At the end of the day, inner peace is what we all seek. It’s the motivation behind all our actions, although sometimes hidden or disguised. On Wikipedia, inner peace is explained as follows: (…) Inner peace (or peace of mind) refers to a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress. Being “at peace” is considered by many to be healthy (homeostasis) and the opposite of being stressed or anxious. Peace of mind is generally associated with bliss, happiness and contentment (…). Now who doesn’t want that, right? And so we all go out and about to do things that hopefully will give us this sense of inner peace. This makes me wonder. Why do we go out, to find inner peace? In my desire for inner peace I often find myself running after things, people and circumstances, all of which are outside myself. I then remind myself that inner peace can only be found within. Otherwise it’d be called outer peace. I immediately feel this sense of light, calm and warmth. I no longer need to run, I can relax in knowing that all I desire lies within me. It’s already there, patiently waiting for me to be discovered.

The way you think about things, the way you view things, the way you interpret things, the way you feel about things, a single world: this way or that way, it can make a world of difference. It sounds so simple and in fact it is. Denis Waitley, a motivational speaker and author said: “If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you can’t, you most assuredly can’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.” To master the art of switching, challenge every thought, feeling or idea you have. It gives you freedom to create, shape and endlessly alter reality. Your reality, your life.

Everybody wants to make progress. In whatever we think is worth pursuing, we want to move forward. That’s our nature. And to measure progress, we think in terms of success: the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted. That makes “failure” something we want to stay far from. Failure, in our culture such a frightening word, but what exactly is it? And does it even exist? Tony Robbins says: “There is no such thing as failure. There are only results”. And in order to make progress, every result is valuable, good and bad. In fact, bad results or failure, later often turns out to be the foundation on which success is build. Professional golf legend Tom Watson once said: “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate”. So here’s to you and your progress: go out there today, go after your goals, try new things, learn, adjust and try again. Because then, even when you screw things up, your foundation for future success becomes only more solid.

In 1990 the Voyager 1 spacecraft made a photograph of planet Earth, called The Pale Blue Dot. Taken from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth, the photograph shows Earth as a tiny dot against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and to take this photograph, at the request of Carl Sagan (1934-1996). This American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and promoter of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, subsequently used the title of the photograph as the main title of his book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. This film presents you an inspirational excerpt from this book, a monologue written and narrated by Sagan. He shares his almost poetic thoughts on the evolution of mankind and places it in the context of our existence in space. Well, I can tell you one thing: it makes our personal day to day sorrows appear… insignificant.

Wondering around in the New York City subway, you’d expect a noisy rat race. Right? Wrong! This film shows that with your eye and ears focussed on something peaceful, you can find moments of meditation even in the busiest situations. Let yourself be carried away for a couple of minutes and experience how the ‘bending sounds’ of the NYC subway and the music of various street musicians bring you in a calm state of mind. And really, it’s only because the filmmaker concentrated on them, that we you will notice and appreciate their soothing contribution to busy everyday life. In the end, it’s all about attention. Whatever you put your attention to, will grow. Or as I said earlier in this post: The way we see reality (and in this case also hear it), is how we create reality.

When I saw ‘The beginning of Infinity’, a short film I posted a while ago, I got interested in Jason Silva. This young Venezuelan-American filmmaker, journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, has views on human evolution that are as enthusiastic as they are interesting. He has a way of speaking and a sparkle in his eyes, that makes you want to explore life yourself. Well, it has that effect on me anyway. In this interview on Reason TV, he is asked about how new technologies such as the internet, affect human life. Silva says: “People have always sort of been scared of new technologies. “But in the end we assimilate them and they improve the quality of our lives.” I love this interview for it’s positive, energetic and to some extend hopeful message. Enjoy.

Television, internet, magazines, newspapers, billboards… It’s hard to not be influenced by the cosmetic industry. They show us people with a perfect appearance, living in a perfect world. We see it every day. And what you see every day, without even knowing it, slowly becomes ‘standard’. But let’s face it, the standard face doesn’t look as perfect as the advertisers want us to believe. No matter the promises they make, no matter how much of their product we buy. This film (sponsored by Dove) shows why our perception of beauty is distorted. A model with a perfect appearance, living in a perfect world, isn’t perfect and neither is her world. Watch this and you’ll understand how it works.