|
Sara|
Contact|
Quotes|
Blog|
Surfing|
AboutRob|
BookNotes|
RobTraffic|
SaraTraffic|
People|
Main|
Humor|
FamilyTree|
EmailGroups|
SiteMap|
|FamilyVolunteering |SupermarketBagger |RandomActsKindness |PortlandActivities |Experiments |WhyDoILoveThesePeople |FunnyVoicemail |SociallyWithdrawnChildren |WhatStudentsWant |MathConjectures |TalkOnTheWorld |SoftwareInnovations |Goals |1in7 |Affirmations |FirefoxTabs |Questions in Thoughts |EmpoweringQuestions |VictoryLog |HelpingPeopleMentalHealth |GreatnessInDetails |EulogyTest |WhyChristianitySpread |Gandhi |WeAreInTheNewspaper |WhenGodMadeMe |MichaelMooreHurricane |GoogleSearchTips |Charities |Rewards |PuttingOff |PeopleIKnow |PositiveThinking |NewBlog
Our website of the month was created by a family that has incorporated volunteering into their childrens lives since they were 2 and 3 years old! Gabrielle, who was three when she started volunteering, and her family create cards each night before bedtime to send off to the military, orphanages, policemen, firefighters and anyone else that needs and deserves admiration and support. Gabrielle was also one of the youngest recipients of the Presidential Service Award, an award created to honor volunteers. A small interview with her is shown on the website discussing the award, proving that age should not stop anyone from passing on kindness. For more information on their family and the great work they are doing please visit their website. Amazing job! http://www.actsofkindness.org/member_sites/caringkidscards
I saw an inspiring video about a young man with Down Syndrome who worked as a bagger in a supermarket. In addition to enjoying connecting with customers, Johnny wanted to contribute to their day. So he wrote down his favorite inspiring quotations, had them photocopied, and each day he slipped a different quote in each customer's bag as they were checking out. After a while the supermarket manager noticed that the line for checkout at Johnny's station was three times the length of the other lines. The manager dispatched more clerks to equalize the lines, but the customers in Johnny's line refused to move. They wanted their daily quote. (Some of them came into the store daily just to get it.) (click here to see the video)
18) Exercise your creativity. Imagine what the world would be like if one thing were different (e.g., all wheels were square, people couldn't talk, there is no color red)
17) My beliefs control my attitudes and emotions, which directly control my actions. Therefore, what are my beliefs and principles? Take stock of them, and see if any of them need changing.
16) For each person that you deal with or think about, think of what you can admire about them.
15) Buy a bunch of pillows and cushions. Have fun with them in the house, building houses, beds, walls, etc.
14) Focus on what has surprised you lately. What has inspired you. What has stirred your emotions.
13) Talk to a stranger
12) For one day, become aware of your feet as often as possible throughout the day.
11) Practice feeling and relaxing every part of your body for 2 minutes. See how you feel afterwards.
10) Learn from others' mistakes. Find one mistake today that somebody else made that you can learn from.
9) Actively practice using your imagination. Imagine that it's a muscle that you need to exercise. Imagine being a cat, being M.K. Gandhi, visualizing the Grand Canyon, listening to a symphony, sucking on a lemon,
sitting on a cloud looking down, being a storyteller and creating a story, flying, floating on water.
8) When faced with a problem or something that you want to change, think of who would do really well in this situation, and become that person. Think like they think, and act like they act. Be an actor.
[Mike Brescia]
7) Practice laughing for 1 minute. Imagine you're an actor and be as real as possible.
6) Stare at yourself in the mirror for 5 minutes. Set a timer.
5) Find out about someone else. Be genuine.[Mike Brescia]
4) Talk to yourself like you are an advisor to yourself. [Mike Brescia]
3) Fast for one meal, and use the money that you saved on food for something you wouldn't otherwise do, like giving it to a homeless person, or surprising someone
with a gift.
2) Work on making one person smile today.
1) Smile for 60 seconds straight. Just sit there and smile. Don't do anything else. See how you feel afterwards. (from Mike Brescia )
And today I came across this interesting article on Seth Roberts, a man who has does a lot of self-experimentation. And he has come up with an interesting diet that he calls the "Shangri-La Diet". Here's some excerpts from the article:
Roberts was convinced that this system was accompanied by a powerful signaling mechanism: whenever you ate a food that was flavorful (which correlated with a time of abundance) and familiar (which indicated that you had eaten this food before and benefited from it), your body demanded that you bank as many of those calories as possible.And here's an article titled "What Makes Food Fattening? A Pavlovian Theory of Weight Control" by Seth Roberts, where he concludes this:... After a great deal of experimenting, he discovered two agents capable of tricking the set-point system. A few tablespoons of unflavored oil (he used canola or extra light olive oil), swallowed a few times a day between mealtimes, gave his body some calories but didn't trip the signal to stock up on more. Several ounces of sugar water (he used granulated fructose, which has a lower glycemic index than table sugar) produced the same effect. (Sweetness does not seem to act as a ''flavor'' in the body's caloric-signaling system.) The results were astounding. Roberts lost 40 pounds and never gained it back. He could eat pretty much whenever and whatever he wanted, but he was far less hungry than he had ever been. Friends and colleagues tried his diet, usually with similar results.
The theory supports the common recommendation to avoid foods with a high glycemic index (e.g., Atkins, 1992; Montignac, 1999; Steward, Bethea, Andrews & Balart,1995) but also provides some unusual advice:
1. Eat new foods. No food with a new flavor is fattening, the theory implies.
2. Vary the flavor of foods eaten repeatedly. If products came with optional flavoring packets and consumers added varying amounts of the flavorings, this would produce variation in flavor. The results of Hirsch and Gallant-Sheen (2004) suggest the power of this advice.
3. Consume calories with no flavor associations. Ingestion of calories with no flavor should lower the set point, the theory implies. The fructose-water results suggest that ingestion of a small fraction of ones daily calorie intake this way may substantially reduce the set point. Flavorless vegetable oils (vegetable oils, such as olive oil, from which all flavor molecules have been removed) are a possible source of calories without taste.
I searched truveo.com for a video of Po Bronson and found this video of Po Bronson talking about "Why Do I Love These People" on the CBS Early Show.
Here is Po's home page: pobronson.com and here is the book on Amazon.com
Funny voicemail (.wav file)
Funny voicemail (.mp3 file)
I recently came across a study by psychologist Robert O'Connor on socially withdrawn pre-school children. He wanted to see if he could reverse the pattern of social isolation in children so that it wouldn't create persistent difficulties in social comfort and adjustment through adulthood.He created a 23-minute video with 11 different scenes. Each one began by focusing on a solitary child who watched the other children participate in an activity. In each scene, the child joined the group to the enjoyment of all.
O'Connor then went to a number of pre-schools and selected the most severely withdrawn children and showed them his film.
The results were dramatic... In each case, these children immediately began to interact to the same degree of sociability as the normal children in the group. And what was even more astonishing was that a follow-up 6 weeks later showed each of these children, who had viewed this single video only once, were now leading their schools in levels of social activity.
On the other side...
...the control group, the socially isolated children who didn't see the video, were as withdrawn as ever.
What this study and others like it strongly suggest is that when we have fears and barriers to achievements, it's important that we see other people similar to ourselves succeeding in spite of their difficulties. This teaches our brains that if they can do it, so can we.
Marketers have known this for years. But what I want for you is to be able to control your own thoughts, beliefs and actions as well as the commercials do.
2) Find a way to find the prime factors for any given number (this would render RSA public-key encryption powerless)
1) Find a pattern to the prime numbers
I want to be happy and content.
We can change ourselves by changing our environment and/or changing our thoughts. Our thoughts include affirmations and questions. It takes discipline. Discipline is simply taking active and conscious control.
While the biological link between good deeds and improved mental health has not been determined, researchers postulate two theories:
1. stress reduction improves the immune system and therefore creates feelings of well-being, and
2. the same feel-good endorphins that stimulate "runners' high" also create "helper's high".
-David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy [thehappyguy.com], from David DeFord's upcoming book "I Wish to Be Useful: A Guide to Living with Greater Significance"
Actually, greatness comes from consistently making wise smaller choices. The accumulation of many good small choices has the same impact as a few small drops of Tabasco sauce -- intense power!
Greatness comes from consistently keeping our commitments and promises. Keeping our word builds trust from others and trust in ourselves.
When we seek after and respect goodness, we develop greatness in ourselves. We attract greatness by appreciating the outdoors, reading good books, developing our talents, and carefully selecting television programs and movies that inspire integrity.
-David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy [thehappyguy.com], from David DeFord's upcoming book "I Wish to Be Useful: A Guide to Living with Greater Significance"
Would your eulogizer say, "He really knew how to make a buck. We all admired his impressive earning ability."
Or would they say, "Here lies a man who devoted all his free time to reality shows. He built his life's schedule around them. "
I doubt if either of these dreams sound like what you really want. True greatness does not come from our earnings or from some of the other pursuits that we give priority. The topics of discussion by the dying rarely include these meaningless subjects.
-David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy [thehappyguy.com], from David DeFord's upcoming book "I Wish to Be Useful: A Guide to Living with Greater Significance"
I've compiled a list of principles that Gandhi talks about that speak to me. Principles that I aspire to follow.
I was surprised by Gandhi's nonviolence ideal. I knew that he advocated nonviolence, but I didn't realize it was to the extent of all areas and situations. This was like a light going off in my being. No longer do I need to make educated judgements about when violence is appropriate. It is never appropriate. Violence breeds violence. Only voluntary suffering and love for all people can melt the hearts of those who do evil deeds.
Renunciation is difficult for me to accept in a society where materialism encourages me to want more and more, and to find my solace in money and things that money can buy. But it feels right. The empty feelings that eventually come after trying to find happiness in things are slowly teaching me that the real happiness lies in my heart and in my exchanges with other people.
How did this article come about? Well, one day back in August I got an email out of the blue from Melissa L. Jones, a writer for the Oregonian, wondering if she could write an article about Sara and me. She writes an article each week about somebody in the Gresham area for the Thursday paper. She was looking for someone to write about, so she searched on Google for "interesting people in Gresham", and my web site was one of the web sites that came up! Of course, the fact that my web site came up in the search has nothing to do with whether or not anyone really thinks I'm interesting, but simply because one of my web pages has the words "interesting", "people", and "Gresham" in it. :-) So that's how we got our 15 minutes of fame. :-) Here's the original Oregonian link to the article.
WHEN GOD MADE ME Was He thinking about my country, or the colour of my skin? Was He thinking about my religion, and the way I worshipped Him? Did He create just me in his image, or every living thing? When God made me. When God made me. Was He planning only for believers, or for those who just had faith? Did He envision all wars that were fought in his name? Did He say there was only one way to be close to Him? When God made me. When God made me. Did He give me the gift of love to say who I could choose? When God made me. When God made me. When God made me. Did He give me the gift of voice so some could silence me? Did He give me the gift of vision not knowing what I might see? Did He give me the gift of compassion to help my fellow man? When God made me. When God made me. When God made me.
The BBB Wise Giving Alliance (give.org) is a web site that evaluates charities.
Forbes list of best charities evaluates 200 large charities based on three criteria:
1) Charitable commitment indicates how much of total expenses went for the stated charitable purpose, excluding management, overhead and fundraising. The average is 85%.
2) Fundraising efficiency measures the share of gifts after subtracting fundraising expenses. The average is 89%.
3) Donor dependency is the operating shortfall (outlays minus non-gift income) as a percentage of gifts. A number over 100% means that the charity more than consumed
all your donations keeping itself going; a negative number means that it would have run a surplus even without a dime of donations.
From the above Forbes article, here's a list of 10 charities that they think are good (in alphabetical order):
American Kidney Fund -- This charity defrays the unreimbursed portions of kidney dialysis treatment, such as medicine and transportation. Last year 42,000 low-income patients received an average $1,000 in grants, for a total of $41 million.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America -- This century-old agency, with 471 chapters nationwide, has found its niche: mentoring troubled children of single parents. With donations running strong, it has set an ambitious goal of serving 1 million kids in 2010--four times its present load.
Brother's Brother Foundation -- Anesthesiologist Robert Hingson founded this nonprofit to run Third World immunization and health programs. Now headed by son Luke Hingson, BBF operates largely with donated material.
First Book -- The simple goal: Give poor children their own first new book. This nonprofit gets volumes from publishers, then enlists local volunteers to hand them out. In two years it has distributed nearly 15 million books.
Heifer International -- This hunger-fighting nonprofit arranges to give needy folk in 47 countries breeding animals--cows, chickens, water buffalo, even bees--plus training. The recipients agree to donate the first-born female to others.
International Rescue Committee -- Started in 1933 to help those fleeing Hitler, the IRC is the grande dame of organizations assisting refugees and displaced persons. Recently, it has played a significant role in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International -- This charity states flatly that its goal is a cure for diabetes and its complications. Extremely efficient financially, this national single-illness research nonprofit pumps more than $100 million to scientists.
Marine Toys for Tots -- Started by a Marine Corps reservist in 1947 to funnel toys to needy kids, this charity still operates with official Marine Corps support.
Northwest Medical Teams International -- This medical relief group doesn't rely on clinics. It also makes house calls in disaster areas using mobile medical teams.
Salvation Army -- Essentially its own religious movement, this helper of the down-and-out is the second-biggest gift recipient ($999 million) on our list. Meager salaries for officers and large numbers of volunteers help keep efficiencies very high and overhead low.
It helps me focus on what is important, and helps to get past the fear.
Each day, the course has an "empowering question". One that I like is this one:
"What am I willing to give up in order to reach my objective?"
I like this, because I think too often I work on acquiring, and forget about the importance of getting rid of and letting go.
|
Sara|
Contact|
Quotes|
Blog|
Surfing|
AboutRob|
BookNotes|
RobTraffic|
SaraTraffic|
People|
Main|
Humor|
FamilyTree|
EmailGroups|
SiteMap|
