Category Archives: Flexibility

Step Back – – – Contemplate

I was flipping through the channels recently, and I came across one of those medical dramas. You know the kind, where they shift between the tension between the doctors and nurses, orderlies, and patients. It’s interesting how no matter what jobs people find themselves in, they will always come up with the same kinds of conflicts. But the thing the struck me was that it reminded me of once when I was sitting in the waiting room of the emergency room at the hospital. A friend of mine was suffering from extreme side cramps with what would later be determined to be a burst appendix. Because it was so crowded had been waiting for almost an hour by the time they wheeled her in for emergency surgery.  Probably the most disturbing thing was a man who had been waiting there with his kid, who was having some kinds of troubles. And he got into a pretty heated argument with the receptionist, as he had been waiting longer than any of us. Because he was speaking in broken English, and it was apparent the receptionist only spoke English they were having a difficult time communicating. And it didn’t help matters that he was distraught because of his sick daughter, she was distraught because of the many people waiting for more medical care than was available, and there really was nothing she could do. It’s horrible when you find yourself with a communication problem like that.

It reminds me when I was on the beach once, waiting for a friend. I was kind of learning against a wall they had separating the boardwalk from the actual sand. I was standing in the sand area, leaning against the wall, facing the ocean. It was really beautiful. The sun was off to the left, and was going to be setting soon. I was hoping my friend would arrive so we could enjoy the sunset together. But then again, it was one of those times where you are just relaxed and content to sit and let whatever happens happen.  Which is probably why I became so curious about the guy who started talking to me. It seems he was some kind of a performer, and would walk up and down the beach until he found a large crowd, and put on his show, and accept whatever donations they felt were appropriate. He started talking in sentences that didn’t really make much sense, but there was something intriguing about him, so I just listened, wondering where exactly he was going with all of this.

He sorted of reminded me from my friend from Australia, that I see every once in a while. This guy is a philosophy major, who is always going off on weird tangents, but he usually makes a lot of sense when you look below the surface. It’s like you have to take a step back to and figure out how to look at the broader concept of what he is talking about to make sense of it all. Sometimes you really need to pay attention to what is being said so you can really understand it. And many times he doesn’t make any sense then and there, it’s only when you begin to think about this that you can later find ways to apply it to your own life. He also likes to surf, which is probably why I started daydreaming about him while this guy was talking about whatever it was he was talking about.

Which ended up being that he was a fire eater, among other things. He had a bag with him, and while we were talking, or rather while he was talking and I was listening, enough people showed up. He kind of just broke off right in the middle of his story and then put on his fire eating show. And also he walked on fire, and rolled around on broken glass, and all kinds of cool stuff. All in all I think he collected a couple hundred dollars from the crowd. Not a bad take.

After my friend was wheeled into the emergency room, someone finally was able to summon the courage to intervene as a translator for the poor guy with the sick daughter. Turned out she just had diarrhea, and was dehydrated. That’s why she wouldn’t stop crying. Another person in the waiting room offered a solution that calmed his daughter down enough so the poor man was able to enjoy some peace until he finally saw a doctor. While we were waiting for my friend to come out of surgery (from which she fully recovered) he left and gave a gracious thanks to all that helped him.

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Always Assume The Best

I had to visit a friend in the hospital this past weekend. Nothing serious, but where I live people get put into the hospital for the strangest things. He was suffering from what the doctors said might be an ulcer, or just might be gastritis, but to be on the safe side, they want to keep him overnight for observation. I guess different countries  have different rules about how to act based on what is going on inside somebody. Even when they are fairly sure it’s nothing serious, the usually put you into the hospital at least overnight, just to be sure. I don’t particularly like hospitals, so whenever I have to go visit them, I have to make sure to up a big defense so I don’t’ let the sadness creep inside. I was in the elevator on the way down, happy to be leaving, when I saw somebody staring at me. He wasn’t a patient, or a doctor. I didn’t think I recognized him, but he kept staring at me.

Like this one time I was at the library in town. I had only moved here a few days ago at the time. I really like to read so I decided to go and check out the local library to see if they had any books I’d read before. And I was sitting there,and this guy kept looking at me from across the room. And had a really angry expression on his face, like I’d done something to offend him or something. I was starting to get kind of nervous, but seeing how I was in a public place, I didn’t really think he would do anything. But he just kept staring. Maybe he thought I looked like somebody that stole his milk money when he was a kid or something. Maybe he didn’t like the shirt I was wearing.

I usually don’t think such mean things about people. One of my relatives once told me that giving the other person the benefit of the doubt has two sides of the same coin. One side is to always assume that others are acting on some kind of good intentions, no matter how deep. And they are always trying their best, based on their experiences, to act on those intentions in the best way they know how. And the other side of that is that you must always assume that they have are also assuming that you are somehow acting on your best intentions. That way you’ve not only got a precedent to live up to, but when you live up to that precedent, even if it’s imaginary, you can show them a good example. So it will always work out in the end.

And it turns out the guy wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at he guy sitting behind me. They had come together, the guy sitting behind me wanting to study, and his friend staring at him wanting to play baseball. Since they played baseball last Saturday, today was study day.

And the guy in the elevator had just heard some bad news about his cousin, so he wouldn’t’ have stared at anybody the way he was staring at me. I hope his cousin recovers.

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Creative Ways to Solve Problems

My neighborhood had a sort of a festival this weekend. Something to do with the goddess of spring coming, or something. It is kind of like a carnival in some respects. They have various festivals around, and their a group of food vendors, around twenty or thirty that travel around and land in whatever city happens to be having the festival.  I went with a couple friends. One of my friends’ cousin was working at one of the booths, so we were hanging out talking for a while about this and that. He telling us about the different cities they go to, and how they see the some of the same people in each city. And one of my friends asked him if he ever gets tired of cooking and eating the particular food that they prepare. He said it’s just like any other job, you get used to it. But then he said they are having a problem with this particular city. Some kinds of termites or something. Since they started up, they started seeing little termite like bugs. And that spells bad news for a food stall carnival traveler, because most of stuff is made of wood. He seemed pretty worried, because a business like that, you are pretty close to breaking even most of the time, and you can’t really handle unforeseen problems that crop up from time to time.

Like when my friend found a bunch of plumbing problems under his house. He had a huge tree in the backyard, and the branches were strangling the pipes under the house and messing up the flow. And he got several estimates, and it was going to cost around five thousand dollars. Because he and his wife had spent most of their money buying this house, they didn’t have that kind of cash laying around to fix the problem. Even though it really wasn’t there problem. Or at least it wasn’t there problem before, and when they moved into the house, they just sort of accepted the fact that this problem was there, and decided they would have to figure out a way to deal with it. Problems can be interesting in this regard.

Sometimes when you have a problem, and you try the usual methods, and they don’t work, sometimes you need to think of something else. You need to get creative and think of new ways to get around problems. Because as long as you live and move through life, you are going to encounter problems. People that become really successful in life, (regardless of how you define success,) aren’t the ones that have to deal with the least amount of problems. They are the ones that are able to come up with different solutions for whatever problem they come up against. And really successful people have discovered that problems are really opportunities in disguise. Many people believe the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is how they perceive problems. Successful people see them as ways to learn and improve their skills. Regardless of how big and unsolvable the problem seems, you can always think of new ideas, even come up with ways to use it to your advantage.

So my friend’s wife got on the phone. She called and checked if there was a statute of limitations, or whatever you call it, on buying a house. She was hoping to see if they could figure out way to get the previous owner to pay part of the bill. No dice. Then she had an idea. She checked to see when the tree was planted, and it was planted by the city before the houses were actually built. So she called the city, and sure enough they admitted they were responsible. And the city paid the entire bill. And all it took was a few phone calls.

And the termites turned out to not even be termites. They were a weird strain of ants, really small ants, that  look like termites. And since it was a ‘spring is coming’ festival, they took it as a good sign. Kind of like when the groundhog sees his shadow, or doesn’t see his shadow, or however that rule goes. And because my friends’ booth had the highest concentration of these pretend-termite-ants, it was the most popular for the weekend, and made the most money. He still didn’t give us any free food, though.

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It’s Good to Mix it Up Once in a While

Once upon a time there was this group of missionaries. And they traveled to different islands, and tried to persuade the island people to discard their old set of beliefs, and replace them with what they promised was a new, enhanced and better set of beliefs. Because they brought food that the island people had never seen before, the island people kind of accepted some of the beliefs, but not all of them. Kind of like a mix.

I have a friend that is from Vietnam. He was telling me that many Vietnamese dishes are actually influenced by the French. Because the French had colonized what was then called Indochina (by the French, no doubt,) they had a lot of influence on the culture, architecture, food, and even the writing system. The language itself was too far developed for the French to make it as confusing as the French language, so at least that part of the culture remained fairly intact. One of the great outcomes of the influence of one culture on another are this sandwiches called Bun Mi’s. They are made with small loaves of French bread sliced in half, and filled with Vietnamese style meats and other fillings. They are incredibly tasty, and usually fairly cheap.

It’s interesting what happens when you mix one thing with another, you’re never sure you know what you are going to get. Of course if you mix yellow and blue you are going to get green, but everybody knows that. I’m talking about mixing things when you have no idea how they are going to turn out. Cultures, ideas, whole races of people (depending if you believe in any Egyptian-UFO conspiracies.) One of the most important things to consider when mixing ideas is the simple fact that you can’t usually come back, so you need to be careful when mixing two things, like countries or genetic mutations. You don’t want to create something that won’t be beneficial. On the other hand, nobody ever was able to discover something wonderful by being too cautious. When you have some of this, and some of that, and you want to bring to bear one onto the other, go right ahead. That’s how great things happen.

And I even was telling my girlfriend once about this great French-Vietnamese restaurant, and she could scarcely believe such a combination could exist. And sure enough, there the restaurant was, just like I’d expected it to be. And they have some dandy tasting frog legs there.

And the missionaries decided that it wasn’t worth it because they kept running out of chocolate chip cookies, or whatever it was they had to bribe them with to accept their beliefs. They told them and they decided that they had to leave, and then went and left them behind.

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How To Make New Friends Anywhere, Anytime

One of the things I find most fascinating is how quickly you can get to know some people. Most people, it generally takes a while. You need to share experiences, become comfortable enough to talk about things until you can feel you know this person. Maybe you only see them for a little a couple times a day. Maybe you only see them once a week. And then you feel you know them in this particular context, you begin to share other things. Your family, funny stories about your childhood. The teacher you had a crush on in second grade. That thing that your partner or significant other did (and hopefully still does) that drives you insane with desire.

I remember once I was talking to this lady. We’d only been acquainted for a total of about two hours. It was the third time I’d seen her. Either she is a really outgoing person, who is able to feel really comfortable with almost anybody, or she just felt she really trusted me. She started telling me things about her daughter that I thought were kind of personal, but interesting. Nothing too terrible, just typical mother daughter stuff that people talk about sometimes. It’s funny when you feel really comfortable with somebody you’ve first met, so that you can experience.

I remember once I was by myself in a foreign country. And most people didn’t speak much English. I was feeling brave enough to venture out of my hotel room. My hotel was a large international one, and some of the staff spoke English, so I was comfortable enough while in the hotel. But once I left the hotel, it was a totally different ballgame. It was a totally different sport. I started walking around, figuring that I’d be ok, as long as I could make a beeline back to my hotel if I ran into trouble. I saw what looked like a large shopping mall. I decided I’d have a look around, and see if I could find something interesting. Who knows, maybe I would feel brave enough to go and try to buy something.

Suddenly I spotted something interesting. Across the mall, was a guy that looked to be about the same age as me. He was wearing a sweatshirt from my alma mater. Suddenly feeling courageous at the sight of those big black letters which evoked many fond memories, I decided to go and talk to him.
I asked him if he spoke English, and he replied that he did. I asked him about his sweatshirt, and it turns out he graduated the same year as I did! We had an amazing time chatting over a meal at a small restaurant that he showed me where they serve the local cuisine. It was fantastic.

The funny thing was, I would have never have guessed that this person was so interesting, and that we share so many things in common. Had he not been wearing that sweatshirt which immediately caused me to remember good memories and feelings, I never would have been able to develop the courage to go and talk to him. It made me wonder. How many other people am I missing out on meeting simply because I don’t allow myself to feel the feelings that will make a chance meeting turn into a great afternoon?

And it turns out that the lady was preparing me to meet her daughter. She was telling me the bad things about her up front, because she was planning on introducing me later. I guess her strategy was to respect me enough to give me a fair idea of her. Because when I finally did meet her, she was absolutely stunning. Had I not heard the stories about her from her mother, I might have fallen into the trap of thinking, merely because of her looks, that she was a stunning angel devoid of any human frailties. As it turns out, she wasn’t my type, and I wasn’t hers, so everything worked out.

I think a great idea when meeting new people is to always look for similarities. Because we are more alike than we are different, you can’t go wrong, and you’ll always be able to make new friends wherever you go.

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The Blue Birds of Happiness

Once upon a time there was a little bird. He was blue, but he wasn’t a bluebird. He was one of those birds that you didn’t exactly know what category to put him in. His name was Charlie. One day he was hanging out with his bird friends. They had already found all the worms that they had planned to eat for the day, and it wasn’t mating or nesting season, so they really didn’t have to do much except just kind of hang out and chirp about this and that. There were six in all, they were all starting to get bored. They were past adolescence, but they still had sufficient energy so that they weren’t content just to sit and do nothing.

Kind of like when you have a particular busy week at work, and you are looking forward to the weekend. Then the weekend comes, and after the relief of having no more work for the time being wears off, you kind of get bored. That happened to me once. I decided to go to the movies, like I do, but when I got there I realized there wasn’t anything playing that I wanted to see. I don’t do that very often, it’s just that on that particular afternoon I was fairly bored. So deep down, i sort of realized that just the drive to the movie theater was better than wasting a fine Saturday afternoon happy that I didn’t have to work. I could be happy I didn’t have to work anyplace, no reason to stay at home right.

I think it’s fascinating the way your mind works like that. Like when you make a decision, you think that consider all the options. Then something happens and throws a monkey wrench into your plans. Then you find out that you made a mistake in planning that somehow took into account the sudden appearance of Mr. Murphy. Like your mind was able to look into the future and plan for all possibilities without you even knowing it. Sometimes I think your unconscious is a lot smarter than you realize. And when you allow yourself to really trust your unconscious, and allow it to help yourself do things, you will be amazed when you find out how incredibly powerful it is. Sometimes I’ll be wandering around my house muttering to myself “I can’t find my keys, I can’t find my keys, I can’t find my keys,” and I’m sure you realize that never works. It’s only when I switch (unconsciously of course) to muttering “where are my keys? where are my keys?” do they suddenly appear, as if by magic.  Other times I just lose my place, and forget things.

So when I realized there was nothing playing at the movie theater I wanted to see, I started wandering around. I happened into bookstore, and I saw a book I had been looking for. Of course I bought it, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s like my brain was telling me to go buy this book, but it was tricking me into thinking I was going to see a movie. Like my unconscious knows how to keep me motivated. Otherwise I’d forget what I was after.

So the birds decided to head on over to the new neighbors house. They had just build a gorgeous birdbath. And the birds had just suddenly remembered that they had forgotten it was there. And everybody lived happily ever after.

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The Ancient Power of Idle Gossip

One of the things that I find really fascinating about talking to as many people as I do on a daily basis is that despite how anxious or chaotic their lives are, or how many things they have on their plates, they can always find time to talk about seemingly inconsequential things. I say seemingly inconsequential only because it appears that way on the surface. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that peoples day to day lives, as reflected in their conversations are rather mundane. The more you think about this, the more you can’t help but realize that language itself is one of the most least understood yet most fascinating things that you can begin to understand.

I was reading this book on evolutionary psychology. Some of it was kind of out there. Because of course, despite the commonly held belief that evolution is a scientific fact, it is still largely an unproven theory that people mistakenly believe as fact simply because it is accepted as such. It’s amazing when you study the history of scientific belief.  There are wild things that people believed that seem foolish in retrospect, but when you consider that it really wasn’t too long ago that most scientists believed the world was flat, you can’t help but to take currently held ‘truths’ with a grain of salt.

The purpose of language, for example, is a hotly contested topic among evolutionary biologists. Some believe that the same forces that drove spoken language in humans are the of the same reason that chimps groom each other. Both are thought to server the purpose of a way to determine where people are with respect to the current social hierarchy. According to that theory, the purpose of language is for gossip, to determine who is doing what with who and for what reason. While that may not be the specific reason, it is no stretch to look around and see that idle gossip is strongly compelling to most people.

One of the questions I get emailed to me the most often from people who read this blog on a regular basis is where I get all my ideas from. Although I admit that some people claim that I make this up as I go along, if you read some of my earlier posts, you’ll find that I have been interested in human development and maximizing my own achievement for quite some time now. When you think about it, communicating is a lot more complicated that just idle gossip, even if the surface structure of the conversation only seems to be concerned with daily events and relationships. Your individual history, your beliefs about the world, and your outlook on your own future all play a huge, unconscious role in shaping the language that you use. When you decide let go and release any fears that you may have, you can really begin to communicate more congruently. And when you do that, you can’t help but to be breath of fresh air to all who you come in contact with. One of the ways to become fully human is to stop looking for somebody that has the answers, and simply be that person that can help others find their own answers within.

Of course, there are many other theories of the origins of language. God made us the way we are, complete with our language ability. Or God had hand in guiding our evolution, so he was there helping us out along the way. Or if you don’t believe in God, there are other, more scientifically believable theories. Ancient tribes needed to communicate with each other so they could collectively remember where the dangerous animals lived. They had to communicate in order to organize effective hunting parties. They had to communicate well to plan for the coming winter.

It’s amazing the different theories that they come up with over time. Which is really fascinating. The more they begin to develop ways and machines that can peak inside our brains to see exactly how they work, they will begin to come up with even more abstract and wonderful ideas. And coming up with abstract and wonderful ideas is a fantastic sign of our humanity, which is alwasy driven to learn new things. 

I’m not saying you should keep all this in mind next time your are talking about who is dating who, or who is thinking of breaking up with who. I think a better idea would just be to become aware that there is a level of complexity that is just below the surface of the everyday sentences and nouns and verbs that people throw at each other without much thought, and to let these ideas come up whenever you are ready to think about them.

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Powerfully Change Your Present by Easily Changing Your Past

There has been a lot of talk in the media and in popular areas of discussion recently about the importance of happiness. Happiness is that elusive goal that you don’t really know how to define it, but you certainly can appreciate it when you have it. Many people have tried to define happiness in such a way as being measure by external circumstances. Money, Car, Friends, Relationships. Most people don’t realize that the path to happiness is an inside game. Of course, I’m sure you’re also aware that a solid inside game automatically leads to a fantastic outside reality. The mistake most people make, is that when they see an outside reality in somebody else’s life, they try to reproduce the outer effects, without realizing that you need to pay attention to the inside first, and the outside will naturally follow. One way to do this is to change your happiness set point.

One of the best way to increase your happiness set point is to change the thoughts that you habitually think. If this sounds confusing, don’t worry. It is actually fairly easy once you incorporate some easy habits into your daily life. Long term success is all about what you set up to do today, on a regular basis, so that your future will automatically come pre delivered the way you want it.

The first step in changing your habitual thoughts is to become aware of them. Most people amble through life, day after day, thinking the same thoughts over and over without really being aware of it. Because the brain is not only incredibly fast, but also incredibly efficient, there are thousands of thoughts that happen below the threshold of conscious awareness.

For example, when I was a kid, I was out riding my bike. I saw a big scary dog, that growled at me and showed me his big white sharp teeth, dripping with saliva he was no doubt hoping to use to digest my bones after he ate me. The standoff lasted for only a few seconds, but in my childhood mind, it seemed like an eternity. Now when I see a dog, my brain immediately notices that there is a dog in front of me. It then sorts through all my memories of dogs to determine the appropriate emotional response. When it finds that memory I described above, it comes back with the emotion of scary, danger, run away. This all happens so quickly that when I see a dog today, I seemingly immediately only notice a feeling of anxiety. I’m not aware that my brain is doing all that searching and deciding.

It’s only when I unpack that memory, and do some basic memory operation procedures to detach the unpleasantness from that memory of the dog from my current experience, that I can see a dog and feel a sense of happiness and safety, rather than anxiety and fear.

One way to look at your happiness set point is the sum total of your automatic responses to the environment that you encounter on a regular basis. If you are deathly afraid of snakes, and your next door neighbor has a pet boa constrictor that he takes out for a walk the same time as you every morning, you are not going to have a particularly high happiness set point.

What can be helpful, is to go back in time, in your mind, and change whatever memory is there that your brain uses as a reference to tell you to be afraid of snakes.

It sounds really bizarre, but it is pretty simple, and kind of fun when you can learn to do it fairly quickly. Here’s how I did it with my dog memory.

First thing I did was to go back and find the first memory of the dog. Because this can take some time, it may be the most cumbersome step. More practice will yield more memory dexterity, so don’t worry.

Next you tweak the heck out of the memory, so it doesn’t bother you any more. One way to do this, is to relive it, but change certain aspects of it. Like you can view it dissociated. That means that instead of being “in” the memory, I am actually watching myself have a showdown with the dog. And every time I relive that memory, I can change it. Like I can make the dog really small, with clown shoes on. Or I can make the dog dripping grape kool aid instead of child digesting saliva. Or I can have a flea circus performing on the dog’s back, complete with trapeze and the tiny clown fleas getting out of the even tinier clown flea VW bug.

And on top of all the above tricks, you can play the memory backwards, forwards, stuttered, black and white. You can even make the dog a person dressed in a dog costume. And the whole time I am doing this, I can imagine my adult self standing behind my child self, with my steady adult hand on my child shoulder, telling him how funny that dog looks.

I only had to do this a few times, before that memory lost it’s bite. (sorry.) And when you begin to go through your daily life, and systematically dig up and change memories that are giving you trouble, you can really start to raise up your happiness set point. Imagine what life will be like when ordinary objects that you see every day can give you feelings of hope and happiness instead of fear and anxiety.

After all, they are your thoughts. You can think them any way you want to.

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Grow and Improve with New Ideas About Yourself

I was sitting in a meeting the other day, and there was one guy that was droning on and on about something. I don’t remember exactly what it was, perhaps a commentary on the life of fruit flies or something else as equally boring.  I started drifting, like you do when you are in middle of something that you can’t exactly escape from, but it just wouldn’t be right to lay your head down and take a nap.

I was reminded of a place I used to work a long time ago, where we were having some product development problems. It was one particular product that the company had been working on for quite some time, and it just wasn’t quite working out. It as a kind of medical device that wasn’t supposed to be a great application that doctors could use during surgery. It was designed, at least in theory, to help the doctors perform the surgery quicker with more efficiency, and to make it easier for the patient to recover after the surgery. Because the patient would recover quicker, it would result in a reduced stay in the hospital, which would mean less money spent by the patients insurance company. All in all a win win win situation. A win for the doctor, a win for the patient, and a win for my company that was developing this product.

The problem was the product itself. it was a great idea, on paper. The problem was finding the right materials to put together in the right proportions to make it work in real life just as well as it worked on paper. No matter what we tried, nothing seemed to work. Hence the meeting. We were talking about another thing to try and see if we could make this work.

Like sometimes when you are in a relationship with somebody, and when you start to see this person, you start to have all these good feelings. Like everything is going to work out ok, and all the problems in your life have disappeared. It’s amazing when that happens. Every time you think of this person, you can’t help but to feel those fantastic feelings. But then sometimes, something happens. Those feelings start to fade, and maybe you realize that you were not really in love with the person, but in love with the idea of being in love. And you are faced with the difficulty of breaking it off with that person, and feeling the respect enough for yourself to say that it’s time to move on, and find somebody that is truly compatible.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. That’s what can happen you don’t realize that it might be time to move on and try something new. It’s like some people have this huge fear of being able to make a decision. Some people just can’t choose to do this, whatever it is. Because when you really understand something, and choose to do this, you can begin to realize that there is a whole world out there waiting to be discovered.

Which is why I think we stayed with that particular medical device longer than we should have. Nobody wanted to admit that it really was a great idea, but only on paper. When the manager of the research department finally made the decision to scrap the project. Most of us were relieved that he’d made that decision. Because once we freed up our energies to create new ideas, and make new things, we were able to sell many more products and great ways to keep people healthy.

And personally, I’m always amazed when I come across couples that are no longer couples, but remain great friends. Because they were smart enough to realize that one of the best ways to respect yourself, is to really get to know the person you are with, not for who you wish they were, but for who they are. That is where true respect and appreciation can come from. And they can free up your energies to find people and ideas you can really grow and improve with.

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Crystalize Your Focus

I was listening to an interesting radio show the other day. It was one where people could call in. I don’t think it was live, as I was listening over the internet. It’s a pretty major market in the U.S., so they have a fairly large internet presence.

The topic was “free or all Friday” or something like that. I think normally it is a politically themed talk show, with the kind of slant you’d expect from a politically themed radio talk show. But because it was “free for all Friday” they had abandoned their normal programming, and let callers talk about whatever they wanted to. They had some interesting debates between two and even three callers at a time.

So one guy started talking about how you are capable of really improving your life with this new technique he was talking about. I’m not sure if he was selling something or not, because the other guy kept interrupting him. Anyways, the guy kept saying that because you are paying attention to this, you can really start to become aware of the fantastic opportunities that are around you, every day.

Now this started sounding a little new-agey to me, so while I was listening I started surfing around, and looking on other websites. And I happened across a web site that specialized in crystals, among other things. I guess that’s what happens when you click on the ads on a page about new age thinking.

I had a friend once who was really interested in crystals. She was always telling me that proper crystal meditation, or meditating when using crystals properly can really help you increase your focus on what you want to do in life. She even went so far as to say that the meaning of life itself was only realized when you fully pursue happiness. The reason that people have difficulties, is they tend to only focus on short term happiness, rather than long term happiness. Sometimes it’s hard to keep your focus on what will provide lasting results. Other people tend to focus on things that will produce happiness, but only in the short term.

Like some people like to eat fast food a lot. When they think about eating, then tend to think of what will taste good right here, right now. One thing my friend recommends that you do, when making a decision is to always pause. She calls it the one hour rule (at least when she applies it to eating.) She says imagine what you would feel like in what hour, if you ate what you wanted to eat, and then bring that feeling back into the now, and inject it into your decision making process.

She said that when you take the time to do that, you can’t help but to have a more informed choice, and that can easily turn into a better choice.
Of course, it takes time to get into the habit of doing this, but I’m sure that because you’ve done things before that you are proud of, starting a new habit is old hat to you, not like some people.

I actually ended up buying a crystal from that website, a rose quartz double terminated one. I don’t know if it will have any metaphysical effects, but it sure looks cool.

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