Cats are a monumental part of the internet. If something was to represent the internet, it would probably be a picture of a cat surfing on pizza through the universe.

In 2014 alone, over 2 million cat videos were posted on youtube with a growing reach of 26 billion views collectively. People love the cute, cuddly and hilarious energy of felines; and for good reason.

A new study at an Indiana University shows that watching uplifting cat videos boosts your energy and decreases negative feelings.

Lead by assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick, the study consisted of almost 7,000 people being surveyed about their cat viewing experience and how it affects their moods.

We often think to ourselves that playing it safe is a smart bet. To play it safe, many of us take the job with the good benefits, drive the car with the good mileage and purchase the home in the safe community.

However, while it is unnecessary to swing for the fences with every life decision, playing it safe as your standard decision-making practice is actually the most dangerous thing that you can do with your life. Here are three reasons why:

3 Reasons Why Playing It Safe Is Dangerous

1. Playing it safe often means that we are going along with herd...

At night, while we’re asleep, we dream. We may not remember what we have experienced in this state, but the pictures and impressions are stored in our subconscious. They are communications from our deepest selves, offering course corrections, insights, warnings, and sometimes, congratulations.

Then, there is the day, while we are awake. Are the experiences we have during our waking hours different than the dreams we have during sleep? Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer is no. These experiences are exactly the same. They offer the same kinds of spiritual communications that we get from our sleeping dreams.

How does it work? The answer is that we are living in a paradox. On one hand, waking life demands that we interact with it objectively. We cook our meals, go to work and raise our children. Simultaneously, these same life experiences offer us an overlay of metaphors that are nothing more than dream symbols. These metaphors contain the same sort of imagery we experience during sleep. The trouble is that most of us don’t pay attention to them.

Love is everything, and yet it can be so very easy to lose sight of its importance as we get bogged down with the stressors of daily life. We live in a world seemingly filled with fear, war, politics, and corruption. In these difficult times of conflict and uncertainty, how do we open our hearts and let more love into our lives? Here are my reflections as a psychologist and human being lovingly sharing this journey with you:

How to Let More Love Into Your Life

1. Focus Less on Things, and More on People

Many of us feel trapped in an artificial physical reality where we shove ourselves into cubicles, fight each other in traffic, and work passionless jobs so we can pay money to surround ourselves with things that we don’t really need. It is a vicious cycle, and one that can make us feel empty and alone, especially when we realize that material possessions will not bring us love.

“People were created to be loved, and things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos is because things are being loved, and people are being used.”

– Unknown

God said:

Sometimes you feel that a change in your life, a relationship cut short by death or by life - like losing your job, or becoming ill and so forth is equivalent to the end of the world. You take it hard. Death is not the end of the world. A tornado is not the end of the world. Nothing is the end of the world. A phase in life has changed. A phase in life is always changing. This IS the world.

You have a solid base, yet you may waver all over the place. You feel you are riding on a roller coaster while you are actually riding on a silent escalator.

Everything in life is moving you forward, what you welcome and that which you do not welcome. Life and its foibles are not to be taken so personally. Are you to be disheartened because life takes a certain course and not another? This is typical of life in the world.

You know, dear ones, you are not a cowboy, and life is not supposed to be a horse you are breaking in. Life is more like a horse you ride for pleasure. Life is not always predictable. Surprise yourself and roll with what you see as punches.

Life is meant to be capricious. Life is not always your knight in shining armor. Life may be a bucking bronco. It’s all right to fall off every now and then. And what are you supposed to do at those times? Why, pick yourself up and get right back on, of course. Keep riding, riding, riding.

If the terrain is rough, and you have to walk barefoot, then you walk barefoot.

And if you have to sit down and rest, then you sit down and rest.