10 Questions you can ask to Get to Know Yourself

Getting to know yourself is a major turning point on the way to truly enjoying your life. In order to understand the world around you, you must first understand yourself and how you react to stimuli in any given situation.  Physical awareness is the very first step to take on the road to full awareness of mind and body.  Mental and spiritual awareness would follow, but for now let's just focus on the body.  This helps us to realize what we can and can't do and also how others perceive us. Here is a short list of 10 questions that will, if you take the time to honestly consider them, will help you to better understand yourself and become more physically aware.

1. What is the distance from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger when my hand is outstretched?  (This can be very useful when taking quick measurements of objects around the house.)
2. What does my normal sitting posture look like?  What would I need to do to improve it?
3. What is my average reflex time? (Take this online test)  Is it above or below average?
4. What is the speed of my resting heartbeat?
5. What is the duration of one full breath?  How does it change depending on my mood or activity?
6. How much weight can I lift without injuring myself?
7. When standing or sitting, is my center of gravity perfectly centered over my feet or chair?  Is my weight naturally shifted?  This could mean issues with your posture.
8. How high can I jump?  How far can I jump?
9. How long is my normal walking stride?  This will increase accuracy when pacing off distances.
10. What volume of food is comfortable for me to eat and not be stuffed, or left hungry?

Feel free to add your own questions to the comments.

Leia Mais…

One Second Meditation Practice. A Moment of Clarity.

Image by KayVee.INC via Flickr

One-hour meditation too much to handle? 20 minutes? 5 minutes got you beat? Here's a new approach to meditation with one very westernized quality about it. It's very fast.

This method is less focused on meditation, but more about trying to sit peacefully and achieve a brief moment of clarity, or clarity of presence. This way of thinking comes from Zen philosophy. The idea here is to create an instantaneous state of mind, or state of being wherein your awareness or understanding of your immediate surroundings or situation is increased. Try not to exert effort when attempting this. It will inevitably lead to failure and regret. Failure to do something that you didn’t “try” to do, is not really a failure. If you want it to be a sunny day and it turns out rainy, you did not fail. If it rains, it rains; if it’s sunny, it’s sunny.

Hints to help you achieve a moment of clarity:

1. Focus on your heartbeat until you can feel it pushing the blood throughout all of your arteries.
2. Create a phrase or sentence that describes what it feels like to be alive.
3. Look at your hand and try to understand that no matter what happens in this life, all that's sure is that you will have this body.
4. Picture yourself from a bird's eye view. Visualize whatever you're doing at the moment and zoom out little by little to picture the room, building, trees, street, town, state, country, continent, planet, galaxy, and all of the cosmos.
5. Imagine you have just been born and are seeing all of the things around you for the first time.
6. Do not concentrate, just pay attention.
7. Do something you absolutely love doing. Something that engages your mind and body 100%.
8. Rise to a challenge that is slightly more than you think you are capable of.
9. Breathe silently and listen to the other sounds your body may be making.
10. Focus on your skin until it begins to tingle.

Have a nice day!

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Let Today be Forever Known as the "Inspiration Age"

I woke up this morning and the words "Inspiration Age" were ringing in my head. Not sure why, but when I got to thinking about it, akin to the industrial revolution of the 18th & 19th centuries or the Space Age which began in the 50's, it does stand to reason that the first part of the 2000's will forever be remembered as the "Inspiration Age".

Our world is on an extremely fast and volatile evolutionary path, and wherever we end up 50 years from now, what we do TODAY will have been the inspiration that crafted it.

In this article I've listed what I believe to be the major contributors to today's inspiration.

"Go Green"

Of course today's buzzword is "Green". This is getting engineers optimizing existing products and creating new technologies across the board as well as take a closer look at the entire Earth, its processes and their interrelations as a system. But this inspiration is not just limited to engineers, everyone conscientious enough is taking a fresh look at their daily life and coming up with new ways to optimize it that would have less of an environmental impact.

Budding New Technologies

So many technologies are in their infancy right now and there is much more research and learning being done than actual development or commercialization in the fields of cloning, consumer space flight, nano-technology, thought controlled devices and many more.

Revolutions in personal communication devices present an interesting topic for inspiration as well. New developments in everyday devices are revolutionizing how we go about our lives. What this means to me is the combination of all of our cool new gadgets into one tiny little device: Phone, Camera, PDA, Music player, and any other form of communication available “out there”. This has been on the horizon and greatly anticipated ever since cell phones started taking pictures and on the forefront of this effort is the iPhone which has been the first to really nail this. (it sounds to me like everything else pales in comparison – sorry Blackberry users). All of you people (myself included) who have been expecting this product for some time now, have provided a great deal of inspiration and motivation for product development engineers. Thanks everyone! From all of us.

These devices allow creative minds to focus on creativity, drawing inspiration and creating inspiration rather than organization of thoughts or communication.

Life Hackers

There seems to be a large presence of people out there who have become very interested in optimizing every facet of life. Relationships, chores, work, parenting, making money… or just day-to-day tasks - hence the creation of this blog. ☺ I think this is a fascinating concept and, like the convenient devices discussed above, the idea is that if you can optimize certain tasks so that you don’t need to spend as much doing them, you have more time to spend focusing on the more enjoyable things in life. Enjoyable things inherently offer more inspiration to people because you can generally allow yourself to contribute 100% of your focus to these things. If you are attempting to enjoy something against your natural instinct you most likely won’t allow yourself to be completely immersed in it.

Another benefit to "life hacking" is that it offers an entirely new subject to scrutinize – The optimization of life itself. This is completely new and very creative in itself. It provides inspiration for the scrutinization of a vast number of other subjects that we currently take for granted or accept for what they are.

"Millennials"

Otherwise known as the Net Generation, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, and iGeneration, Millenials are basically the generation following the baby boomers. Many business owners are afraid of Millennials because they are known to expect too much of the work place and they have the desire to shape their lives according to their own personal schedule and goals as opposed to committing to a life and goals dictated by a company's progress. I can understand why this would be frightening to an employer, unless of course the employer is, themselves, a part of the millennial generation or at least understands them.

This leads to an exciting evolution of all businesses adapting this millennial mindset and being able to happily accommodate a world that moves faster than ever. Daily market changes, trends and expectations will be accommodated much easier and with greater success.

Recession

Life is extremely tenacious, we’ve been reminded of this throughout 300 million years of evolution. When life struggles it pulls out the heavy artillery. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, if you will… In our current economic state there are a lot of business tactics that are being used to ensure a company’s success through this hazardous economic environment. There is creativity being used everywhere in business right now to build stronger practices and keep companies alive. This will undoubtedly contribute revelations on heartier methods to the western industrial world that can be used in the future that will better accommodate a more diverse economic environment.

A New Awakening

This is along the same lines as the life hackers and millennials. Overall, it seems like today's society is becoming more aware of the intricacies of daily life and is making "living happily" more of a priority. I recently read A New Earth – Awakening to your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. It is an amazing book about the new spiritual revolution of today’s world. It coincides directly with the rise of eastern religion in the west and life hackers, and living happily. As stated above, when we are enjoying what we’re doing and living contently overall, it is easy to become completely immersed in all that we do. This then makes it easier to draw inspiration and create inspiration for all others.

Sharing of Ideas

Digital mediums such as blogs, e-books, networks, social groups, etc, make sharing ideas and knowledge a snap. This is pretty simple, the more ideas, the more inspiration available.

Cheers, to the inspiration age! It's a lot of hard work that we've got to do now to create a better future for everyone.

What do you think? Is this possible? 50 years from now, what will you be calling today's years?

Read this article at MiniLifeHacks.com

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10 Tips on How to Stay Motivated at Work

You've had the "oh-man, I-don't-feel-like-I'm-doing-anything-meaningful-at-work-and-can't-bring-myself-to-stay-on-task-for-the-life-of-me" blues. I know, so have I.

No matter what your job is, it is most likely important that you have it, if not for the community or the planet, at least for the survival of you and your family. So whether or not you actually find the immediate task at hand entertaining or otherwise captivating, you must convince yourself that it is worth the battle if not for the sole purpose of your own survival.

Oh yeah, and if you really don't like your job and think you could do better, have more fun, contribute more to society at another job, by all means, QUIT and get another job! But that's a topic for another post...

If you do, in fact, enjoy your job (as I do) and feel that it is the right place for you to be right now, but sometimes have trouble staying on task or motivating yourself, I've come up with a list of little tricks I've tried to keep up a good work flow and avoid the bosses raised eyebrow that says: "Really, what is your purpose here?"

1. Make a to-do list. Write all of your tasks down on a piece of PAPER; not on the computer or in your PDA. Something that will remain right in front of your face no matter what you are doing.

2. Listen to music. But not just any music, and certainly not your favorite music (that can be distracting) find the right music to motivate you. I find that I work best to fast music with no lyrics. I also find Japanese drums to be invigorating, and there's always the old stand-by: Iron Maiden. Great for productivity.

3. Play games with yourself. Get in touch with your inner child and make believe that it is your duty to save the world and the only way to do it is to press a button at the bottom of your stack of papers (or something else relevant to your tasks).

4. Compete with peers. Maybe not outwardly, not if it would be awkward, but play a game where at the weekly meeting you have 2 more things to report than everyone else in the room. Or maybe you have assembled more product, or stocked more boxes than anyone else.

5. Stretch. Take a few minutes a few times a day and do some stretching. Feeling relaxed and avoiding fatigue is critical to getting good work done. Read this article on Eye Exercises that can be done at your desk. And here is a link to some stretching you can do without leaving your desk. (and here )

6. Try standing up. Stand up at your desk for a new perspective and a better posture. Read Try Standing up at your Desk for more info on how this can be beneficial.

7. Include yourself in more tasks - Force yourself to partake. Take on a challenge and give people something to expect from you. If there are short term results that people are expecting, it will be much more difficult to slack off.

8. Offer your services in other areas - Carry water jugs, refill the soap in the bathroom, fix someone else's computer, etc. IE: Take on some task that is not technically yours. This will give you a little variety and should make it easier to come back to your position with a new perspective.

9. Take a "Dry Bath". This is a technique that originated in ancient Chinese Kung-Fu. Rub your hands together vigorously until the palms heat up. Immediately rub your arms, shoulders, head, torso and legs. This is said to be good for blood flow, metabolism and internal organs. I find that it is also useful in waking yourself up or bringing you into the present moment.

10. Take a "Brain Bath". Also a concept from ancient China, a "brain bath" is removing yourself from an arduous environment and giving your senses something more soothing to experience. This can be listening to birds or a stream, looking at artwork or flowers, petting an animal or otherwise giving pleasure to your senses. This is good for invigorating the functions of the brain. Upon returning to work you may find that a portion of the dullness of your tasks has been eradicated.

There may be another list a little later since this was kind of fun. But for now, let me know if you use any of these or if I missed any big ones for you.

Leia Mais…

Keep Tabs on President Obama with the Weekly Video Address

With all this "change" in the air, and our new celebrity president, politics seems to be becoming more and more popular amongst the youth including popular internet media channels such as Facebook, MySpace and even Twitter.

These tools have evolved far enough to become a great platform to publicize to a younger audience. They're also at a point where they are actually very useful for finding out information about what our administration is doing. Instead of watching the news from the same channel every night and listening to the same editorials and opinions on the radio, it's now easier to get straight to the facts and follow all of this activity via direct internet channels.

The Whitehouse has a blog that is updated a few times a day documenting highlighted events. President Obama has even said that he plans to publish a weekly address online (every Saturday morning) for a brief update on the pressing issues.

If you haven't already checked out these tools, I would highly recommend taking a look around the new and improved White house site which includes a blog, executive orders called, weekly address videos and other fun stuff:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

This is a good site that consolidates internet coverage of the administration into one convenient place:

http://www.whatisbarackdoing.com/

Follow Barack Obama on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama

Related articles

• Whitehouse.gov New And Improved For Obama (huffingtonpost.com)
• Lessons on Whitehouse.gov (fimoculous.com)
• Whitehouse.gov Has A New Face, And a Blog (ajax-blog.com)
• The new whitehouse is so open it wants Robots to come in too (ajax-blog.com)
• White House web (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Forced to Depend on the Mainstream Media (teambio.org)
• Whitehouse.gov (web2expo.com)

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For the Evolution of Communication Between Motorists

The evolution and eventual civilization of human-kind is greatly attributed to the presence of communication between beings. As our communication techniques improve, we become more civilized and able to appropriately deal with various situations and hardships through many forms of communication. Besides the number of words in any given language, there are multitudes of gestures, sounds and expressions that help us to communicate without speaking. In order to have a successful society, and for people to work together, there must be good communication.

Image via Wikipedia

Currently, and for the past 80-90 years we have been building an alternate society within our society, where people dress up like machines with wheels (yes, I'm talking about cars) and eliminate all familiar forms of communication. We had originally included, and since implemented a few methods of simple communication between these vehicles. This was necessary so that people could exist together on the same streets while wielding these 3.000 lb. machines at high velocities and still retain some semblance of order in this highly volatile environment. As far as I can count the very primitive forms of communication we regularly use now are as follows:

Action	Translation
Blinker	"I'm changing direction"
Hazard lights	"Something's wrong" or "Something's important" or "Watch out"
Horn	"Watch out" or "Aahh" or "Hello" or "MOVE!"
Break lights	"I'm stopping" or "back off"
Flashing headlights	"Something's wrong" or "MOVE!" or "turn on your lights" or "dim your lights" or "Go ahead"
Revving engine	"I'm ready to go" or "Hey there" or "I will go fast" or "I rock" or "I'm angry"
Spinning tires	"I rock" or "I'm angry"
Yelling out the window	Generally "I'm angry for some reason, but I can't tell you exactly why because I'm driving."

All of the above mentioned items are EXTREMELY primitive forms of communication and do not allow for any sort of coherent conveyance of thoughts. All of these things are extremely ambiguous and require contextual evaluation of them before translating them. In other words they could each mean many different things depending on a lot of other factors including driver mood or demeanor which is generally undetectable unless the drivers are in close proximity. There are a couple more forms of communication like swerving or speeding, but those are even more ambiguous than those shown above.

Image via Wikipedia

Chimpanzees have many more methods of communication than the above list. Many audible forms include hoots and barks that convey and are understood by others as feelings of "fear", "puzzlement", "enjoyment", "annoyance", "rage", "distress" and "excitment". Already leaps and bounds ahead of todays motorists. Additionally, body language is extensively used among chimps, which is inherently impossible when driving an automobile, but can be related to speeding and swerving amogst other things that I mentioned are very hard to decipher concrete meaning from.

The more cars we add to the streets the more essential it is that we improve this system of communication. It seems that the majority of people, at least in the Northeast US have surprisingly stopped using blinkers, which contribute to a large percentage of the communication between vehicles. Besides being one of the originally designed communication features, it is also one of the clearest concepts for other drivers to interpret.

The automotive industry has obviously made enourmous progress since it's conception. Competition is stiff, improvements are made, and conveniences are added to every model, every year. And recently the stress has been on fuel consumption (which has a great deal of merit these days) but I feel that there is no urgency to address the language barrier between motorists.

How do you feel we can improve communication on the streets to avoid road rage?

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A Good Way to Get Motivated - Just Do It

In addition to being an engineer, I'm also a musician. I've been writing songs for a few years now, but I've never played for anyone except immediate family and friends. I've been posturing myself and refining my tunes for a while to get them to a point where I'd be comfortable doing a show. I can't say that I'm quite to the "comfortable spot" yet, and playing the guitar doesn't really get top priority, always competing with work, martial arts, other side projects, blogging... etc.

A friend of mine is a professional theatrical performer and he recently offered for me to open up for his new show in 6 weeks! Despite my apprehension and unpreparedness, I finally decided that I had to heed my father's advice, "Grab for all the Gusto" and just commit to the show.

Grab for all the Gusto in life.

By committing myself to doing this and basically backing myself into a corner, I'll be forcing my priorities. Playing a show is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and despite my uncertainty, now that I have a deadline to meet I will be focusing on this new task.

I've used this technique before, I'll call it "over-commitment", with good success. When I was first getting into website development, in speaking with new clients I would commit myself to preparing things that were not part of my skill set. By committing this to clients, I was in fact committing to myself to learn whatever necessary skills were required.

What is your experience with forcing yourself to learn something? Have you intentionally over-committed in order to expedite the natural learning curve?

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Tips for Safe Winter Driving - Build Confidence, Know Your Car

Winter is now in full swing and, at least where I live, the ice torments the roads with its icy chaos. Drivers begin to slow down as they become less and less confident with their driving in these hazardous conditions and lack of confidence is not something that you should allow yourself to have; not ever.

Confidence is the knowledge that you are fully able to do that which you attempt. The way I see it, lack of confidence can be overcome by knowing yourself. Know your limits and abilities and you will never see your confidence wane. If indeed you do notice yourself with a lack of confidence (driving a car in the snow or otherwise) learn from this and tell yourself, "I need to take this opportunity to learn my limits and abilities to increase my confidence during this task." This article is particularly about driving in the winter weather but can be applied across all disciplines.

When I was learning to drive a car, growing up in Maine, my father would take me to an empty parking lot during a big snow storm and allow me to drive around and get a feel for the car. Understand that when driving in the winter, you WILL hit ice, and your tires WILL spin. Trying to avoid slipping the car or spinning the tires is pointless. You will slip and slide so in order to be confident while doing so, you must know how to do it.

Allow yourself to discover how your car reacts in different situations. Learn how fast you can accelerate. Observe how much traction you get while braking. Spin the car out of control in an open parking lot, or any other controlled environment and then attempt to regain control. Use trial and error to figure out which way and how much to turn the wheel in order to regain control during any given amount of drift you may be experiencing.

Other important bits of information are the physical extents of the body of your car. Know exactly how big your car is and test your limits until you are able to easily judge where your bumpers are from the driver's seat. This will help to avoid ambiguities like "I'm not sure if I'm going to brake in time to avoid that other car so I will tense up and close my eyes and hope for the best."

If you'd like, feel free to share your winter driving story.

Leia Mais…

Watch TV Online to Save Time and Money.

First of all, don't watch pointless crap television. It's not good for you. Watch a the news and one or two shows that you really like, and don't bother with the rest. It's of no value to you and the progression of your life.

Secondly, if you pick the shows you want to watch and seek them out online you will be much more disciplined about not channel surfing. Most networks are broadcasting their shows online now and they are free to watch. Plus you miss out on lots of commercials. A one-hour show online is really only 40-50 minutes.

The TV in my house is only hooked up to my Wii. When my wife and I want to watch a show we go online, watch one show and then move on.

Check out these networks that broadcast full shows:
www.fox.com
www.nbc.com
www.abc.com
also, take a look at http://www.freetvonline.com/ for a compilation of lots of shows from different sources all in one place.

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How Can I Make Money in this Crappy Recession??

Image via CrunchBaseBeats me!!

No but seriously... I don't know. Here's what I do know, however. There's a whole lot of people out there scared of actually going to stores and spending their money. Those same people are coming home and spending time online looking for tips on saving money, self-help blogs to help with depression, political articles to keep up with how the media is portraying the recession... And they're frantically clicking all over the place to try to find peace of mind.

What I'm getting at, is that you should all make a million dollars with Google Adsense.... okay.. easier said than done, trust me. But they do make a lot of sense this year. They appeal to a demographic that is not required to spend a penny and are just looking for help, which is exactly the kind of demographic that is rapidly spreading all over the U.S. and beyond. And I think it will be many moons before companies stop advertising with Google, so we're pretty safe there.

You probably have already done this, but if not, check out www.google.com/adsense to start putting ads from all sorts of companies on your blog.

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Don't tailgate, because you never know!!

Image via WikipediaWe all have the tendency to tailgate other cars when we're driving. Don't tell me you've never done it! First of all, it's not safe, that's obvious. And it's just rude, you're probably pissing someone off by doing it; you're "adding bad karma" to the universe, if you will.

A good way I've found to stop myself from doing it is by looking at the back of the driver's head, and trying to picture someone I know (particularly, someone I don't hate) and imagine that it is them driving the car. Because no matter who it actually is, they are a real person and have a real story just like the rest of us. It's amazing how much this little bit of consideration will change your attitude towards them and make you feel like you should be kindly backing off.

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Learn How to Get Amazingly Clean Teeth!

Image via WikipediaIn general, the world is moving at a much faster rate today than it did a decade ago; things need to be accomplished quicker and people are more impatient than ever. Maybe, instead of impatience, I should say, we have a different level of patience now than we did in the past. If we isolate the level of patience we have today and quantify it, there's no justification to refer to it as "impatient"; such is the evolution of man.

Um.. This article is about teeth, right?!?... yeah....ok.

My point is that when people have to continually do one task, especially as mundane as brushing your teeth for any amount of time, it can seem very BORING, and you will have the desire to be finished so that you can move on to other things.

My advice: Do something else while you brush your teeth. Read the mail, check your email, feed the cats, read the newspaper, or all of the above.

Finding one-handed or no-handed tasks to do while you brush your teeth will make it feel much less like you are wasting your time in front of the mirror. If you're doing other things it should be easy to brush for an excess of 5 or even 10 minutes. And I guarantee you will notice that your teeth feel much cleaner if you double your brushing time. Granted, if you are preoccupied with something else, you will have a tendency to stop moving the brush, or get stuck brushing one section for a long time. Just be conscious of that and you'll get better at it with time!

Happy brushing!

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The Pain is Only what you Make It - Mind over Matter

During a serious test of physical endurance, a wise man once told me:

"The Pain is Only what you Make It"

I used that advice to my advantage that day and achieved a great victory that would reward me for the rest of my life.

Physical pain is an interesting phenomenon described by the International Association for the Study of Pain as:

"an unpleasant sensory and emotional associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage"

Another widely used definition of pain from Margo McCaffery is as follows:

"Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does"

The thing I've learned about pain and the perception of it, is that the body, nervous system and brain overcompensate quite a bit with its warnings. In the first definition I've italicized 'potential' tissue damage. Even if the body is in no immediate danger of physical harm it still gives indications of pain to the brain as a warning. It's time we stop this tyrannical behavior of our own bodies and do our due diligence to learn exactly what they can handle and what they can't. The older we grow and the more we experience the more pain we will naturally encounter and therefore, the more familiar we become with how our body reacts to different stimuli.

Self-observation and getting to know your limits and what you are capable of, I am convinced is of great importance to leading a happy healthy life. (See post: "Always Challenge Yourself") If you know the exact moment when this false alarm called "pain" will turn into actual physical harm, you should convince yourself that it is okay to dance on this line. For example, often times when lifting heavy awkward objects it can be uncomfortable for many people and the object may cause pain in your hands and fingers. But if you are aware that this amount of pain is safe and will cause no physical harm you can easily endure it and rest assured that you will be able to shake your hands out when you are done this task and there will be no harm done. Do you see how this realization can increase your physical strength? You are now permitting yourself to lift 15 extra pounds than your body and pain threshold would otherwise allow.

Furthermore, if you know the extent of physical harm that will be done by any given action, it may be acceptable to endure it depending on the task at hand. For example, you can probably commit to catching or breaking the fall of a falling dish if it means you may get some abrasions on your knuckles from the counter top, or a bruise from the falling dish. But you may not commit to that if it is not your dish, or if it is unimportant to you.

The more you learn about yourself and your body the more control you will have over what you do with it, and you are able to take the control away from your tyrannical bodily instincts.

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How to KEEP your New Year's Resolution

The number one New Year's resolution in the US is to lose weight. Especially after a big holiday season of fruit cakes and chocolates. So you resolve to lose weight, but didn’t you do that last year? And did it work?

We all have off-days, when we just don’t feel like working out. But what happens when that day falls on a day you’re scheduled to go to the gym? (oh yeah, you need a schedule too) Well here’s a simple trick to get yourself motivated to go to the gym when you really don’t feel like it:

Just change into your gym clothes!

And here’s why:

The clothes that we are wearing at any given time become part of our self-image. If you are wearing boots your feet will feel heavier, your gait will be different and your self-image will be different than if you are wearing sneakers. If you change into your sneakers or gym shoes, your feet will feel much lighter and you will inherently feel more agile and able to run, jump, exercise, etc..

You’ll also guilt yourself into going to the gym because you’ll be sitting around the house in your gym clothes.

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Leave your Comfort Zone - Get to Know Yourself

A zen koan (short story) tells of a boy who was training under his father as a burglar:

The boy followed his father on a burglary one night and once inside the house, his father intentionally made a ruckus and fled the house. The boy darted to the nearest closet and his heart began to pound furiously as the home owners rose to see who was in their house. The boy had been given very little training, but the adrenaline of this moment was all he needed to be able to do anything he needed to do to prevent being caught. Eventually he made it out of the house undetected, and while he was not pleased with what his father had done, he had learned many lessons that night.

Often times it is important to leave your comfort zone and throw yourself into new situations where, if you think about it, you might not be entirely sure of yourself, but if you just do it you will find a way to get through it. This doesn't necessarily have to involve adrenaline - it can apply to cooking a new meal, changing careers, taking up a new sport, or virtually anything else.

Don't forget - this also offers a great way to observe yourself. Once you are thrown into a new situation, take a little time to observe your actions, your words and your feelings. You never know what you will learn about yourself.

"Observe all men; thy self most." - Benjamin Franklin

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Improve coordination by improving awareness - Understand the objects around you.

Image by Amin Tabrizi via FlickrIt’s aggravating to drop things you’re carrying or to spill your briefcase or book bag all over the floor because you were in a hurry. Do you think a samurai would ever drop his sword if he was in a hurry? Do you think a ninja would drop... anything... ever? The likelihood is that they would not. The trick here is that they have a level of understanding of these objects that allows them to know exactly how they will react under any given circumstance.

For example, a Samurai would know the following about his Katana:

1. How is it weighted?
2. What is the exact physical size in all three dimensions?
3. How much weight can it support?
4. How fast can he wield it with two hands? One hand?
5. What will it cut through and how easily will it cut?
6. Etc…

Know your book bag / briefcase

By understanding how your object (book bag or briefcase in this example) will react to certain circumstances will help to give you a fundamental understanding of what you will, or will not be able to do with it. For example:

1. What happens when you hold it in a different place? Different handle? From the side? From a hanging strap? Does everything fall out? Will it break or tear when you hold it this way? Are there any other dangers you should know about if you’re holding it funny? Sharp edges, etc?
2. How many fingers are required to hold its weight?
3. Is there any way you can hold it with something else, like your elbow, or your foot?
4. How much friction is there between your hand and the material it is made from?

Ask these questions, and ask any other question you can dream to ask. Ask these questions about any object you may encounter.

Be Prepared. Know all your utilities.

Make observations about your cell phone, wallet, pen, keychain, etc..
Your awareness for things around you will increase as will your fundamental understanding for these things with respect to how they function and react in this world. You will slowly be able to piece together the results from the physical tests and be able to infer other bits of useful information. You will probably be surprised at how you can use this information and how much it can benefit you.

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Over-indulgence tip: The first bite tastes the same as the last.

Food is good. There aren’t too many people that don’t appreciate certain foods. During this season it’s especially easy to happen upon some decadence and improperly indulge.

I think it’s important to appreciate this privilege and accept indulgence once in a while, but one thing to keep in mind while doing so, which may change the amount you eat, is that: The first bite tastes the same as the last.

What I mean to say is that if you take time and adequately appreciate whatever food you’re eating (sourdough bread & spinach dip for example…) you’ll notice that this appreciation can be taken away from only one bite. All subsequent bites of the same thing will taste remarkably similar and you’ll begin to realize that it is not necessary to continue eating once you have gotten what you were after: An appreciation of the taste of the food. So make it a good bite, take it very slowly, move it around in your mouth, try to concentrate on every atom in the food and ENJOY IT!

This concept pulls influence from an ancient Buddhist meditation called the “Raisin meditation”. Buddhist monks were known to concentrate on a raisin, study it, smell it, feel it, listen to it, and fully appreciate its entire existence to the point that they got so much sincere appreciation and substance out of the raisin that it could sustain them for an entire day.

More about the raisin meditation

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Follow your gut. Get to know yourself.

The first instinct is very often the best action.

When you act on your gut reaction without hesitation or inhibition, this is to truly be yourself. The little things you do that come into this world directly from your thoughts is a way of showing the world, but more importantly youself who you really are.

The more you come to obey these gut reactions the better you will begin to know yourself. The better you know yourself, the more honestly and effectively you will contribute to those around you.

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