In anything you do in life there is always the risk of losing. Unfortunately, if you look around the internet and in most book stores you will find a variety of books and articles written on how to win – but only a few on losing. I can understand that no one wants to be a loser, but everyone can’t be a winner. And until you can accept this realization – you’re going to have a tough time accepting everything that doesn’t go in your favor.

You know what I’ve come to realize, winning is sometimes easy – losing on the other hand is hard. So why aren’t there more books on how someone can cope with losing?

What do you do:

• when you screwed up?
• Sure you should learn from your mistakes, but what does that mean?
• Should you feel bad emotions when you lose to condition your brain against getting the same result another time?

——- Personal Note ——-

It means there is no reason to interpret failure as a negative event. Unless you throw up your hands and give up, then any given failure only brings you closer to success. The problem occurs when we subconsciously believe that a given failure becomes a permanent part of us. We have a tendency to make past failures into a part of our identity. “Who am I?… Oh yeah I’m that guy who sucks at doing my job.”

The kind of conditioning those results is not helpful. We place a disproportionate amount of importance on avoiding the emotional sting of failure that it often prevents us from trying anything again. So often people deny themselves a chance at what they want because they cannot face the prospect of the emotional sting of losing.

How much it hurts depends on how much you let the loss define you. If you are aware that your identity cannot be defined by ANY events in your life, then loss or failure does not hurt. As soon as you can stop feeding the emotional response to failure with compulsive thinking, it has no negative effect on future attempts. You never have a choice but to continue your life from where you are. So there is never a good reason to lament on failure.

Let’s say that you apply the Golden Rule in all of your daily interactions with other people, and you help your neighbors, you treat your family with kindness, you go the extra mile for your co-workers, you help a stranger in need.

Now, those actions will without a doubt be good for the people you help and are kind to … but you’ll also notice a strange thing. People will treat you better too, certainly. Beyond that, though, you will find a growing fulfillment in yourself, a belief in yourself, knowledge that you are a good person and a trust in yourself.

I personally can admit that there are strong arguments against the Golden Rule, that there are exceptions and logic arguments that the Golden Rule is taken to the point of extreme and falls apart. But I’m not worried about that stuff. The truth is, living by the Golden Rule on a day-to-day basis, will make you a better person, will make those interact with happier, and will make the community you live in a better place.

Let’s take a look at some everyday tips for living the Golden Rule in your daily life:

Practice understanding. Try to place yourself in the shoes of another person. Any person. Loved ones, co-workers, and people you meet on the street. Really try to understand, to the extent that you can, what it is like to be them, what they are going through, and why they do what they do.

Practice sympathy. Once you can understand another person, and feel what they’re going through, learn to want to end their suffering. When you can, take even a small action to somehow ease their pain in some way.

How would you want to be treated? There a is little twist to the Golden Rule which I believe is overlooked by most people - the Golden Rule doesn’t really mean that you should treat someone else exactly as you’d want them to treat you … it means that you should try to imagine how they want to be treated, and do that. So when you put yourself in their shoes, ask yourself how you think they want to be treated.

Be friendly. When you’re in doubt, follow this tip. It’s usually safe to be friendly towards others. Of course, there are times when others just don’t want someone acting friendly towards them, and you should be sensitive to that. You should also be friendly within the boundaries – it’s not about being friend to some because maybe they fit a certain criteria… Anyone! Who doesn’t like to feel welcome and wanted?

Listen to others. Another weakness: a lot of us want to talk, but very few of us want to listen. And yet, we all want to be listened to. So take the time to actually listen to another person, rather than just wait your turn to talk. It’ll also go a long way to helping you understand others.

——- Personal Note ——-

These everyday tips are not just ordinary tips, they are huge scarifies to a lot of people - living the Golden Rule. And for that reason — not even considering that our island will be a better place if more people live by this rule. I urge you make the Golden Rule a focus of your actions – even if it’s one day at a time and try to live by it to the extent that you can.

Besides making real decisions, a man has to be confident in the way he speaks and acts – he owns his attitude.

He often knows that failure is a possible outcome in his life, that’s why a (real) man does not adopt a confident attitude because he knows he’ll succeed. When the odds of success are clearly against him, he still displays confidence. It’s not because he’s uninformed or suffering from denial. It’s because he’s proving to himself that he has the strength and the ability to rise above his self-doubt. This builds his courage and persistence, two of his most valuable allies.

A man is willing to be defeated by the world. He’s willing to be taken down by circumstances beyond his control. But he refuses to be overwhelmed by his own self-doubt. He knows that when he stops trusting and believing in himself, he is surely lost. He’ll surrender to fate when necessary, but he won’t surrender to fear – which he knows keeps him on the alert.

Carib Territory,Dominica (AP) -The leader of the last remaining pre-Columbian tribe in the eastern Caribbean says outlawing marriage to outsiders can save Dominica’s dwindling indigenous population, but legislators are balking at deciding who can marry whom.

Chief Charles Williams has proposed a law requiring ethnic Kalinagos to marry only each other for self-preservation. He also requested that foreigners be barred from living on the tribe’s 3,800-acre reserve.

“We would like as many Kalinago people to respond and pair off so that we can multiply and protect the race,” Williams said during a recent news conference.

An estimated 1,000 Kalinagos of the roughly 4,000 who live on the reserve are considered full-blooded Indians. Carib women who marry non-Indians traditionally leave the reserve, while men who do the same are allowed to stay.

Several legislators said Friday that they refuse to entertain the marriage proposal. Such a measure would be “legislating who a person can marry, and this cannot be so,” Sen. Claduous Stanford told The Associated Press.

Kent Auguiste, a member of the Carib Indian council that oversees the reserve, said the culture should be preserved but not at the expense of personal freedom.

——- Personal Note ——-
I was appalled to read that such a law was even proposed! We had ridiculous anti-miscegenation laws in some states in the USA; as a matter of fact, Mildred Loving, who successfully won a case in our Supreme Court to overturn such laws, died only last week. Were such a law in place, it would only result in making some children illegitimate. Marriage should be legal between any pair of one adult man and woman not too closely related.

Dan Tanner

Inspired by one of my favorite Personal Development bloggers Steve Pavlina, who recently published an article titled How to be a Man; I’m following up with my own take on what I believe takes to be a man - particularly in a society like ours where most of the time the idea of being a “real” man falls between the amount of money he has or women whether or not his good with the ladies. Sad but true.

So what does it mean to be a man today? How can men in the Caribbean consciously express their masculinity with becoming cold-hearted on one hand…or a wimp on the other? In the next week or two I will be posting on what are the most loving ways for a man to live and express himself.

The first way I’m going to touch on is the aspect of Making Real Decisions.

Any man should understand and respect the power of choice, and lives a life of his own creation. He knows that life stands still when he fails to make decisions and flourishes when he chooses a clear path for himself or his family.

When a man makes a decision, he opens the door he wants and closes the doors he doesn’t want. For example, when most men decide to pursue a beautiful woman; he will do also anything to win her heart – knowing clearly there is no guarantee he’ll win her over. But a man doesn’t need such guarantees; he simply enjoys the sense of certainty that comes for opening that door.

A man doesn’t require the approval of others. He’s will to follow his heart wherever it leads him. A quality which is lacking in most Caribbean men – fearing that their piers might disapprove of their decision and think of them differently. When a man is following his heart–centered path, it’s of little or no consequence if the whole world is against him.

There are lots of people who enjoy keeping busy and even holding down jobs all the way into their old age years. In a recent post I asked the question “When Last Have You Thought About Your Retirement Income?“, I discovered that a large number of people are considering skipping out on retirement altogether and prefer staying employed for a long as they are physically able. My boss is a perfect example – for the past sevens years she’s been planning on retiring.

Yet around Caribbean there also tons of people who just don’t have a choice but to keep on working beyond the age of 60 which is the average age for retirement, simply because they haven’t saved enough for their retirement or didn’t start saving early enough.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could retire on our own terms to pursue the things we’d like do. Taking on a job in our senior years is something that should be voluntary and not a requirement. And though the idea of retirement may be a big change for many people – many prefer to continue working instead of relaxing – retirement is still a goal that everyone one of us should aspire to attain, just so we get to control whatever time we’ve remaining in this world.

For all those who are not workaholics like me and who would like to retire on time, here are some great tips I came across over at TheDigeratiLife.com – a blog which writes about money, personal finance, geeks and cyberspace in the silicon valley.

Start investing early.

This is by far the most important recommendation made to anyone who would like to retire on time. It’s one of the most ubiquitous tips I’ve read about investing, and for good reason: the earlier you start investing, the longer the magical power of compounding can work on your funds, thereby ensuring you a healthy retirement.

Invest with any amount you can afford.

A lot of people make the excuse that they don’t save and invest because they just CAN’T. I know someone who says he just cannot afford opening a retirement account because all of his income goes to supporting his family. Yet he’s a heavy smoker and drives a fairly expensive car that requires some maintenance. With some adjustments and heartfelt effort, he could very well be on his way to building a decent retirement nest egg. Freeing up even just a $100 a month to put in an investment account is really all that it takes to build a simple, diversified investment portfolio.

Avoid procrastination and letting life “take over”.

Let’s face it, thinking about retirement and more generally — financial management — may not be the most exciting thing in the world. We’re faced with distractions on a daily basis and we’re living busy, hectic lives. If you’re like me, you’re constantly wondering where all your time has gone, by the end of the day. So its way too easy and tempting to have our financial matters take a backseat to everything else; but by going along this path, we may eventually find ourselves in our middle age with meager savings. Being more proactive about our finances and taking a more serious look at our long term financial goals should help us avoid this plight.

——- Personal Note ——–
Forget how hard the economy is presently, the early you apply these tips together if whatever ideas you’ve – the better chance you’ll have not to work in your retirement years. Though I believe a lot of people will agree with me – that it will be fun to keep working all the way into grey years. Once you do it on your own terms.

Sure, we all know how to lie around, and just waste time doing nothing. But the way society is constantly evolving - not just in the Caribbean but the entire world. Many of us are to busy to do it much, and when we do it (do nothing), our minds are often on other things. We cannot relax and enjoy the art of doing nothing.

Doing nothing can either be a waste of time, or it can be an art form. Here’s how to incorporate the art of doing nothing in your daily, and in the process, improve your life – take away the stress and make yourself more productive when you do decide do to some work.

Start small

Doing nothing, in the real world can be overwhelming if you attempt to do too much nothing at once. Try doing small nothings at first. Focus on the 5-15 minutes at a time, and start practicing in a safe place – at home, not at work or in a busy public place. Find a time and place where there are not many distractions, not much noise, not a lot of people to bother you.
Shut off all possible distractions — TV, computer, cell phones, iPods, regular phones, and smart phones. Doing nothing is hard when our communications gadgets are calling at us to do something. Now, close your eyes, and do nothing.

Incorporating the Art in daily life

Start by doing nothing while you are waiting in line, at the bank, on a bus, or for your order at one those fast food restaurants. Wait, without reading a magazine, without talking on the phone, without checking your email, without writing out your to-do list, without doing any work, without worrying about what you need to do later. Wait, and do nothing. Concentrate on your breathing and just relax. Concentrate on those around you — watch them, try to understand them, listen to their conversations.
Next, try doing nothing when you drive. Yes, you must drive, but try to do nothing else. Don’t listen to music or news or an audiotape. Don’t multi-task. Too many times you see people talking on their cell phones, eating, or fixing their makeup while driving. Just drive. Relax yourself, and don’t worry about the other drivers, just don’t avoid crashing into them.

Lastly, try doing nothing in the middle of confusion, in your workplace or any other stressful environment. Just shut everything out, close your eyes, and think about your breathing. Just relax and let everything go. Try doing this for 5-10 minutes at a time, and gradually building it up to 15-25 minutes. If you can do this, midway of a stressful day at work or with the kids, you will allow yourself to focus more fully on the task at hand. You will be relaxed and ready to concentrate, to bring yourself into a good state of mind.

Warning: Doing nothing at your job could get you in a lot of trouble with your boss, so be careful! But if it makes you a better worker, maybe your boss might not mind. I can tell you, doing nothing isn’t easy. But you will enjoy every minutes of it!

Too many times I’ve seen, we take criticism as a personal attack, as an insult to who we are. But it’s not. Well, perhaps sometimes it is – there are some people who just love to criticize everything and everyone. But we don’t have to take it that way. Here is a tip, take criticism towards your actions and not towards you as a person. If you do that, you can detach yourself from the emotionally side of criticism and see what should be done to improve.

So many of us handle criticisms (whether it’s constructive or not) as a personal attacks and in turn we attack right back. “I’m not going to let someone talk to me that way,” or how we Dominicans say it “I not going to let someone take their foot on me.” You have to defend yourself, and attack the attacker … right? Especially if this criticism in made in public, a perfect example of public criticism - when someone will post a comment on this blog criticizing something I wrote about or apart of the blog.

Attacking back most of the time is wrong. By attacking the attacker, you are stooping to his level. Even if the person was mean or rude, you don’t have to be the same way. You don’t have to commit the same sins.

Be the better person.

If you can rise above all the insults and attacks, and respond in a calm and positive manner to the meat of the criticism, you will be the better person. And guess what? There are two amazing benefits of this:

• Others will admire you and think better of you for rising above the attack. Especially if you remain positive and actually take the criticism well. This has happened to me, when people actually complimented me on how I handled attacking comments.
• You will feel good about yourself. By participating in personal attacks, we dirty ourselves. But if we can stay above that level, we feel good about who we are. And that’s the most important benefit of all.

How do you stay above the attacks and be the better person? By removing yourself from the criticism, and looking only at the actions criticized. By seeing the positive in the criticism, and trying to improve. By thanking the critic, and by responding with a positive attitude. After you did you will feel good about yourself and the way you acted…trust me.

How do you handle criticism? Please share your tips and suggestions in the comments.