New Year: New You

New Year: New You! It's a tradition, as the year ends, we make new resolutions.  Mine is to lead a positive life and to live life to the fullest. As many of you know, I was born in Nicaragua during times of war and survived not only to tell a story but to also serve as testimony that life is beautiful and it's ultimately whatever WE make of it. Throughout the years, I've learned that successful people (spiritually and financially) tend to share the following skills: 

1. Adapt: learn to adapt. Life isn't always what we think it is. Do as Bruce Lee once advised, "become water."

2. Persist: if you don't pursue your own goals, then who will? Never, ever give up for a good cause. But don't confuse giving up with taking a step back, sometimes the view is better from a distance.

3. Reinvent yourself as necessary. In our new world, nothing is truly organic and that includes us and our dreams. Sometimes, it is necessary to run a data analysis on our own selves and reinvent our skills, goals and dreams.

4. Dream to Achieve: Author Joseph Gutiz describes dreaming as a skill.  A skill to keep you motivated, to keep you focused and energized. Dreaming is vitamin to our souls.

5. Balance: a life well-lived is well-balanced. What's the point of achieving, if you're not enjoying? There's a time for everything: for crying, for laughing, for living.  Learn to live!

6. Forgive but don't forget: Learning to sincerely forgive is therapeutic. Not forgetting ensures you don't make the same mistake twice!

7. Only compete if you're an olympian! In other words, let others do their own thing and don't overdo yourself in trying to keep up.  Their dreams are theirs.  Your dreams are yours. However, unity is a nice recipe for success. 

8. Keep only the positive, discard the negative.

9. Prioritize. In my hierarchy of needs: God and family come first, the rest I leave to destiny and determination.

10. Love yourself. You are beautiful and unique. Your happiness and confidence will radiate to others.

11. Stay Healthy: Health overrides all of the above. Happiness begins within. Diminish stress for it doesn't help you with anything. Eat healthy, take walks and see the world...who knows, you might discover new and exciting new venues ;-) Live every moment as if it were your last.

Overall success is defined by how well we learn to adapt, by how well we forgive and how persistent we become at NEVER GIVING UP! With that being said, we must learn to enjoy and accept what we have and pursue what we desire diligently.  Happy New YOU!

Happiness

Happiness...an exquisite pursue!

Happiness is transient and is dependent on our personal aspirations and values. Our pursuit for happiness never ends, as we might find ourselves switching from happiness to unhappiness from one moment to the next. Based on my personal experience, overall happiness could be stored into our good memories, by trapping every moment of bliss-however small that moment may be.

Happiness like love, must be nourished and protected. We are the sole owners of our happiness and only we can change the things that make us happy or unhappy. Our happiness should be based on our very own feelings: our ability to love, and aspirations: our ability to dream without dead ends. As an advocate for war survivors and a survivor myself, I have concluded that in this world, there is much more to laugh than to cry about. Every day we are alive is a reason to smile, every heart beat that takes us closer to the 3 billion heart beats in a lifetime, is a reason to feel blessed, and every hug, kind word and kiss we receive from our loved ones is a reason to feel lucky and endlessly happy. Our true happiness depends on us and lies inside our own human spirit. We only need to search inside our souls. If we can’t find it, we need to just look around, particularly at the less fortunate throughout the world, and realize that if they are capable of smiling, then so can we.

Overall, true happiness lies in the essence of a positive human spirit. To me there are two kinds of happiness: 1) the type provided by material gains and 2) the type provided by spiritual, emotional and overall self-actualization gains. Both are needed to some extent. Therefore, the key to happiness is simplicity. The simpler the life style and the goals we set for ourselves, the more likely we are to accomplish our goals, and as a result we’ll feel happier with ourselves and our surroundings. This is not to say that we should have a mediocre mentality in order to achieve happiness, in the contrary, we are free to dream and achieve anything we want, just as long as we keep reality alongside.