Some fitness trends make it seem like in order to get in shape, you have to bounce around, throw tires into the air, or leave a pool of sweat on the ground after every workout. But, believe it or not, you can build serious strength without even moving a muscle.
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The human brain has limitless potential. That’s what I realized as I transformed myself from someone who could never pay attention in school and took the college entrance exam three years in a row to someone who successfully completed a degree in clinical pathology. I play many instruments, but I never formally learned how. I taught myself by picking up the flute and playing with it. With practice, I found the right techniques and gradually put together notes that sounded good to my ears. I am not a musical prodigy. I just believed I could do it.
If you’re anything like us, you have a huge list of skills that you want to master in your lifetime.
The problem is, it takes time and often a lot of money in order to not just learn but excel at something new.
While researchers have debunked the idea that you need 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, there’s still the issue of finding affordable and accessible courses. It’s even better if you can do them from the comfort of your own couch.
We go through our days checking off to-do lists, accomplishing and achieving, but we all know we also need days off and vacations. Meditation is like a daily “day off,” a gift we give ourselves that becomes a gift we give others .
If you put dirt in a jar full of water and cover and shake the jar, the water becomes cloudy. Put the jar on a table and let it rest: the dirt settles to the bottom, and the water becomes clear again. A daily meditation practice gives much the same kind of rest to both our minds and bodies.
“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be,” wrote Abraham Lincoln.
Let’s face it, if happiness was as achievable as simply deciding to be happy, there’d be a whole lot more happy people. Yet not only is happiness not something we can “just choose,” when we put pressure on ourselves to feel happy, it can inadvertently set us on a war path with ourselves. Which is why adopting a mindset that embraces the “not so happy” emotions we can rise up within us is essential to living a happier life.
