Pain, Failure and Misery are the Stepping Stones to Success is a story of triumph that only pain and misery could bring. It is a story of hope that is offered for our youth, our family and friends who are suffering from chemical dependency, for those who have lost loved ones as they didn't have to die in vain, and for clinicians who are seeking a way to think that may differ from the norm so we can offer tools to save lives. With an average of 7 Americans dying every hour from a drug overdose it is time we stop focusing on the reduction of supply, because it isn't working and focus on demand. It is time we do something and that time is now.
About Be Perfectly Imperfect by Vyoma Nupur Be Perfectly Imperfect” is a collection of short essays on how to live a better and happy life – with love, laughter and finding the recipe for happiness. Essays include “Be Perfectly Imperfect”, “You Become What You Think”, “The Art of Letting Go”, which encourage us to monitor our thoughts more, learn how to let go of the negativity we collect and become more spontaneous in our life, releasing any judgmental attitudes we may hold toward others. Essays such as “Labels Are for Milk Bottles, Not People” elucidate the value of accepting people, as they are –multidimensional beings of different shades – and not trying to package them in neatly labeled simplistic personality models. Life is about being fearless and living each day more consciously. Life is about looking inward into our hearts and finding peace there. “Life is Breaching the Fearsome Walls of What-Ifs” and “Life Is a Symphony of Silence” are opening oneself to the inner possibilities of fearlessness and moving beyond the outer and inner chatter to a state of profound peace and silence. How to be much happier in our daily lives, making it richer by embracing the small jewels of priceless moments that happen and laughing open heartedly – are the central themes of “The Recipe For Happiness Is Not Gourmet”, “Laughing With Life” and “Little Things Matter The Most”. “Why Am I Here, Again” and “Am I Good Enough?” are about reflective self-understanding. Whatever I feel has flown from my heart onto these pages, spontaneously in an unconventional, flowery and poetic way –culminating into these short writings. This book has a voice that is conversational and blog-like. It invites the reader to participate back with their views. It draws examples from their daily life. The examples and feelings can be related to, by everyone, whichever cultural orientation or nationality they may belong to. There are dashes of whimsical reflection, poetic hope, introspective musing, humor and a serious vein all together varying from essay to essay. Men or women, in every walk of life – whether the carefree teenager growing into a careworn adult, suddenly beset with worries and uncertainties, whether an adult seeking hope and laughter, whether mature individuals who strive for peace and silence – these essays would in part – or in totality – appeal to all folks, in all stages of life. People interested in a fun, conversational read in the self-help, inspirational category will enjoy this book.
2021 Living Now Book Awards - Silver medalist, Male Memoir category A compelling, award-winning account of marathon runner Kay Bretz's transformation into one of the best ultra-runners in the world, for fans of David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me. Ultra-runner Kay Bretz beat the race record of Australia's Big Red Run by more than five hours and was awarded the Australian Ultra Performance of the Year Award at the 24-hour world championships in France – but it took a significant change in mindset to do it. In Turning Right, the elite athlete and executive coach shares his fascinating personal journey to success, interweaving his amazing running journey with how he overcame physical, mental and professional challenges to achieve his goals and break records, all by 'turning right' when his perspective on what he was capable of started to shift. Bretz explains how he left behind self-imposed limitations that prevented him from reaching his dreams, often rejecting what was reasonable and logical, and found the magic instead. Brilliantly interweaving his amazing running journey with the challenges in his professional and personal life, Bretz leaves behind the reasonable and logical to find the magic. His book will inspire the magic in you too.
"To live out the teaching of this book faithfully in every detail of life will lead one to more than happiness and success — even to Blessedness, Satisfaction and Peace." Lilly L. Allen
Unlock the secrets to success with "How to Succeed" by Rosetta Dunigan, a comprehensive guide to achieving your goals and realizing your fullest potential. Join author Rosetta Dunigan on a transformative journey of personal and professional growth as she shares practical strategies and invaluable insights gleaned from years of experience in the field of personal development. Whether you're aiming to climb the corporate ladder, launch your own business, or simply lead a more fulfilling life, Dunigan's proven methods will empower you to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities with confidence. Through a combination of inspirational anecdotes, actionable advice, and proven techniques, "How to Succeed" equips readers with the tools they need to thrive in today's competitive landscape. From setting achievable goals to cultivating a positive mindset, Dunigan offers a roadmap to success that is both accessible and empowering. Character analysis of Dunigan's approach reveals her unwavering commitment to helping others achieve their dreams. With her compassionate guidance and unwavering support, readers are encouraged to embrace their unique talents and harness their inner strengths to overcome challenges and achieve their highest aspirations. The overall tone and mood of the book are one of encouragement and empowerment, as Dunigan inspires readers to take control of their destiny and create the life they desire. With her uplifting message and practical wisdom, she instills readers with the confidence and determination they need to turn their dreams into reality. Critically acclaimed for its actionable advice and motivational insights, "How to Succeed" has earned praise from readers and critics alike for its practicality and relevance. Its timeless wisdom and practical strategies make it a must-read for anyone seeking to achieve success in today's fast-paced world. Whether you're a recent graduate embarking on your career journey or a seasoned professional looking to take your success to the next level, "How to Succeed" offers a roadmap to personal and professional fulfillment that will inspire and empower you every step of the way. Don't miss your chance to unlock your full potential with "How to Succeed" by Rosetta Dunigan. Order your copy today and embark on a transformative journey to success and fulfillment.
From the Laws of Mount Misery: There are no laws in psychiatry. Now, from the author of the riotous, moving, bestselling classic, The House of God, comes a lacerating and brilliant novel of doctors and patients in a psychiatric hospital. Mount Misery is a prestigious facility set in the rolling green hills of New England, its country club atmosphere maintained by generous corporate contributions. Dr. Roy Basch (hero of The House of God) is lucky enough to train there *only to discover doctors caught up in the circus of competing psychiatric theories, and patients who are often there for one main reason: they've got good insurance. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Your colleagues will hurt you more than your patients. On rounds at Mount Misery, it's not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, née Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Psychiatrists specialize in their defects. For Basch the practice of psychiatry soon becomes a nightmare in which psychiatrists compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce human beings to blubbering drug-addled pods, or incite them to an extreme where excessive rage is the only rational response, or tie them up in Freudian knots. And all the while, the doctors seem less interested in their patients' mental health than in a host of other things *managed care insurance money, drug company research grants and kickbacks, and their own professional advancement. From the Laws of Mount Misery: In psychiatry, first comes treatment, then comes diagnosis. What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier.
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Message from Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba Philosophy is the butter churned out of knowledge. But since human aspirations and ideals, which change from place to place and time to time, decide which aspects of knowledge are included in the churning process, it is often incomplete or inadequate or contradictory. Generally speaking, religious beliefs and practices, folkways, customs and traditions, educational methods, art forms, etc., help the formulation of the underlying philosophy. Believing that the world, as cognised during the waking state, is real and that the highest goal is the attainment of happiness in that world, man accumulates the instruments and symbols of that happiness; he fashions after his own taste and inclination according to the dictates of his own reason, the laws, ideals, institutions and principles that would bolster that happiness. This attempt leads to a philosophy which can be named “Western.” But can the goal of Life be just this—to struggle amidst the waves of joy and grief that rise and fall in this visible objective world, to be carried along the current of desire, gathering food, shelter, comfort and pleasure, and finally, to flounder into the jaws of death? Consider what is happening now: in the name of progress, art is degraded into immoral and sensuous entertainment; educational advance results, not in advance of humility and reverence, but in rampant indiscipline, arrogance and irreverence. The emphasis long placed on the development of character and the promotion of virtue through education has now been dropped. In their place are enthroned as ideals: worldly success, self-aggrandisement, and high living. Laws, rules and regulations are multiplying fast, but there is no sign of unrighteousness and injustice being diminished. Greed is growing beyond control; the advance of science is marked, not by a proportionate advance in peace and happiness, but by a phenomenal increase in terror, unrest and anxiety. With his thousand-faced curiosity, man is analysing and utilising the outer world; but the inner world, which is basic, is ignored and forgotten. Human life is a composite of the secular and the spiritual. But now, the flesh is coddled, while the spirit is consigned into oblivion. As a result, neither the individual, nor society, nor the nation can hope to have peace and security. The framework of Creation is an amalgam of right and wrong, joy and grief, cold and warmth; so, it is against Nature to expect only right, or only joy, only wrong or only grief. It is not possible to uproot right wholly from the world, nor is it possible to uproot wrong wholly free from grief in any form. The burden of wrong and the agony of grief can be reduced, however, in proportion to the loyalty that man offers to sublime ideals and his efforts to put them into practice. So long as man lives on the level of the beasts, concentrating all his talents on the task of securing food, shelter, and other physical and material needs, the unrest now rooted in his heart cannot be got rid of. Therefore, the path of Dharma or Righteousness, which ensures inner purification and harmony, should not be given up. What is Dharma? It is the way of higher life directed by the ideals one holds dear, by the level of attainment one has reached, by the status of the individual in society, and the individual’s own awareness of himself and his status. Mere awareness of “I am a human being,” will not guide him into the path of Dharma; those who are aware only of this will be guided only into the path of feeding, sleeping and the avoidance of fear from danger. Awareness of, “I am a human being,” is only half the truth. “I am not a beast,” is the other half. Always remind yourself of what you are, as well as what you are not; when this is done, when activities are in accordance with that awareness, man will be manifesting the full significance of the name he is known by. When man has resolved to understand his reality by the method of enquiry, he must avoid the error of condemning the points of view held dear by others. It is not right to deny their validity. He has to give value to all aspects, consider all views; for, there is no clear-cut distinction between mine and thine, this and that other. Truth is Knowledge; Knowledge is Limitless. Truth has to be discovered by analysing the complex mass of facts and things. Indian Culture is the product of the experience of generations in the field of this Truth, of Knowledge that is limitless, that is seen through the vision of the Wise. When students have the chance once to look upon this Culture, to contact its living embodiments and expressions, and to hold converse with its manifold manifestations, all doubts regarding it will vanish from their minds. It is a fact that persons who are too lazy to learn, who have not grasped the validity of Vedanta, or the relative reality of the world, feel that Indian culture is at best a ruse to while away one’s time. We are not concerned with such persons. They have such ideas because they do not know that Vedanta is their own history. Animals are not conscious that they are alive; they live without being aware of life. If man too leads life in this manner, verily he is no better than a mere animal. Your forefathers were being fed from infancy on breast milk reinforced by the mixture of sublime ideals and principles of righteousness. As a result, they stuck to the path of righteousness steadily in a commendable form. They strove to help each other; cooperated in all efforts to promote the welfare of others and sympathised when others suffered or incurred loss or injury. They did not allow feelings of hatred, revenge or violence to tarnish their minds. They recognised that their chief duty was to devote themselves to activities conducive to the general good. Today, those who pride themselves on the enormous advance achieved by man and prance about prattling the stories of their paltry victories, are only demonstrating by their behaviour that they are totally ignorant of the high principles followed in life by their forefathers. What is the reason for the disappearance from the present generation of the sublime virtues of those days, of sympathy and mutual aid, of the peace and happiness that prevailed then? No enquiry is probing into this problem. Can a King, declaring himself the master of a state, fulfil all the wishes of his subjects? Why, he finds himself incompetent to fulfil even all his own wishes! If he decides to pursue his fancies on the plea that he is the lord and master, his subjects draw him down from the throne. How does this happen? However high a person’s authority, he has to bow his head to some laws and limits that are laid down to ensure proper exercise of that power. They might have been laid down by the king himself, but once accepted and announced, he is bound to them as strongly as any one else. If he acts in contravention of the covenant, the subjects, too, would break away from the laws and limits that regulate their activities and behaviours, and anarchy would result. For, the saying goes, “As the ruler, so the ruled.” Therefore, the law-maker should obey the law; he who lays down the limit should himself respect it. This is the precious lesson, the shining lamp of wisdom, that the Ramayana is holding forth for the benefit of man. This is the excellence of the culture and history of India. Students have to be instructed on these monuments of Indian Culture and informed of the ideals which they embody. Their intellects, thus charged and cleansed, have to be offered to the nations of the world as ideals to be emulated. They, themselves, will be saved thereby; they will serve as guides and leaders to others. Intending to place before them the Truth, to remove from their minds the ruinous beliefs that have sprouted there as a result of the craze for novelty in recent times, and to uproot the specious arguments and fantastic doubts that are clinging to their reasoning faculty, and, resolving to imprint on the pure, steadfast, and conceit less hearts of the young the peace and joy that their forefathers were able to live in, we have arranged to invite elders of invaluable experience in these fields, and instruct youth on moral, ethical, spiritual, physical and secular truths. When such a sacred Yajna is held every year, present-day youth can easily understand and appreciate not only the Culture of India, but also the Wisdom garnered by people of other lands. Thus, they will be rid of all feelings of separation and difference; they will be equipped and made ready to demonstrate in their lives the Truth that has been revealed to them. This Summer Course on Indian Culture and Spirituality has been planned and arranged with this belief and in this faith. May this attempt achieve Victory! May all beings derive therefrom Peace, Happiness, Prosperity and Security! - Baba This Volume is compiled and offered at Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s Lotus Feet on His 97th Birthday as a reminder to all Spiritual Aspirants of Baba’s Love & Message Sai Ram. Director, Sri Sathya Sai Media Centre, Prasanthi Nilayam 515 134, Puttaparthi, Sri Sathya Sai District, Andhra Pradesh, India. www.sssmediacentre.org
