However, not all types of vacation destinations will do the job or reducing your stress levels, so pick wisely. For example, if you go to a very fast paced country and stress yourself out over the city traffic or the pace of the tour (if you are going by tour groups), you may find yourself to have added stress instead of reducing it!

Some people find exotic places offer a lot of relaxation. Some find places like Bali, Nepal, Outer Banks and even smaller counties in a country to be the best spots for them to destress.

What are some of your favourite places to unwind, take the loads off your shoulder and just be yourself and do what you want?

Post from: Health or Money?

The story below talks about making the best of life and appreciating what we have and are. There are others who are in more terrible shape than us, and yet we do not realise how lucky we are compared to them. Live life and stay happy.

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is.

I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.

He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child’s right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother’s eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child’s hand been infected??

No, it was done for two simple words – TO BEG! The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another.

The natural reaction of hunger. Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate.

For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn’t nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of.

Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps no, I should not feel bad at all. What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have.”

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don’t see the one which has been opened for us.

It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can’t go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

Post from: Health or Money?

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A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups – porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:

“Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

The cup that you’re drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups. And then you began eyeing each other’s cups. Now consider this:

Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the qualityof life you have.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate!

Did you relate any of the above mentioned examples to your way of living? Are you rethinking now whether it was worthwhile to buy that expensive and nice cup just to hold a beautiful cup of coffee each day?

Post from: Health or Money?

In our hectic lifestyle where chasing after money is what we care most about, we tend to neglect our health. It has become the norm and there has been many great reminders for people to slow down, smell the flowers and take care of ourselves more.

Many people are so involved in the process of making money that they have no time for anything else. Not even the time to spare to enjoy the money they have made! I sometimes wonder if they remember what they are chasing after! If you have the money but have no time to enjoy the fruits of it, what’s the money for?

Maybe it’s for the family to have a great life. That’s a very noble idea. But even your family needs your time and love. So do spare some thoughts if you are in this situation of spending all your time working so hard to make the money but not the time.

Whether it’s health or wealth that we live for, I hope we do not compromise one for the other. It’s best that they both exist together in abundance. For someone who have both, life is great. Don’t you agree with me?

Post from: Health or Money?