Willpower: What If We Make a New Year Resolution?

A New Year resolution is a commitment to accomplish something in the coming year. We must choose from among the many good things in life the one that we want the most to accomplish. Once a choice is made, we necessarily have to repress other desires that obstruct our success. This will require willpower.

Charity: What If We Give?

The Christmas celebration will not be complete without the traditional giving of gifts. As the festive atmosphere of the Christmas season mounts, the humankind's inclination to do acts of charity gets a boost. Any act of charity can connect us to other people.

Love: What if We Care?

If we care to love, we have found the path to our happiness.
Love is a strong feeling of affection that moves us to behave and act for the well-being of the object of our love. Before we can love others, we need to love ourselves. We have genuine love when we grow with our loves ones. To love is to give away but find ourselves with more.

Forgiveness: What If You Can't Forget?

What if you can't forget a harmful event that changed the course of your life? Can you ever forgive the person that brought about such an event?
Forgiveness is letting go of the hurt. It does not mean forgetting the hurtful event. To “forgive and forget”:
Forgive your offender and you give him or her understanding and compassion.
Forget your grudges, hatred, and vindictiveness and you get happiness and peace.

Colors of Christmas: What If Christmas is in the Air?

Green, red, and gold are the colors of Christmas and their meaning are best expressed in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God gave his Son through the birth of Jesus Christ, who shed blood and died, so that whoever believes will receive the gift of eternal life.
What if Christmas is in the air? If we can breathe this air everyday and believe, our daily struggles can be “redeemed from insignificance.”
 

Crossroads: What If You Follow Your Heart?

At the crossroads of your life, you inevitably need to make a decision that can affect the course of your life. What if you follow your heart?
“Follow your heart” means pursue your dream, and you alone can discover it. You need to think about it.
“Follow your heart” means pursue your innermost desire – that desire that you think will make you happy, not what others tell you that will make you happy.
Your own happiness is your first purpose for living. The happiness of others, your second purpose, is automatically attained after fulfilling the first.

Immortality: What If You Live Forever?

Oftentimes, we see death as a great misfortune that sometimes we question why we have to die. What if you live forever? Wouldn't it be awesome to have perfect immortality where you are completely immune to any kind of physical destruction? Instead of saying “life is short”, you chant “life never ends”. But, how good is life that never ends?

Human Life: What If There is No More Later?

The uncertainties of life are highlighted by the certainty of death. What if there is no more later?
We don't want to die. We can cope with the inevitability of death by putting it aside and disregarding it, or by accepting it and allowing it, at least in part, to shape our life. The latter is better because that way we can actually be more involved in our life while we are living.

Death: What If We Are Afraid To Die?

Our death ends our life. What if we are afraid to die? Human condition consists of life followed by death. This reality makes life scarce and scarce things are precious. We cherish life because we are going die. If we fear death, we can use this fear to enhance our ability to enjoy life, increasing its value as much as possible before it finally ends.

Trick or Treat: What If They Are Scared of Ghosts?

With all the walking and running around that trick-or-treating kids do, Halloween provides a wonderful opportunity for physically engaging entertainment for children who are often engaged in sedentary recreation like playing electronic games and watching television. However, Halloween can give kids quite a scare. Halloween features telling creepy ghost stories. What if they are scared of ghosts?

Fairy Tales: What If Prince Charming Had Never Showed Up?

In Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw pondered: “What if Prince Charming had never showed up? Would Snow White have slept in that glass coffin forever? Or would she have eventually woken up, spit out the apple, gotten a job, a health-care package, and a baby from her local neighborhood sperm bank? I couldn't help but wonder: inside every confident, driven single woman, is there a delicate, fragile princess just waiting to be saved?”

Taking Risks: What If You Dare?

Taking risks is not an easy choice. It can be both negative and positive. While the faint-hearted focus on the negative side, the strong-willed see the positive angles. What if you dare? If you do, you need to take charge and take control and manage that risk.

Conflict: What If You Get Into a Fight?

What if you get into a fight? Whatever conflict is happening in your life, continuously learn new attitudes that will make a positive difference to the way you manage this conflict. Amos Oz said: “A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.” Though many fights can be unpleasant and burdensome, find that perspective to see such interactions with others in a positive light. Your changed attitudes can modify your responses. Conflicts can become your opportunities for personal maturity and growth.

Patience: What If You Waited?

Balthasar Gracian advised: “Wait. It's a sign of a noble heart dowered with patience, never to be in a hurry, never to be in a passion.”
In his book The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene tells us that waiting is not a passive phase. We need to be alert as we “anticipate twists and turns” so that we “never miss the boat.” Greene pointed out that patience is worthless unless it ends at some moment when we execute a plan with speed and absolutely no hesitation.

Inner Conflict: What If You Are Confused?

Just when you think that you have finally learned the way to live, life changes. What if you find yourself in a new situation where your long-held beliefs, the concepts of acceptable attitudes and behavior that you've learned, and those conclusions that you've drawn from your past experiences are no longer compatible with how you want to live? What if the conceptions, conclusions, and generalizations mapped out in your head are waging war with your thoughts of going where you “ought to be”, of doing what you “need to do”, and of being what “you should be”? What if you are confused?

Falsehood: What If You Lie?

Mark Twain said, "Everybody lies, every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning." In the TV series House, M.D., Dr. Greg House says “everybody lies” in almost every episode. He has also said that "It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.”
Lying is bad because it can do harm. Saint Augustine taught that telling lies was always wrong, but accepted that it would be very difficult to completely refrain from lying. He believed that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do.

Tradeoffs: What If I Give Up One For The Other?

A tradeoff involves a choice between two desirable options with incompatible features. In making a choice, pick the one that yields lasting and profound rewards. Asking the most basic questions can help us make up our minds. Who am I? Where do I want to go from here? As we answer these simple but discerning questions about our life, we begin to see what is most important in our life. When we have set our priorities clearly and when we choose based on these, no matter what the outcomes may be, our intentions will remind us that we have not totally failed.

Tolerance: What If I Dare To Be Different?

Just be yourself and you are different. Yet, why is being one's self so difficult that one has to dare just to be different?
People, you and I, form expectations from one another based on their personal beliefs. Here we are, struggling to proclaim our unique and rare identity, dominated by decrees of conformity. The world is filled with people, each unique in their own ways. Many strive to uphold their uniqueness.
If you dare to be different, dare also to be tolerant of others who dare to be themselves. Tolerance is a prerequisite of daring to be different.

Human Desire: What If You Were Granted A Wish?

Your wish may say a lot about you. Whatever your wish is, remember to wish wisely.

Depression: What If You Are Not OK?

If you are not OK, flush out your negative emotions and immerse yourself in positive thoughts. Take action to transform your problems into remarkable experiences. Set goals to whirl your scars into stars.

Boredom: What If You Are Bored?

Boredom is a craving for something other than what is as it is right now. With boredom, one deals with what is perceived as unpleasant at the present moment. Boredom becomes useful when it is recognized and used as an initiator of originality by engaging in new thoughts and new activities.
To get out of boredom, steps must be taken. Walter Annenberg warned that “When we hold back out of laziness, that is when we tie ourselves into knots of boredom.” 

What If You Have Illusions?

Antisthenes articulated that “The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.” You can make your illusions fade away by recognizing things as they are. The wisdom of seeing things as they are provide a deeper understanding of the things around you. When you see things as they are, unclouded by judgments of “good” or “bad”, “possible” or “impossible”, you are better able to see and make the most of what there are.

What If You Don't Know What To Do With Your Life?

"If you don't know what to do with your life, smile at the opportunity of joining the many interesting people out there who do not know what to do with their lives. They are those who are not tied to routines and schedules. They are those who consult their feelings to see if what they are doing is what they really want to be doing."

What If You Have to Live Your Life Innumerable Times?

"If I were to live my life innumerable times, I just know that I can no longer live it in exactly the same way because my faith in God has become stronger and this faith has taught me to accept and carry out God's plan for me. The same events may occur but I won't be dealing with them in the same manner. My thoughts and choices will be different."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and poet, contemplates the idea of eternal recurrence as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is “the heaviest weight” (The Gay Science, section 341) imaginable.

“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh… must return to you – all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again – and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, 'Do you want this again and innumerable times again?' would lie upon your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”

What If You Slept and Dreamed?

An interpretation of the poem
What If You Slept? by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What If You Are Swamped With Work?

"If you are swamped with work, take time to get organized.
In between tasks, no matter how busy you are, squeeze in doing things that make you happy like hugging and kissing your little girl if you are at home or just smiling at the closest person around."

What If I Fail? Part 3

What If I Fail? Part 1        What If I Fail? Part 2

"Real success happens to you as soon as you start reaching out to help others in any way you can." 

What If I Fail? Part 2

What If I Fail? Part 1

"Mistakes may be categorized into three: mistakes in what we do, mistakes of who we are, and mistakes that violate who we want to be.
To learn from each type of mistakes involves varying degrees of personal pain."

What If I Fail? Part 1

"Whenever you muse on the “What if I fail?” question, think of famous people who failed many times but pursued their dream with unwavering endurance and stronger determination after each failure until they finally succeeded."

What If You Lose the Most Important Person in Your Life?

"You may have lost the most important person in your life, but you still have yourself. Grieve, rethink your life, and then set new goals. Enjoy life, make things happen and most importantly, love much and often."

Losing the most important person in your life can put your whole life amiss.

About What if thoughts

About What if thoughts: "Welcome to What if Thoughts. This site is about what if thoughts – casual or crucial, yours and mine."