Tag Archives: Worries

Awakening to the Present: Unveiling Life’s Infinite Possibilities

Poetic potpourri

In the present moment, I find my bliss,
Where worries fade, and time dismiss.
No past regrets, no future fears,
Just now, serene, as it appears.

Embrace the now, let go of the past,
Each breath a treasure, meant to last.
Unburdened by what lies ahead,
I seize the moment, no time to dread.

The beauty unfolds, in every detail,
Nature’s symphony, a vibrant trail.
A dance of senses, a mindful embrace,
The present moment, my sacred space.

No longer lost in thoughts gone astray,
I savor the present, each passing day.
For life’s true essence, I’ve come to see,
Resides in the present, where I’m free.

So let us cherish this God’s gift we possess,
The present moment, a timeless caress.
Inhale its fragrance, let worries release,
Live fully now, and find inner peace.

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One day🙏

 

Try to get it!

In sha Allah

One day I will have a new start
One day all my sadness will depart
One day I will have a partener who is So smart
All my worries and interests he will adopt
One day I will achieve all my dreams
And I will have brand new routines
One day I will fly far far away
Until I reach my ultimate peaceful stay
One day I will restore myself

Sohair

🙏

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June 21: Let Jesus carry your heavy burdens

We have one mediator by God. It is Jehovah God His son Jesus who sits next to the Highest. That son of man knows best our troubles and worries and is ready to be our advocate by his heavenly Father.
Jesus is the ideal person to talk for us and to defend us by his heavenly Father so that This divine God as our Father may have pity with us and may help us to overcome our difficulties. Trust in that God of Jesus is the best way to find inner rest.

We are promised there will be troubles in this life. But God has given His beloved son to the world to be a mediator between Him and man. Jesus is the way to come to God. When we have found Christ and put our trust in his heavenly Father, Jehovah God, we can trade our yoke for the one Jesus gives, and find rest.

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Preceding

Christian Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

“In The Midst Of The Storm”

As near to God as you want Him to be

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Additional reading

  1. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #14 Prayer #12 The other name
  2. Infinite payment of sin by the son of God
  3. Mediator
  4. One mediator
  5. Jesus of Nazareth
  6. Mediator and advocate
  7. Building a Spiritual House

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Related

  1. #Rest
  2. Message of the Day: God’s Offer of Rest to the Weary
  3. Loved, Just As I Am
  4. Get that load off yourself
  5. Come
  6. Fanboy Nerves
  7. Today’s Word With Joel and Victoria Osteen – Come
  8. Blissful Rest
  9. Changing of the Guard

Daily Devotional

“The Power of a Word: Carry!”

“Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’” – Matthew 11:28 (NLT)

As I looked out over my congregation yesterday, I could almost feel the burdens my people were carrying. Some were carrying burdens of grief. Father’s Day reminded many of the loss of their fathers or their husbands. Sorrow is multiplied on days like today. Some of you can relate to this. Some were carrying burdens of fear. They’re facing medical procedures and tests. They’re frightened by an uncertain future, disintegrating relationships, and wayward children. They’re scared by what they know and even more afraid of what they don’t. Some were carrying burdens for aging parents. Some were carrying burdens for spouses and children battling addiction. Some were carrying burdens of guilt for things that they’ve done and things…

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Machiavelli

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A stitch in time saves nine!

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It’s a New Year!

Now and then human being have to be reminded that material is just dust. Often it is with less pleasant experiences that we are pushed with our face in the reality of life.

It is good that at such moments of truth people dare to tell others how they feel and what they experience. Such moments of calamity should make us to think about more important things. It should remind us of our Maker and about our reason being here and how we should relate to each other and our environment.

Institute of Mental Health 10, Nov 06

Institute of Mental Health 10, Nov 06 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some of the experiences we get in a year may be all too much. They can deliver us more worries and stress than our stress bucket can handle. That is the moment that this also will overflow – at which point we can start to experience symptoms of mental ill health. We can use coping strategies to help tap the bucket, and allow stress to flow away in a healthy and manageable way.

However, no matter how hard we try, no matter how good our coping strategies – exercise, medicines, meditation – no matter how much we avoid the things we know are bad for us – sometimes life throws in a brick and makes it impossible to avoid the inevitable splash. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

Living in this world, even with all the luxury around us certain things also for us can get too much, and our usual coping mechanisms then shall cease to be a match for our concerns, that this can lead us to develop emotional / mental health issues. Some might want to use their employees as machines, bu we are human beings not without inner feelings, and life throws things at us that we don’t always know how to deal with very well.

Sadly a lot of people may well be experiencing that overspill in the coming months –  widespread flooding across the North of the United Kingdom (and in Missouri, red.) has devastated lives, homes, businesses. People are still cleaning up, throwing out years worth of possessions and irreplaceable mementoes, wondering where on earth the money will come from to replace even the more mundane things like microwaves and kettles. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

When bad things happen in a certain region that is often also the time people are coming to know each other in an other, and hopefully in a better way.

The good news is that we have seen the most amazing evidence of the goodness of humanity – people helping eachother to clean up, everyone banding together. Volunteers travelling from near and far, donations pouring in – individuals and organisations and companies are doing a lot to ensure that things are put right as quickly as possible. I have a lot of hope that some minds have been changed, and eyes opened by the sheer generosity and kindness which has been shown by diverse communities from across the country in this little valley. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

Hopefully, that evidence of love and kinship will help people in more than just the practical ways. But in the weeks and months to come, people will start to be impacted by the trauma they have experienced. The exhaustion of the effort they have had to put in to get their homes dry, stay fed, keep themselved and their families safe – it will creep up on people and affect them in ways they may not expect. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

Some may think that such things will soon be forgotten, but they are not. Life has to go on and people will find a way to cope with it, but is shall leave its scars. It is perfectly understandable, and natural, that this will creep up on people and affect them in ways they may not expect.

Human beings have so much ignored nature around them that now nature is giving back an answer which is not so pleasant at times. 2015 may have been the warmest year since the measuring but it had its moments of heavy winds and pouring waters.

Storms have mercilessly battered Britain, one after the other over this festive period, bringing with them severe and unrelenting floods. The scale of damage and devastation was unprecedented, but it was not unpredictable. We’ve seen these storms growing with intensity every year. And, whilst a few might naively blame El Niño for this recent bout, we know that climate change is the driving factor. {UK flooding: the new normal in a changed climate}

Throughout the years we have shown our unrespectfulness and neglectfulness to mother nature that now time has come to have it respond to us on not such a friendly way either.

The harsh truth is that even if we cut all emissions today, we can’t undo what damage we’ve already done. The carbon we’ve pumped into the atmosphere will remain there for generations to come and so too will the weather it brings with it. The climate has changed, it continues to change and there’s no going back. These violent winter storms, and the floods they bring with them, are here to stay. {UK flooding: the new normal in a changed climate}

And that each rainfall will bring unease (indeed we know there is always a risk of the waters rising again – our last disaster brought two floods in one month). So it is vital that people recognise that their emotions, their mental health deserve as much care as their physical health, and that they seek help if they are struggling – in the same way they would seek help if they start to vomit / get toilet trouble that may come as a result of being in contact with the polluted flood waters. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

I think it would be particularly useful for those of us in the community who wish to support our friends and families – who perhaps know people they think might struggle to accept mental health difficulties in themselves and so not seek help when they need it. {Bricks in the stress bucket}

When the rivers retreat from historic and deadly winter flooding, leaving amid the silt a massive cleanup and recovery effort likely to take weeks if not months, people have to find a new way to continue their life.

The level of global change we’re experiencing now presents many interconnected, multi-faceted challenges that have affected and will affect different countries in different ways. It is hard to tell as a layperson what this means, but the experts have long since warned that the most severe effects in the UK would be powerful storms and increased flooding. There has been very little to suggest that the government has taken these warnings seriously, as they still seem to operate on the principle that it’s better to be sorry than safe. But they can’t keep living in denial, we are living in a different world. The Earth has warmed by one degree and it’s time we started acting like it. {UK flooding: the new normal in a changed climate}

Going into a new year lets think about all those people who are experiencing the worst things people can endure, war, floods …. and let us hope more people shall be willing to stand ready for them in need and help them to find the good things in life again.

May the good things in your life also be more lightening than your bad experiences of the year and let 2016 be a year of good health and a progression in the good direction.

God bless.

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Further readings

  1. When life spills over the edge – can you help?
  2. Emergency responders manage risks as river rises above flood stage
  3. A Slightly Different View Of Aberdeen Beach Today…
  4. St. Louis area faces big cleanup effort after flooding
  5. Deluge
  6. Storms and Floods
  7. 2016 Start
  8. Deadly floods choke operations from oil to wheat in U.S. Midwest
  9. UK flooding: the new normal in a changed climate
  10. The EU Water Framework Directive & The Role Played By Green NGO’s
  11. The Perks of Escaping Your Mind Through Nature
  12. …And, she’s back!!
  13. Tired
  14. 1/3-stress on stress
  15. Self-Care Sunday: What’s Worked For Me
  16. Happy New Year
  17. Taking Stock
  18. God’s Words of Comfort in Times of Fear – January 3, 2016
  19. Not a bad start
  20. Shit I’m Gonna Try to Accomplish This Year
  21. Worry Stress: Make a Decision Now
  22. Growing Young
  23. Calm down.

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You’re Lighter Than Air~

In the West of Europe we are getting the Autumn winds and rains and the days getting shorter and darker. It is the beginning of a period when more people do feel the darkness of life coming over them and by February many feeling it to much to face it further.

The wind in Summer may never be looked at so dangerously as the winds in Autumn . A few weeks ago we regularly could see people gliding in the air, kite-surfing or on the beaches finding children and adults alike, enjoying their guidance of a kite high up in sky. They trusted they would not loose their kite and those who were hanging on a kite trusted they could come down safely in a field or on a square.

For many the last few months were the time to put away their ‘human stressors, worries and blues’. Would it not have been nice not only to temporarily banish them by a simple afternoon, in a stiff wind, flying a kite?

Let us find in ourselves the power to have a light breeze which takes away the worries of the day. that we may trust in everything we have in ourselves to face this world and to go each coming day of Winter.

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  • how to cut big kite using small kite : kite tips and tricks (goazeem.org)
    Make sure you use quality kite thread. Kite thread place an important role. Today among the various kite threads Chinese manja is very famous. This kite thread is also known as China thread. Earlier people used Manja which was made by people itself.
  • Weifang-Kite Capital of the World (chinatraveltips.net)
    Located in the middle of Shandong Peninsula, Weifang (wéi fāng 潍坊) is the heart of the urban agglomerations in Shandong Peninsula.
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    During the Spring-and-Autumn-Period and the period of the the Warring States, some 2300 years ago, the first kite had been developed in the province of Shandong. The long literary tradition of China enables us to find more detailed information. Regarding to the book of Han Fei Zi (hán fēi zǐ 韩非子), the master of joinery Mu Zi (mò zǐ 墨子) had been constructing within three years time of development a man-lifting kite, known as the Wooden-Black-Eard-Kite. Some time later the master of joinery named Lu Ban (lǔ bān 鲁班), had been building another Wooden-Black-Eard-Kite, that had been used as reconaissance device above the ancient city of Song Cheng (sòng chéng 宋城). Both masters originate from the ancient state of Lu, today named Qufu (qǔ fù 曲阜).
  • Spreading joy high in the sky (ocregister.com)
    The Natansons are aware they “sell fun,” but they take their work very seriously. Along with running the shop, the couple also co-host the annual Japan America Kite Festival, which will celebrate its 18th year in Seal Beach on Oct.19.

    The Natansons began serving the local kite community after the 2007 death of Monty Weston, who helped create the festival, shop and club with her son Randy nearly 20 years ago.

    They see the festival as a way to expose more adults and families to kites. It is their passion because they know their customers can always channel childlike wonder and fulfillment through them.

    “You can’t not smile when flying a kite,” Knievel-Natanson, 34, said.

  • Weather breaks for second annual Kite Fest (billingsgazette.com)
    The second annual Kite Fest attracted varying degrees of kite fliers ranging from the novice to the highly skilled — and nearly every age on the birthday spectrum.

    Kite Fest was sponsored by the Yellowstone River Parks Association and SkyWindWorld Foundation, a nonprofit organization that organizes kite exhibits in major public venues.

  • 50-feet-wide kite to dot city sky tomorrow (thehindu.com)
    A giant kite will be flown in the backdrop of the Chamundi Hills on October 1 in an attempt to enter the Limca Book of Records. Pawan Solanki, a kite flier from Ahmedabad, will fly a 50-feet wide kite at Lalitha Mahal helipad after 3 p.m. as part of the Dasara Kite Festival which begins on September 30.
  • Kite-surfer knocks out swimmer’s teeth – why? (sandiegoreader.com)
    On a busy day you can count 20 or more kite-surfers sailing with the surfers. Sometimes they spray water on the surfers as they go by, and some jump directly over the surfers while going against the wave. Obviously they are being propelled by the wind and not the wave. This is important because the definition of a surfboard is a non-inflatable device that is carried along or propelled by the action of the waves. If the kite-surfer is jumping a wave going seaward, it is not being carried along or propelled by the wave, and hence is not considered a valid surfboard that is allowed in a board-surfing area.
  • Flying Kites (therandomwritings.com)
    I counted 2 dozen kites in the sky, and we knew more would be going up as the afternoon progressed. So many kites in a limited space means you have to have some skills as a flier–I witnessed a few crashed perpetuated by less-than-expert handlers.

Cindy Knoke

DSC02971

with your fist holding tight, to the string of your kite~

Mary Poppins

DSC02973

Have you ever considered how many human stressors, worries and blues, could be temporarily banished by a simple afternoon, in a stiff wind, flying a kite?DSC02977

It’s hard not to smile and laugh when your flying a kite, at least when you successfully get it in the air.  But then, the crashes are pretty funny too!

DSC03315

And it’s difficult to be depressed, and smiling and laughing, at the same time.

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There is something about flying a kite that brings out the joy of the child, no matter how long buried, in all of us.

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If you don’t believe me, look at these people. I’m sure all of them have a lot of worries. (I have been a therapist for thirty years, trust me on this).

But right now? Flying kites? Not so much.

DSC02984

So if life is…

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It continues to be a never ending, exhausting battle for survival.

Posttraumatic stress disorder does not have to be a lifelong disorder. Being exposed to one or more traumatic events, such as sexual assault, warfare, serious injury, or threats of imminent death may result in feelings of intense fear, horror, and powerlessness and for sure can make it that we carry the memories of it and the anxiety with it all our life with us. But it has not to derange us for all our lifetime. The bad experiences which we encountered we can use also for the good, conquering the problems it gave us and helping others with the bad experience we had.

In case we allow the bad experience get deep into us and let it make us depressed, we allow it to conquer us. We should try to make ourselves stronger than the experience, how bad it might be, and stand up against it, showing our teeth or or ‘balls’.

Jehovah God also provided a solution for all the evil in this world and brought salvation for our pains and worries. By the death of His son we are saved. When we accept the sacrificial offer of Jesus Christ, the son of God, we can find solace, but we must know that shall not take away the temptations, the tribulations, the pains, a.o. we shall have to endure whilst in this time system.

It is in God and in His son we must put our hope and look forward to the return of Christ and the coming Kingdom of God.

In the meantime we can trust the Most High He will protect us and never let things test us more than we can bear. But when we are victim of bad events we should let us get down and let evil win. The adversary of God, (Satan) which can be any or every person, shall be able to feel our doubt and try us out. We should stand strong.

It is impossible to be strong every day, or to feel at ease or to be happy all the time. We have to face our ups and downs and be aware we have more strength in us than we ever would think. It is there deep in us, but we ourselves have to dig after it.

And yes at moments we do have to give ourself a break, but having self compassion shall never help. Self-pity is the thing we can miss most. Though it does not mean we can not have days that we just find it okay to lie down, pull the blanket up over our head and say nope…..”I can’t do this right now.” But know that there is tomorrow again a day and than it would be possible perhaps. Just get up and try to do it. You can!

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Please do read: Fear, struggles, sadness, bad feelings and depression

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  • An Analysis of Self (christopherryandueck.wordpress.com)
    Some days I find myself agreeing whith those people who think what I have is nothing more than an excuse to be miserable. Maybe my headaches, my joint pain, my halucinations and all the other problems I deal with are simply me wanting to be a victim. I spend entirely too much time second guessing myself, especially when it comes to the depression and anxiety I feel almost constantly. What if I am making it all up? It isn’t something I can “prove” to people who don’t think that mental illness is a real medical problem and because of that I sometimes fall into that trap. I feel guilty for going to my many doctor’s appointments even though I know I would not be able to hold onto a job if I didn’t, but try explaining that to people who’s idea of dealing with mental health is “suck it up”.
  • We All Have A Choice (foodforthespiritualsoul.wordpress.com)
    Love of the self. It is something that we have been deceived into thinking, and reasoning out to ourselves, that hinder us from completely being obedient to God, the Father of Creation’s, Will of the lives He gave us. Jesus Christ, as God’s Son, showed us through His Death on the Cross, at Calvary, that complete obedience to God’s Ways of Unconditional Love, Mercy, and Nonviolence, should be upheld at All Costs, even if it requires death to the human body, to save the soul that He has given you to keep guard over. That we value God’s Ways, above the world’s ways, that is running rampant with Violence, Unforgiveness, and Self Love. People say we should love ourself.
  • Psalm 6 (kittyjonesblog.wordpress.com)

    O Jehovah, self-existent One,

    please do not breathe out angry condemnation or discipline over me,

    even though I deserve it.

    Please be merciful for I am weak and vulnerable.

  • Thick or thin, the battle within. (meaningfulmeanderingsofsuz.wordpress.com)
    We hear a lot about thick vs. thin skin and it is even somewhat of a mantra in many households.   Parents tell their kids they better get it or life will be just so much harder to survive.   Companies tell their employees to not be so sensitive about rejection or what anyone else says. Thin skinned people seem to be perceived as weak and too fragile to deal with real life. And then there’s sensitivity training for those who have built the proverbial thick skin they were chastised for not having in the first place and then expect everyone else to have the same rhino-esque qualities.
  • Persistent symptoms following concussion may be posttraumatic stress disorder (medicalxpress.com)
    Concussion accounts for more than 90 percent of all TBIs, although little is known about prognosis for the injury. The symptoms cited as potentially being part of PCS fall into three areas: cognitive, somatic and emotional. But the interpretation of symptoms after MTBI should also take into account that injuries are often sustained during psychologically distressing events which can lead to PTSD.

    The authors conducted a study of injured patients at an emergency department in a hospital in France to examine whether persistent symptoms three months after a head injury were specific to concussion or may be better described as part of PTSD. The study included 534 patients with head injury and 827 control patients with nonhead injuries.

    Three months after the injury, 21.2 percent of head-injured and 16.3 percent of nonhead-injured patients met the diagnosis of PCS; 8.8 percent of head-injured patients met the criteria for PTSD compared with 2.2 percent of control patients.

  • Why Me?! (christiboronow.wordpress.com)
    I could not count how many times I’ve asked this question…whether it be because something awesome just happened and I’m stunned that it happened to me. Or because I’m going through some ridiculous trial and am at a loss of strength and will to keep fighting. This evening I asked, “why me, God…why?”
    Not because my life is going according to my plan, but because it seems like my whole world is falling apart. The last several months have been a constant trial and if I’m completely honest, I am at my absolute end. I have no strength to keep fighting, my body is exhausted, I just had an emergency surgery, my grandma is in her last few miles of life fighting cancer, and I have hit a massive brick wall. I sit here typing this post as my stomach flips out in pain and all I want to do is sleep.
  • Write to the Point with Angie Brashear (5020genesis.wordpress.com)
    As a nonbeliever for the majority of my life, I enjoyed reading speculative fiction and it was the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis which ultimately opened my eyes to Christ. My prayer is that my stories will do the same for others. I also hope believers will enjoy the Christian undertones of my work.
  • The End? (wifeafterdeath.com)
    After Mark survived His sudden and savage illness in 2008, He had one goal: never to let it define Him. He took the pills, checked in for INR tests, trundled down to Oxford for His annual review. He reluctantly acceded to these things because a man with a stethoscope and big glasses told Him He had to.

    A less optimistic person may have allowed the regime to take over their lives. But not my husband. It spurred Him on to achieve and conquer. In fact, most of the time He’d have you believe it never happened. (Except in those rare, dark moments of reality which seeped in unseen and made us both sob at the cruelty of it all.)

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Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism

I am convinced that in case we try to bend all our negative thoughts into the direction of good thoughts we can manage better. Very important to avoid stress situations simply is avoiding those people who could bring us into such a situation. We best avoid negative influences and associate better more with people who can contribute positiveness in our life.

Eliminative Materialism

Eliminative Materialism (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should be careful not to be taken in, by not be focusing on the distribution of material power because that are the matters which can bring us down.  Materialism in the end always will kill the person. Always being aware that no way we ever shall get a good working system or any political system that can solve everything. For that we shall have to wait until the return of Christ, when the Kingdom of God shall at last become a full reality. Before that the reality of a perfect world is an illusion. The reality that surrounds us is not in itself a product of the objective forces but one of our shared perceptions, ideas, social values and understanding. We would be fooling ourselves if we believed the state and the inter-state systems, would not be artificial constructs, meaning that they are constructed by humans, and they can be changed and developed in new ways in extreme cases leading to anarchy and a huge security dilemma.

We all should work on coming to understand how the world evolves and what for influence we as human beings have on nature. when you look how we treat nature it more seems that we are very good at destroying it instead of living in symbioses with it.

At the moment how people are making a mess of the world they are also putting stress on the whole community, using everything and every one to get as much material gain as they can. Not many people are really interested in the spiritual site of life. Most people are also not interested to come to know or to come to an understanding of the universe and the world around us.

All the things that happened in the past can never be undone. This can be hard to swallow and it can bring much sadness to us. But it has no use to linger on such bad events, sad happenings and to keep facing depressing thoughts. the world must go on, and we with it.

Instead of having people to succeed to push us in a hole, getting us not believing in ourselves any more, we better try to understand why such people became so envious, jealous, and so frustrated that they like to bully others. They would like to kill all initiative others would take, because that would put them in the shadow. Often such people looking to get all the power would not mind putting all those on their path, standing in their way,to not only put them in the shadow, but to get them in the dark, not having to play any significant role any more. it is all a matter of control. And when we lose control we might come into a phase of stress and they think they also would come in a phase of no power any more.

Sharing  control and sharing tasks has not to mean you would or the other would loose control. Together more can be managed than on your own. Often when people start feeling their loosing control they do come in afraid to loose their position in the comfort zone. Some may take on the defence mode and try to suppress the other, others may come in the discomfort zone and feeling stress. at first the one feeling the pressure at work might thing he or she could solve the problem with working harder, giving himself or herself more for the job, but many of such hard-working and optimistically minded individuals have lost their jobs and have come so depressed, taken over by the stress or worries.

We best take care we do not get in a position were we could start dwelling on the negative spiral to nowhere. It leads to nihilism. We too can avoid that others get in a stress situation and loose their optimism. By encouraging others to focus on the positives is an act of ‘brotherly love‘. It also shows a faith in other individuals as well as a faith in what is around you or in the organization you are working for.

English: Captain Edward Rickenbacker, America'...

Captain Edward Rickenbacker, America’s premier “Ace” officially credited with 22 enemy planes and the proud wearer of the French War Cross as he appeared upon his arrival on board the Adriatic. Underwood and Underwood., ca. 1919  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all should remember  what World War I ace and aviation entrepreneur, Eddie Rickenbacker said:

Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.” That is an attitude worth maintaining and nurturing especially when times are so severe.

A big problem today is that most people are so focused on the materialism they do not see that there are more important matters and they think somebody else can destroy them. Several people consider atheism as being more useful for the development of life forces and the worldly satisfaction of the larger masses of mankind. {“Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit.” Articles by and on Berdyaev, Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism}

The triumph of the bourgeois spirit led Berdyaev to declare that history was a story of failure. Berdyaev lamented that the will to power and affluence had triumphed over the will to holiness and genius.” (Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, Paulist Press, l98l.) {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

This world is taken over by materialism, idolatries of power, lust and comfort. Normally you would think all the luxury would bring much satisfaction to the people, but by comparing what others have and what they do not have the  jealousy took them down in a spiral of envy and bring them in a stress situation. Lots of people have created their own god. They do not understand that the for them useful and practically effective god of capitalism cannot be the True God. When you look at their god or gods you might come to see that it is no problem at all to unmask their new and popular gods. We can see that many adore the money and have put away The Only One God of religious revelations far away. For them That God can not be seen nor felt and therefore has no value for them. You could ask them: whenever did you try to look for Him and tried to see Him?

We have become surrounded by technique and many are totally taken by it and also have become very dependant on it. Their relationship with all that technical stuff however did not help to bring them into closer communion with their inner life and soul of nature. they might think it brought them closer together, and has created them having more ‘friends’ on the social networks. But they do not see that many of them are ‘virtual friends’ and have not a real social connection at all. We even see that more people become more isolated in their environment of Linked-in and Facebook relatives. They might have many so called ‘friends’ in their circles but they are very lonely … on their own. They, in their isolation, also seem to loose track of their own possibilities.

The machine sets its stamp upon the human spirit and all its manifestations. Thus civilization has neither a natural nor a spiritual, but a mechanical foundation. It represents par excellence the triumph of technique over both the spirit and organism.

The machine and technique are the product of the mental development and discoveries of culture; but they sap its organic foundations and kill its spirit. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

With all the focus on material goods not much interest can be found for culture. those working in the cultural field may be tampered and losing positivism as well. They have to find a way to earn their living and are persuaded to greater concessions. Many artists having lost the artistic soul, becoming part of the mainstream ‘civilization’ where spiritual matters are discounted and where quantity has displaced quality.

The assertion of the will to “life,” power, organization and earthly happiness, brings about mankind’s spiritual decline; for the higher spiritual life is based upon asceticism and resignation. Such are the tragedy and fate of historical destinies. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Vyacheslav Ivanov, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, Niko...

Vyacheslav Ivanov, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, Nikolai Berdyaev (standing) and Andrei Bely (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I do not think like that civilization as opposed to culture, which is given up to the contemplation of eternity, tends to be futurist. I do agree that machinery and technique are chiefly responsible for the speeding up of life, but that some might have lost the reason why we could make advantage of such tools. and its exclusive aspiration towards the future. the technique should have helped our society to come more at ease and to be less stressful. Many let the machine take over and concentrated more on the material gain it could bring instead of making use or advantage of the time it could make free for them to do other things.

Organic life is slower, less impetuous, and more concerned with essentials, while civilized life is superficial and accidental; for it puts the means and instruments of life before the ends whose significance is lost. The consciousness of civilized men is concentrated exclusively upon the means and technique of life considered as the only reality, while its aims are regarded as illusory. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

may think that spiritual culture is unreal, but for me culture is fundamental for a healthy community. Culture is is not a mere instrument of technique, it is the gear transmission of society. It is the sociological controller and instigator for a good relation between end and means. Culture is also the mirror for man to put everything in perspective and the golden thread in history. Today we may see the loss of any sense of purpose in human life, culture and religion.

All historical tendencies which have striven to create harmony, to overcome the dark premise, to subdue the turbulence of freedom and supersede it by compelled and necesary good, are concerned only with the secondary signs of the unique and primal mystery of divine freedom. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

We as human beings should remember we are only a very tiny element in the universe. We would love to believe that everything turns around us, but we are thoroughly mistaken.

21st Century Materialism

21st Century Materialism (Photo credit: tomislavmedak)

I do agree with Berdyaev that humankind has a solution in front of them, which was already given to them early from the start. And that it is this fundamental moral contradiction we are facing today that invalidates the doctrine of progress, turning it into a religion of death instead of resurrection and eternal life.

There is no valid ground for degrading those generations whose lot has been cast among pain and imperfection beneath that whose pre-eminence has been ordained in blessedness and joy. No future perfection can expiate the sufferings of past generations. Such a sacrifice of all human destinies to the messianic consummation of the favoured race can only revolt man’s moral and religious conscience. A religion of progress based on this apotheosis of a future fortunate generation is without compassion for either present or past; it addresses itself with infinite optimism to the future, with infinite pessimism to the past. It is profoundly hostile to the Christian expectation of resurrection for all mankind, for all the dead, fathers and forefathers. This Christian idea rests on the hope of an end to historical tragedy and contradiction valid for all human generations, and of resurrection in eternal life for all who have ever lived. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Our habit of breaking up time into the past, present and future does not entitle us to endow the last with more reality than the first. From the standpoint of the present, the future is no richer in reality than the past, and our efforts should be with reference, not to the future, but to that eternal present of which both future and past are one. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

More people in this world should make the choice on what they really want to focus. Too much we have forgotten the importance of the choices we have to make and on the direction we have to focus our eyes and mind. We should all be convinced how much we ourselves can regulate our own life and how much depends on the focus on what we want is directly proportional to what we can achieve.

To many of us are more concerned to prove ourselves for man, instead of proving ourselves for the Higher Being. How many of us are not willing to change themselves, just for the sake of wining someone’s approval.

Geetika Garg, who is trying to know more about everything around her, writes on her blog:

You don’t have to prove yourself worthwhile by doing what others wish; it’s certainly not your job. Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your ow. {You Matter}

Too many people have forgotten to be their own self and to dare to speak out for themselves.  A lot of people who would have loved to have more affinity for the spiritual have been pressed against the wall by the materialists. they put their own inner soul aside, thinking they would be less than the other. they looked for ways outside themselves to prove themselves by doing what others wished them to do. they should know that is not the right way and is neither to help them nor the ones they are hoping to please.

May I quote the lady who believes whatever we are seeking is seeking us too, and has hopes that the day the two will meet, it will be complete, perfect as it is meant to be!

Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your own self; you are capable of achieving what all you desire and you require absolutely none to tell you how worthy you are. Instead of focusing on what critics have to say why not concentrate on those who praise you.  Those people are the ones with all positivism and happiness. We often tend to forget that they exist and keep believing on all bad about us. They are the people who matter. Let go of rest. Don’t let your ears used to of those cruel words that inhibit your growth, that steal a part of you and things that change your entire being. {You Matter}

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Recommended readings:

  1. Social Constructivism and Positivism in the Context of International Relations
  2. Put Positivism to Work
  3. Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism
  4. Berdyaev on the Nature of Spirit and Reality in Relation to Apologetics
  5. The Practice of Philosophy and Modes of Knowing: Hart’s Rejoinder to Zuidervaart?
  6. Searching for fulfillment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
  7. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
  8. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  9. Aligned
  10. Malefactors becoming your master
  11. Control your destiny or somebody else will
  12. Control and change
  13. Science and God’s existence
  14. Do we have to be an anarchist to react
  15. Getting out of the dark corners of this world
  16. Value Positivism
  17. Patience is the ability to count down before blasting off
  18. He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger
  19. To whom do we want to be enslaved
  20. Power in the life of certain
  21. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
  22. God is my refuge and my fortress in Him I will trust

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  • Nihilism Cannot Be Disproved (Except by Positivism) (pensatwar.wordpress.com)
    Pure nihilism (and not any of the subcategories of it) can be defined simply as: The belief that there is no truth. Positivism is the opposite; that there is truth.
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    Nihilists, pure nihilists, do not have a profound effect on society. They can’t. If one truly believes in 100% Nihilism, why do anything? If a person is dedicated to nihilism all the time for their entire life, they will have had no extra effect on reality whatsoever. They will have simply existed and passed, with no meaning.
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    Nihilism can only be disproved by Positivism. Its a purely democratic philosophical clash.
  • Positivism and The Quantity Theory of Money (syesworldview.wordpress.com)
    The doctrine of positivism is a form of arch-empiricism that tries to crystallise the supposed process of ‘scientific thought’. An adherent of positivism believes that there are general ‘laws’ of cause and effect in the natural/social sciences and the only way to uncover these ‘laws’ is via the tool of research. An adherent of positivism believes that objective analysis – whatever is meant by this – is the only form of analysis; indeed there exists a zero possibility of the observer influencing the observed. Nature is orderly and regular; scientific knowledge is cumulative in character and all objective phenomena are eventually knowable – all characterize the approach of positivism.
  • If you’re afraid to do it, do it afraid. (carolynhughesthehurthealer.com)
    What are you frightened of? Anything that stops you living your life to the full, whether it’s fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the future can all impact on your life. Yet it is possible to overcome that detrimental negative thinking. You may never be completely fearless but you can learn to break out of your comfort-zone and find the freedom to take your life to a new level.
  • Positivism for Millennium 3 (politicalpipeline.wordpress.com)
    Positivism describes a process to discover and authenticate knowledge (within reality) via the scientific method, which examines and then verifies (it’s positive). There is an initial hypothesis: this is a folded piece of paper, all swans are white, democracies start wars, etc., and then verification would validate or invalidate the hypothesis. Knowledge, in this manner, forms—and there is something for scientists to teach.In order for this scientific method to move forward, we have come to know six basic understandings of positivism. They are: unified science (created an ideology of a one-layered world, reality may be reduced to physics), empiricism (knowledge gained through mental or physical experimentation), objectivism (uninvolved observer), value freedom (no normative value is placed on the object of study), instrumentalism (observing it as a thing in the world), and technicism (value methods over results) (PSS, 13-14). Positivism took root in western philosophy in the 18th century and decayed in the winters and sprang in the summers of the 20th century.
  • The Future of Capitalism according to Nikolai Berdyaev (channelclimate.wordpress.com)
    Most educated people in the West have heard of Fyodor Dostoevsky. But how many have heard of Nikolai Berdyaev? He was a Russian religious philosopher of the first half of the 20th century. And he had some interesting (albeit controversial) insights regarding the future of Capitalism. In his book The New Middle Ages (1933) that I’m currently reading he made several important observations on the issue.


    First, in Berdyaev’s view development of society resembles cycles rather than spirals (in his view, it is somewhat similar to the day-night pattern). Second, the terms progressive and reactionary are relative if not utterly meaningless in a debate; for example, Christianity was progressive compared to the Old Gods but reactionary compared to the Capitalist New History. Third, the philosopher predicted that the 20th century frontier would be between Communism and Capitalism, or between
    God and The Godless (and he wasn’t referring to the production possibilities frontier). Fourth, he claimed that Russia had never fully embraced the Western way of life, including its rationality, laws, and norms. In fact, Russia has stepped directly from the old Middle Ages into the new Middle Ages. How, you’ll ask? By way of the Bolshevik revolution. According to Berdyaev, Communism is a Satanic religion, but a religion nonetheless, that sent Russia back into the Middle Ages (but note: when he used the term “the Middle Ages”, unlike modern Liberals he didn’t think of it in a condescending way).
  • Legal Positivism and the Common Law (allenmendenhallblog.com)
    Legal positivism, in the most basic sense, holds that laws are the manifestation of sovereign commands. It stands in contradistinction to natural law or the judicial conformity with human reason that supposedly defines the common law.
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    What distinguishes the common law from a civil law system is the doctrine of stare decisis (“let the decision stand”), which requires judges to follow precedents established by prior decisions or to distinguish the facts of new cases from the facts of previous cases in order to reach an applicable rule.
  • Surrendering to positivism (thehimalayantimes.com)
    The world is progressing in the field of science and technology, but peace cannot be attained through that. The fact is that peace can be acquired only through spiritual ideas. Until one imbibes the teachings of Swami Vivekananda, peace cannot be understood.
    In today’s context, everybody is striving to be perfect, but there still is inequity everywhere. That is the reason why revolution took place in Nepal and other places — because there is lack of proper attention to every individual’s need. People who lead the country should be selfless, but unfortunately, they are corrupt. They lack spiritual ideas.
  • Negative Positivism (hasarla.wordpress.com)
    Help arises when you arises. But if you stand and watch, they will do the same and feel your loss and you been d positive dude/girl programmed to rise after every fall (which is right), stay positive when all looks downright bleak, just keep moving on.
  • Positivism and Utilitarianism (arulinside.wordpress.com)
    According to Dias the positivist movement started at the beginning of the 19th century. It represented a reaction against the a priori methods of thinking which turned away from the realities of actual law in order to discover nature or reason the principles of universal validity. Hart pointed out that the term positivism has many meanings which one of them is that laws are commands. Law as command is associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Austin that both are the founder of the British positivism.
  • Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (unfspb.wordpress.com)
    Logical positivism is a more or less loose collection of philosophical theses- some of which are incompatible- which have their genesis in the scientific inclinations of the Vienna Circle members (on this see Friedman 1999 and Uebel 2009). However, one may identify two broadly unifying themes within logical positivism: (1) a verificationist epistemology and (2) an instrumentalist stance toward scientific theories.
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