YOUTH

In youth, we want to change the world; in old age we want to change the youth. - O W Holmes

Youth is that stage in life when all possibilities look real. The energy and strength of youth is life and felicity. Youthful life is eternal and immortal.

Parents today, want their children to function in accordance with their conscious levels. They expect quick results, irrespective of their age, oblivious of the state and conditioning of their consciousness level. Most of them relate a truly successful life to experience related exposure, academic excellence and material success.

Help your children to grow as good citizens. Teach your children in youth and they will not teach you in old age.

Some tips to ensure and enable the right things to enjoy your wonderful youth:

• Try to have good food to develop a healthy body, as to grow healthy mind.
• Eat to live but do not live to eat.
• Diseases are caused mostly by over eating and lack of proper exercise. What we eat during our younger years directly reflects upon the quality of our future health.
  
• All those who suffer physically and mentally easily blame others.
• Good sleep is better than medicine. Lack of sleep will do more harm than good.
• Talk slowly but think quickly.
• Economy does not have to mean cheap.
• Hasty climbers have sudden falls. An old saying, “The pride comes before a fall.” You should guard against ego.
• “Success” comes before “work”, only in the dictionary.
• You must have an ideal. Ethics itself is not the end, but the means to the end.
• Spare some time for prayer to God, it leads to give you peaceful life.
• A journey of thousand miles begins with one step. - Chinese proverb

Nowadays, some parents are both highly educated and good professionals. Parents having long working hours, busy schedules, and with other responsibilities, getting very little time to spare, and unable to pay you total attention. Try to understand them, and co-operate with your warm love and affection.

Youth must have regard for their parents and elders. Many young people do not behave properly even with regard to their parents.

Some parents move in silence, hoping for but never getting, and a show of affection, communication and warmth. Think about your relationship with them. Your understanding springs from genuine mutual sympathy and affection. You must understand, each of you have been conditioned by your upbringings, responses and influences. You never get to choose your parents but you can choose your friends.

The words of Ravindranath Tagore say, "The faith waiting in the heart of a seed.....promises a miracle of life which it cannot prove."

Contemplate the future with patience, even if you feel someone close at home is behaving strangely. The reason for a person off-handed behavior and unsympathetic attitudes is not that he/she is not uncaring. Try to realize that he/she may be suffering from the weight of his/her emotional burdens and responsibilities, unable to pay full attention to you.

Anyone who bears true love in his/her heart does not need to wear a constant smile on his/her face. Love must simply be there as the inner motive for your actions.

When somebody at home, or at any other place you reside seems to be in a pushy mood, then you may have to give way if trouble is to be avoided. Adaptability is the whole mystery of life.

Speaking of problems only helps you to deeply entrench the thought pattern and not to remove it. Look for the good in any situation and you will see that the answer has already been provided.

A closed mouth catches no flies. - Italian Proverb

Silence strengthens your thought power. Silence is intuitive experience.

If heaven drops a date, open your mouth. - Proverb

The only way to gain control over your life is to first accept, acknowledge and then face your own insecure feelings and fear. Courage is often caused by fear. The more you learn to surrender, the fears will disappear, the more courageous you will become.

Your reliable behaviour towards others make you feel happy. You have to find out, what’s good, true and sensible in your life, through the experience you have learned and gained.

You need to have an open mind, to know your true self. Your outer world and its situations are a reflection of your inner world. Self-awareness must be nurtured and developed.

Your manners, personality reflect how you are guided and by whom you are influenced. Personality is the quality which makes a person what he is as distinct from other persons. Good behaviour is an indicator of intelligence.

Learn is realise the immense intelligence you possess but out of which you remain unaware.

An intelligent person is one who knows when to use his common sense and not his intelligence. Common sense as normal native intelligence, is being open to new ideas, listening to the other person, and not being rigid in your beliefs. Common sense sometimes deserts us.

Politeness is a virtue. It costs nothing, polite behaviour pleases one and all, spreads happiness. More doors are opened with ‘please’ than with keys.

Manners and money make a gentleman. Smartness succeeds better than softness in this harsh cold world. Severity is allowable where gentleness is in vain. Only money could not buy happiness. Contentment that alone can bring happiness. When contentment is there no body is going to put you down.

Charisma of contentment: Calm, Clear, Confidence, Commitment and Creativity.

In youth, some are motivated by success, some are motivated by making money, and some enjoy creativity and artistic ability etc. If you find meaning in your life, you will look forward. As you grow, you learn more. It is the growth in your mind.

The mind is nothing but the level of consciousness that we are in at various stages of life. “It is the attitude in our life and not our aptitude that decides our altitude in our lives.” - Swami Vivekananda

Try to lead disciplined life from the young age. If it is to be..... it is up to me. Execution and excellence comes from discipline. Discipline will transform your life. Learn and understand everything through your experiences, to grow and expand your life.

Work very hard on any one subject and master it.

Any work done sincerely will not become small or little in this world. Everything is important and essential, do it dexterously it will give you more satisfaction. For some work you need more patience, for some other you need to be aggressive and dynamic.

Remove all idleness, aimlessness and procrastination.

Will-power is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to control or reject unnecessary or harmful impulses.

We wish we do not have to do things today that may need to be done, therefore we procrastinate and become less effective. To break the procrastination habit, get a creative in coming up with ideas of how to get the work done as you are in thinking of reasons not to do it.

The fruitful living of your life is only possible through wise utilisation of time. Time is the stuff of which Life and dreams are made. The harmonious blend of investing life with principle, exact routine and regularity in activity effectively eliminates all idleness from the mind.

A teacher is better than two books. – German Proverb

Learning anything new in a group is always more beneficial than individual learning. Learning provides us with an identity. Once we realise this identity, we need to move beyond the Self. All educational efforts would be futile if it is not possible to learn from others.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein

A spark of imagination can inspire a person’s entire life. This is clearly visible in the lives of legendary inventors, poets, authors, artists, musicians, dancers and other followers of art and other fields down the ages.

Every child is, to a certain extent a genius, and every genius is to a certain extent, a child. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Just imagine a child’s play. Children are not afraid to tap into their imagination to spread varied colors to their everyday world. You must first understand that, "one’s imagination is more than just that which creates our dreams and drives our creativity."

Perception alone is creation. There is no creation other than perception. Perception of a thing is its origination. Perceptions can also be highly subjective and biased by previous experience.

Perception allows us to make meanings, draw inferences and take appropriate actions. It also arouses emotions. Perception through the sense organs is indeed wondrous.

Our mind has the capacity to imagine. Imagination can foretell the future, based upon your beliefs and expectations. Imagination produces mental images and new ideas.

Highly motivated people often choose action-filled, goal oriented stories, careers involving a large amount of personal responsibility, initiative and personal risk. Highly motivated achievers find the strength in their motivation in the power of their imagination.

A strong imagination is needed to envision the future with clarity. Positive thinkers are people who believe in setting goals for personal achievement, which seem unrealistic at first glance.

Goals give meaning to living and are necessary to motivate you. Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching a goal.

If you want to be better professionals, you should try to increase your creativity, education, activity and experience. Creativity signifies a fresh start as self-expression in the broad sense. Potential for creative work will be good. Education is power and power should be a source of service. Educational responsibility means to respond to the moment.

Activity gets you busy. But productivity gets you results. Activity consumes time. Productivity forces it. Experience is a hard teacher though. She gives the test first and the lessons afterwards.

If there is a will there is a way; Goals are just dreams with feet on them. If you dream it, you can do it. No one knows what you can do till you try.

Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Your carelessness, not being alert and attentive becomes obstacles. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you fail to focus on your goals. But when you listen to wrong voice you make wrong choice. An alert mind is not a problem; an unaware mind is. When someone tries to distract you, ignore them.

Every calamity is said to contain the seeds of an equal or greater opportunity.

Idleness is the stupidity of the body and stupidity is the idleness of the mind. – Seine

Don’t laugh at anyone’s dreams. People, who don’t have dreams, don’t have much. Give up the idea of ridiculing everything that is loss of seriousness. It is the man who does not know ‘what to do next’ that usually ends up in failure.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. – Richard Steele

Books and friends should be few and good. Nothing can replace reading habit. Regular reading habit helps and improves your knowledge. By reading books you gain confidence and become enthusiastic. Reading without reflection is like eating without digestion. Reading goes a long, long way in molding personalities, thoughts and human values.

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. – Arab Proverb

Share your knowledge with others. An exchange of ideas could even set you off on an entirely new course. Do not try to press others to reveal more than they know. If you pry too far you never know what you will find and it is safer to leave them. You may have to give others time to think and compose themselves.

Cultivate friendship which will conquer all hearts. Friendship is a treasure, keep it with pleasure. Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one. Laughter is the light and lightens the world. One good friend is better than cash in purse.

Many of those, especially young enjoy their friends inferiority nature. Many often mistake humility as submissive and introvert nature.

Frankly speaking, good communication will serve any relationship. One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation. You gain respect, communicating only through issue less topics. You become close, only by focusing on reflecting the good aspects of the past, which creates bright future. Kind words won't wear out the tongue.

Truly, frankness itself is never a problem. It is the bluntness with which your frankness is expressed that causes the problem. You might leave someone with broken heart.

Charm is more than beauty. – Yiddish Proverb

If you really want to judge the character of a friend, do not look not at their performances and actions. Indeed the intentions, will tell you the real character of that person.

Love and respect come from character and exemplary conduct. Conduct is observable behavior of a person but character is invisible from inside.

Criticism and destruction are of no avail. Learn to accept criticism no matter how much it may hurt your pride, since it will help you in so many ways. Bury your anger in constructive activity and never allow a rival to get discontent.

Negative words cannot be associated with anything that is enjoyable. Negative words can wound deeply, but nothing will break your spirit in youth.

Little words never hurt a big idea. – Harold Wilson

Never listen to one friend in private accusing another. Believe not all you hear and tell not all you believe. It is impossible to know anybody else’s mind just by their words and movements of their lips and tongue. Recognize people you live with might have their own perfectly good ideas and go their own way.

One who looks for a friend without a fault will have none.

Everyone needs to remember that no one is perfect, and everyone has shortcomings. What one must keep in mind is that, presence of mind to admit one’s errors or being able to cover them diplomatically is appreciated. The art of diplomacy must and do cultivate. Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

Willingness to align with people is the key to gain the respect of people. You don't need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding. Only, by understanding the imperfections of people and accepting the same, perfect relation ships are built. A sense of humor would help in breaking the ice.

Observe the wise and clever people. They speak well of their friend, and say nothing of their enemy.

Learn and realize that personal contacts are extremely important. Broaden your horizons, expand your visions and you’ll see just how you can shift yourself out of an emotional rut. You will discover a new spirit in human touch and personal relationships.

The female mind appears to prefer learning from the experience of others while the male mind seems to learn from personal experience.

Nowadays, diversion to fashion became damaging, to self image and health of young girls. Do not yield to diversions. Some girls prefer dressing in unique ways, carrying a certain style to grab attention of others, and need of special identity in a crowd. When the norms are observed, there is an elegance. Elders should guide the youth tenderly, to adopt elegant style, to be healthy and happy physical personality. Parents must speak about something higher; tell the girls of their own glorious nature.

Irrespective of your age girls must know, “Yield to your people you will never be harmed.” The loyalty to your parents, or at least close association with whom you feel comfortable in your family, makes you feel emotionally secure and optimistic. Your emotional closeness will never let you feel isolated.

You come across some young girls, who do not have the freedom to pursue higher education in the field that they desire, due to family and social circumstances. They would have dug and buried their dreams in order to fulfill the needs of the family members.

A woman’s success and happiness is important not just for herself. Girls are still consequence receivers, and are not choice makers of their lives because of their over disciplined childhood. Be satisfied with what you have rather than yearning for what you don’t.

When you can’t have what you love, learn to love what you have.

Remember that ‘not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck’. You will feel happy when you have plenty to do. Education for career and money is no longer the only criteria to lead a worthy life. Your success lies in living a worth while life. Create your own world; you can live with a smile for having a cherished and blissful future.

Youthful energy has to be disciplined to rise to higher levels. Such energy can be used to serve others and to achieve spiritual growth and fulfillment.

The quality of life you lead is always the result of good intentions and sincere effort.

Energy and Vitality