How Expectations Can Bring You Down

January 21, 2011

One day when I was around fourteen or fifteen years old, I went swimming with one of my friends, a neighbor boy.  Right on the edge of Lake Superior, there were several ponds, some of which contained steep drop-offs.  We usually swam in these ponds as they were much more pleasant than Lake Superior, which [...]

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A Better Way to Wake Up in the Morning

January 20, 2011

I am waking up very differently these days.  No more being jolted out of a nice relaxed slumber by loud annoying buzzing or nerve-raking beeping.  No more loud music or screaming disc jockeys abruptly yanking me out of sleep. I few months ago I discovered something called a progressive alarm. I suffer from insomnia from [...]

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Give Yourself a Gold Star!

January 19, 2011

When I was reading The Happiness Project, a comment that Gretchen made several times caught my attention. She said that she likes to receive gold stars. That is to say, when she does something, she likes to receive some sort of feedback or at the very least acknowledgment, perhaps something as simple as hearing “great [...]

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The Art of Keeping a Journal

January 18, 2011

Photo by Barnaby I have faithfully kept a journal since 1980 and because of that, I have a record of the important times, places and people in my life over the past 30 years. I have recently begun transcribing my journals into the computer and as I read through them, I recalled people, events and [...]

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Book 2: Everyday Zen

January 17, 2011

This is a post in my ongoing “Book-a-Week” challenge series. I didn’t know what to expect when I first picked up Everyday Zen. I saw it mentioned on an e-mail list quite awhile ago and subsequently added it to my “To Be Read” list. The author, Charlotte Joko Beck, teaches at the Zen Center in [...]

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Take a Walk – It’s Good For You!

January 15, 2011

I drive very little by choice so I spend a lot of time walking. Today, the sun was shining and the temperature was somewhat tolerable so I bundled up and headed out for a seven mile walk. I usually try to get out daily for a walk, weather permitting as I feel it is one [...]

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The “I’ll Do It Tomorrow” Syndrome

January 14, 2011

In a previous post, I talked about how to accomplish your goals and resolutions by chopping away at them a little at a time. From my experience, one of the biggest obstacles that we have to overcome is what I call the “I’ll do it tomorrow” syndrome. You might also call this the “I’ll start [...]

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Technology is Great – But We Need a Plan B

January 13, 2011

Today I was at the library and I was informed that all computers were down because their servers were being updated. This meant that nobody could check out any items. I thought it strange that this was occurring in the middle of the day but who am I to question anyone’s business practices? This same [...]

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Productivity Tip – Work When You Are At Your Peak

January 12, 2011

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about the importance of not trying to force myself into being something I am not. I have found that this concept applies to my work life as well. For example, I have learned to only do creative work when I am at my peak. If I [...]

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Book 1: The Happiness Project

January 11, 2011

I’ve been a devoted reader of Gretchen Rubin’s blog “The Happiness Project” for quite some time and was delighted to finally sit down and read her book “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun”. The [...]

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