Tag Archives: Albert Einstein

HAPPINESS: Seek Simple Steps to a Spiritual Life


By Aliker David Martin

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle” Albert Einstein

Connecting to the spirit

Before you ignore the idea of spirituality in your pursuit of happiness, take a leap of faith and complete reading my blog post. My intention is to stimulate anxiety in you to explore what those with faith see that you don’t see in a spiritual life. By spirituality it could mean God, higher power, the spirit, Universal source, or nature. My self-conscious spiritual journey began as a child in an elementary boarding school. Apparently, it was a period of war and so many pupils who had witnessed scary scenes were always seeing ghost in their sleep. They would cry out loud so much in the night that even the Matron would get scared. As expected of a missionary school, the chaplain is invited and he teaches us the prayer “ Angle of God”. Looking back as an adult, I realized that we were more scared of uncertainties than the ghost itself. We felt so insecure in our sleep and at school.

Many years after this incidence, I was teaching Christian Religious Education in a high school. Unlike most teachers, after school I would pray with the students before going back home. One day, as I taught about life in the spirit world, a student began to cry. I inquired why she was crying and she told me, her mother will soon be in a theatre for an operation at the hospital and the doctors think she might not make it. Her relatives had visited to prepare her incase her mother didn’t make it. I asked her to join me in prayer after school. I introduced her to having personal moments of reflection on faith. I now consider this meditation. And most importantly, to always attend our choir practice. To make a long story short, her mother survived the operation and she remained strong in her spiritual journey even after high school.

In other words this simple steps in spiritually gave her strength and resilience to cope with the uncertainty in her mother’s life. If you develop a spiritual life, you don’t need to figure out everything or be in control but you live in the flow of life, trusting the underlying benevolence and wisdom of the higher power. And this brings you less stress but a positive outlook on life. That prayer at our elementary school made us less anxious and we looked positively to a night without ghost.

Studies show that those who have a spiritual dimension to their life are happier than those who don’t; they have better marriages and cope better to adversities in their lives. I know some one reading this blog is going through a difficult moment. Take a leap of faith and start your spiritual journey by meditating on your relationship with your spiritual self. Listen to the inner voice in you.

Not only does spirituality give a person strength and resilience, it helps us understand that when you seek to broaden your perspective and try to see life from a spiritual point of view, everything makes a lot more sense. My student took a leap of faith to explore the path of spirituality that she had less travelled and it changed her life.

Conclusively, Teilhard de Chardin a philosopher once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience”. You lose nothing seeking a spiritual life.

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HAPPINESS: 5 Secrets to a Happy and Prosperous New Year


By Aliker David Martin

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things” Albert Einstein

A new year of new opportunities

It is the time of the year when every one is taking stock of their lives. Many are making resolutions while others have given up on making resolutions. According to them, it doesn’t work and it’s not necessary. One of my greatest friends always told me,” subject the mind in a state of free flow and only allow yourself to follow it where it takes you”. Like many of those who have given up on making resolutions, he has settled in a comfort zone. While at university, I also heard a student say, “If a Lizard is to put on a trouser, it must know where to place its tail”. Therefore, if you want to be happy and prosperous in 2012, you need to know what to do. Here are my five suggestions:

What is your potential?

The worst form of disability is the inability to know your potential. Do you ever take time to reflect on your strengths? Every one must have a habit to daily meditate on their strengths and weaknesses. This will stimulate the mind to dream and how to meet the dream. The gap between your dream and your current reality can only be filled through a commitment to maximize your potential.

Ask yourself if you have any goals in 2012

Opportunity is only for those who are  ready. If you don’t have a goal, you can never be meaningfully happy with any achievement. Having a goal gives you focus to grow in an area of your strengths. This is what people celebrate as a happy and prosperous year.

Do you have a time plan to achieve your new year’s goals?

My teacher used to refer to the adage, ”failure to plan is planning to fail”. Achieving your goals is not an automatic thing. Many people have wishes not goals. To develop a wish into a goal, you have to draft a plan on how to achieve the goal. Besides developing a plan, you must make a daily commitment to purposely follow the plan.

Does your environment support your goal plan?

High achievers need to keep an achievers mindset. This also implies you keep the company of those who boost your chances of achieving your goal plan. This reflects the saying, “show me your friend and I will tell you who you are”. If your dream is to be a CEO of a company, think like one and act like one. Dress up like the CEO of your company.

Are you ready for change?

To achieve a goal is to accept change. The problem is most people want to achieve a goal but not accept change. You cannot eat your cake and have it just like you cannot become a CEO and not change the lifestyle. Many people resist change and this derails them from achieving their goal.

So if you want a happy and prosperous new year, you should identify your potential and set a goal. Place your self in an environment that allows you to achieve your goals and accept change.