a path where we are happy and enjoying the entire process of living. I hope, no matter what our circumstances are, may be find something good and positivize in it. I hope we can all find a reason to not only smile, but to make someone else smile too. They say laughter is the best medicine and I believe that. I think smiling is a good way also to find happiness in whatever it is we are dealing with.

Smile and be happy my friends. Life is too short not to be.

My dear readers, I do hope you enjoyed today’s read. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking time out of your day to join me and of course you know I love getting feedback, so don’t forget to leave me a comment.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and don’t forget, Love Life++ Hugs.