Prayers Not Answered

<b>Prayers Not Answered</b>
Your “prayers not answered” means your “expectations not fulfilled.” The TAO wisdom explains why: your attachments to careers, money, relationships, and success “make” but also “break” you by creating your flawed ego-self that demands your “expectations to be fulfilled.”

Saturday, September 30, 2023

God and Marriage

 



ACCOUNTABILITY IN MARRIAGE TO GOD

Lack of accountability to God for what you’ve been doing to your marriage and your marriage partner is one of the reasons why divorce is rampant these days.

You’re living in a world in which injustice and vengeance are rampant. Living in the midst of this storm of unfairness may cause you unhappiness and even your own lack of faith in God.

But seeing the lack of accountability in others should, on the contrary, enhance your own accountability not only in your marriage but also in your everyday living. God is forever just and will bring judgment and justice to all—at His own timeline.

An illustration

In 1984, Archbishop Valerian Trifa was deported from the United States after being accused of being a Nazi supporter, who not only had incited attacks on Jews, but also was responsible for executing many Jews in World War II.

After World War II, the former Nazi supporter came to the United States as a refugee immigrant. He assumed the name of Valerian Trifa, and he was ordained as a priest of the Rumanian church soon after his arrival in the United States. He rose quickly to the rank of bishop and then archbishop, who lived in comfort in a 25-room farmhouse on a 200-acre estate maintained by his church.

Then, a dentist, who was a Nazi survivor, recognized the Archbishop as the Nazi supporter. The case against the Archbishop was reported in the media, and then pursued for more than a decade long by some survivors of the Nazi, Jewish organizations, journalists, as well as by the Justice Department of the United States. Their joint efforts helped focus public attention on those Nazi war criminals who were living in the United States.

At first, the Archbishop vehemently denied his former identity, despite some handwriting experts had confirmed that his handwriting was identical with that in some of the execution orders he had carried out while he was a Nazi supporter. As luck would have it, with the advancement of forensic science, some experts could incredibly still retrieve some DNA from those execution orders with the Archbishop’s own saliva on them. That was his undoing, and his final judgment.

In 1982, the Archbishop was ultimately ordered to leave the United States. But he had spent two years trying to find a country that would give him refuge. In 1984, Portugal admitted him, and he finally settled in Estoril, where he died at the age of 72 of a heart attack.

So, believe that God is merciful, but also a just God, who’ll judge injustice and any wrongdoing according to His own timeframe.

So, living in the presence of God is showing your accountability to every aspect of your married life. So, be faithful to your marriage partner to receive the blessings of God in your marriage.


Getting Married to Make You Happy?


Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Thursday, September 28, 2023

The Wisdom of Letting Go


The Wisdom of Letting Go

What Is “Letting Go”?

“Letting go” literally means releasing your close or tight fist in order to abandon or give up something that you are holding in your hand. If you are close- or tight- fisted, you also cannot receive anything. “Letting go” is detachment.

The opposite of “letting go” is “attaching to” something that you are stubbornly holding on to.

The Wisdom in Asking Questions

There is an old proverb that says: “He who cannot ask cannot live.” Life is all about asking questions, and seeking answers from all the questions asked, including questions about “letting go.”

To live well, you need to ask yourself many self-probing questions as you continue on your life journey in order to find out: who you really are, and not who you think or wish you were; what you really need, and not what you want from life; why certain undesirable things happened while certain desirable things did not happen to you. Without knowing the answers to those questions asked, you can never be genuinely happy because you will always be looking for the unreal and the unattainable, just like the carrot-and-stick mule forever reaching out for the unreachable carrot in front.

In many ways, the human brain is like a computer program. Your whole being is like the computer hardware with the apparatus of a mind, a body, and its five senses. The lens through which you see yourself, as well as others and the world around you, are the software that has been programmed by your thoughts, your past and present experiences, as well as your own desires and expectations. In other words, it is you—and nobody else—who have programmed your own mindset. All these years, you may have been trapped in a constricted sense of the self that has prevented you from knowing and being who you really are. That is to say, your “conditioned” thinking mind may have erroneously made you "think" and even "believe" that you are who and what you are right now; but nothing could be further from the truth.

By asking relevant questions, you may have the human wisdom to "change" that pre-conditioned mindset, and thus enabling you to separate the truths from the half-truths or even the myths that you may have created for yourself voluntarily or involuntarily all these years.

The important thing in questioning is to experience everything related to all the questions you ask concerning yourself, others, and the world around you. Live every question in its full presence.

Always ask yourself many “how” and “why” questions regarding whatever you may do, say, and want in your everyday life and living. Ask questions not just about yourself, but also about all those around you, whether they are connected to your or not.

Be patient toward all those questions that you cannot find the answers right away. Enlightenment may dawn on you one day when you ask fewer or even no more questions, because by then you may already have got all the answers; that is your ultimate self-awakening to the truths.

Empower your thinking mind to increase its wisdom by asking questions to initiate its intent to learn, to discover, and then to change yourself for the better.

Ultimately, you will self-intuit the wisdom of letting go, which plays a pivotal role in how you are going to live the rest of your life.

To get your copy, click here.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Healthy Posture and Healthy Vision


Science has attested to the close connection between the body and the mind. As a matter of fact, your body organs and systems are all inter-connected. Accordingly, your vision is inter-connected with your body posture. Therefore, to improve your eyesight, you must also improve your body posture.


Vision health is holistic health, that is, it includes the health of the body, the mind, and the spirit. Eyesight is an integral part of vision. Your eyesight determines how you see the world at large; your perception is your reality. Therefore, your perception becomes the raw materials of your life experiences, which will directly or indirectly affect your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. By the same token, your physical, mental, and emotional health will have an impact on your vision health, and hence your eyesight.


According to Dr. William Bates (1860 - 1931), the founder of natural vision improvement, poor vision is the result of eyestrain, due to mental and physical stress on the eye, and hence the distortion of the eye shape, causing nearsightedness and farsightedness. Dr. William Bates strongly believed that eye relaxation holds the key to improving vision. As a matter of fact, stress is the major underlying cause of most human diseases. It is important to reduce, if not remove, the stress factor in your life. 


But eye relaxation begins with the mind first, and not the eye. The mind must be completely relaxed before it can relax the body, and then the eye, which is only one of the organs of the body. Posture health is overall health because poor posture affects different parts of your body in many different ways, such as back pain and breathing, among others.


Good posture improves your breathing. Incorrect breathing results in compromised lung functioning, leading to inadequate oxygen intake by all body organs and tissues, and hence a host of health issues, including vision health. Improve your posture to optimize breathing for your vision health.

Good posture helps you avoid debilitating body pain, such as back pain, neck pain, leg pain, and even headaches. In addition, an arched back exerts undue pressure on the joints and nerves, causing joint pain and rheumatism. Due to poor body posture, all the muscle groups supporting the crooked spine may become stretched and strained, causing wear and tear, resulting in lower back pain. Chronic body pain often interferes with natural sleep, which is a major factor in relaxation of the body and the mind, in particular, the eye. Therefore, it is important to have good posture for eye relaxation to improve eyesight.


To successfully improve posture, you must develop an acute awareness for good posture at all times.

Good posture does not mean "jamming your shoulders back, tucking in your tummy, and standing stiff"; this posture does not align your body, nor is it practicable in that you can maintain that position over an extended period. To learn how to maintain good posture. Visit my web page: Healthy Posture Resources.


Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Develop Good Visual Habits

Develop good visual habits to have better vision. Vision deterioration is a result of bad visual habits that have accelerated vision deterioration over the years. It is like bad posture that affects shallow breathing, resulting in many health issues. Over time, many of us have formed bad visual habits that affect how we see, leading to many vision problems.

Blinking: Blink constantly to relax the eye. Blinking has to be soft and complete, not rapid, movement of the eyes. To relax your eyes, imagine you were using your eyelashes to gently open and close your eyes. Make sure your movements are slow, gentle, and complete.

Shifting: Shift your eyes constantly (the healthy eye sends more than 50 images per second to the brain) and rapidly by changing your eye focus frequently. Your eyes move more rapidly when they are relaxed.

Blink and shift your eyes as often and as much as possible. Just be more aware of the need to blink and shift constantly and consistently.

Peripheral vision: Be aware of your total field of vision whenever you focus your eyes. Use BOTH central vision and peripheral vision at the same time. That is, don’t STARE! When you are looking at something, try to look at other things on the side. Cultivate this awareness.

Natural sunlight: Spend more time outdoors instead of indoors to reap the health benefits of sunlight in nourishing your visual system. Warm sunlight early in the morning or later in the afternoon is beneficial to your eyes. Form the habit of not wearing sunglasses, unless the sun is too strong for your eyes.

Palming: Relaxation of the eye cures all vision problems. The eye rests completely only in total darkness. Practice palming and visualize blackness even for as little as 1 to 2 minutes per session. Of course, the longer you palm, the more relaxed your eyes become. In addition to covering your eyes with your palms, you may also cover them with eye patches (obtainable at pharmacies). Don’t close your eyes tightly; instead, gently look and visualize the blackness in front of your eyes.

Vision without glasses: See without glasses to bring back your eye’s natural “accommodation” for better vision. However, remember not to strain to see without glasses. Reduce your time of wearing glasses, and delay the time you put on glasses in the morning. Use under-corrected prescription to slowly and gradually wean yourself from wearing corrective lenses.

Vision Self-Healing Self-Help

Stephen Lau
Copyright© Stephen Lau

Monday, September 25, 2023

Discovery and Recovery to Heal


The Discovery and the Recovery

Hippocrates (460 - 370 B.C), the father of medicine, once said: “Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food.” Take a step further: Let food be the “only” medicine. If you have developed a degenerative disease, start thinking of food as your medicine, in fact, the best medicine, if not the “only” medicine. Your body is designed to digest and utilize food to get its nutrients and energy. But only wholesome food can do just that—not even supplements, because all supplements are just what they are called.

If food is the “only” medicine for you, you will empower yourself with knowledge about food, and you will then pursue a proper diet with high quality, non-toxic, and nutritious food. That means, you will refrain from eating the commercially-prepared and chemically-loaded food obtainable at supermarkets. When food becomes the “only” medicine, you will also learn to trust your body; that is, you will learn what your body is telling you, and how it responds to real and wholesome food.

When you do become sick, you should also learn how to use herbs as medicine. Herbs from different parts of plants have different therapeutic values that promote self-healing without the use of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. As a matter of fact, many common herbs, such as cinnamon, garlic, and ginger, have been used as “food” medicine for thousands of years.

If food is your “only” medicine, you will make good use of it to improve your health and heal yourself of any disease, including myasthenia gravis.

Hippocrates had also said: “Healing is a matter of time, but it is also a matter of opportunity.” Therefore, give your body that opportunity for natural self-healing by going drug-free, although it may take more time.

Your life is a journey through which you make many choices—some good ones and also some bad ones—that contribute to your health or illnesses. Life has a purpose with a unique destiny for each individual. Therefore, it is important that you know yourself, and self-healing is "knowing the self" as a part of your destiny. Sometimes and somewhere along your life journey, you may hit rock bottom and begin to despair. You may even ask the frequently-asked question: "Why me?" But that may also be the time of self-awakening for you. You may then begin to question how and why you have found yourself in that difficult and despondent situation. True self-awakening will make you take a different path—a detour from that journey you have been prodding along. Taking a different path creates the energy for self-healing.

Your self-awakening can be physical, such as a change of diet or taking up an exercise regimen. Your self-wakening can be emotional or spiritual, such as self-awakening to the power of love and compassion. Self-awakening may give you the desire and intention to heal, precipitating in changes that will ultimately heal not just the body but also the mind. Your very desire to heal is the healing energy for the body and the mind.

If you know yourself well, you will empower your mind with knowledge to heal yourself, and that empowerment generates more healing energy. If you know yourself more, you will make more right choices, than wrong ones, regarding your health. In making those right choices, you are well on the path to your own self-healing.

The bottom line: self-healing begins with knowing yourself through self-awakening to generate internal healing energy
         
The TAO

According to the TAO, the ancient wisdom from China, your discovery in life is your effortless search for learning and teaching from unexpected people in unexpected places; your recovery is your subjective perception of all the connections of life with your own spontaneous flow with them. Embracing everything and everyone with no judgment and no preference is the way to the discovery and the recovery of your health.

“The Way is paradoxical.
Like water, soft and yielding,
yet it overcomes the hard and the rigid.
Stiffness and stubbornness cause much suffering.

We all intuitively know
that flexibility and tenderness
are the Way to go.
Yet our conditioned mind
tells us to go the other way.

We accept all that is simple and humble.
We embrace the good fortune and the misfortune.
Thus, we become masters of every situation.
We overcome the painful and the difficult in our lives.
That is why the Way seems paradoxical.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 78)

The recovery journey is never smooth and straightforward; it is always long and winding, with many detours and even setbacks. Healing is invisible, inaudible, and intangible:

“Look, it is invisible.
Listen, it is inaudible.
Grab, it is intangible.

These three characteristics are indefinable:
Therefore, they are joined as one, just like the Creator—invisible, inaudible, and intangible.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 14)

Discovery and recovery are part of your healing journey.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
  

To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

Sunday, September 24, 2023

The TAO in Everything

 


The TAO is the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China more than 2,600 years ago. as 

The TAO has thrived and survived thousands of years for a good reason: what was applicable in the past is still applicable in the present; what was true in the past is still true today. Another testament to this universal truth is that "Tao Te Ching"-- the only book written by Lao Tzu -- is one of the most translated books in world literature -- probably only after the Bible.

The TAO is easy to understand but most controversial. The explanation is that there is no absolute truth about human wisdom, which is all about self-intuition and self-enlightenment. That is to say, your mind is uniquely yours, and your thinking is your own thinking.


The TAO plays a pivotal role in every aspect of your life. With wisdom, you will see the TAO in everything, including the following:


Saturday, September 23, 2023

Meditation and Vision Health

Meditation plays a pivotal role in vision health because meditation relaxes the eyes, and eye relaxation is healthy vision.

Points to remember when you meditate:

Focus on an object as your focal point of concentration: your own breathing; looking at a candle flame; listening to a sound (such as the sound of running water from a fountain); watching your footsteps when you are walking, or just about anything that can easily draw you back to your meditation.

Palming is an excellent exercise not just for vision improvement, but also for deep meditation. In palming, you place your palms over your eyes but without touching them; you see blackness without opening your eyes.

During your meditation, if your mind wanders away  (which is quite common), gently direct your mind to re-focus on the same object of your concentration. Learn how to focus through your act of noticing that your mind has wandered off, as well as through your repetitive efforts. Meditation is all about focusing on the present moment. Make focusing a habit of relaxation for your eyes 

Keep yourself in full consciousness: you must be fully aware of what is going on around you. That explains why in meditation (except in the walking meditation) you need to sit erect in order to keep your body in full consciousness. Do not lie down (or else you may fall asleep); do not slouch (this may not help you focus).

A full lotus position is not required. However, it is important that you maintain a consistent position or posture with your thumb tip and forefinger tip of each hand touching very lightly, while the other fingers are either curled or extended out. A consistent posture and hand position will promote a meditative mind to practice your meditation techniques.

Breathing right to relax and to meditate

Breathing is important in meditation because it is the focal point of the mind. In addition, breathing out is associated with “letting go” and “body detoxification”—essential components to relax the body and the mind.

In meditation, focus on your natural breath as it flows in and out. Notice how you inhale and exhale. You will begin to feel yourself becoming relaxed and soothed.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Friday, September 22, 2023

Control


CONTROL

Obedience and trust

What is obedience or disobedience to God?

An example of disobedience is lining up for hours to get your Power Ball.

What if it is God who wants you to win the lottery?

Well, in the first place, God did not create the Power Ball. It is your own choice and decision to go and get the lottery ticket; it has everything to do with your own greed and vanity.

Buying a lottery ticket is one of the many attachments to money and wealth. You may want to change God’s mind about what He has destined for you. Remember, if God wants you to be super rich, He would have given you all the tools in the form of God-inspired life passions.

Changing God’s mind for what He has already destined for you is disobedience. Obedience to God is graciously accepting and embracing any adversity and calamity in life so that you may learn lessons from them, thereby enhancing your spiritual wisdom to continue your pathway of trust and obedience.

“Teach us to number our days,
   that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
(Psalm 90:12)

What is trust in God?

Trust in God means believing in the veracity of His Word.

“so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
  It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
  and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
(Isaiah 53: 11)

Letting God Is letting go of your control
                 
God is in absolute control of everything.

 “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.’”
(Psalm 46:10)

Throughout ages, miracles have happened around the world—a testament to the indisputable fact that God is always in control of anything and everything, despite humans’ resistance to letting go of their futile endeavors to control their own destinies.

There was the story of Norbert Gennep, born in AD 1080, who came from a wealthy and influential family in Germany, with ties to the imperial court. At that time in history, it was not uncommon for those seeking political advancement to also acquire ecclesiastical offices. So, Norbert had himself ordained a Sub-deacon and became a Canon, although he had no real piety or religious inclination; his ultimate motive was to indulge himself in worldly luxuries and pleasures. 

Then, one day in AD 1112, while riding on horseback, he was struck by a fierce lightning, thrown from his horse, and remained unconscious for a while. On waking up, Norbert was completely transformed, and asked: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” He heard God’s voice, saying: “Turn away from evil, and do good.” Obediently, he gave up everything he ever owned, became a priest, preached the Gospel, and lived the simple life of a wandering preacher in barefoot. Norbert eventually became the Archbishop of Magdeburg in Germany, and was subsequently made a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

You do not have to be struck by lightning and thrown off the horseback before you would let go of your attachments to the material world, as well as your futile attempt to control your destiny. God can work miracles in your life if you are obedient, and if it is His will.

The origin of control

Control is basic human instinct. Humans are inherently controlling. Out of fear and insecurity, our ancestors living as early as in the Stone Age strove to control their environment in order to survive, and thus developing their fight-or-flight instinct.

Since time immemorial, control has evolved, and most of us are controlling to a certain extent. We, as parents, control our children’s destinies by striving to steer them clear of the wrong pathways we might have previously treaded ourselves. Our cultures tell us that we should be in control of everything around us at all times, including our futures and destinies. Controlling, to many of us, is synonymous with independence and power.

The irony of control

Stress in everyday life and living may make you want to control everyone and everything around you in order to de-stress yourself. Ironically enough, in the process of controlling stress, you may also have inadvertently created a vicious cycle of stress-generating-more-stress.

The anticipation of stress puts you on an alert system, producing stress hormones. Then You may have to make some choices—choosing this and avoiding that. Choosing in itself is stressful, especially when picking the wrong choices, leading to regret and disappointment. In addition, your expectation of the anticipated result may further intensify the stress, often making you do more than what is necessary to guarantee the expected result. Over-doing is stressful.

The irony is that controlling stress may only lead to getting more stress.

The different ways of control

Control may come in many different forms in life, and we are all susceptible to some forms of control.

Given that control is basic human instinct, we all spontaneously want to control how people perceive us.

If you ask a child “How old are you?”, the child may answer: “Five years and four months”, while also extending his or her four fingers to highlight the “four months.” The child wants to control your perception of him or her—that he or she is “four months” older than other five-year-old kids.

If you ask a teenager the same question, that teenager may answer: “I am fifteen”—implying that “I’m nearly old enough to drive soon.”

If you ask someone in the late twenties or early thirties the same question, that individual may answer quite differently: “I won’t tell you; just guess!”—that individual may want to control your perception of his or her real age in relation to his or her appearance.

If you ask an elderly person the same question, that person may be more willing to let you know his or her real age by saying: “I’ve just turned eighty.” That individual is, in fact, also controlling your perception: “See, I’m eighty, but I look much younger—probably like a sixty-year-old, don’t I?”

To a more or less degree, we all want to control how people think of us. Do you like to wear loose-fitting clothing to hide your belly fat? Do you use heavy makeup to mask your facial lines? Do you dye your hair to make you look younger? Control is about the perception of the ego-self by others.

In addition to controlling how people perceive us, we may also want to control how people act and react toward us by using emotions, such as anger, fear, and guilt, among other negative emotions. Furthermore, we may also want to control the circumstances we are living in, thereby controlling what is happening to and around us.

The bottom line: we are all controlling to a certain extent due to our attachments to different things in life that we think may define who and what we perceive ourselves to be.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Why You Have Your "Freedom" Not to Choose "Fondling"

FONDLING

What is fondling? It is your desire to do repeatedly something that you are fond of to the extent that your mind just cannot stop your action. In other words, your fondling is your addiction and bondage.

DRINKING

Alcohol drinking is common among teenagers; about 40 percent of high school teens drink alcohol due to social acceptance of drinking and the belief that alcohol can lower anxiety.

Alcohol is an intoxicating ingredient produced by the fermentation of yeast, sugars, and starches found in drinks. Beer has 5 percent of alcohol; wine, made of grapes, has 12 percent of alcohol; liquor, such as gin, vodka, and whiskey, has about 40 percent of alcohol.

But alcohol has its many dangerous side effects. It slows down the brain functions, leading to slurred speech, lack of coordination between the body and the mind, unconsciousness, and temporary loss of memory. In addition to brain and nerve damage, there are many health issues of the heart and the liver related to alcohol drinking.

Social drinking may lead to binge drinking, which is drinking several times within 2 hours. Drinking only beer may progress to drinking wine or even liquor. The truth is that no amount of alcohol is safe or risk-free, and alcohol drinking is a progressive disorder that often leads to alcohol addiction and drug abuse over the long haul.

Freedom

As a teenager, you have the freedom to choose or not to choose social drinking as a platform for your interactions with others.

Not choosing it gives you the freedom to use other platforms for your communication with others, such as actively involved through traditional sports, afterschool clubs, and social excursions. Social media may or may not be an ideal alternative.

If you choose to start drinking beer, you must have the freedom to say “no” and not be pressured by others to start drinking wine or liquor.

Bondage

Alcohol addiction will put you in the bondage of alcohol withdrawal symptoms—anxious, confused, depressed, fatigued, and shaking while not drinking alcohol.

Another bondage of alcohol addiction is the shackle of drug abuse. Alcohol is very reactive with many drugs and medications in that it can magnify or negate the medicinal effects on an individual with alcohol addiction while taking those medications. So, drugs can be abusive and destructive to an alcohol addict.

The way to turn bondage into freedom is to stop consuming alcohol. It is never easy without medical and professional help. But you have the freedom to free yourself from that bondage.

 SMOKING

Smoking cigarette must be avoided because it contains nicotine, which damages the brain, leading to many health issues of the brain, the heart, and the liver later in life. Your brain, which continues to grow and develop up to around age 25, can be damaged by nicotine. The damage initially affects your learning with lack of attention and mood swings. Nicotine withdrawal—stopping smoking with symptoms of anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, and physical fatigue—often puts you back to smoking.

Nicotine is an addictive drug that initially gives you excitement to “free” you from boredom and anxiety. Many teenagers begin smoking cigarette out of curiosity, as well as having observed many celebrities smoking on screen in old movies or even their family members. 

Now, it is not even “cool” to do e-cigarette or vaping with its appealing flavors because they also contain nicotine

Freedom

You have the freedom of choice to smoke or not to smoke.

If you are already a smoker, you still have the freedom to quit smoking or continue to smoke.

But your freedom to smoke will inevitably put you in bondage.

Bondage

Your bondage to all the physical, emotional, and mental damages of smoking may be lifelong.

The only way to turn the bondage into freedom is to quit smoking. That requires physical, mental, and spiritual efforts and perseverance.

CALMING

In your transition phase, many addictions, other than drinking and smoking, may crop up as your mind continues to grow and expand.

Addictions are distractions from focusing on other more important things in life. These distractions can temporarily calm you down, but they do not solve your problems. Addictions to calming yourself can come in many different forms, including some of the following:

Eating: Foods give pleasures to the tongue. Over-indulgence in eating leads to obesity and other eating disorders.

Gambling: Winning satisfies the mental craving for success and self-confidence. Compulsive gambling is the source of many financial problems later in life.

Games: Video games can create “gaming disorder” with social anxiety, lack of motivation in life, and interpersonal conflicts in everyday life.

Networking: Internet obsession may lead you astray by directing to many platforms of misinformation and wrongdoings.

Freedom

You have the freedom to eat, to play video games, to go online, and to do just about anything in your daily life.

But you have only 24 hours a day, just like everybody else. So, you must learn how to manage your time and not giving yourself time stress. Good time management involves setting precedence and priority over anything and everything you need to do.

Living is about doing—doing what needs to be done, but not over-doing, which may, paradoxically, lead to non-doing.

In your transition phase from adolescent to young adult, your knowledge is essential to your doing. However, you must also understand the fact that knowledge is infinite, and your capability to acquire your knowledge is only limited. Your true wisdom is to apply your “limited” knowledge to see how it works in your everyday life and living—that is, knowing what to do and doing what you know.

So, spending too much time on anything is not the way to go.

Bondage

Not knowing that “excess leads to depletion” is your vulnerability to bondage.

To free yourself from being trapped to any bondage, remember the golden mean: “more for less” and “less for more.”

FREEDOM with BONDAGE shows you how to free yourself from your bondage to the flesh that gives you the "freedom" to make the wrong choices and decisions in your everyday life.

 Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau