GENTLE LIVING

happiness

I’m loving a slow life as time is running away like a lunatic. Slow living offers us more time to enjoy the life we have. Gentle Living by Monocle is a nice book to remind us how to live and take it easy. It suggests 50 ways on how to live a gentler life. We deserve to enjoy more, worry less, and be happy in a slow fashion. Let’s choose the ways you love to live your life fully. I pick my favorite ways to savor life as follows:

BE OPTIMISTIC

I learn to be optimistic using the ABCDE model. I’m struggling to be an optimist as my thinking is negative by default. ABCDE is a simple tool that helps me to gain new and positive perspectives. Give it a try when you’re in a bad mood. You’ll instantly become optimistic like magic, turning tragedy into comedy.

GET BACK TO NATURE WITH PLEASURE

Cheung Sha Beach
Cheung Sha Beach

Nature is a natural healer and it leads us to live in the present moment. I love going to the beach whenever the sun’s out. Cheung Sha Beach and Big Wave Bay in Hong Kong are good for surfing. Surfing is cool and I don’t mind failing like a fool. I fall in love with it despite many times of failing. I love that surfing can train my muscles and my patience as the waves are unpredictable, unbeatable, and readable (if you know them well).

VISIT ART MUSEUM AND MUSE

Hong Kong Museum of Art

I love the silence and artistic vibe inside art museums. Being quiet in the art museum declutters my mind and gives me more space to get new ideas. Located in Tsim Sha Tsui by the harbor, I find the renovated Hong Kong Museum of Art. This museum has a new frame and interior to reflect the beauty of the sea. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows set the ideal conditions for more light, vision, and imagination.

“On Your Seat, On Your Mind” is a lovely art project for you to take a seat and relax, rethinking the way you live and the world around you. It’s fascinating to see things from another person’s point of view. “I have never thought of that!” “What are other possibilities out there?” “How to create my version?”

GO GREEN AND DON’T KILL

Plants make people happy and sad. When I got some green plants to decorate my bookshelf, I was trilled these green babies looked great at first. But they’re getting weaker and weaker. I don’t want them to die so I refill the water and add nutrients once a week and also clean the container once a month. Yet, the round leaves of pilea keep falling off and all of them turn brown. Before I buy any houseplant, I should have read the book How Not to Kill Your Houseplant: Survival Tips for the Horticulturally Challenged.

READ A BOOK AND ACTION

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone will.

Grab a book to read today and you’ll do things differently tomorrow. That’s why I love reading books. A good book will change my mindset and make me form a new habit. My all-time favorite books about simplicity are Essentialism by Greg McKeown, The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists. Less is bored? Yes and no. Look at the happiness level of the monks and you’ll understand less is happier.

What’s your favorite book? Let me know when you comment. 🙂

Happy reading!

attitude audiobook awareness caitlin moran craft creative writing creativity empathy femimist feminism funny generous give give and take giver giving goals happiness happy happy reading how to be a woman how to write humor inspiration learned optimism memoir optimistic personal finance perspective positive positive attitude positive psychology reading relationship robert greene self aware self awareness self improvement style of writing the elements of style woman writing writing skills writing tips yoga

40 thoughts on “GENTLE LIVING”

  1. “Nature is a natural healer and it leads us to live in the present moment.” — Hello. I’m not sure if I ever consciously thought about Nature in this way before. But I have to say that you hit the nail on the head. What you say is absolutely true.

      1. Yes, relatively short…fascinating time in history…a carnival atmosphere mixed with terror…

  3. Oh, gentle living is a nice term. Definitely better than the normal rush people are used to every day. I agree with getting back to nature. There is something inherently calming about it. And I did not know you can surf in HK. Next time! I hope your houseplants get better, too. What is wrong with them?

    1. Yes you can surf in hk lol I love what you do Markus + Micah. Where are you guys based now? I guess the pilea has weak root. I plant them in water only, no soil. So I guess they are bound to weak in this way. BTW I love your houseplants ❤

      1. Thank you, Helen. Our tiny house is in The Ph but we usually stay on the road. It was a good time to have the house though, pandemic and all that. I hope your plants do well. We also enjoy our plants a lot. What is your current favorite plant?

      2. That’s nice! ❤ I love pilea and calathea orbifolia. I love their round leaves and they look beautiful. It's healing to take care of them ❤

  6. I find that just loving your plants, sending loving energy and gratitude to them help them grow and stay strong and vibrant. Because my work is so intense these days I love escaping into chick lit/romance (not hyper-sexual ones) books, and memoirs, sometimes historical fiction or memoirs. For many years I only read spiritual books, how to books, books on healing as that was my career. But now I just like so sink into books about people traveling through their relationships (family, friends, partners) and making it through the other side. I love travel so the various locations the books are set in allow me to learn more about the area, too. I long for community so authors who write series set in a certain place where I can check in on the various community members from book to book are especially appealing.

  7. Pingback: Tag Thursday #5 | Finally Fall Book Tag and Never Have I Ever Tag – Whispering Stories

  8. You have really captured so much in this post. Few words, but organised well to make a really important point. Gentle living. Choose kindness, to show others and ourselves.

    Art museums sounds like a wonderful place to gather your thoughts and be at peace. There are not many (that I know of) where I live where one can go and sit for hours in the beauty of the silence. I’ll have to look into it. 😊

    Thank you for sharing. ♥

      1. I live I’m Wellington in New Zealand. I know there are art galleries here, but whether you can spend time in them just chilling out I do not know – yet! 😊

  11. As a philologist, I can say that books that are universally acknowledged are the best; classics,( Seneca, Marcus Aurelius,), the great four – Heminway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Huxley, all of Charles Dickens, to start with. You will learn so much more by osmosis from them, then you can ever hope to learn from any self-help book.
    I like very much your desire to learn, to know, to improve.

    Joanna

  13. Hi Helen,

    Whenever I find an authentically gentle person on the internet, I am encouraged. My cynical and sad persona is slightly improved when I read your words. I search for the things you observe, but I normally can only find them in my mind and that is okay. When I go into the world, I see different sorts of things, things that are not so nice. It is because of my work, my past, but who cares, it is my POV and no one else’s. Which gets us back to authenticity and gentleness. You have them. Don’t lose them, because they are not stable variables. Like most things they can change. So I wish you good luck in your life. Thanks. Duke

  15. Pingback: GENTLE LIVING – Dorothy Cline

Leave a comment