Category Archives: Appreciation

Swing Free of Fear

Once upon a time, not too long ago, maybe even yesterday, there lived a monkey. He lived with his fellow monkey troops in their monkey village. His name was Larry. He was a young monkey that still kind of followed the grownup monkeys around, as he wasn’t sure how to be a complete monkey all on his own yet. He could do a lot of monkey stuff, like swing from branch’s, and peel bananas, and even find the best trees to hide in when the tigers came.

The tigers lived in the next jungle over. They were friendly tigers, at least when they didn’t want to eat you. But when they were hungry, they dropped all pretence and went after anything and everything that looked like it might be chewable and digestible. And if you ever had the opportunity to examine the digestive track of tigers, you’ll surely find that they can eat pretty much anything. Like that shark in jaws (not the bad shark, the other one) that ate that license plate and all that other junk.

Humans on the other hand, can’t eat everything, but this story isn’t about humans, so never mind that.

So there Larry was, sitting on his haunches one day, when his older brother, Bill, said “Larry, it’s time you need to find your own food. You can’t follow me around all the time. I need to find a lady monkey and make a monkey family. You need to figure out things for yourself. You need to find your own way. You have to become independent.” Larry understood. He had realized for quite some time that it’s better to be independent than to have to depend on others.

But there was one problem. One big problem. One giant, scary, terrifyingly seemingly unsurmountable problem. The monkeys had this ritual. Before being accepted as a grown up monkey by the rest of the troop, you had to perform a task. Kind of like a ritual, if you will.

You had to cross many jungles, through many dangerous areas, filled with tigers and elephants and sharks and piranhas and go to the cave of the mighty boar. And in this cave was a special tree. A special banana tree. They looked like bananas, except they were supposed to be a lot smaller than all the other bananas. At least that’s what all Larry’s friends said. They always talked about this banana tree, and the boar that guarded it. They all knew that someday, they would have to pass the rite of initiation into adult monkeyhood, and go steal a tiny banana from this gigantic and horrible boar, that liked to eat monkeys for breakfast. And lunch, and dinner.

The more the young adolescent monkeys talked to each other about this horrible creature, the more they became afraid of being his next breakfast or lunch. Or even his dinner.

Finally, the day came. Larry had to set off, all alone, to go face the evil boar, and steal one of the magic bananas. None of the adults gave him any advice. The adolescent monkeys were to afraid to talk to him. The baby monkeys were too busy playing with their ABC blocks.

So off Larry went. For days he swung through the jungle, branch to branch, vine to vine. Sleeping in trees, hoping they would keep him safe from the tigers and the leopards and the kangaroos.  With every passing night, the horrible boar transformed himself more and more into a unfathomable creature in poor Larry’s mind, and the banana’s became smaller, and less yellow, and less tasty.

Finally, the day arrived. The cave was in sight. Larry crept slowly to the cave. Trembling in fear. He knew now why they adult monkeys didn’t talk to him before he left. He knew now why the adolescent monkeys shunned him before his departure. He was not expected to live. Perhaps it was a big joke, a lie, a ruse. Perhaps there was some hideous monkey god living in the cave that demanded regularly sacrificed young monkeys to keep from bringing his wrath to the monkey jungle.

Larry crept closer to the cave opening. Slowly, carefully, almost devoid of any remaining hope that he would return alive to his happy monkey jungle.

He peeked into the cave.

There it was!

It wasn’t a lie. The tree was right there, in front of him. Filled with bananas. Hundreds of bananas. Huge bananas, rich in color, and even from where he was he could smell the delicious aroma wafting across the cool floor of the cave. Surely he could run, grab a banana, and return without being spotted by the evil boar.

Where was the evil boar, anyway?

Larry crept closer, slowly, slowly. He stopped, ever so quietly, and reached up and quickly snatched the lowest hanging branch. No boar in sight. He grabbed another banana, and another, and another.

“Please don’t eat too many,” said a voice from behind him.

Larry turned, and to his horror, was the hideously large boar, readying to pounce and devour him where he stood. Sort of. Actually, not at all. The boar was not even a boar. He was just a tiny field mouse.

“But…” Larry began.

“You thought I was a hideous boar did you?”

“Well, yea. What happened? Why did you change?”

The tiny field mouse rose up on his hind legs to his full height.

It is you that changed. It is you chose to see things differently than before. Something happened to you on the way here. You were able to make a decision. You were able to forget those thoughts that you had before, and see for yourself what was really in here. Because when you choose to approach your fears, with caution, as you did, you will realize that which you are afraid of is seldom as big and scary as you think it is. And that which you hope to achieve by facing your fears is a far greater reward that you will allow yourself to imagine. That is nature’s way of making sure you walk into situations with caution. You see Larry, fear is your friend. Fear helps to warn you of possible danger, and those feelings you feel are really just the extra energy which allows you to see better, to hear better, to think more quickly and more accurately. Fear is the juice of life. Fear is your friend, your guide, your helper, letting you know that you are on the verge of glory.You are never truly an adult unless you can accept and embrace your fears.

“But why the stories, why the lies?”

“No monkey can be an adult unless they face their fears. Today you are an adult Lawrence. Today you shall swing free.”

Larry turned and walked away. His arms full of the sweet bananas from the magic banana tree. They were the sweetest bananas he’d ever eaten.

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Exposure Yourself to Wonderful Success

I have a friend who is a fairly successful person. He is the area manager for a particular large manufacturing company. We were talking over lunch a few weeks ago about our lives, and how we came to be where we are. One of those lazy conversations on a Saturday afternoon, when you don’t have any specific plans, and are content to allow the conversation to flow wherever it wants to go, you can decide to just go along for the ride.

He used to be a line manufacturing technician. These are the guys that work on the assembly line, and are in charge of only one aspect in the larger manufacturing process. He had noticed that there were changes they the company could make, that would save them a lot of money. And not a lot of money in the long term, possible future. A lot of money, right here, right now.

And he went home and told his wife, and his wife of course suggested he bring it up at the next meeting. After all, he was pretty well regarded at his job, since he’d been there for a few years, and had a good record. But my friend was worried for some reason. He kept coming up with excuses why he didn’t want to express himself at the meeting. Luckily for him, and his company, his wife knew him well enough to see that these were merely excuses, and not the real reason. And his wife was also wise enough to let him discover the real reason in his own time, without any extra pressure from her.

Some people, when they notice a friend or loved one making a mistake, or living life less than with complete resourcefulness, tend to pressure the person with short term tactics that usually backfire. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Many times it’s better to discover things on your own than to be told about them.

So my friend kept going to work, and the more he saw that his ideas would definitely improve the bottom line of the company, the more anxious he got. When I asked him about he said that if he told them, they would almost surely promote him. Why would that be a bad thing? I asked him. If he got promoted, then he would be a supervisor, which would the next level above where he was. Then he would have to conduct meetings, and speak in front of people, and people that were new and were being trained would watch him as an example, and so on.

When he finally explained all this to his wife, she was very understanding. She said to him:

You are much more knowledgeable than you think. You have great talent. You are not doing anybody any good by hiding your talent. You may think that by bringing more attention to yourself will bring discomfort and unease, but in reality, when you express yourself, people will know how smart you really are. People will know how much you really do have to offer. And that’s important, isn’t it?

My friend said that he was really moved by his wife’s faith in him. The next day, he went and explained his idea to his foreman. They used his suggestion, saved money, and of course, promoted him. And he said a strange thing happened, something he didn’t quite expect. Because of the extra attention he got, he actually had a lot more good ideas that he was aware of. And not only that, people were more than willing to help him improve in areas where he expressed an interest, because he was quickly being recognized as somebody that was a great source of knowledge to other people.

So what you are saying, is that you owe all your success to your wife? I asked him. He just smiled, and drank his coffee.

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Make All Things New

Nothing ever new is invented. Or so they say. And they kind of have a point. Harry Potter has been compared to Star Wars, which has been compared to the Wizard of Oz. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, has been compared to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments, attributed to Moses, are said to be inspired by ancient laws taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

So what’s the point? It’s been said that when you begin to realize you can never really create something completely new unlike anything that has ever existed, it’s kind of comforting. It takes the pressure of. You can easily relax, because you know that building on previous accomplishments can give you a leg up. Many scientists admit they only have gotten where they are by standing on the shoulders of giants that came before them.

And this brings to light an interesting point about human nature. It can be comforting when you realize that all people have similar needs and desires. When you understand that most people really want the same thing underneath, it can make it easy to discover common ground when dealing with others. That is pretty much the basis of all contract negotiation. Discussing what both parties want, and figuring out to satisfy everybody. And in the end, more often than not, you may realize your needs, which you might have thought were far apart, are actually a lot more similar than expected.

On the flip side, of course, is the simple fact that everybody is different. Everybody has their own unique views and experience. You take several people and have them look at an abstract painting, and they all come up with a different interpretation, based on their own history, experience, and emotions. This can make meeting and getting to know new people one of the most wonderful experiences available. The more you expand yourself to seek and experience new ideas, the broader our perspectives grow to encompass things we never dreamed possible.

I was in a strange city once, talking to a friend over the phone. He was giving me directions on how to meet him the next day for lunch. They were fairly complex instructions, involving navigating a strange subway system, going in and out of multiple exits. The fact that all the signs were written in Japanese (a language I didn’t speak at the time) didn’t help. He ended the conversation by saying something surprising. He told me that because there were several subway lines and exits and landmarks to recognize and navigate, it was likely that I’d become lost and confused. He said “And that’s really awesome, because you can realize the opportunity, AND the excuse to talk to and get to know many people along the way.” Before then, I’d never thought that getting lost could be considered an opportunity.

It’s our differences, and out unique perspectives on the same things that everybody shares that gives us such a wonderful opportunity to experience life in new and exciting ways, even if we do the same things and see the same people every day.

How many ways can you find ways to experience something or someone new, today?

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Powerful Focus on the Present to Create an Automatic Future

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you just stopped thinking about the future? I don’t mean forget your three year plan for a while, or even take a break from your exercise routine. I mean totally, completely live in the present. I read a book on dating that said the best thing to do when you meet somebody for the first time was to walk up to them completely cold. That is, not have any clue whatsoever what you were going to say until you actually opened your mouth and started talking. Just make it up right there, and let the words come out however they may.

Sounds pretty terrifying, and it is, at first. Then something really strange happens. You start to get really creative, and think of wonderful things to say right there, right in the moment. It’s like by releasing all the worry and anxiety about what you think you should say, you open yourself up to really pay attention to what is going on right here in front of you. And when you are talking to somebody, and you really feel present here, you can really begin to feel something special. It’s hard to describe if you have never been able to experience this, now.

I was reading a novel once, I believe it was The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver. In this book, these cops were talking to an expert on magic and illusions. And he was saying that there really is no past, because all the memories we have are fairly inaccurate. And the present is unknown, which really only leaves us with the present. And when you focus too much on a future, through worrying about something that isn’t likely to happen, you lose mental energy. And when you bring up stuff from the past, that you don’t remember correctly anyways, you also lose mental energy.

By focusing your energy on the present, you can really begin to notice the abundance that has been around you all the time. Waiting patiently for you to dive into it and let the world know what it is you want.

Of course you always need to have an eye on the future, so that you can plan to be successful in the way that you want. It’s just as important to keep learnings from the past handy in case you discover an opportunity where you can apply them to receive immediate benefit. The trick is to leverage learnings from your past into your future by choosing the right actions and thoughts to have and do now, in the present. When you can optimize your present thoughts and actions, your future will pretty much take of itself. All you have to do is show up and meet it.

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The Expression of Desire at the Third Stage

I was taking the train downtown this evening to pick up a pair of shoes I’d ordered. I found a pair last week that I’d really liked, but they didn’t have my particular size, so they had to call another store to get the right size. Tonight was the first chance I’d had since then to go back and pick them up. On the way there, I saw an acquaintance that I talk to sometimes.

He was telling me about this book that he was reading, it sounded like a personal development book of some sort, because the guy in the book was talking about different ways to look at life. He likes to read those kind of books. Come to think of it, I wish I would have written down the title, although if I see it again I’ll probably remember it. You know how that goes. You notice something, and you tell yourself that you really like this, and you want to see it again, but for some reason you don’t take the time to write it so that you can later remember it.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve really wanted to look at this or that on the internet, based on what I hear or read, but by the time I get home, I can’t remember what it was. Perhaps I should carry around one of those small note pads to write myself messages. I kind of like getting messages from myself.

Anyways, the guy was saying that humans go through three stages in life. Well, not exactly. He was saying that there are three stages that are possible for us to go through, but most of us only go through two, maybe two and a half. Some of us can glimpse the third stage. And one of the great things about being able to glimpse the third stage, even once, is that because you can see what’s up ahead, you will never fall back to your old ways.

The first stage is infancy. We have desires, and we express them the only way we know how. We cry and scream, and if that doesn’t work, then we scream and cry. It works ok if we get picked up right away, but if there is a time lapse, we start to wonder what the heck is going on. And that creates confusion, and since the mind hates confusion, it comes up with a reason why our expression of desire isn’t being immediately met.  So we start to develop anxiety about expressing our desires, because sometimes they get fulfilled, and sometimes they don’t. Since we can’t make any words, or can’t move around much, we don’t have much options except to lie there passively and hope.

The second stage of life is when we develop motor and vocal skills. We can move around, talk, walk, form sentences. When we have a desire at this stage, we can articulate it in a number of ways. We can move around and ask other people. We can even ask in different languages if we want. The problem with this stage is that we still carry that anxiety from long ago, when the mere expression of desire caused anxiety. Before, we really had no control over when or even if the desire would be fulfilled. Scientists have done plenty of experiments that show uncertainty is one of the greatest sources of anxiety, adversely affecting both mental and physical health. So for most of us, the mere expression of desire is linked with anxiety deep within our subconscious. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the way our brains grow.  Unfortunately, many people stay stuck in this level their whole lives. The best strategy for some people is to blame some aspect of the outside world for not getting the good stuff in life.

The third stage of life is the best part. This is when we realize that the expression of desire is but the starting point to a life full of abundance, happiness, wealth, fantastic relationships, and every other cool thing you can imagine. The trick is to begin to notice on a deep level that if our desires aren’t fulfilled, it means nothing about us personally, only that we have about a million other ways to keep expressing your desire until it gets fulfilled.  Fully adult, you can realize that simply because you can walk and talk, and read and write, you really do have the power to create whatever life you want. And creating the life you want is merely a matter of tapping into your natural genius creativity, and plugging away until you eventually make all your dreams come true.

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Increase Your Abundance Through Focused Communication

One of the best ways to increase your influence with others is to be a secret agent. I learned this from a Dale Carnegie self study course I bought a long time ago. For those of you that don’t know, Dale Carnegie the guy who wrote the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which if you haven’t read, I can’t recommend it enough.

Now when I say secret agent, I’m not talking about sneaking around in a trench coat like in “Spy vs. Spy,” but I mean using your latent psychic abilities to really understand what it is that the other person in question wants. Of course you don’t need to use any psychic abilities if you don’t want to, as some people don’t have their paranormal powers tuned in as much as the rest of you.

The secret to influencing other people boils down to giving other people what they need, and they will naturally want to help you any way they can. And you already know the secret to what it is they want, even without turning on your ESP. This is because underneath all of our surface desires, is really the same thing.

To feel wanted. To feel needed. To feel recognized. To feel approval from your peers. And this is the easiest thing to give to somebody. All you need to do is engage them in a simple straightforward conversation, and listen, really listen to what it is that they have to say.

Most of the time when we listen, we are too busy thinking of what we want to say next, or thinking of what we are planning on doing later, or wondering why whatever we did before didn’t turn out as well. Try this little experiment. Next time you are talking to somebody, just listen. And watch carefully for how they speak, and pay close attention to certain words that they use with certain emphasis.

And just simply repeat those words back to them, exactly the same way that they said it, and ask them to elaborate on it. When you do this you will naturally begin to realize not only how easy it is to make somebody feel good, but how to have a really positive effect on another person. And when you do that, you will naturally create an aura of charisma that will make it easier and easier to move through life and create the reality that you want.

Because when you think about, the whole of our existence is completely dependent on our ability to interact with other people. If you move through life with the easy to develop yet rarely practiced skill of really listening to somebody, you will find your expressed desires being readily filled by willing supporters.

It was Brian Tracy who described this secret agent policy of giving others what they want. By knowing what you want, you automatically have the inside scoop on what others want. And once you understand that by giving to others first you subsequently enrich your own life, your personal abundance will skyrocket to new levels. 

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Dig Into The Meaning Of Life One Hundred Percent

One of the reasons I like to study Chinese Characters is because each particular character has it’s own individual meaning. So even if you don’t know how to pronounce a group of characters, you can sort of figure out what the meaning by guessing the combinations. Although sometimes, due to historical anomalies, you get some strange combinations. For example, the combination of “parents” and “cut” yields “kind.”  Most make a bit more sense, but they are interesting nonetheless.

English words, on the other hand, may require a bit of etymological investigation before breaking a word into parts (if that’s the kind of thing you are into.)
For example, ‘century,’ which means one hundred years, is based on the same ‘cent’ which is one hundredth of a dollar, and the ‘cent’ in the centigrade that means one hundred grades (between freezing and boiling of water.) Also in centimeter, and centipede. ‘Ped’ of course meaning foot, as in ‘pedal’ and ‘pedestrian.’

These are just some basic examples, but words are really fascinating when you look below the surface. You can really discover interesting things if you stop and think of the story and history behind things.

Like when I was taking the bus the other day. I was sitting next to this really interesting older woman, who was telling me about her granddaughter who just became engaged to this guy from Bangladesh. And he comes from a very large family, I believe she said six brothers and four sisters, if I recall correctly. And one of the brothers was showing her recently how to make this really spicy Thai dish, but that’s another story. Anyway, this guy was saying that each moment in time space continuum (those are his words, not mine) is an opportunity to really dig underneath reality to discover what is really there.

If you take the time to stop and watch the ‘unfolding’ as he referred to it, you can catch the moment when your thoughts and reality merge. When humans give meaning to events. He said that it is a lot better to stay open as long as possible when interacting with reality, because once you give meaning to something, while it’s not set in stone, it’s a lot more efficient to create the possibility for a more resourceful meaning beforehand, rather than waiting until after the fact.

I wasn’t sure I understood her when she was describing this too me, and I don’t she was able to completely understand it either, because it sounded a lot like some Eastern Philosophies that I’ve read about. I think the gist of it was to stay open, and make sure you don’t give away any meanings to events unless you are really one hundred percent sure you know what happened. And since we are almost never one hundred percent sure of what really ever happens, it’s best to keep an open mind.

Like when you pass by somebody in the hallway, and you say “hi,” and they don’t say “hi” back, it would be best to give the benefit of the doubt, and not assume they are angry at your or something. Otherwise you might get your feelings hurt over something that was only in your head. 

Although the fellow described this in eastern philosophical terms which might have been a bit esoteric, I think we are all talking about the same concept. And because you are reading this, you are likely wise enough to have known about this anyways. I’m sure you already know that giving people the benefit of the doubt and assuming they are most likely operating from some kind of positive intention is usually a good idea.

I just think that the concept of standing back and watching the unfolding of reality is a beautiful concept, one that we don’t take the time to really appreciate, since it is happening all around us, all the time.

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How to Stay Open to Solutions For Your Problems

A huge storm is blowing my neck of the woods. It might even snow tonight. I kind of like snow, because I never really got a chance to experience it much as a kid. Of course I have a friend that grew up in Minnesota, and now he can’t get enough sun. The hotter the better. I guess your experience can determine what you like, proving that reality can be subjective, when you take things into consideration.

One of the drawbacks of this huge storm coming in is there has been a large door banging shut somewhere. Since I’ve only been in my building for about a week, I’ve been listening to it for the past couple of days without really being sure where it was. You know when you can hear something, but every time you think you’ve got the location pinned down, it seems to be coming from somewhere else? Or when you think you can find the source, you seem to have trouble being able to find your way to the beginning of something? 

So tonight is extremely windy, and the door was really BANGING shut every couple of minutes. And I thought to myself, there’s now way I’m going to be able to sleep soundly with all that racket, so I’d better go have a look.

Off I go to investigate. It seems that it is a big metal door that is on the stairwell on the west side of my building. The door is really big, and really heavy. My first thought was to just simply shut the door, and that will be that. But there are two problems with that. The first problem is that it only shuts with a latch from the inside, which is inaccessible from the outside. So if I were to close the door, it wouldn’t allow other people to come in. It would be great for me, but not so great for other people. 

Sometimes when the obvious solution to something doesn’t seem so great when you take time to think how it will effect other people. If you just take a little bit of extra time to think of others, you can really create more benefit. Of course most people, like you, understand this, but a few people don’t, so I think it’s important to always go the extra step.

Then I thought of something. If I opened the door all the way open, like it normally sits without any latches or anything, it would be fine. The problem was that the extra wind was somehow getting in behind it and pulling it shut. Normally it just sits open, inside of a sunken frame just slightly bigger than the door itself. Because it’s so heavy, apparently it never closes unless somebody (or a very strong wind) pulls it shut. So I had an idea. All I had to do was find something to jam in between the door and the sunken frame, so it would stay open, and it would work fine. There seemed to be about a quarter to half a centimeter space.

So I came back to my apartment, and looked for something to jam in. AHA! One chopstick. I grabbed a hammer, and off I went.

Perfect fit. I pulled to make sure, and it was solid. Held open. Wouldn’t budge.

Not only was the obvious solution inappropriate given the consideration of others, the best way to fix it seemed to be exactly the opposite of what I’d expected.

Funny how that works.

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Pay Attention to Expanding Neural Networks

I was chatting with a friend of mine from overseas last night on Skype. It’s been a while and we were catching up on old stuff, like you do when you haven’t done that in a while, because it’s a natural thing, right? And she was telling me about this new guy that she’s dating. I think she mentioned in passing that he was English, although I can’t be sure. I say in passing, but I’m I don’t know if that’s the correct grammatical description of what happened. She mentioned something that sort of led me to believe that he was English, although she didn’t say what specifically. Like his uncle who lives next door owns a fish and chips shop that has been in the family for several generations, or something else random like that. 

It’s weird when that happens. You’ll be talking with somebody, and you’ll make all kinds of inferences about what was said, but you don’t really don’t pay attention to the underlying intention of the conversation. Like somebody will mention their boyfriend, and then they’ll switch topics completely, and you think they are still talking about their boyfriend, but they’ve switched referential indexes completely so you don’t know exactly who they are talking about.

Like once my other friend was explaining to me the grammatical structure of the Laotian language. They generally don’t use grammatical modifiers, like past tense or familial references. Everything is modified by context. If they start talking about something that happened last Tuesday, everything in that conversation from then out is referenced from Tuesday unless otherwise indicated. I suppose in different languages you develop the ability to pay attention to different levels of intention.

Which I guess it’s a good reason to learn several things, like languages, because they can really help you to develop a rich outlook on life. It’s been proven that an easy way to really have the ability to see things from a different perspective is to learn another language. And not only just words, but to actually think that way. They’ve shown it actually creates new neural pathways that are used differently from other ones. Some of the smartest people in the world can speak several languages. And one tends to wonder, do they speak several languages because they are smart? Or do you become smarter than you already are because you can speak several languages?

Well, at any rate, I hope my friend can get along well with her new boyfriend, regardless of how the fish and chip restaurant pans out.

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Discover Something You Knew Already

One of the great things about my new neighborhood is all the small local supermarkets which are filled with locally grown foods. I enjoy cooking, so naturally I enjoy shopping for different foods to cook. Like sometimes I’ll cook a big pot of something that I’ll eat for the next several days, and other times I’ll buy several different kinds of ingredients, and then figure out what to cook day by day, in smaller amounts.

The second thing I discovered about having so many supermarkets around is being able to discover what kinds of unique style each market has. Of course they all have the main ingredients, milk, eggs, peanuts. But different markets have different kinds of vegetables, and fish, and different kinds and cuts of meat. And I find it really easy to become curious about what this has, and what that has.

Like when you buy a new computer that has all kinds of pre loaded software. You can find it easy to develop a desire to want to know more. And the more you discover, the more it makes you realize how much there really is here. I bought a laptop a couple of years ago, and was in the unfortunate situation of having to be in the hospital for a few days. It wasn’t any big deal, I didn’t need surgery or anything, but being in the hospital sure is boring. And a friend brought my laptop for me to play with. And even though that at the time I had already been using it for almost a year, I was still able to get really curious about what I could find to help me have fun while I was laying in the hospital. And I found several games that I didn’t even know that I had, and they really helped me to pass the time.

It’s funny when that happens. You see something that you’ve seen before, and you think you already know everything there is to know about this. But the more you keep reading, the more you can really start to want to discover more and more. Like when you have a friend for a long time, and you discover something about them that you hadn’t know for a long time. I had a friend once, and we’d know each other for years before I realized she had a thing for Japanese Anime. Personally, I don’t really see the draw, but to each his own, right?

Of course because of all this, I’m going to need to go grocery shopping soon. I can’t wait to see how much I will become curious to see what I can discover something new, but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that that was something you knew already.

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