Archive for June, 2008
Be Idle and Achieve
Monday, June 30th, 2008 photo credit: seanmcgrath
Idle time is one of the least valued and most valued things in our lives. Least valued because we tend to think that faster is always better and most valued because we’re already going so fast that all we want is to be able to slow down. Periods of slowness are important [...]
Effortless Decision Making
Thursday, June 26th, 2008 photo credit: miyukiutada
Anytime I have ever made a really important decision in my life and the results were favorable, it was generally because I went along with a strong feeling that I had that wasn’t based on much concrete information. Generally, lists of Pros and Cons (and other similar methods) don’t usually work for me [...]
Powerful (In)action
Monday, June 23rd, 2008 photo credit: seanmcgrath
“There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” - Tennessee Williams
One of the most powerful actions we can take is no action. By making the choice to cut out certain things from our life we make the action that we do take more potent. Though it’s [...]
The Power of Listening
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
photo credit: miyukiutada
The one thing that most people want in life is to be heard. With over 6 billion of us in the world, we just want to know that someone, anyone, has heard what we said and acknowledged it. As a general rule, people love to talk about themselves… and their kids, their [...]
The Value of Obstacles
Monday, June 16th, 2008photo credit: AndrewEick
A weird thing about human nature is that we think we want to be able to do whatever we want, but we would never do what we want if we, essentially, weren’t forced to do it by our environment. Be grateful for the constraints of your life because it makes you do things [...]
Finding Pleasure in Priorities
Friday, June 13th, 2008There are lot of negative connotations around the word “pleasure.” Even though our most necessary functions (eating, having sex, sleeping, socializing) are pleasurable in order to ensure that we do them, most people still distrust things that are pleasurable to them, fearing that they won’t be able to control themselves when it comes to the pleasurable activity. Pleasure is [...]
The Best Way To Give Is To Do Whatever You Want
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Many people think that giving involves unreasonable sacrifice, unpleasantness, and, in general, doing things that you don’t want to do, but which you have to do for another person. Or, another way of saying this is that many people think that giving is having something taken from them - their time, their money, their leisure. So, giving [...]
Use Your Weaknesses to Complement Your Strengths, Not to Overpower Them
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008I am an introvert. But, growing up, I would have preferred to have been an extrovert: outgoing, social to a fault, and able to speak my mind on the spot. As a teenager and into my twenties, I tried to be and do all of these things, but I could never really do them like the people around me seemed [...]
How to Know What You Want
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008We all want a lot of things in life. But wanting an ice cream cone is different than wanting to be, have or do something in life. When you ask what you want from life, you are asking what you want to do or create. And, it’s made up of two questions: What do I desire the most [...]