photo credit: joiseyshowaa

“Smooth seas do not make skill­ful sailors” — African Proverb

As I sit here tonight, I am lis­ten­ing to the sounds of a good thun­der­storm.  Thun­der, light­ning, rain, wind.  I enjoy the pow­er­ful­ness of these storms (as long as they don’t cause any major dam­age).  I really get a feel for how awe­some this world we live in is.

Thun­der­storms also get me think­ing about the “thun­der” in our lives.  The storms that roll in, the wind that blows, the hail storm that can some­times tear into us, the light­ning that strikes out of nowhere.  These are times that can test us.  Test us men­tally.  Test us physically.

Some­times they’re small storms in the walk of life, and other times they’re major storms.  How we han­dle these storms can make all the dif­fer­ence in how we come out on the other end.  When we can con­quer these storms, we come out stronger than when we went in.  I’ve had many of these ‘storms” at work, for instance.  When­ever I do, even though I don’t like them, I always come out on the other side know­ing so much more than when it all began.  Some­times life can throw a storm at us that can be dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble to over­come (can­cer, car acci­dent, tor­nado, etc).  Still, how we han­dle these storms we can’t win can really also speak vol­umes about our souls.  Maybe we won’t beat these storms, but maybe we can help some­one else who is also fight­ing this storm with us, or give encour­age­ment to oth­ers who might some­day face storms like this.  Never give up hope that how you deal with these life events can’t affect some­one else later on, or that you don’t even know.

We never know what set of cards life will deal us, and things can change at any moment.  The only thing we can do is act upon these cards we’ve been dealt.  Some of the cards will bring sun­shine.  Oth­ers will brings storms.  Take the storms in your life and act upon them in pos­i­tive ways, and you’ll come out after the storm being a stronger and bet­ter person.

photo credit: cuel­lar

“I still get wildly enthu­si­as­tic about lit­tle things…  I play with leaves.  I skip down the street and run against the wind.”  — Leo Buscaglia

 With three kids, this one’s usu­ally pretty easy for me.  Some­one wants to “play” some­thing.  And some­times I resist.  Maybe I want to rest, or I have work to do, or lawn cut, or a sink to fix, or …  But, when I do play — it’s fun.  Some­times it’s relax­ing play (a board game for exam­ple), and some­times its active play (bas­ket­ball game for example).  

So, play­ing is fun, but what other ben­e­fits are there?

Be More Creative

Play­ing can make you think in new and cre­ative ways.  These cre­ative skills apply not only to the games you play, but they roll over into other areas of your life.  And that’s a good thing.  You begin to think dif­fer­ently, and look at prob­lems with a new set of lenses.  You take risks dur­ing games, and you’ll be more will­ing to take risks in other areas of your life.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The mis­fits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things dif­fer­ently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, dis­agree with them, glo­rify, or vil­ify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race for­ward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the peo­ple who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ~ Apple Computers

Increase Hap­pi­ness

Play­ing games cre­ates laugh­ter, and hap­pi­ness (usu­ally).  If you played a game of hide and seek, or played a game of Yahtzee, would you not fin­ish up and be hap­pier than when you started?  There is great joy in play­ing with oth­ers, and laugh­ing together.  One thing I do with my daugh­ter is play the bas­ket­ball game of “around the world” — where you shoot bas­kets from dif­fer­ent points on the court until some­one has made all of them.  To mix things up, I like to name the loca­tions (give them a coun­try name for instance), or make up a funny name for her (a movie char­ac­ter for instance).  She gets into this, and remem­bers these for some time after­ward — and it’s fun for both of us.

Reduce Stress

One more ben­e­fit of play is reduced stress.  Most games that are played for fun are games that leave us with a lower stress level than when we started.  Dur­ing play, we can for­get about the wor­ries of the world that we have.  Through the plea­sure we get from play, stress is removed from our bod­ies.  And with less stress in our lives, we’ll make bet­ter choices in other areas as well.

Increase Energy

Play a game, and you’ll feel ener­gized.  You might feel tired after a very active game, but you’ll still feel new energy in your body.  The laugh­ter and cam­er­aderie will re-invigorate you.  You’ll fin­ish the game and be bet­ter suited to do the other things you have planned because of your increased energy levels.

 Go out and play a game.  Scrab­ble.  Tag.  Foot­ball.  Ring around the rosie.  Apples to Apples.  Col­or­ing book.  Hop­scotch.  Monop­oly.  Paint by num­bers.  Ride the merry-go-round.

You’ll have fun, be more cre­ative, and remove stress from your life!  Sounds like a recipe for success.

photo credit: copy­rider

“The best cure for the body is a quiet mind” — Napoleon Bonaparte

Silence — how often do we really have it? The sounds of cars pass­ing by, or tele­vi­sion, or MP3 play­ers, or phone calls, or com­put­ers, or a dog, or a lawn mower, or what­ever else we have in our life that makes sound. Rarely do we have the oppor­tu­nity for true quiet moments.

With all the “noise” in our lives, we can become numb to what our bod­ies and minds are try­ing to tell us. We can’t hear what they are say­ing. So what are the effects of this? The effects are that we don’t really come to know and under­stand our­selves. We con­tinue to go through life with­out actively, and tru­ely, decid­ing the direc­tion we want to go.

I had an expe­ri­ence to attend a retreat a cou­ple of years ago. One of the most mov­ing moments for me was dur­ing the first evening at the retreat, where we were to spend the evening in silence from evening through the next morn­ing. What a great les­son in the power of silence. Dur­ing this time, I was able to reflect upon my life, and really think about what mat­tered to me. As we dis­cussed the week­end after it was over, this moment was the most pow­er­ful for me. This was pow­er­ful, because it had hap­pened so rarely for me before this. And I was able to begin really know­ing who I was.

But how often do we do this in our reg­u­lar lives? We can caught up in our ever­day tasks, and pretty soon the day has turned into night, or Sun­day into Sat­ur­day, or Jan­u­ary into Decem­ber. And we con­tinue on, doing what we’ve always done, let­ting our lives be deter­mined by others.

Find time to have quiet moments in your life. These are reflec­tive times where you get to know your­self bet­ter. And in doing this, you will lead a more ful­filled life.