Investment

Lets face it, majority of us think of money or real estate when it comes to investment. But, couple weeks ago my writer friend Jennifer Hillier wrote "A friendship is an investment. Sometimes it's worth more than what you put in. Sometimes, much, much less". Hmm, investment in a person, now that is an interesting concept!!!

If I look back at my life, I have seen people who have invested in me. Thank God for that! We all have the ability to invest something in someone's life. It may be through mentoring, through our time, through our words. But like any investment we have to be selective where and in whom we want to invest. There are people that are really hungry in this world for your encouragement and mentoring. Be on the lookout for them and when you see them, make sure you take that extra effort to reach out. Too often we are so self centered and self focused that we lose that investment opportunity. We often think "I am so busy, I don't have time right now". If you wait for the appropriate time, it will never come. Just do it!! You will find like any good investment, it will pay you off in life. You may not see the rewards of it right away but in due time, benefits do come back. Some of those benefits, you cannot put a $$ amount on.

But like any investment, you have to be wise and make sure you are investing in the person who really needs it. Sometimes we go out of our way and help someone and find out that it was a waste of our time. That should not deter you from learning from that experience and moving on to the next investment opportunity. Its all about being open and willing. Its not your ability that counts, its your availability. So are you available??

Maintaining the right perspective

Few weeks ago @chessnwine wrote a blog emphasising keeping the right perspective regardless of the market conditions. If you are in finance and enjoy reading great educational blogs, definitely worth checking him out http://ibankcoin.com/chessnwine/

After reading his post, I started thinking more on "perspective". In life, we have to always maintain a bigger picture. Things will never go as planned for us, because its after all life! Nothing will ever go as planned. We have to step out of our situations that we are going through and look at it in the context of the bigger picture. Positive things happen to us everyday of our lives, they may be small but they are there. We have to learn to focus on them. Often we let one negative thing that happens to us during the day capture our thoughts and allow them to ruin the entire day or sometimes even weeks. Granted some of these negative things can be really difficult to handle but more often than not, allowing yourself to be swept away by them will only cloud your judgement and ability to deal with them. No way am I trying to undermine the difficulties of our lives. Sometimes we have to train our selves just to see the obvious. So what are some of the positive things in your life that we can take for granted? Good health, family, food, shelter..... Take a moment every morning and be grateful for the small positive things in your life. Capture your thought life before a negative moment captures you.

I much rather choose to believe that my life is like a painting. Its never going to be complete until the end. There may be shades of colors that I don't like but in the context of entire painting, they all fit in quite well. I will never know until the end how those small negative things help develop the entire positive picture of my life. So maintaining the right perspective even though can be difficult is very well worth the effort :) It is all about taking a moment and stepping out and looking at your life's bigger picture.

Making a difference with simple things.

Something happened to me over the last week that made me think. A friend of mine gave me a compliment in the afternoon. Guess what, it changed my whole day, I was so happy to hear that she thought so highly of me.  But it made me think, did she realize that by just giving a compliment, she made a difference in my life that day?

How often do you get a chance to make a difference in someone else's life? I am not talking about heroic events such as savings one's life. But I am talking about our ordinary every day lives. Do we think about how we can make a difference with our simple small actions? Often we forget that the simplest gestures are the most powerful ones. They are our smiles, our compliments, our words of encouragement, and believe it or not, just a moment or two of our lives to stop and listen.. If you pay attention in your daily life, you will always find opportunities to bless someone. Most of the time, it will only cost you a smile or a moment. Sometimes our memorable moments are made that way. So don't loose out on the chance to make those moments.

One of my favorite quotes on giving is by Oprah Winfrey:
"I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life."