The Power of The Mind & Thoughts

The mind is the most powerful tool we have inside us. The mind can work for us (generate ideas that create an impact) or against us (generate fears, worries which can lead to anxiety issues). Our mind process what we see or hear and generates thoughts, good or bad, constructive or unconstructive. When we give thoughts permission, they become actions.

There are reasons why people give permission to unconstructive thoughts which leads to unconstructive actions. It could be due to their upbringing, their social influence or simply because they are bored. Speaking of being bored, it is not always the case of nothing to do. We can be very preoccupied with tasks but yet feel bored. This boredom comes from repeating the same routine over and over again, finding no motivation or interest in the things we do.

Thoughts become actions, which then become habits and soon develops into a lifestyle. Ever wonder why some people spend most of their time feeling unhappy, disgruntled or gossiping about others, while some people are spending the same amount of time inspiring people, changing lives and living life to the fullest? It all started off with that thought in the mind.

The whole kindness campaign that I am trying to advocate is not just about raising the quality of life for others, it's also about making ourselves a better person. When we have kind thoughts, we give kind actions, which eventually becomes a way of life. When we make a difference to the lives of others, we add value in what we do and that increases our self esteem/ worth. When everyone starts to lead the kindness way of life, it will enhance the social influence factor, which could define our culture. We pass this experience to our children as part of their upbringing. We create a positive ring of influence that is so strong that people are influenced/ inclined towards constructive thoughts, actions.

My dear friends, I encourage you to fill your mind with as much kind, positive and constructive thoughts as you possibly can, it will do you and everyone else a world of good, thank you !

The Healing Power of Kindness

Dear Friends,

I am not sure if this makes any sense to you but I believe that the place where kindness thrives produces plenty of positive energy, which would be a source of healing for friends who are feeling negative. This healing ground is right here at our P2P group.

Life can get us down when things are not going our way. We can also be angered or stressed by the actions of others. When you are feeling upset, worried, vexed, angry, stressed, sad or any negative emotions, take some time to browse through our group's posts and see the amount of kindness being spread around. You may find that your problems are not as big as you think (after reading the plight of others) or you may feel heartened to see so many amazing people around (whoever makes you upset probably forms the minority group). Whatever it is, I do hope that our group, which is full of love and kindness, can heal you off your negative emotions and make you feel better.

I wrote this on my wall in Feb 2014 and I would like to share it again here:

"Dear Friends,

If you are feeling down, sad, worried or going through a bad patch in life, try to give a bit of kindness to others, in simplest ways you can; be it an encouragement, a nice compliment, or some simple ways to make someone happy. Not only will doing so get your mind off those nonconstructive thoughts, it might even make you feel better. No harm trying"

I hope P2P can be like the "Tree of Souls" in the movie Avatar, which has healing powers to help anyone who is feeling down or going through a rough patch. I leave you all with this quote from Martin Luther King Jr:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Essence of P2P (Updated on 3 Dec 15)

Dear Friends,

I have done some housekeeping in this post so that you can find the info you need faster. I will pin this post to facilitate quick referral for friends who are looking for kindness/ volunteer opportunities or looking to donate away their preloved items to bless others who are less fortunate. Thank you very much for your support for P2P and for spreading the love and kindness around, please continue to keep up the good work you are doing. We can make our world a better place, through acts of random kindness, one at a time.

heart emoticon Volunteer Groups in Singapore - Learn more about the great work that ordinary Singaporeans are doing locally and overseas and find volunteer opportunities here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1486209361608058/

heart emoticon Donation of Preloved Items
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1509810142581313/

heart emoticon Donation of Children Items to benefit Underprivileged Children (Local and Overseas)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1486449848250676/

heart emoticon Blessing Groups
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1696516543910671/

heart emoticon Social Enterprises
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1699630406932618/

heart emoticon Volunteer Opportunities
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1505192103043117/

heart emoticon The I-WANT-TO-VOLUNTEER Namelist
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1681094808786178/

heart emoticon Recycling Initiatives
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1594372984125028/

heart emoticon What Makes Us Happy In Singapore?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1618414081720918/

heart emoticon Need a Listening Ear?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1654045248157801/

heart emoticon Charity & Risk
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1686153144947011/

heart emoticon For New Members - Welcome to Our Kindness Family
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1674282459467413/

P2P 2.0

I am pleased to share this post from Charlotte, on her experience in taking part in the photo competition to help win an ipad mini for a child from a less privileged family. When I suggested this initiative last week, this is exactly what I hope to achieve, to empower volunteers to become leaders and contribute in their own ways.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1698306513731674/

Charlotte, Yvonne & Jiajia took up this challenge, went on to design their posters and rally their friends to help vote. We faced a very strong opponent but we persisted, change our strategy and we are seeing some rewards now. This teaches us that if we don't even try, we will never succeed in anything. Even in failure, we take heart that we tried our best and we learn something out of the experience. Regrets are more painful for the things we didn't do than the things we did.

Looking forward, I hope this is start of something new for P2P (I called it P2P 2.0), where our members take on a bigger role in fronting initiatives like this to inspire more people to give kindness. I could have done this on my own, like what I have been doing for the past 2 years, but it gives me greater satisfaction if I can empower more people to step out to lead new kindness initiatives.

Dear friends, you must believe that you have as much potential to make an impact on our community and that you can do wonders, as far as your imagination can bring you to. You can start small, one step at a time, and slowly you will create a bigger impact in time to come. This P2P group is not for me to build my legacy, it is made for you, to find opportunities in giving and to find joy while doing so. It is meant to enhance our community spirit as we help one another and thus creating a more positive and loving environment for everyone. It is meant to enrich us in many ways, help us find our meaning and purpose in life, through the service to others. I hope this culture of giving will continue in generations to come. Thank you all so much for being a part of this, cheers :)

Time and Money

If we can use this simple analogy to view life as a whole, will we be able to better spend our time?

Let's say all the time we have in this life is equivalent to a sum of money, some people will have more, some will have less, but no one really knows how much money they have.

We use the money (time) we have to buy food.

Positive thoughts, emotions, actions leading to happy and memorable experiences = buying yummy food to eat

Negative thoughts, emotions, actions leading to suffering & unhappy experiences = buying yucky food to eat

For every dollar we use to buy yucky food, we have one dollar less to buy the yummy food we enjoy. If we spend most of our money (life) to buy yucky food, we will soon realize that we have very little money left to spend to buy good and yummy food.

Every day is our new opportunity to improve and be a better person than yesterday, dwelling on the past or persisting in our bad habits is not going to make our future better. We are unable to change history but there is always a chance to create something better now. Let's strive to make each day better and use our money wisely on good food. We never know when we will be at our last dollar in the wallet, so make every dollar (day) count smile emoticon

Death & Life

I want to share my thoughts on this taboo topic because I think that if we don't understand about death and why we fear it, we would not have fully appreciated life and cherish it.

Why are we afraid to die or afraid to see our loved ones die? The passing of a loved one is often a very sad experience as it marks the end of our physical relationship with that person. There will no more further opportunities for us to do any physical activities with the loved ones who had departed, we will not see them or talk to them ever again. The same goes for the person who is about to pass on, there is little or almost no opportunities to further interact with his/ her loved ones or do the things that he/ she aspire to. All these fear and sadness revolve around another feeling known as regret. We may regret not spending enough time with our loved ones (our parents, family, friends) when we still have the opportunities. We may regret not having the time to do the things we always wanted to do but instead choose to blindly follow others' definition of a successful life. The more regrets we have, the more we will be sad and afraid of death, because death means you have no more chances to undo all your regrets.

Qn: What are the regrets you foresee you will have when you know you are going to die? You have life now, with life comes opportunities for you to reduce as many regrets as you possibly can. Make full use of these opportunities now.

It is interesting to see many associate "how long one has lived?" to "how well one has lived?". Person A who passed on at the age of 30 have not lived as well as Person B who passed on at the age of 90. I can only agree that Person B had more time and opportunities to live the life he wants but it does not necessarily means that he has lived a more fulfilling life than Person A. If Person A has been living every day to the fullest and doing something which he enjoys and finds meaning in, while Person B is always sad and has no directions or drive in life, then a short and well lived life is definitely better than a long life of worries and emotional suffering.

Qn: Would you rather have a long-lived life or would you rather have a well-lived life? While you may not be able to define the length of life that you have, you can still define the quality of life that you want to live.

The purpose of my sharing is not to tell you that I am not afraid to die. That is totally not true because I fear death like everyone else. However, I am not going to start worrying and get sleepless nights over it. Instead, I want to turn this fear into an energy to propel me further, to appreciate the life that I have and to count all my blessings, to bear less grudges, to get angry less and to let go of many things that I can't control. I want my fear of death to remind me that I am not going to live forever and I am not even sure how much time I have left and because of these reminders, I will treasure every day that I have, for every day is my blessing and my opportunity to change my life or the life of others, for the better. The P.A.R.K journey has been very rewarding thus far but outside this "keyboard warrior" role and away from the computer screen, I am reaping much benefits in my everyday life by being positive. For every message that I send out to you that is embedded with love and positive vibes, I give something back to myself, sometimes just a gentle reminder on how life should be.

Care for Your Loved Ones on 10 Nov 2015

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow is Deepavali and public holiday, shall we all pledge to do something nice for a loved one (parents, family, friends)? It can be bringing your parents out for a nice meal, cooking for your spouse or dropping a message to a friend whom you have not caught up with for some time. It can range from anything simple to something which requires more effort, the key is to bring some joy to the people who are dear to us,show them that you are thinking about them and that you care. They will definitely be very encouraged by your thoughts and actions, esp. when we lived in such a fast paced life where everyone is so busy with work and everything else that we have no time to slow down to show more concerns to one another.

Remember that life is too short for regrets so let's start off with just one act of kindness & concern for our loved ones. Oh ya, the reason I suggested tomorrow is for you to have some time to plan something today. Please join me to spread some love around, thank you heart emoticon heart emoticon