The effect of food crisis is being felt throughout the world. Jumps in food prices are very painful because we spend approximately 12.8% of our incomes on feeding ourselves. Are you amongst those who have already tried a number of ways to cut down on monthly food expenses but haven’t been successful? Given below are some of the effective ways to plan and reduce your food expenses without compromising the quality.

Shop the Food Ads- Grocery stores pick out something to put on special, and that’s what they feature in their own ad. Generally these food items are available at good discounted prices. You can buy these items in bulk and save money, but ensure that they are not just stocked items at their regular prices.

Shop Around- Don’t just shop at one store for all your food items. It is always advisable to go around a bit for comparison of prices. Most of the times, one or other grocery store is offering discounts. You can find information about these discounted deals online saving your money.

Don’t bulk up unnecessarily- Certainly getting food items in bulk will cost less but they are not worth the discounted rate if they go waste or get spoiled owing to improper storage. You need to be careful in selecting the quantity of such food items, so as you can make the most out of such deals.

Check out warehouse deals- There are some specific food items which are available at cheap rates in warehouses. You can visit a nearby warehouse once every month to get sufficient quantity to serve your family for a month. One such food item is eggs, which can be availed at cheap rates from warehouses.

Poultry perfect- Poultry prices have been climbing up steadily from quiet a long time. This can be due to increase in petroleum which affects transportation. You can save on poultry by buying whole bird, if you have no major problems in its cutting and storage. Another alternative is to go for drumsticks and thighs as they have more flesh.

Carry coupons with you- Although coupons avail you a discount of 50 cents on a food item, but in a long run they can help in increasing your savings. Most of us tend to forget these coupons at home while going for shopping. You can also stack coupons to get double discounts.

Skip the brand name- The store brand is less expensive and can also come from the same diary as you favorite brand. If you do not have a discount coupon against your favorite brand then it is better to go for a local brand after checking its contents and packaging.

Buy skimmed milk- Skimmed milk is 10% less expensive and 5% more nutritious for you. Some people complain about its taste, you can add various artificial flavors to it in the beginning so as you can adjust to its taste.

Commit to a budget- This approach can be very effective. Complying with monthly budget can help you plan your food items correspondingly and slowly you will learn to shop optimum food stuff in your budget.

Keeping above points in mind you can surely shop food items and make good savings without compromising on quality.

DIY Finances: Financial Responsibility

In a July 19 Wall Street Journal article titled “Why No Outrage?”, James Grant quoted Mary Lease, a 19th century Populist who urged farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.” Grant notes that financial behavior that would have been met with outrage in the 19th century is now met with near-silence from a too-tolerant populace. For decades after the Civil War, monetary reform was a chief political issue, one around which whole political parties formed. Why is it hardly mentioned today? Grant suggests that the lack of outrage may be because the old 19th century Populists actually won:

“This is their financial system. They had demanded paper money, federally insured bank deposits and a heavy governmental hand in the distribution of credit, and now they have them. The Populist Party might have lost the elections in the hard times of the 1890s. But it won the future. . . . They got their government-controlled money (the Federal Reserve opened for business in 1914), and their government-directed credit [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]. In 1971, they got their pure paper dollar. So today, the Fed can print all the dollars it deems expedient and the unwell federal mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combine [to] dominate the business of mortgage origination . . . .”

Mr. Grant may have answered his own question, in another way than he intended. Most people, evidently including Mr. Grant, actually think that the Federal Reserve is a federal agency; and that paper dollars are issued by the government; and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are federal mortgage giants. The American people are silent because they have been duped into believing they have gotten what they wanted. In fact, what the people got was not at all what the Populists fought for, or what their leader William Jennings Bryan thought he was approving when he voted for the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. In the stirring speech that won him the Democratic nomination for President in 1896, Bryan expressed the Populist position like this:

“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. . . . Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson . . . and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business. . . . [W]hen we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and . . . until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.”

Bryan lost in 1896 and again in 1900, but he went on to lead the opposition in Congress. A major bank panic in 1907 led to a bill called the Aldrich Plan, which would have delivered control of the banking system to the Wall Street bankers. However, the alert opposition, led by Bryan, saw through it and soundly defeated it. Bryan said he would not support any bill that resulted in private money being issued by private banks. Federal Reserve Notes must be Treasury currency, issued and guaranteed by the government; and the governing body must be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate.

To get their bill past the opposition in Congress, the Wall Street faction changed its name to the Federal Reserve Act and brought it three days before Christmas, when Congress was preoccupied with departure for the holidays. The bill was so obscurely worded that no one really understood its provisions. Its backers knew it would not pass without Bryan’s support, so in a spirit of apparent compromise, they made a show of acquiescing to his demands. Bryan said happily, “The right of the government to issue money is not surrendered to the banks; the control over the money so issued is not relinquished by the government . . . .”

That was what he thought; but while the national money supply would be printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it would be issued as an obligation or debt of the government to a private central bank. The Federal Reserve is wholly owned by a consortium of private banks; it is controlled by bankers; and it protects their interests. It issues Federal Reserve Notes (dollar bills) for the cost of printing them (or, more often, for the cost of entering numbers on a computer screen). This privately-issued money is then lent to the government, and it is owed back to the private Federal Reserve with interest. The interest is eventually refunded to the government, but only after the Fed deducts its operating expenses and a 6 percent guaranteed return for its bank shareholders.

Congress and the President have some input in appointing the Federal Reserve Board, but the Board works behind closed doors with the regional bankers, without Congressional oversight or control. Bank CEOs actually sit on the boards of the Fed’s twelve branches. As just one recent example of the private control of public monies, in March of this year the New York Federal Reserve agreed in private weekend negotiations to advance $55 billion of the people’s money so that JPMorgan Chase could buy Bear Stearns at the bargain basement price of $2 a share, down from a high of $156 a share. It was a hostile takeover, not approved by the Bear Stearns shareholders or the American voters. JPMorgan Chase is the bank founded by John Pierpont Morgan, who sponsored the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Jamie Dimon, the current CEO of JPMorgan Chase, sits on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which dominates the twelve Federal Reserve Banks; and he has huge stock holdings in JPMorgan Chase. His participation in the decision to give his bank $55 billion in Federal Reserve loans is the sort of conflict of interest that federal statute makes a criminal offense; but there is no one to prosecute the statute, because the banking lobby is too powerful to be denied. The banking lobby is powerful because private bankers, not the government, create our money and control who gets it. (See Ellen Brown, “The Secret Bailout of JPMorgan,” May 13, 2008, www.webofdebt.com/articles; and “What’s the Difference Between Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns?”, June 14, 2008, ibid.)

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a major coup for the international bankers. They had battled for more than a century to establish a private central bank in the United States with the exclusive right to “monetize” the government’s debt; that is, to print their own money and exchange it for government securities or I.O.U.s. The Federal Reserve Act authorized a private central bank to create money out of nothing, lend it to the government at interest, and control the national money supply, expanding or contracting it at will. Representative Charles Lindbergh Sr. called the Act “the worst legislative crime of the ages.” He warned prophetically:

“[The Federal Reserve Board] can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by greater rate variation, and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down.

“This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed. . . . The financial system has been turned over to . . . a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people’s money.”

In 1934, in the throes of the Great Depression, Representative Louis McFadden would go further, stating on the Congressional record:

“Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man’s throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into states to buy votes to control our legislatures; there are those who maintain International propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us into granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.

“These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this Country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions .”

As for Fannie Mae - the Federal National Mortgage Association - it actually began under Roosevelt’s New Deal as a government agency. But like the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae is now “federal” only in name. In 1968, it was re-chartered by Congress as a shareholder-owned company, funded solely with private capital. If it were a bank, today it would be the third largest bank in the world; and it makes enormous amounts of money in the real estate market for its private owners. In 1970, Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation) was created to provide competition and end Fannie Mae’s monopoly in the secondary mortgage market. But Freddie Mac too is a wholly shareholder-owned, publicly-traded corporation.

Under a 1992 law, if either of these two mortgage giants is seen to be severely undercapitalized, it may be placed into government conservatorship. But the plan now being pursued is to bail out these private corporations by increasing their capital base with taxpayer money and their profit margins with greater access to Federal Reserve loans. The result will be to privatize profits to their management and shareholders while socializing risk to the taxpayers. We the people will foot the bill. If the people are going to bear the risk, we should reap the benefits. Either these two mega-corporations should take their licks in the market like any other private corporation, or they should be nationalized, delivering not just their debts but their assets to the taxpayers. Not just Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but the Federal Reserve itself should be made truly federal entities, as the voters have been led to believe and their names imply. Remove the myth that these Wall Street-controlled entities act by and for the people rather than being run for private gain, and we will soon see the outrage Mr. Grant says is curiously missing.

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In “Web of Debt,” her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling “Nature’s Pharmacy,” co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, and “Forbidden Medicine.” Her websites are http://www.webofdebt.com/ and http://www.ellenbrown.com/

There are much debates and rhetoric about potential decoupling of the largest market in the word from Asian market. Many of the like discussions attempt to address concerns of the Asian markets would stand strong or escape with modest effect from the recession in US. Many of these doomsayers inappropriately painted the worst economic scenario in US and boasted the robustness of Asian market which could withstand the economic recession in US by their domestic demand and subsequently decouple from the world’s largest market.

The weak economic indicators reported in the press and the corporate meltdowns have been employed to justify their arguments. The 5% unemployment rate in December, slower than expected retail sales, Citigroup and Merill Lynch’s write down of bad loans, credit crunch and others, undeniably are indicators of potential recession, which some of the doomsayers say the recession could last until the next first or second quarters. During this downturn, many emerging countries would very likely to take over the role played by US as the largest buyer in the world. Obviously these countries are China and India, and some focuses on Eurozone as the appreciating Euros increases the purchasing power.

However, the decoupling scenario is rather far fetched, at least not in this near five to ten years. Asian market as a whole, which is now being engined and propelled by China could not possibly absorb the overall Asian’s supply. Since China was admitted to WTO and its role in world production network increases, many manufacturers have shifted their operation to China to reap on the advantage of low cost and other benefits that the country offers. Most of these companies are hardly indigenous; they are owned by Taiwanese, US, Europeans, and others. It is safe to say that China is a global factory, and many of the products produced are shipped to developed countries, such as US and Europe.

The relocation to China is seldom caused by the mass market. Places except Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzen, and other coastal provinces, are either undeveloped or outright neglected in the course of development. Thus, the overall purchasing power of the mass population is very low. The idea that China could replace US as largest market is impossible.

Robust economic growth of China in the past decade has created concern of potential price bubbles. The growth has increased the business sentiments and potential of the economy, which has caused the inventories to build up, increase of production, positive potential has helped to buoy the demand further and the whole economy boasted a more than 10% growth in the past decade. As the result, price of property has been artificially shot up by speculation and hot money, corruption has been wide spread. Recognizing the danger of business cycle and the looming bubble burst, policies have been drawn up to curb the over exposure of the economy; control of prices of essential goods, stricter environmental regulations to curb excessive production of manufacturers, more stringent export rules, higher quality assurance and inspection on exporting products, and higher reserves required in conventional banks. These steps are being taken amid financial crisis in the US market. Expectedly, the policies are to cool the economy in the next quarter or so, and the domestic demand dynamics which were witnessed in the past decades would be reduced tremendously.

At the other front, the overall Asian markets are gripped with potential high inflation rate. Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia are seeing their purchasing power being eroded by edging price of crude oil. The depreciation of Greenbacks has caused the price of oil expensive in these economies. The notion that domestic demand could offset the demand evaporated due to US recession is therefore not so promising. Contrasting with the positive perceptions that the markets are undergoing structural shifts and become more robust, and thus could decouple from US market, the local Governments are now face with the potential inflation ( due to price surge in oil), and since US has been the largest export market, the potential of lower external demand is looming large. In other words, the local Governments are juggling with either increase the short term rate to combat the inflation or reduce to boost local demand to cushion the US recession. Either way, the economies in the region are very much exposed to the recession due to their long history of depending on US market.

This dependence can be seen in technology sector. High number of manufacturers in the region depends on tech spending in the US market. Since the mortgage crisis, the spending has proven to be very slow or outright negative. The crisis is not confined to mortgage market, its spread is seen in manufacturing, retail, and general business. The securitization of the sub prime loans, and coupled with the grading of these securities had supported the investments. The sudden drop due to the dry up of demand, and the revelations of so many unscrupulous practices in granting of loans and investment practices have caused one to question the integrity of grading of these investment tools. The lost in sentiment is further enhanced by the evaporating asset values, which its appreciation had fueled demand in the past decades. These have caused the cut down in expansion of businesses, lower demand in retails, and most importantly the cut down in tech spending which causes a large impact on import of the gadgets from Asian markets. Thus, the demand of the core sector of Asian economies is quickly running out.

The focus is now on two other developed nations to help cushion the impact; Europe and Japan. However, Japan has been experiencing economic slow down since early 1990s. Its short term rate has been low and has raised concern of potential high price in the economy. With the expected slower demand from US market, it has been tough for the economy to raise rate in the short term. The other factor relates to the concern of putting pressure on Greenback if Japan increases the short term rate. The effort could trigger higher re-purchase of Yen due to unwinding of carry trades, and put a downward pressure on dollars, thus aggravating the recession. European markets are facing high unemployment rate since relocation of manufacturers to low cost emerging markets such as Asia, and Eastern Europe. The recession and depreciation of dollar has caused huge damage to the businesses exposed to the US market but operating in Europe. Further, the idea that the continent could offset the demand drop and absorb the shocks is impossible.

In this gloomy environment, it is best that one does not predict any miracle could emerge that could absorb the goods that the region produces, or rather to debate on the possible decoupling of the markets. The most important lesson learnt from the past crisis was the evolution of new industrial structure, which is resulted from phasing out of obsolete and incompetent industries, businesses becoming more lean, and therefore, improvement of overall business environment.

John Chng at http://economicsandpolitics.blogspot.com/

Two men were discussing what an individual’s psychological identity is, and its relationship and significance in one’s life. They talked about the make-up of an identity and how it was formed. They went back and forth, listing things it could be: your memory, cumulative lifetime experience, your relationships with family and friends, your work, your hobbies, your beliefs and philosophies, your ethics and values, and so on and so on.

They then began to discuss the meaning of it all, and the role of identity in relationships. Identity, they argued, is important because it tells the world who I am and also what and who I am not. (I’m honest, and I’m not a thief.) It’s about me and mine, me and my family, me and my friends, me and my stuff, and so on. Then there is the other person who you are relating with who also has their own me and mine. Two people with two different identities, and these identities are trying to relate with one another about their differentness from each other and the rest of the world.

The two men were so involved in their discussion, exploring and sharing, that they had been unaware of the old man sitting on a bench nearby who’d been listening to their interchange. He caught the attention of one of the men, who knew that this old man happened to be very wise. So, he asked the old man what he made of their discussion.

The old man responded, “You both seem to have a passionate interest in the subject.” They agreed and asked him to join them.

The old man agreed and put a question to the two fellows. “If there are no boundaries, where is the center?” Both men shook their heads in bewilderment and looked at one another as if to say, “Say what?” They turned to the old man and asked, “Whatever do you mean by that?”

The old man chuckled and went on to say, “Suppose you were asked to find the center of a square that had no lines, no boundaries. Or what if you were asked, for instance, to find the center of an ever-expanding universe. You see gentlemen, if there is no boundary, there can be no center.”

“Okay,” said one of the men, “but what does that have to do with identities?”

The old man began to explain, “With each person’s me and mine, there is an image of themselves, of who they are. They are identifiers, if you will. These are the boundaries of myself. Now, what happens if you don’t identify myself (the Self, the Ego) with an image? If there is no image, no boundaries, then there will be no ‘me’, no identity.”

The men asked again, “And the relevance of that is what?”

The old man continued, “When people are in a relationship or conversation, what most often actually takes place is that their identities, their images are what interact, not the persons. The problem is that these identities prevent a clear, pure connection between the people involved. The identities and images are like static in a connection, which is so overpowering they can’t clearly understand the conversation. They become impediments to understanding the subject matter and the discussion often becomes a battle between the identities/images. These images prevent or interfere with our objectivity regarding the subject being discussed. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” they each replied. “It’s like people who bring their baggage from past relationships or past interactions into the present, new settings, new relationships and interactions. It acts also as a glass ceiling to one’s potential and perception. So, image or identity interferes with meeting the present moment anew. It’s like trying to have a conversation with each person in a different room, boxed off from one another. Does this accurately represent your position?”

“Yes, you’ve got it,” he said.

Successful entrepreneur, V.P. Mosser is the creator of the Learn the Lessons Series, the Life’s Journey publication and numerous thought provoking articles. To learn more and receive free chapters or issues, visit http://www.learnthelessons.com

Why do some people come out of crises transformed and benefit from the experience while others are crushed by them?

Have you ever wondered why some people come out of life crises transformed and benefit from the experience while others are crushed by them?

Everyone has a crisis occasionally and a major life crisis at least once in a lifetime. A crisis, which leads to a fundamental questioning of one’s identity, role in an organisation or society, one’s means of livelihood and relationship with others as well as big changes in one’s health, social standing or reputation and living habitat or ownership of property and things is a major life crisis. If we go back over our own past and also look around, we notice that some people are crushed by these major crises while some others emerge transformed.

Now, case studies and literature show that there are no direct genetic traits that could be identified as conclusive determinants of the ability to manage one’s own life successfully. Strict or permissive upbringing, loving parental care or growing up as orphans with no support figures, affluent childhood or extreme poverty, recognition of exceptional talent at young age, sexual abuse or exposure to crime and misery in the formative years; all these do not provide a direct and conclusive correlation to crises survival and management skills.

We tend to take for granted many things like security, daily food, freedom to move around or express one’s opinions freely or even nurture, care, friendship and even love from another person. Their importance is realized only when we loose any one of them.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way-in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.

The experience of separateness causes anxiety in humans as it means being cut off without any capacity to use our human powers. Using reason a human being becomes aware that s/he is born and dies against her/his will and this feeling of separateness against the forces of nature and of society in general creates a prison of helplessness. When we have lost something dear and valuable we realize that we have very little control over most of the things in life. Actually the only area where we can exercise some degree of control is our response to situations and our own attitude to the changing flux of things.

So, what does a life crisis actually do to our relationship with our self? A major crisis invariably takes us by the neck and forces us to question many of our basic assumptions about ourselves, about our relationship with other human beings and most importantly our relationship with the larger flow of events. There are so many quirky little coincidences, circumstances beyond our control, the sum of events which constitute a whole beyond the individual sum of its components (for which we always tend to blame our parents, the government or the system); that what theologians call the “will of God” or “Providence” etc which makes all our efforts to control reality seem futile in the end. A life crisis creates a need to review our relationship to all these.

From Zoroastrianism to Christianity, from Buddhism to Judaism, from Hinduism to the Mormon faith, from Shintoism to the Voodoo practices, from the Eleusian mysteries to Islam, in fact, in every religious and spiritual tradition there is a common thread - sacrifice! What are the traditions asking us to sacrifice? Chicken, goats, virgins or our ‘enemies’?

As modern human beings we tend to look down upon our ancestors who would draw pictures of the ritual sacrifice of a virgin to some deity or who ’sacrificed’ a goat or chicken in the hope of winning a war where they would slaughter thousands without any moral compunction. Yet we never question when the BBC or CNN reports “135 Taleban killed in fighting in Afghanistan” or “37 insurgents killed by government troops in…“.

Why would we question this type of news? Doesn’t it justify our worldview that we are the good guys and there are some bad guys out there being ’sacrificed’ to make this a better planet?

Back to the question again - What are the spiritual and religious traditions asking us to sacrifice? As you can guess, the answer is not - Taleban, insurgents or terrorists or chicken or goats for that matter. Taking things literally is always the laziest way out. The traditions are asking us to sacrifice the tiny little prisons our egos live in - nothing more and nothing less. Now, what does that mean? Are we supposed to jump off bridges and slash our stomachs and end our days for the sins of our ancestors or the shortsightedness of our governments’ foreign policies? Are we to suffer collective guilt and poison our lives with self-loathing?

Spiritual and religious traditions are filled with examples of heroes who successfully grapple with this question. Jonah or Yunus (in Islam) spending three days in the belly of the whale, Osiris dismembered going to the underworld and rising up whole again, Jesus rising up after spending three days in the belly of the Earth. Like Christ, Osiris became the god that the Egyptians needed to become in order to be saved. What this means is that unless a human being is prepared to sacrifice his/her ego and allow for the complete transformation of his/her self under the direct guidance of the Higher ideal, no true and lasting life can be obtained.

The origin of the word religion has many interpretations with the following two being central: -

1. Re-reading - originates from Latin re (again) + legio (read), meaning rereading the message until it opens up
2. Re-connection - to the divine–from Latin re (again) + ligare (to connect)

Only when a human being realizes his/her relationship to the flow of life and can flow in unison, can he reach his full potential. Then this person has become life aware of itself. He is no more the skin bound ego banging its head on the walls of mortality, He is no longer the individual consciousness mortified by the immanent certainty of its dissolution in time. He accepts full responsibility of all her actions, reactions, comings and goings. He is the co-creator fascinated by the infinite manifestations of creations. Like Jonah from the belly of the whale, the words that come from the mouth of such a person are not a dirge of lamentations but a hymn of praise. His participation is direct yet with little concern for himself. The Chandogya Upanishad describes it as “tat vam asi“, meaning “Thou art It”. It is this very quality of having one’s centre of being rooted in the higher ideal that is crucial to emerging whole and renewed from a crisis and also the key to happiness. This is the love that Viktor Frankl talks about when he mentions, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

Sinking into a victim mode is a dark and dangerous trap from which it is very difficult to get out of. People who do that are invariably crushed by crises. The ability to determine our own attitude to the vicissitudes of life requires four vital skills. People who are not very strong in these four skills are more likely to be crushed by life crises.

1. Ability to find meaning

How does an individual find meaning for the suffering or misery when everything else is fragmented and seemingly incomprehensible? This necessitates going beyond obvious and visible paradigms and findings ways to frame the present situation in a wider context. Some individuals can reflect on the events of their lives, gaining the ability to identify their strengths and exploiting them. If a person can, in the course of his life and inevitable misfortunes, look less at his own individual lot than at the lot of humanity as a whole he has better chances of finding a rationale for the misfortune. Rather than being a sufferer, he becomes a knower and his tears become pearls of wisdom.

Many mystics have said that the deeper that sorrow gnaws into your heart, the more joy it can contain, but only if the heart is ready for joy.

“It is by my sorrows I can soar” Gandhi used to quote.

Even in a Nazi concentration camp, Viktor Frankl was able to exercise the most important freedom of all - the freedom to determine one’s own attitude and spiritual well being.

“He who has a why for life can put with any how.”

Frederick Nietzsche

2. Resilience

Resilience is also the ability to see the bigger picture and anchor oneself to a higher plateau of possibilities. Misfortune and difficulties are perceived as signals that there is something wrong in our trajectory of going to the high plateau we aspire to. As we decide to work with ourselves in getting there, we use three steps of sublimation, spiritualization and raising to fruitfulness the lessons that the signals from the difficulties teach us. Skills for situation appraisal and damage control are vital skills. Learning to control sensory gratification for future gain even in the face of no immediate promise of future gain makes a person resilient in the trials of life. People who can manage leverage with their unique qualities and characteristics achieve success because of this ability to sublimate without repression.

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.”

“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,

This quality means learning to suffer what we cannot avoid. Those people who can make a correction to their expectation that everything must be optimal learn to live with things they cannot change. For many others lamentation becomes a way of life. Resilience requires a spirit of innovation to get ahead and develop. People who commit themselves to working with their perceived shortcomings in spite of failures have better chances of achieving success, even genius.

The marshmallow experiment is a famous test of this concept conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford University in the 1960s. A group of four-year olds were tested by being given a marshmallow and promised another, only if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one. Some children could wait and others could not. The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence, and showed that those children with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more successful (determined via surveys of their parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT.

3. Networking skills

Networking skills involve forming and maintaining diverse types of networks and keeping their natures intact. Further, the skills to determine the beneficial quality of a relationship and how to dissociate from a relationship, which is abusive, and get on with life, are crucial skills. A central element of networking skills is “Recruiting”.

How to “recruit” new people into your life and form new relationships, which provide growth and stimulus is a skill very difficult to learn by reading books or attending courses but some people are innately better at this than others. Facing new people and situations requires us to collect ourselves and try to present a more pleasing face to the outside world. For many people this gives a wonderful opportunity to get out of the rut of misery for a while. Of course there are people who dump their miseries on everyone they meet. Don’t we feel much better even on a dreary morning with a terrible hangover, if we have a shower and groom ourselves to go out and meet the world?

4. Mechanism for finding and sustaining hope

If the usual avenues of pleasure seeking such as sensory perception, sensual gratification, possession of things, praise from fellow men, pride in achievement etc. are absent or non-functional then where does the person derive hope from? Belief system or faith, memory of a loved person or memory of serenity experienced before crisis are great mechanisms for sustaining hope. Survivors of crises usually believe that there is a master plan for life and those who pursue what they believe to be right tend to be successful. All lives have difficulties but the manner in which difficulties are met is the deciding factor as to which lives are fulfilled. Some people learn not be ashamed of their difficulties and strive towards creating something new. They learn that life is composed of different tones, some sweet and sharp, soft and loud, as well as discords, but to hear the song of life one has to blend all of them together. If one hears the song of life, then one wonders that there must be a singer. What does that mean? That we are not abandoned garbage floating meaninglessly in the endless expanse of space and time.

But surviving a crisis and emerging transformed and happy is not that simple as happiness is indeed very paradoxical. Happiness eludes us when we pursue it. In fact it seems that we have better chances of being happy if we live content, rich and fulfilling lives and forget about achieving happiness.

Oh yes, one more thing - thinking of others and not always about ourselves does miracles. We should take matters seriously, but not ourselves.

Rana Sinha is a cross-cultural trainer and author. He was born in India, studied and lived in many places and traveled in over 80 countries, acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and building an extensive network of professionals. He has spent many years developing and delivering Cross-cultural Training, Professional Communications skills, Personal Development and Management solutions to all types of organizations and businesses in many countries. He now lives in Helsinki, Finland and runs http://www.dot-connect.com, which specializes in human resource development as well as communication and management skills training with cross-cultural emphasis. Read his cross-cultural blog http://originalwavelength.blogspot.com

Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that is caused by excessive exposure to asbestos. It is caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers in excessive amount that affect your lungs and abdominal cavities. The average lifetime of an inflicted person is less than 24 months.

It is unfortunate that this cancer is increasing at a rapid rate that it has already infected millions of people all over the world. These people are generally those who are working in companies that deal with asbestos refinery or manufacturing of asbestos products in one form or the other. People who are working in these companies day in and day out for their families, to give them better future do not know that while they are working so hard they are putting their own lives at stakes. They are exposed to harmful particles of asbestos all the day. They constantly inhale the white powder and even carry them to their home. And the worst thing to imagine is that they aren’t aware of what harm they are doing to themselves. Mesothelioma has a relatively long latency period of nearly 30 years or more so it becomes too late for a person to realize that he have this cancer because this is how long it can take to manifest.

Its is quite unfortunately that even after knowing that asbestos is so much detrimental to human body, the companies are still employing people in vast number and are making millions, if not billions, of dollars. People have no choice but to work there, risking their own life for making money for their living. These companies are so selfish that instead of taking some steps to assuage the problem they choose to make profit with a deadly product.

It is not that mesothelioma is any new disease but it is now when it is showing its existence and devastating effects. In the recent past we have heard so many cases of mesothelioma that we are bound to do something to counteract it otherwise it will continue spreading its terrible disease over mankind.

I’m a health care professional who writes about mesothelioma at Mesothelioma Straight. My latest post on the outlying causes of the mesothelioma crisis is here: mesothelioma crisis