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Plastic surgery in China.

I heard a report on the radio today that along with the busy holiday season, it is also a busy time for Chinese plastic surgeons. Apparently with the rise of middle class in China, there is also a huge rise in the demand for plastic surgery.

According to a busy Chinese surgeon in ShangHai, people come to her, more and more, to change the shape of their eyes, get rid of wrinkles and other popular procedures. Plastic surgery seems so popular that there is even an artificial beauty pageant that’s held in one of the major cities in China.

I found that report interesting. I also find very interesting how identical people are all around the world. Here we have a 2000+ year old culture that given a chance is susceptible to the very same patterns of behavior western culture is often stereotyped for. Race doesn’t matter, economical structure doesn’t matter - at the core we are all the same and want the same basic things in life, good or bad.

Out with emotions.

We as society deal very poorly with emotions. We are never taught about emotions and how to deal with them. When we are faced with a demonstration of strong emotional build up we feel at a loss. How would you react if your best friend just told you that he or she was severely depressed? Would you be able to give him tools to be able to manage his depression or advice him or do anything that might help, or would you start feeling awkward around him or her and really do not know what to do. What about you? Have you ever been angry, sad, or unhappy to the point that it affects the quality of your life? How did you get out of it?

I am by no means a psychologist or a therapist of any sorts, by in my efforts of personal development I have picked up a couple of psychological “tricks” that helped me tremendously. Give them a try and see if it will make a difference for you.

1. Get your feelings out. Sit down, get a piece of paper and write about how you feel right now. If you feel sad, write “I feel sad about …” Go in as much detail as possible in describing how you feel. Get it all out on paper. Describe why you think, you feel that way, make a guess about what you can do to fix the situation. Have a conversation with your self on paper.

2. A variation on that technique can be this: - write down how you feel now. All the negatively charged feelings (anger, sadness, jealousy etc.) - now write down the way you want to feel instead. “I feel sad about …” Then “I want to feel happy and fulfilled!”

Journaling can be a great tool to get your feelings out and release them, so you can be free from those emotions. Try these techniques and let me know if they helped you to get over a difficult emotional time in your life.

Self Help your self to the top.

I grew up in Estonia, where my highest ambition would have been to work in a furniture factory. I was in a situation where the only way, I thought, for me to make a living would be to join the ranks of production workers at the factory. This wasn’t something I was extremely happy about, but I didn’t see any other way.

After having moved to Canada, I realized something - the only limitations we put on our selves are the ones that we put on our selves. I wasn’t exposed to all of the available possibilities when I was in Estonia; my point of view was narrow. I felt like I was stuck with one path in life. At some point after I moved to Canada, my point of view changed. I saw all the different opportunities this life has to offer, and not only saw them, but also understood that if I wanted to, I could take advantage of those opportunities. I became an artist. Instead of concentrating on what I was lacking in academic foundations, I looked at how I could use my creativity to become successful.

The limitations that we put on our selves plague us in all areas of our life. We do not see that the only real limitation that we have in our life is time, and even that can be managed. This is why it is so important to constantly work on shedding any and all beliefs that limit our potential. If I would trace the progress of my life, I could say with definite certainty that my progress accelerated about 300% as soon as I realized that I could do absolutely anything I wanted to, provided I am passionate about it. As soon as I made my first steps on the road of self improvement, my outlook on life changed. The limitations that I set for my self slowly disappeared.

People often think that they do not need someone else telling them how to improve their life. In many instances that might be true. It is however always beneficial to look at the an issue from a different perspective. My “point of view”, I was talking about earlier, changed because someone else showed me a different, better way of being. And because I wanted that “better way” I changed the way I looked at the world.

Education is a powerful tool. I am not talking about academic education. I am talking about something I call Life School. Things we all need to learn in order to succeed in life, to have a limitless outlook on life, to have happiness and fulfillment in everything we do. My Life School started when I first began to take self improvement courses and educate my self in all of the areas that my academic education did not. I feel very strongly about the necessity of this kind of education, because the success in all areas of my life I attribute solely to that fact that I took upon myself to improve my life through education. Self help and self improvement got me the confidence I needed to find a perfect relationship, to find out what I was passionate about and give me the tools to be able to bring my dreams into reality. I am now on a mission to help other people better their life by educating them selves. I hope that you will also reap as much benefit from this kind of education as I have. The best investment we can make is in our selves.