When you look at your life, are the imperfections all you see? Do you focus on all the things that are wrong, do you dwell on past mistakes, do you rehash stressful situations? Do you long for the perfect life? Your mind will give you what you choose to focus on.  If you see your life as though your hopes have been crushed, your dreams have been shattered, and you are struggling with negativity and dread your life, then more of the same is heading to you, as that which you think and feel, you bring into focus and will attract to yourself.

There is no such thing as a perfect life. You may choose to create a series of situations in your mind that if came true would be the ideal version of your life. Some parts of this may come true, however there will always be something lacking which will not allow an all encompassing happiness because there needs to be a lack, in order to bring gratitude into focus.

In the beginning all being grateful does is get you out of the headspace of constant negativity and constantly thinking about what is missing in your life and who is to blame for your unhappy state. As you begin to make being grateful a daily practise, you will begin to see how many things there are in your life to be grateful for and the more you see the good there is in your life the more positive you feel and that then brings more things into your life to be grateful for and positive about.

Gratitude is saying I am aware of all that is in my life and i am acknowledging and appreciating all of it in this moment. Doing this brings you into the present moment and into the life that is present for you right now.

Gratitude also brings into your vision people who are far worse off than you are and you will start to feel compassion and understanding for others in ways you never did previously. It opens your heart in ways you never thought or dreamt possible. Gratitude opens one up to giving and helping, this is not about the amount you give, it is about the intention with which you do what you do, so give and be grateful for your ability to give, help others and share with the world not just financially but in any way you have the ability to do so.

If you view your life in a deeply negative way then you will need to begin by keeping your statements of gratitude basic at first. It would maybe just include simple thanks for a roof over your head, for the food you eat, for your health, for friends and family who are there to support you. Subsequently you can always ask for help with things you would like help with. No matter how difficult and uphill your life, there are always people worse off than you, so always try and bear that perspective in mind, regardless of your circumstances.

Being grateful is simply about saying thank you, and doing so to anyone is acknowledgement of gratitude and this action bypasses the brain and goes straight to the heart and we can all use more heartfelt actions in the world today.

What does being of service feel like? Initially being of service often feels like you are allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, and may not feel like a blessing at all. If you are not used to being of service, it might feel like you are doing and doing and no one is reciprocating. This is just a temporary illusion. Staying with it, will be the proof you need.

We live in a world that encourages us to be the taker, not the giver. Giving requires us to put ourselves and our needs second to another’s. This is not a comfortable place for most of us.

When we serve there is the something within us that requires us to humble ourselves. To serve is to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and show gratitude to them regardless of whether they deserve it or not, in your opinion. We are asked to serve, not judge.

Intention is everything. If you are doing for others only to later ask for things you need or want help with, this is not true service. The doing has to be about just that and not about anything you want from the person or organisation. Giving to get something in return is not giving. A lot of people have the mentality of thinking which asks, ‘what do i get if i do this?

You have the satisfaction of knowing you have been of help to another. This way of being is not self serving. You just do for others and let your actions speak for themselves. Actions do speak louder than words for a reason.

Why should we be of service?  Happiness comes from being of service to another. What is the point of life if you cannot do nice things for people? Joy comes from doing not receiving. Start and see.

You can keep waiting for someone to serve you or you can get a head start and learn this universal principle that you have to give before you can receive. Serving is about caring, and caring is a part of loving. When you care about someone or something and you begin to serve, something happens. You begin to put out into the world something special and the way you know you are doing it right is noticing, the world that is reflecting back at you. Your life should reflect this new way of thinking and behaving. If you are serving others, your life will reflect others wanting to serve you. If you are showing care and consideration towards others that will be reflected back, also. It has to.

The highest way to serve humanity is to start by beginning to heal yourself. Healing your hurts and pains, your fears, your negative thoughts, emotions and actions.

You may feel like all the work you are doing on yourself and all those you are helping are not producing any effects, for you. However nothing could be further from the truth. All who interact with you are affected by what you do. Let service, be your way to help humanity.

Good people are being sidelined. All media and television channels seem filled to the brim with news of and from people with nothing of insight to offer, instead filling our homes and our minds with information that lowers us further and further into an ever larger growing abyss.

Nothing ever is just about goodness, kindness, positivity just for its own sake, Always something to manipulate and misappropriate, Always looking to give only to receive. It is never just about giving or doing for its own sake, why?

I ask myself this question, every time there is news of sexual misconduct, or misinformation, or misuse of power, where are the good people in these organisations and why do they not feel comfortable enough to come forward, and speak their truth? In order to stand up and be counted, we are all going to be confronted with this question, what are you willing to sacrifice in order to stand up for your truth and your righteousness?

Good people everywhere, want to speak out, and are doing so in larger and larger numbers, but have to face severe obstacles and fear of reprisals. Look at the way our media and society treat those who stand up and speak out, we condemn instead of investigate. We are made to choose, in whom we trust, the individual versus either governments, or corporations [sometimes state funded] or supposedly independent organisations which are never really or truly independent. All you have to do is look at their funding.

The biggest challenge to revealing the truth as I see it is fear. I am not immune from the menace this feeling brings with it, but it needs to be faced and then sidelined. Unless and until we are willing to confront our fears, we will not be able to live a righteous life, nor have the society we want and crave.

A saying by Franklin Roosevelt says courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. What is more important to you than fear? The things that need to become more important for us all, than fear has to be speaking up for the voiceless, the suppressed, the weak and the vulnerable.

I think most people just want to be left to live their life in peace and relative comfort. We do not have the time nor the inclination to get involved in large scale issues, nor constant protests. We can scale down the issues to our own lives. We can stand up in small ways, for all people, affected by the inhumanity of human behaviour.

We can stop allowing ourselves getting sidetracked by one marginalised group or another and instead focus on all people who are being dehumanised. We need to rise above what divides us and bring into focus what unites us. We are human.

We really and truly are all one. When we live knowing this, we will be willing to stand up not just for ourselves but for all humanity.

Reading the news is like a never ending lesson in what not to do, in life. Can we continue to have faith in us humans doing the right thing at all, anymore? I know simultaneously there are good people doing good things all the time, we just never get to see that in the news!

Do you wonder what kind of world we would be living in, if bankers, politicians, lawyers, teachers, Ceo’s, doctors, nurses, newspaper editors, and each and every one of us, would all just do the right thing? Doing the right thing is not always compatible with your own self interest, therefore it is hard to put into practise and execute. This self interest is the reason why we see the level of depravity we are witnessing.

Do you want to live in utopia? Where there is harmony within yourself and in all that surrounds you and in nature too?  Do you think this is an achievable goal? I think the answer lies with people who are willing to stand up for the right thing and be counted no matter the risk, to themselves and their families. There are people doing this daily, the question is are you going to be one of them?

Doing the right thing is an exercise in patience. I know from my own life that good actions take time to work and bad actions often work instantaneously. I know this sounds counter intuitive.  However when you begin to practice doing the right thing, you will begin to see that being made to wait for your good actions to work through the system is often the way it plays out. Positive action always works in the long run. Negative actions never have the power to go the distance. So in doing the right things you will win in the end, and in doing the wrong things you might well win temporarily but you will lose in the final analysis.

We all, I believe deep within us want to do the right thing, but circumstances sometimes coerce us into doing that which we feel we have to do to preserve our circumstances and survive. Thinking about people in history and today, who are willing to take the heat that comes with doing the right thing is what we are all going to have to be prepared to do, if we want to strive for the ideal and not the imperfect.

Standing up for someone who is being treated unfairly or cruelly or inhumanly, is the cornerstone of compassion and what it means to be human. Our humanity is being eroded, by behaviour that is abhorrent and is being silently acquiesced to. My survival at your cost spells the eventual end for us both. As the Edmund Burke saying goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching you. Utopia beckons.