Stress is a natural response that marshals all our energies to deal with an emergency – such as fleeing from a charging elephant for example. However, if you spend your entire day thinking that you are being charged by an elephant, it is very bad for your health. Chronic stress weakens the immune system, damages brain neurons, generates unusually high levels of cortisol in the blood, and so on and so forth.
In our daily lives, stress can be provoked by a specific event, a recurring situation or the manner in which we experience the world. Its source is our difficulty to deal with or accept situations and events. Stress is a concentrate of hopes and fears that invade our awareness.
A growing number of scientific studies demonstrate that practicing mindfulness meditation for 20 minutes a day over a period of 8 weeks significantly reduces stress, anxiety, anger and the tendency to depression.
Tip #1: Do away with your worries
If there’s a solution, then there’s no need to worry. If no solution exists, there is no point to worry.
Tip #2: One thing at a time
If you have many things to do, do them one at a time. You will work faster and better this way. Recent studies conducted at Stanford University revealed that multitasking actually reduce people’s ability to concentrate and even slows down the capacity to switch between several tasks. Multitaskers perform worse and non-multitaskers in all attention tasks that have been studied. In other words, multitasking takes us more time to achieve worse results.
Tip #3: A bit of meditation
If you are gripped by anxiety, pause for a moment and simply try to be aware of this anxiety. As you «examine» your anxiety with the eye of mindfulness, it will loose its potency. Why? Because the part of you mind that is aware of the anxiety is not itself anxious. It is simply aware. As mindfulness expands, the anxiety that upset you will gradually fade and make way for renewed inner peace.

The annual budget of the UNICEF (3 billions US dollars) is only half the budget of Paris public transportation system (RATP)

5 billions dollars would suffice to provide education to all the children in the world who do not go to school yet.

95% of all weapons are manufactured and sold by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The Process of Creativity
In order for creativity to develop, the mind needs to be free from the automatic and habitual thinking that runs around in circles. It should remain in a state of openness, lucidity, flexibility, clarity, and wisdom. This will allow it to stop superimposing its own projections on to reality.

A new understanding can spring forth from within this state of freedom, regardless of whether or not we are looking for answers. When we try to solve a mathematical problem or to develop a new understanding of reality, for instance the problem or the question lingers in the back of our mind. If, instead of laboriously trying to figure out possible solutions with our discursive mind, we simply remain in a state of quiet openness, this may allow unforeseen insights to arise. Such insights may pertain to scientific discovery, to artistic creation, or to new ways of dealing with life’s challenging situations.

The Pitfalls of Creativity

We often explore the remote corners of our habitual mental landscape with the hope of finding something that has never been done or said before. Such a process does not lead to anything very original and does not add anything to oneself and to humanity. Instead, we can try and remain in a state of inner freedom that provides space for seeing things in new ways.

Creativity and Inner Transformation

A mind resting in a state of lucid openness may also lead to a clearer understanding of the nature of mind itself. It may cause us to see whether or not there is a truly existing “self.” Such direct investigation helps us to experience the world in an entirely new light.

If we are thus able to bridge the gap between the way things appear and the way things are, we will be freed from basic ignorance and, consequently, from the causes of suffering.  In the pursuit of happiness this would be considered to be genuine creativity.

In the same vein, it is also creative to break through the boundaries of the narrow bubble of self-centeredness and let our mind expand toward unconditional loving-kindness and compassion.

Creativity in Education

In the field of education, to be creative is to get rid of entrenched theories and look at things with fresh eyes, asking basic questions such as “What do we really expect from education?” Education should produce good human beings, but it seem like most of the educational systems do directly aim at achieving this goal.

To be creative in education would entail devising new skillful ways to achieve that aim. This may require a quantum leap toward teaching human values, to truly help children to develop mindfulness, altruistic love and tolerance, and, therefore, to create a more compassionate society.