Welcome to the end of another year (or close to it). As we approach the New Year, lots of people are focused on the resolutions and changes they want to make. Folks think about what they are unhappy with or set new goals. It’s a great time of year for new beginnings (although ANY time of year is a great time for a new beginning). That recognized, how many of us take a look at why we want to change what we want to change and take the necessary steps to remove some of the negativity from our day and our lives? (more…)

There’s an old joke about how some people are so stupid they would bang on their hand with a hammer just so they could enjoy how good it feels to stop. While none of us can imagine why anyone would voluntarily hurt themselves just so they could enjoy it when they stop, the “joke” does illustrate the process of experiencing a negative event and then having a deeper appreciation for the positive event that immediately follows. That’s the topic of this entry: the necessity of experiencing some “bad” things so that you can more deeply appreciate the “good” things… and how eventually you can learn to appreciate the “bad” things… and then they’re not so bad anymore. (more…)

According to brainpickings.org, it takes 21 days, at a minimum, to build a new habit. That’s 21 days of repeating the same action, at approximately the same time, and for something simple… like drinking a glass of water when you wake up each day. Another website suggests that it takes over two months – 66 days to be precise – before taking a certain action becomes “automatic”… in other words, a habit. Most other sites reporting on length of time for something to become a habit fall into that variation somewhere: between three weeks (at a BARE minimum for simple actions) to two months for more complex habits; or more difficult ones. (more…)

Have you ever asked someone a question and had them answer, “I don’t know,”?  Of course you have, and sometimes that the correct answer.  If you ask them a question regarding a piece of knowledge or information that they don’t possess, then the correct answer for them to give you is, “I don’t know.”  However, if the question is about a piece of personal information such as a preference in where to eat dinner and they answer, “I don’t know,” then it can get a bit frustrating.  What I’ve found to be even worse is when I get no answer at all. (more…)

Have you ever had one of those conversations wherein someone tells you that you shouldn’t have done something?  I used to have such conversations all the time with my dad.  He was the absolute best at reminding me of all the bad decisions I’d made.  He liked to tell me how different my life would be if I’d just made that OTHER choice.  What neither of us ever realized at the time was that the decisions were cumulative.  Each decision made is like a fork in the road: if you choose to take the path on the right, then you get more decisions / forks down that path. If you take the left then the same thing happens.  What most of us imagine is a future where the paths never intersect and actually the end points get farther and farther apart.  But what if the cumulative effect is a juncture of the paths? (more…)

I know a woman who, at the grand old age of about eight years old, was taught that someone else was to blame.  Blame for what?  Everything. That summer she lived with some relatives and in a very short time span she gained a lot of weight. She had lived the lifestyle of those particular relatives: she ate anything she wanted, did next to no physical activity, watched a LOT of television and gained weight.  She gained about ten pounds in two weeks.  For an eight year old sized person, that’s a lot of weight. When she got home to her family complaining about how fat she was, her mother insisted it wasn’t her fault; it was the fault of the relatives who let her do that. (more…)