Tag: Anne Frank

DEAD PEOPLE RECEIVE MORE FLOWERS 💐

What a powerful thought for us courtesy of Anne Frank. In case you are ignorant to who Anne Frank was, she was a young Jewish girl who kept a diary while hiding in an attic from the Nazi invasion in Amsterdam. Her surviving diary gave us a great insight into what it was like during those dark times.

This particular thought is powerful because it is so true. We see people overcome with emotion at funerals. Flowers are everywhere. This is as it should be. Losing a person is the most difficult thing we go through in life. The worse emotion people experience at a funeral is seldom loss. No, worse is the emotion of regret. What we should have said, or the time we should have spent. Regret can haunt us for the rest of our lives. It can also serve as one of the best reminders and motivators to change our behavior in the future.

What should be just as, if not more, powerful is our gratitude for the people we have in our lives. Take one person that is really special in your life. Think about everything you are grateful for about that person. Do this for at the very least 30 minutes. How long do you think that list would be? Just in passing, as I write this, my list is quite long. When you focus solely on what you are grateful for about any special individual in your life, those feelings should begin to swell. When we realize how lucky we are to share life with these amazing souls, we would want to cover the room they are in with flowers!

Still not convinced? Try using the opposite end of the spectrum. Imagine everything you would lose and how much pain and lose you would feel should you lose this person tomorrow. Not very fun, I know. What it will do is help you appreciate the great gifts this person brings to your life. Combine them both and you will be surprised at how you are feeling. It may not make you want to buy them flowers, but it will overwhelm you with a feeling of gratitude for sharing life with them. When you are full of emotions such as this, can you imagine the impact it will have on your relationship with them?

Try doing this with a different person each week. You will see your relationships taken to an entirely different level. Don’t take my word for this. What takes us from the life we have to the life we love is action! Try this for yourself. Just a focused, uninterrupted 30 minutes of gratitude for one individual. Maybe do it for a week straight. They do not even have to know you are doing it. Watch what it does to your relationship with them. Not to ruin the secret, but there is an added benefit. You will be filled with more inner joy than you can imagine. Feeling gratitude is a great antidote to all of life’s trouble. The more we talk about this, the more I am excited to put this into action myself. How about you? Is there someone special in your life that you are extremely grateful for? Don’t you think they are worth 30 minutes a day of your time for a week? You owe it to them, and you owe it to yourself. Take your life, and your relationships, to the next level.

ONE SECRET TO GETTING 🤑WEALTHY

At first glance, this statement may sound counter-intuitive. It really isn’t. Let me first start by telling you that wealth is not monetary. We have seen countless celebrities take their own lives with more money than many of us could spend in a lifetime. They were not wealthy. Being truly wealthy consists of having loving relationships. This can be with that special someone, your children, your parents or even your dog! How do you get that? By giving. Giving the gift our time. Maybe it involves giving the gift of our undivided attention. The wisdom of our experience makes a good gift. In the last case, our dog, a gift of a long walk and tossing a ball around would bring happiness and a loving relationship with your dog.

How about being wealthy by having a career we love? We must give for that. Give the time to study what makes our heart sing. Give the time and effort into developing our skills. The more we put into it, or we could say give to it, the higher our return will be.

One of the best ways to be wealthy is to have inner peace and joy. I can think of no better way to get both of these than to do it through giving. When you give someone a smile, doesn’t it make you feel good inside too? When you have listened and gave someone some encouraging words, how does that make you feel? What about when you give to an organization you love? That will bring you joy and inner peace, knowing you made a difference.

Let us remember the words of Anne Frank. We will never become poor by giving. I can promise you the more you focus on giving to others, the richer your life becomes. One important caveat to that – do not forget to give to yourself. In a season where many people are focused on what they can give to others, do not forget to give yourself some gifts. The gift of time with yourself. The gift of compassion and forgiveness. In what ways to you plan to give to others? How about giving to yourself?