Have you ever danced in the rain?

Struggling against certain things which will pass in time anyway is a waste of energy. This very brief Chinese story illustrates this very well.

In the middle of the countryside, it began to rain. Everyone scurried off to seek shelter, except for one man, who continued to walk slowly along.

‘Why aren’t you running for shelter?’ someone asked.

‘Because it’s raining up ahead too,’ came the answer.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…. It’s about getting out there and dancing in the rain.

Why It’s Not Selfish to Put Yourself First

One piece of advice that I’ve come across in the writings of several life coaches is that we should act in our own best interests. My initial reaction to this is to feel uncomfortable – like most people, I worry that I’m being selfish if I put myself first.

But I’ve come to realize that acting in your own best interests, when done properly, isn’t a selfish act – it’s a way to ensure that you’re making the very best of your life, so that you can help those around you to make the very best of theirs.

So, what are your best interests? How do you base your actions, your goals, your time-management and your life on them – and how will this affect the people around you?

I would suggest that acting consistently in your own best interests involves four areas:

• Meeting your physical needs, such as getting enough sleep and exercise
• Meeting your emotional needs, such as asking for support when you need it
• Meeting your mental needs, such as having a stimulating job
• Meeting your spiritual needs, such as taking time to meditate or pray

Physical needs

If you’re regularly exhausted because you never take time to eat a proper meal, get a good night’s sleep or get some exercise, then start making these things an absolute priority.

( read "7 tips to sleep like a dog" at http://drshashankhealthtips.blogspot.com/ )

Do you stay up late with your spouse, watching TV whilst slumped on the sofa half-asleep, because you think he/she will be offended if you go to bed alone? Are you the one who always insists on getting up with the kids in the night – even though your partner would be perfectly happy to? Do you have no time for your own breakfast because you’re too busy preparing lunchboxes for your children?

“You eat on the run because you believe that you shouldn’t take time for lunch; there’s too much work to do. You eat the éclair, the doughnut, the cake, all the while knowing this isn’t really taking care of yourself. But to really take care of yourself, you have to think of yourself first.”

Being well-rested, and taking care of your health, means that you’ll have the energy you need to help those around you. If you feel constantly frazzled, you’re likely to snap at your loved ones when you least mean to.

Emotional needs

Some of us end up being the “rock” who friends and family come to with problems. It’s a great privilege to be known as a good listener, but sometimes it’s hard when you feel you need support – but you’re worried about burdening people.

Ask a good friend or a relative if you can have a chat with them. Explain that you’re going through a difficult time, and it would help to have someone to talk to. They’ll be more than glad to help, especially if it means they can return a favor that you’ve provided for them in the past.

Healthy selfishness is a way of thinking and acting in which there is a deep appreciation and concern for yourself. It includes a willingness to respect your own feelings, desires, and needs as well as to trust your knowledge, ability, and experience. … In a practical sense, it means doing such things as resting when you’re tired or asking for emotional support without apology.

If you don’t reach out to other people when you’re feeling sad, angry, low or lonely, you can end up turning to unhealthy sources of comfort. Whether it’s supersized bars of candy, a bottle of vodka, or drugs, all of these will eventually be damaging to you and to those around you.

Mental needs

We all need to feel challenged and stimulated by our daily life. If you never learn anything new, never push yourself to think a bit harder, or never do anything that tests your limits – you’ll probably end up feeling that life lacks meaning.

On the flip side, if you’re completely out of your depth with a particular area of studying or work, you’re unlikely to be unhappy, stressed and anxious.

These are three classic scenarios of people whose mental needs aren’t being met. See if you recognize yourself in any of these:

Harry lobo works in a factory. It’s boring, repetitive and low-paid work, but it’s a secure job. His real passion is computers, and he started a couple of programming courses once – but he quickly gave up, convinced that a career change would be dangerous to his family’s security.

Arpita Shah is at home all day with three small children. She loves her kids dearly, but misses her high-powered job in journalism. But her family need her, and she convinces herself that she’ll be able to restart her career once the kids have all left home.

Anil Shetty is a Physics major, and hates it. He wanted to study Theatre Management, but his dad insisted that there was more money in science. Anil spends every evening struggling over his textbooks, feeling more and more lost as the semester goes on.

Do you think any of these people are able to meet the needs of those around them? Do you think that Harry, Arpita and Anil's loved ones want them to feel unhappy and unfulfilled?

Spiritual needs

When life is busy, it’s hard to take time for things which feel unproductive – like attending a religious service, meditating, taking a long bath, or praying. You might feel guilty about “sitting there doing nothing” if you’re engaged in one of these activities.

But it’s crucially important for us to find space and distance from day-to-day life, in order to take a fresh look at things. Some great thinkers have flashes of inspiration in the bath (Archimedes’ EUREKA moment comes to mind…). I’m sure that you’ve had your own experience that sometimes the solution to a tricky problem, or a new insight on life, comes when you’re just relaxing.

Letting yourself take the time you need, without feeling guilty, means that you’ll be able to support your family and friends with your perspective on problems or situations that they might be in. You’ll be in a better state to not only cope with, but excel in, your own life.

Do you consciously act in your own best interests? Have you ever felt guilty about doing so? How does putting yourself first help you to be a better human being?

Manual of Climbing Mountains

A] Choose the mountain you want to climb: don’t pay attention to what other people say, such as “that one’s more beautiful” or “this one’s easier”. You’ll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you’re the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you’re doing.

B] Know how to get close to it: mountains are often seen from far off – beautiful, interesting, full of challenges. But what happens when we try to draw closer? Roads run all around them, flowers grow between you and your objective, what seemed so clear on the map is tough in real life. So try all the paths and all the tracks until eventually one day you’re standing in front of the top that you yearn to reach.

C] Learn from someone who has already been up there: no matter how unique you feel, there is always someone who has had the same dream before you and ended up leaving marks that can make your journey easier; places to hang the rope, trails, broken branches to make the walking easier. The climb is yours, so is the responsibility, but don’t forget that the experience of others can help a lot.

D] When seen up close, dangers are controllable: when you begin to climb the mountain of your dreams, pay attention to the surroundings. There are cliffs, of course. There are almost imperceptible cracks in the mountain rock. There are stones so polished by storms that they have become as slippery as ice. But if you know where you are placing each footstep, you will notice the traps and how to get around them.

E] The landscape changes, so enjoy it: of course, you have to have an objective in mind – to reach the top. But as you are going up, more things can be seen, and it’s no bother to stop now and again and enjoy the panorama around you. At every meter conquered, you can see a little further, so use this to discover things that you still had not noticed.

F] Respect your body: you can only climb a mountain if you give your body the attention it deserves. You have all the time that life grants you, as long as you walk without demanding what can’t be granted. If you go too fast you will grow tired and give up half way there. If you go too slow, night will fall and you will be lost. Enjoy the scenery, take delight in the cool spring water and the fruit that nature generously offers you, but keep on walking.

G] Respect your soul: don’t keep repeating “I’m going to make it”. Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky. An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb. But pay attention: also, don’t keep saying “it’s harder than I thought”, because that will make you lose your inner strength.

H] Be prepared to climb one kilometer more: the way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far. But since you were prepared to go beyond, this is not really a problem.

I] Be happy when you reach the top: cry, clap your hands, shout to the four winds that you did it, let the wind – the wind is always blowing up there – purify your mind, refresh your tired and sweaty feet, open your eyes, clean the dust from your heart. It feels so good, what was just a dream before, a distant vision, is now part of your life, you did it!

J] Make a promise: now that you have discovered a force that you were not even aware of, tell yourself that from now on you will use this force for the rest of your days. Preferably, also promise to discover another mountain, and set off on another adventure.

K ] Tell your story: yes, tell your story! Give your example. Tell everyone that it’s possible, and other people will then have the courage to face their own mountains.

What is our purpose in life? “Die a rich man or live richly.”

For many centuries all over the world they have been teaching every child to be purposive. ”Don’t waste your time! Don’t waste your life!” And what do they mean? They mean, ”Transform your life into a bank balance. When you die you must die rich. That is the purpose.” Here in the East – particularly the mystics we are talking about, the Upanishads – they say, ”Live richly.” In the West they say, ”Die a rich man.” And these are totally different things. If you want to live richly you have to live here and now, not a single moment is to be lost. If you want to achieve something, you will die a rich man – but you will live a poor man, your life will be poor.

Look at rich people: their life is absolutely poor, because they are wasting it transforming it into bank balances, changing their life into money, into big houses, big cars. Their whole effort is that life has to be changed for some things. When they die you can count their things. Buddha became a beggar. He was born a king, he became a beggar. Why? Just to live richly... because he came to understand that there are two ways to live: one is to die richly, the other is to live richly.

And any man who has any understanding will choose to live richly, because dying a rich man doesn’t mean anything; you simply wasted yourself for nothing. But this is possible only if you can conceive that the whole existence is purposeless; it is a cosmic play, a continuous beautiful game, a beautiful hide-and-seek – not leading anywhere. Nowhere is the goal. If this is the background, then you need not be worried about individual purposes, evolution, progress. This word progress is the basic disease of the modern age. What is the need?

All that can be enjoyed is available, all that you need to be happy is here and now. But you create conditions and you say that unless these conditions are fulfilled you cannot be happy. You say, ”These conditions must be fulfilled first: this type of house, this type of clothes, this type of car, this type of wife, this type of husband. All these conditions have to be fulfilled first, then I can be happy.” As if by being happy you are going to oblige the whole universe. And who is going to fulfill your conditions? Who is worried? You will try for those conditions, and the effort is going to be so long that they can never be fulfilled really, because whenever something is fulfilled, by the time it is fulfilled the goal has shifted.

A non achieving mind is possible only if you can be content with purposelessness. Just try to understand the whole cosmic play and be a part in it. Don’t be serious, because a play can never be serious. And even if the play needs you to be serious, be playfully serious, don’t be really serious. Then this very moment becomes rich. Then this very moment you can move into the ultimate. The ultimate is not in the future, it is the present, hidden here and now. So don’t ask about purpose – there is none. If there was purpose then your God would be just a managing director or a big business man, an industrialist, or something like that.

Somebody asked Jesus, ”Who will be able to enter into the kingdom of your God?” Jesus said, ”Those who are like small children.” This is the secret. What is the meaning of being a small child? The meaning is that the child is never businesslike, he is always playful. If you can become playful you have become a child again, and only children can enter into the kingdom of God, nobody else, because children can play without asking where it is leading. They can make houses of sand without asking whether they are going to be permanent.

Can somebody live in them? Will they be able to resist the wind that is blowing? They know that within minutes they will disappear. But they are very serious when they are playing. They can even fight for their sandhouses or houses of cards. They are very serious when they are creating. They are enjoying. And they are not fools, they know that these houses are just card houses and everything is make believe. Why waste time in thinking in terms of business? Why not live more and more playfully, non seriously, ecstatically?

Ecstasy is not something which you can achieve by some efforts, ecstasy is a way of living. Moment to moment you have to be ecstatic, simple things have to be enjoyed. And life gives millions of opportunities to enjoy. You will miss them if you are purposive. If you are not purposive, every moment you will have so many opportunities to be ecstatic. A flower, a lonely flower in the garden... you can dance if you are non purposive. The first star in the evening... you can sing if you are non purposive. A beautiful face... you can see the divine in it if you are non purposive. All around the divine is happening, the ultimate is showering. But you will be able to see it only if you are non purposive and playful.

Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. Participate in the dance of life by being one with the existence. Be blissful, be ecstatic, be simple, be happy, be playful, be loved, be a child. Life’s best pleasures are in small things. Live your life every single moment of it. Live richly.