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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Short Stories for Teachers

Your Future Can Be Wonderful
By:Amanda Harvey

Your future is in your hands. There is no more powerful factor in determining the course of your life, and your destiny than you. The choices you make now, your decisions, the attitudes and beliefs that you choose to have today create your future.

While I do not in any way encourage the practice of blaming our present life circumstances on past events, there is no doubt that the things that have happened, and the choices we have made up until now have definitely had an influence on shaping the way our lives are today.

It stands to reason then, that what we are doing now will have a big effect on the way that our lives are next year, and five or ten years down the track. Are the ways you are living your life now shaping a positive future?

Making positive life choices can benefit us both now, and in the future.

For example, exercising brings immediate health benefits, in the form of improved energy, stamina, and a feeling of general well-being. We also gain longer-term benefits from an exercise program, such as reduced risk of heart disease.

This two-fold reward can be seen in almost any step we take to improve our lives. By improving your present, you can also look forward to even greater benefits in your future.

Building your confidence can make you feel happier and more capable almost right away. By learning new skills, spending time doing things that you are good at and that make you happy, and using affirmations , you can improve your feelings of confidence. This helps you feel capable and good about yourself, and believe you are worthy of good things.

In the future, improved confidence can lead to many opportunities. By feeling confident, you not only attract more possibilities into your life, but you are much more likely to seize the chances that come, than if you are cowering in a corner.

Anything you do now to make your life better, make yourself happier, healthier, or more content will also help you to fulfill your dreams for your future.

The reverse also needs to be true. Don’t become so focused on trying to create success, wealth, or stability for the future that you neglect to make yourself happy in the present.

Making sacrifices and denying your wishes now is not the way to create happiness in the future. It also guarantees a miserable present. Doing this is a trap, and there are various effects that it can have on your life.

The first is that you can become so caught up in the destination, that you not only forget to enjoy the journey, but however far you come, you never have the feeling of having ‘arrived.’

You tell yourself that you will feel secure when you have ‘enough’ money, but when your bank balance reflects a figure that you previously thought would make you happy, something in your subconscious tells you that it still isn’t enough.

If security is the feeling that you believe having money will bring you, focus instead on how you can have security now. It is possible! In fact security can only come from within. External wealth, status, or possessions can never make you feel secure, because there will always be an underlying fear that they could be lost or taken away.

Having security is as simple as making a decision to trust that you are secure. You have everything you need, right inside your heart, and that can never be taken away from you. Once you create that basis of security, you can attain all the external trappings of wealth and success. You can have them, enjoy them, share them, appreciate them, but know that they do not make you happy or secure.

Another problem with neglecting the present and feeling that your future is more important is that the future never comes. It is always now. As I write this, it is now. When you read it, it will be now. Now is the only time we truly have, so if you are not making yourself happy now, you can never experience happiness.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that there is a time, a circumstance, or a possession that will come at some time in the future that will allow you to be happy. This mindset results in unhappiness, both in the present and in the future.

You put off being happy, believing that something external is needed in order to be happy, and even when you get that thing the usual feeling is one of vague disappointment. The object that was going to bring you happiness didn’t deliver. It couldn’t- the only thing that can make you happy is within you.

Looking outwards and placing expectations for fulfillment and happiness on external things can only bring disappointment.

Often though, rather than realizing the pointlessness of chasing happiness externally, people immediately set their sights on a new object. The one they have just gained has not fulfilled them as they hoped, so they decide that they must need a bigger, faster, shinier, more expensive bauble to give them that elusive joy.

If you stop and question why none of the material possessions and achievements that you thought would make you happy have done so, you can then accept that stuff just can’t bring true happiness. Stuff can bring comfort, pleasure, fun, and enjoyment, but happiness comes from within.

The same as security, happiness is something you need to create within yourself. By deciding to be happy, and making big and small choices on a daily basis that bring you happiness in the present, you can be happy.

For now, and for your future, everything you need to be happy, loved, fulfilled, successful, abundant, and free is within you. Look into your heart, trust your intuition, believe in yourself and you can create an amazing future- one day at a time.

A native of Australia, Amanda Harvey is currently based in Taiwan. Working as a teacher, speaker, and writer, she has spent the last decade living in various countries throughout Europe and Asia. Through her life experiences, Amanda has developed a strong passion for encouraging others to embrace their differences and become empowered to choose their own paths. Amanda is the author of two books and a website. To read more, please visit www.choosing-life-my-way.com/index.html






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