Due to some logistic reasons I decided to walk to office today morning. It’s about 5-6 km which will result in a relaxed 1 hour walk, mainly through the forest. I pass this forest nearly every day since I usually go by bicycle and I am claiming I do know nearly every tree along my path. But this morning was different. The forest appeared completely different to me … unfamiliar beautiful.

It was a clear morning, only a few clouds in an awaking blue sky. The 10 degree Celsius didn’t feel that cold and the sun has just risen and was shining through the trees on the forest track, which resulted in a striped pattern, alternating sunlight and shadows from the trees. The morning dew was still sitting on leaves and grass, but the first sun slowly made these drops disappear into  the air and created a fine transparent fog. This again made the sun beams visible between the trees, made them shine. And around them, all this green. Just breath taking.

And then the smell of fresh air in the woods. I couldn’t get enough into my lungs. The whole scenario was so awesome, so silent and peaceful. I never realized that beauty before and I never was that pleased, happy and thankful to be able to experience all this.

But what made the difference? I took the time to walk. I took the time to open my eyes and to watch around me. I was not just heading to office as fast as possible. I was enjoying the moment, I was living. Amazing, isn’t it?

Within last days my brain spent some more cycles and brain cells to think about happiness. The more I think about happiness the more questions raise. What are the dependencies and requirements of my happiness? What are happiness indicators or drivers?

For me happiness is tied closely to my inner peace. But being in peace is not a matter of course. There are only a few intensive moments of complete inner peace and I have found a way to trigger this inner satisfaction for myself.

For me one trigger is cross-country skiing. Imagine you are skating through a highly snowbound forest. All trees are covered with snow and the last light of the day will be vanished soon. It is snowing big fluffy snowflakes which restricts the range of sight to a few meters. But the most calming effect of the snowflakes is that they swallow all noises. It’s nearly completely silent. The only detectably sound comes from the skis sliding through the snow and my heavy breath. I even can hear my increased heart beat. The round movements of skating require and stress nearly every muscle in my body and I feel already very exhausted. But the thrill of the speed, the arresting beauty of the snowy forest and the breath-taking silence keep me running. Soon my mind empties and removes all unnecessary thoughts and the warm feeling of inner peace is spreading through my mind, body and soul. It’s amazing, it’s just wow. It’s my heaven.

That’s my happiness and of course there are other triggers of inner peace and satisfaction 😉 What is yours?

Do you know Odin? He is THE major god in the Norse mythology, also known as Wodan. He is associated with many (even contradicting) things, like fight, battle, war, victory and even death on one side and wisdom, prophecy or poetry on the other side. Odin is the father of Thor, who had even more destructive orientation, including the corresponding tool.

Illustrations show Odin usually with an eye patch or one closed eye and the mythology says Odin gave one of his eyes to gain wisdom,  delivered through a water well. But is it wise to get wisdom in exchange for one eye? Wouldn’t be the lack of stereoscopic vision a dramatic disadvantage in battles, especially if you are the god of war? What use has all the wisdom if you can not evaluate the exact position of an incoming sword to ward it off? I think this wisdom would be rather quick a dead wisdom. Well, the wisdom can be used to avoid fights, but this might damage the reputation of a war god somehow too.

So Norse gods had their own problems as well. But Odins approach had also some advantages, e.g. this way he avoided the decision between two competing technologies like shutter and polarization. So everything usually has two sides (try to stop your brain from visualizing a coin;).

Everything you do or don’t has advantages and disadvantages. Everything has a price you have to pay. If you buy some fancy gadget the major part of the price is quite obvious. But most of the prices are hidden or unconscious, like some regret when you are realizing later on you did not really need that gadget. Or if you lie to or cheat somebody, then in most cases your conscience pays the price. In case of lacking of such one the price might be anger, disappointment up to physical violence from the cheated person.

A price as such is not a bad thing, as long as you are aware of it and as long you are ready to accept and pay it. Only in this case the decision will be a good one. Odins price has been his eye and he was ready to give it for the wisdom. Are you ready to pay the price of your actions?

I am sure you have met her too, super-mom. She is everywhere, independent what activity you start with your kids, super-mom is already there. If you go to a weekly children sport group with your son, super-mom is there with her kid too. If you go with your daughter to her weekly music lesson, super-mom is there too with her highly talented girl.

It’s okay to go for some activities with your little ones, but does it really have to be every possible activity? And every day a week? And not only that, super-mom needs to proof to everyone that she really is a super-mom. She knows every single nursery rhyme and looks at you punitively if you don’t. She is proud as a peahen of her kid and does not miss a chance to communicate how great her little ones are.

But looking into her kids faces gives a different impression. For some reason they don’t look happy. Would you look happy if your mom would push you every day to one or more activities? You would go swimming, children sports, you would learn a foreign language, learn how to play an instrument, sing in a chorus and in between your mom would make sure that you are learning something additionally. I wouldn’t look happy either, I would rather looking tired. Where is the place to play, to be creative, to draw or to create something? Where is the time to dream? Where is the time to meet friends? Where is the childhood?

In my opinion super-mom is stealing the childhood and is using her kids to make her looking good in the eyes of others. She is showing her successful kids around. But are these kids really successful? Will they be more successful in life than others? I doubt it.

Oh yeah, your little one is looking forward whole year for it and you are scared of it same time. Children’s birthday party, heaven on earth for the kid and hell on earth for daddy. But don’t get me wrong, I love it, it is great, just a little stressful and exhausting.

It starts weeks before, the birthday is on the horizon and the “when” question comes up. When will we do the birthday party with her friends? Directly on the birthday? Or the weekend after the birthday? Oh, one of the invitees is away on that weekend, how about the Friday before the weekend? It takes days to fix the date. There are so many dependencies. Whom to invite? How many to invite? Does the date collide with other birthday parties? Are all invitees available then? Does this fit into grandparents schedule? …

Let’s assume the “when” is fixed now. To send the invitations the next elementary questions needs to be answered. What’s the motto of the party? Knights? Oh no, this has been the motto of one of the invitee kids already. And immediately a whole bunch of dependencies and requirements jump through your head. It’s a big decision since nearly everything depends on it, the design of the invitation cards, decoration, plates, cups, costumes, party games and even the food. Scary. And not only that. The motto needs to be supported by your kid as well, yes! So discuss it with your little one BEFORE you buy any accessory. Really cool then is the sentence once you have got all accessories: “Daddy, I don’t like knights anymore, I wanna have a horse birthday party”. Then it is time to bring the motto contract signed by your kid: “Sweet, yesterday we agreed on a knights party, signed is signed, PERIOD!” Our agreed motto this time was “Cowboys and American Indians”, timeless motto and daddy can make a fire in the courtyard, yeah!

Okay, now you have this bunch of kids, but how to entertain them? Plain kids party games? Boring. All do the same games, we need something special, creative, remarkable and something what fits into the defined motto. Omg, panic, lets read the entire internet to gather ideas. How about a treasure hunt? But what could be a good treasure? Where to hide it? We need a special box, with a lock and a plan, … arghhhh. So you spend many evenings creating a treasure hunt plan with a red cross on it. Of course it needs to look ancient, so you are starting crinkling the paper, burning the edges and rubbing the paper with coffee powder to make it look old. You are walking the route to define proper hints which of course have something to do with cowboys and are easy and challenging enough for your kids age. You are searching an entire evening for a proper treasure box with a lock. Done, but you are starting to feel stressed and exhausted and the party hasn’t even started.

Food, of course you need something special, not just a boring cake. What can you do? How about building a cool vikings warship out of a bread, with little shields made out of sliced cucumber? Hmm, good idea, but wrong motto. We need something more wild west. So we made American native muffins. Means decorating muffins to look like American Indian, with a cute face, hairs of chocolate, war food paint and 2 paper feathers on the top. You spend nearly half a day in kitchen but the results look cool … and are eaten up in seconds without any complimenting word. Kids can be cruel at times.

And then the day before the party you are starting to decorate the room. Oh bad, we don’t have enough chairs and the table is too small. We need balloons, lots of them. And so you are spending whole evening blowing up balloons and decorating the room with paper streamers. Once everything is prepared you are feeling like finished a marathon run.

And finally the party day. Your little one is happy, jumping excited around you. The first guests are arriving and you are wishing this day might end soon. Most parents deliver their kids with a knowing and compassionate smile, very nice. Once all guests are here you start with your program. And do you know this? There is always one trouble maker kid which does not want to do what all others do. “Treasure hunt is boring” or “I know already where the treasure is” messages are very helpful for your mood in addition. But your kid seems to have fun and this only counts.

Seeing your birthday princess smile and her shiny eyes make you forget all the preparation stress, make you ignore the mess around the table, even the muffins distributed in the room. The floor is gluing from apple juice and the kids room looks like a scene after an earthquake. But once the last guest has left and you are sitting in the middle of the mess, looking into your kids eyes, you are realizing it was worth it, isn’t it?

Have you ever experienced this? Somebody who is quite close vanishes from your life. This doesn’t need to be drastically like death. Imagine somebody joins your life, may it be in private life or at work and you are walking together for some time. You find out that you have similar interests, you think similar, have a similar sense of humor. Your discussions are inspiring for both of you and you are growing mentally just because of this relation.

This human becomes a true friend, spouse, colleague, training partner, … to you and you get used to this relation over time. You can’t even remember properly how it has been before you met him/her. In fact you consider this relation as given, as granted … but it never is, and it is never everlasting. And suddenly this person vanishes from your life. Maybe a close colleague is moving to another company, a good friend is moving into another town or things like that. That hits you and it hurts. You can’t imagine how you can manage being without him or her.

This happened more than once to me now and my grandma used to say: If a door closes for you, another door will open. And she is right, of course she is. But this does not help to reduce the pain when losing a close one. Nothing is so consistent like the change itself. There has been always changes in our lives and there always will be changes. We should get used to changes, but for some reason we are not. It hurts every single time. It’s like losing a part of myself. Sometimes you have to say good bye, even if you don’t want. But that’s life.

Reflecting my life I realized that I spent much time with waiting. Children usually wait for the next birthday, Christmas, vacation or other highlights. They wait to grow up. A few years later people wait for the weekend, for an upcoming party or date. Others wait for something to finish, like school, studies, loneliness. Some are even waiting for death.  In all these cases we wished that time might pass faster.

Or we are waiting for something to be happen, like waiting for the perfect girl, for the love of the life or waiting for the proposal of marriage. Sometimes we are waiting for a second chance and sometimes for a first one. Some are waiting for a good job or even money. There are so many possibilities to wait for something. But does it help?

And know what, suddenly you are realizing you have grown old while waiting and even more bad, you are still waiting. But was it worth to wait? Have you been happy with the outcome of your waiting? Wouldn’t it be better just to do something or to try something instead of waiting for something? Look back in your life, check your accomplishments in life. Did you accomplish them because of waiting or because of taking initiative? See.

What do you wait for?

What is happiness? Wikipedia tells me happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. So this can be anything. Anything between contentment and intensive joy. This are worlds! Okay, maybe I better think by myself. What makes me happy? Family? Of course! Job? Maybe. Money?  Nah! Success? Should. Acknowledgement? Good chance. Friends? Close ones. Hobbies & activities? Depends. Love? Absolutely!

Am I happy? I think so. I have all I need in life. But why did I write I think so? Do I think or do I know? Looks like I am not sure about that or my subconscious mind tries to keep a door open. Why isn’t it easy to say “Yes, I am happy?”. Because of the certainty there might be something else, something better, which might make me more happy? Looks like I am not satisfied by my current happiness level. But why? Desire for more? Curiosity? Boredom? Or maybe absence of real problems? What am I waiting for? Why not adjusting the happiness expectation level to the current status quo? Why not defining myself as happy right now? Why not enjoying the things I have right now? Why not living in the present? Am I happy? Yes I am.

What is happiness for you? Are you happy? Do you know or do you think you are happy? Depends your happiness on others? Why?

Are you happy?

Parents usually try to protect their kids, of course. I do that too. But recently I have realized that too much protection isn’t good. How many times I told my kids, “don’t do that since you might get hurt”, “don’t do this since it’s dangerous” or “wait, wait, be carefully, I’ll do that better for you”. Suddenly I am realizing this is well-intentioned, but doesn’t help my kids the way I expected initially.

What’s the result? Kids develop fears, fears to do something wrong, fears to get hurt. Is this what I wanted? Definitely not. Remember back, what have been your major lessons and remember what led to them. Why do you remember some lessons very well? Exactly, since they are the result of a big failure or pain. Yeah, when we fail we generally learn more and more lasting.

Who am I to take my kids the chance to learn from their own failures? Who am I to avoid that my kids learn from experience? But yes, it is so easy to prohibit or warn and to raise your index finger in case your child tries anyways and fails. It’s so easy, but it’s so selfish and wrong too. Of course it is much more effort to show trust into your kids, to let them make their own experiences, to learn out of their own failures. This requires much more trust and strength.

I believe the parent task is not to prevent failures of their kids. Let them fail, let them get hurt (of course only to a certain degree). The task is rather to make sure your kids learn something from it, to make your kids understand that failing is normal and belongs to the process to develop, that failure is no issue as long as you learn from it, as long as you don’t do mistakes twice. And sometimes you need to get hurt to understand things, that’s part of the game. This task is much more demanding than just warning, this task requires trust, willpower, understanding, but this way your kids will benefit most.

Trust your kids and don’t show your fear. This helps your kids to grow to adults with trust and no fears. They will reward it. Raising kids is challenging, isn’t it?

You are waiting at the counter of your favorite fast food chain. In front of you is a mother with a little boy, ordering some food. The boy lies on the counter, playing, screaming and hitting you with his pedaling feet. Will you tolerate this behavior or will you say something?

Another example. The neighbors kid is at your home, playing with your son. Some toys break because the neighbors son is throwing them around. It’s not the first time that this happens. You know your son has this toy for a long time now, is proud of it and took care of it so far. You can see the incomprehension in your sons eyes. Will this raise anger in you?

Third one. Neighbors little daughter is using low class words you don’t use in your family. Your little one is looking at her with wide eyes and you can read in her face the question “Oh my god, did she really say this now?”. Would this be tolerable?

All this boils down to limits. Do you set your kids limits? If yes where? Here exist a lot of different opinions. And that’s okay. I have my own opinion here too. I think kids need limits. Not for all and every detail, but they need to learn the game might change when crossing a certain border.

How many times I have heard how lucky I am, since my kids are so calm. NO, I am not lucky! This is the result of setting limits. These kids know that they are crossing a boarder when they scream around without reason, when they break a toy of somebody else intentionally, they know there are rules in behavior. They are not calm just because of luck, they are because we have taught them so.

Or how many times I have heard “No wonder your kids are calm and balanced since you are too”. NO, wrong. How can I teach my kids to behave civilized when I behave contrary? I behave the way i want my kids to behave. Teaching by example. Again it’s the result of decent education and not luck since I might be calm accidentally and nature given.

Another one: “Oh my son is so active and briskly, that’s why he is doing all this”. NO, wrong again! That’s only an excuse. When he does not know limits, how should he know what’s wrong behavior? How should your children know what is good and what is bad if you do not teach them, if you do not show them? How should your children know when everything is allowed without consequences? How should your children value something correctly when values don’t matter?

So what makes the difference? In my opinion limits are the key. Teaching the kids, they can go until here, but not further. Here is a boundary you should not cross. You are free within these limits, but when you cross them, you should know that this crossing has a price.

And what comes usually as next resposnse? “When restricting kids, they are not able to develop themselves, to develop self-confidence, to try out things, …” WRONG! This is also possible within limits, if you set limits advisedly, not to tight and only when necessary.

“Limit” is a kind of negatively biased word. But for me it helps me to make a better human out of myself and to prepare my kids for life. For me it is a positive word. Isn’t it?