Are you good company?

Start saying the things you truly think out loud, outside your own mind. It’s the only way you’ll ever hear what you really think, and decide which thoughts you’ll keep and which ones you won’t. Because your thoughts are like guests at your own party, whispering in your ear. They sit the closest to you and they never leave your side. They tell you everything. They judge everything. They gossip about other people at the party. They question the food and criticise your attitude. They question themselves and wonder if they aren’t a bit crazy. Or maybe they’re just tired. Then they get distracted with dessert. Then they stress because someone didn’t say thank you. But no one else hears them. Just you. They’re whispering in your ear all day long. And you have to sit there and listen to this.

Seriously, if no one else could see them, would you invite these weirdos to come to your house everyday? That’s what you do with your thoughts. You invite them in. You’re probably used to them already. To their likes and dislikes, their preconceived opinions, their snobbism. The good news is that they are your own creation, just like your own thoughts.

Start being good company to yourself today. If you’re wondering if your thoughts are good or not, say them out loud. Enough of letting them whisper in your ear. People only whisper when they should be quiet. Or when they’re creepy. And people only speak loud when they’re proud of what they have to say. So, start creating the guests with whom you’d love to sit around all day. That option is not only real, but is also the beginning of happiness. Because when you let go of annoying guests, you realise how beautiful your party really is.

There’s only one way to live.

Are you living life or are you faking it?

Most people lose themselves in the idea of what they want. I see this happening in all areas of life, such as advertising, religion, music… It’s everywhere. Why? Because our mind is lazy, and would rather settle for a fake expression of what is, rather than putting effort into creating original stuff. An everyday example:

On the left we see Miley Cyrus lost in the idea of what a model looks like, and on the right we see a model. Both of them have great cheek bones, but one of them is fake. I think you can tell which one is who.

Selfies can seem quite a small example, but it’s exactly this mindset that also messes with religion. How many people get lost in the idea of God? In the example above, we see religion as an excuse to war (left) and a true expression of spirituality (right). My take is that if you understand God with your mind you haven’t found God at all. Struggle is opposite to spirituality.

So, stay true. You might trick a fool’s mind, but you won’t trick your soul – the only one you should be worried about pleasing. Faking is like taking a shortcut to a dead end. And let’s face it, why spend your time struggling to fake anything at all?

If you want to know if what you’re doing is true, and not fake, ask yourself one question: ‘Why?’. If there is no obvious answer to this, you’re faking it.

Innovation Tuesdays #3

Ridiculous concepts designed to improve our life.

#2
Sweet Snack – The Snack That Loves You Back

People are addicted to sugar. But because sugar is bad for us (clogs up our blood, makes our skin look older, gives us cancer and makes us fat), maybe we can extract the one ingredient that makes it addicting: its sweetness.

Sweet genius! We can create sweet kisses, sweet hugs, sweet manners.. and sell them in a vending machine for £1 each to anyone who wishes to have a sweet snack. Now that my friends, would be a great way to achieve a sweet life.

Muah muah!

Happiness is is like a cupcake mould

I came to realise recently that happiness is a continuous process.

By inviting moments that keep us going and make us happy, we’re actually setting ourselves for failure. We’re breaking the cycle of happiness. Because everything that has a start, must have an end. And everything that has an end, takes us back to where we were before (unless we’re 100% conscious moving through this process – which most of us are not – especially when eating ice cream).

The things that give us pleasure have a wave of ups and downs, beginnings and ends, that disturb the continuos process of the happiness that lies beneath. That is the case of a text message from our crush, amazing sex, or shopping, to name a few. And we understand this because we’ve all seen ourselves needing something we didn’t need 5 minutes ago. And that can be a yoga matt, an apple or a pay raise.

And by no means I am saying you should stop having pleasure. Because pleasure makes us feel alive. And feeling alive is  what we want. But feeling alive through pleasure and feeling alive through happiness is not the same thing. Because true happiness can make you feel alive all the time. Pleasure cannot. True happiness is something deeper than pleasure that lies beneath all pleasures. Like a cupcake mould that can be filled in with the most various ingredients. No matter what ingredients you have or don’t have, the mould will always be there.

So make your cupcakes and eat it them too. But don’t trick yourself into thinking that the cupcakes are what makes you happy. What makes you happy is the tool you have to make them.

Even when you run out of sprinkles.

Innovation Tuesdays #2

Ridiculous concepts designed to improve our life.

#2
Water Munchies

This insanely healthy snack is a droplet that can be chewed, containing only water. It’s like fish oil tablets and water had a baby. They’re called water munchies.

Water munchies satisfy the bored first-world-problem individual sitting in front of the computer. They come in a pack, (kind of like chips), they do not contain calories and provide all the water you need throughout the day.