Archive for February, 2011
Global Survival Issues Crucial To Everyone’s Well Being
Posted by: | CommentsOn a planet of 6 billion people, 1.3 billion are under nourished and 500 million are obese.
Half the world’s population is in developing countries and a high percentage of that population is still rural and struggling to survive with no safety nets.
As manufacturing moves to these developing countries, the incomes are not high enough to substitute for the consumption being lost in the developing countries which are suffering from high unemployment.
There is such a dichotomy in the needs but they are interwoven.
Gordon Brown in “Beyond the Crash” makes a case that consumption must be increased by the developing countries to create employment in the developed countries and take the starving out of impoverishment.
Stewart Brand in “Whole Earth Discipline” reviews James Lovelock’s work in “Revenge of Gaia. Stewart graduated Stanford in 1960 with a degree in ecology and has specialized in studying global climate change and urbanization. He hold’s James Lovelock as a premier authority on climate change.
James says that by 2040, China, the U.S. and Europe may not be able to sustain agriculture, but it could occur as early as 2025. This is because the world is in a positive feedback cycle meaning each deteriorating situation fuels the next. Ice melting reduces the reflection of the sun’s heat which then creates more warming.
A “Leveraging Agriculture for Health and Nutrition” conference just finished in New Delhi. The three day conference was attended by global experts on agriculture and population health and nutrition needs.
The world faces two other issues. Birth rates are down in most every country other than the U.S and France which are about evenly balanced in death and birth rates. The larger issue is that the world is aging faster than it is birthing, placing a larger future burden on the youth.
The developing countries have 50% of the under age 24 population in need of nutrition and education while developed countries are experiencing a growing entitlement burden for the aging.
As we mix climate control and the need for more food, energy, and employment we have challenging political issues before us and an electorate largely uneducated in the need for global cooperation.
The environmentalists stalled the global proliferation of nuclear power in the 1970’s which would have greatly reduced carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and reduced the dependence on oil and coal. Groups are now opposing bioengineered crops which hold the potential to reduce the need for energy and add nutritional value to the starving global population.
Science has proven so far that engineered seeds have not produced two headed mice or people.
Scientists are working on increasing the viability of seaweed for biofuels. Seaweed can be converted to ethanol. 3% of the ocean surface would replace the 20% land equivalent being used and requires no water be added. This would release the land used for biofuel to be used for food.
Jordon in a joint effort with Sweden is converting seawater to steam and then irrigation for hot house agriculture. In land where water is scarce like the Mid East and Africa, this could have expensive but valuable affect.
In case you think this doesn’t affect you, consider that 80% of the world’s populations includes insects in their diet. They could be harvested in mass. By the year 2050, it is considered developed countries will not be able to afford beef.
The raising of grains and cattle create the need for incredible resources of water and fuel and result in the release of methane. Methane is more destructive than Carbon Dioxide to the Ozone. Over half our water requirements, which also require fuel for distribution, is used for creating grains for and to raise animal livestock.
Politicians can harm an uneducated populace. To get elected, they can create uses for the taxes they raise to fund unnecessary projects considering our real priorities. We have seen how political policies create civil unrest. It isn’t just Egypt. We have seen demonstrations in Greece and Ireland as well.The U.S. is not immune
Experts say we cannot end the global climate changes, we can only mitigate the seriousness. James Lovelock says that if the temperature increases by 5 degrees Celsius the artic waters will have a mean temperature of 73.4 degrees. The planet’s life sustaining capability at that point will be1 billion people.
When this occurred previously 55 million years ago, there were crocodiles swimming in those seas. These cycles reoccur and life never ends, but humans could be endangered.
It is incumbent on all of us to spend a little less time on Face Book and a little more time letting politicians know we are educated. We need to spend more time on discovering which politicians under stand our technological capabilities to help us survive.
Scientists say we have the technological capabilities but probably not the political will. Egypt has shown that the population can affect the political will.
**
Read “Beyond the Crash” by Gordon Brown
Read “Whole Earth Discipline” by Stewart Brand
Read “The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity” by James Lovelock
Read “The World in 2050″ by Lawrence C. Smith
Follow and subscribe to SciDev.net
Read the Reports from the conference “Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition and Health” held in New Delhi. Hillary Clinton was one of opening address speakers.
See additional Resource Books for continuing education
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When We Lose Manufacturing, Do We Give Away Innovation?
Posted by: | CommentsHave we become the Social Media Capital of the World?
Is Mark Zuckerberg our Henry Ford? Is youth more interested in services than in making things?*
Manufacturing in the last ten years has declined by 8.1 million jobs to just over 11 million. We have not only lost our jobs, we have lost capability.
Who picked it up? The developing countries who make the Iphones and I Pads we use may also be learning how to make the next important improvements. We create the ideas but then we employ those who can make goods cheaper to produce them.
It is well documented that technology and robotics are replacing those jobs as well. The developing countries know they must move up the value chain if they are going to sustain their growth rates.
Maybe the U.S. and other developing nations are being forced to get the jump that will provide a better long term result or maybe we are all headed for third world incomes as automation makes a few rich and reduces everyone else to the lower rungs.
It is estimated that even the goods assembled in the U.S. have up to 25% or more imported components. Boeing imports airplane wings from Japan where they are shipped in giant cargo planes.
In a recent conversation with my daughter and another young lady about her age, I found they had similar interests of what to do after college. They either want to get into entertainment, sports, or culinary. A few of the better industries for my older daughters graduating male friends was professional sports if you were lucky, securities, or physical fitness.
My father’s generation served their lives working at car companies, utility companies, appliance manufacturers, building industries, architectural firms, or had small businesses. The financial industry didn’t become our dominant enterprise until the 1980’s.
In 30 years while the finance industry started to dominate commerce, manufacturing slipped away and government jobs became the substitute. The attraction of securities today and the financial industries is that you don’t have to work for minimum wage, which at one time could support you as you started a long term career.
After a while manufacturing jobs paid better than service jobs and you could increase your pay and benefits with tenure. If minimum wage can’t support your family and get your kids a college education then the need to work in high profit industries or develop a career that has individual potential becomes more attractive.
If our youth doesn’t go to graduate school or become specialists and can’t go to work for a strong manufacturer, what happens to the American path of homeownership, tenure and retirement?
We have to reinvent everything. We first have to be innovative to find a place for ourselves in the economic mix. Then we have to be innovative about how to get satisfaction out of our lives.
Home ownership is going to have a new look as the government backs out of financing and tax laws are modified to reduce the benefits of mortgage interest. Many have argued that homeownership reduces mobility which in this age makes continuing employment in different regions or industries more difficult.
One of the weaknesses of the Euro economies is that people really can’t move from weak country to strong country to follow jobs because of language and culture. The strength of the U.S. is that the labor force can move to any state and still find the same currency, language, and culture.
If we have lost manufacturing and lose the innovation opportunities to improve it, we do start to seek service jobs and mobility. We no longer pack a lunch and work between whistles. The developed countries are looking at new life patterns.
Our innovation can still be the design for manufactured products, but we can also look to the necessities of a different generation. The luxuries will become a smaller part of our consumption.
Connectivity, resource conservation, environmental protection, consulting, specialists, niches, services, and entertainment will replace the traditional roles of our parent’s generation.
The financial melt down hurt the boomer generation but occurred only midway in what has been forming to influence future career paths for the youth. Seers from the past predicted we would eventually be a civilization engaged in education, entertainment and leisure. It may be happening in a way we didn’t expect.
**
Read Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand A discourse on how climate change, urbanization, and biotechnology are forming the new century
Read Spend Shift by John Gerzema. A study of how the melt down is creating new values and new entrepreneurs.
Read Beyond the Crash by Gordon Brown. A discussion of how developing and developed countries face the challenge of increasing consumption to keep people employed and eliminate starvation for half the human race.
See Resource Books for further education
*Some ideas taken from article in NYTimes from study of Priscila Lopez of the Open University of Catalonia
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Do Near Death Experiences Have a Message for Us?
Posted by: | CommentsMost people believe that what they can perceive is reality.
Classical physicists believe the same.
When I was a teen ager I enjoyed spirituality over religion. As I studied Eastern beliefs and chakras, I toyed with the notion of trying to leave the material world behind and elevating my consciousness. I decided I was too attached to the material world and couldn’t do it.
Pim va Lommel, M.D. and cardiologist from the Netherlands, has spent a career studying people who have reported out of body experiences during near death experiences (NDE). Most of these have occurred during cardiac arrest.
In cardiac arrest the heart has stopped, breathing has stopped, and the brain registers no electrical activity. It is clinical death. When the brain stem, the thalamus and neo cortex are not in communication, we are pronounced dead.
At first, like all medical students and most doctors, he didn’t pay attention because it was not important to his task. He then became fascinated with how this consciousness could exist in a brain dead state.
Classical physicists would say that the brain is the source of all thought and cognition. Nothing really exists outside of what we can perceive.
Quantum physicists would argue that the majority of reality is outside what we can perceive.
I have never studied quantum physics before recently and was fascinated with the concepts. It happened to follow my first read on Kabbala which was written over 2,000 years ago as a science more than a religion. Kabbala postulated the same theories as modern quantum physics and the string theory that explains the Big Bang 15 billion years ago.
My thoughts were that if Kabbala had as the basis of its theories the same foundation as modern physicists and scientists about
- how the universe began,
- the percentage of what we perceive as reality to actual reality, and
- the continuous existence of consciousness outside the human body,
then at least they all think alike.
The question became, what do I believe?
One concept I was able to accept is that things happen at a much faster rate than we can perceive and yet we experience them as a continuum. The easy example is that movies are made where multiple frames per second flash before our eyes and we see only the continuous flow, not the frames.
The cells of our bodies regenerate by the billions every day and of course we are not aware of that. We only experience the continuum. The cells communicate at the speed of light and of course we could never keep up with that either. Our body and brain cells communicate at a faster rate than we perceive.
Physicists say that matter is 99.999% vacuum or empty space. Our cells, bodies, planets, and galaxies all adhere to the same composition. The space is filled with information and energy. As we experience all matter as solid, we might have a hard time perceiving it as 99% vacant space and loaded with information.
All life contains electromagnetic fields which are produced by electrically charged particles that travel in waves. All information we receive by our senses is encoded from waves as differences in frequency or wave length. An electro magnetic field has the ability to store or encode an unlimited amount of information.
Our TV’s encode waves that we can then understand as news or movies. Our computers encode waves that we can understand as information from a billion websites. Science is learning how to encode more information at a faster rate each year as they see the possibility of getting all the world’s knowledge to our computer in a two hour time span.
We are barely gaining access to the speed at which information flows in the universe.
In the brain, all neurons are connected by elaborate communication connections so that thought and action can be coordinated. However, experiments show that two particles can be separated and communicate with each other. This would open the possibility to receiving communications from particles that are not within our brains or bodies.
If information in the vacuums of electromagnetic fields can communicate with each other at the speed of light and particles or waves in our body can receive information from outside our bodies, it opens the realm of how much universal information is available to us.
So what is the relationship between communications and consciousness?
The people who had experienced the near death experiences (NDE) reporting traveling to a dimension that included unconditional love, warm light, music, flowers, review of their past life and even contact with past friends or family.
They often reported observing the attempt to revive them and accurately reported conversations that occurred during this event. This would mean that consciousness survives life as we know it.
Plato discussed the other reality and a world of shadows in which we only see the reflection of a universe that exists outside our perception. Sir Isaac Newton, Kepler, Galileo, and other renaissance scientists believed in the existence of a universe outside our perception. Einstein discussed that time as we know it, doesn’t exist in space.
Lommel’s work and the Kabbala both believe that consciousness doesn’t end with death. Quantum physicists would say that consciousness exists in a space in which there is no time so that it all exists at the same time.
People often report feeling the presence of people they knew from the past. Certain people have the ability to channel communications with those who are gone. We fear giving this complete credibility.
We tend to see revelations and epiphanies as freak occurrences. Einstein says the theory of relativity was an epiphany. The creator of the periodic tables we studied in school says the whole chart occurred in his head. Mozart said each symphony occurred in his mind before he wrote a single note. Colleridge said the Kubla Kahn occurred in a flash and he wrote it in a half hour and never changed a word.
- If all matter is 99.9% vacant space and
- that space is filled with information and
- that information is available to every other vacant space in the universe and
- can communicate at the speed of light,
- and consciousness is a universal consciousness that never ends
it opens a lot of possibilities to what exists that we don’t comprehend and cannot follow at our rate of comprehension. It connects all knowledge and consciousness in the same space and all interconnected. Life restricts us.
A revelation is a “big bang” that gives us a clue to how fast information can expand from the finite to a big idea.
The thought of suspending left brain thinking in order to tap into the world of universal energies with right brain creativeness and intuition has more potential than we grant.
People who have been in near death situations don’t report feeling fear. They feel sort of a peaceful surrender. People who have left their bodies report feeling unconditional love. When they come back, they never again fear dying.
I have only begun trying to grasp the significance of so many new possibilities. My instincts about the path I am pursing say I am on the right path. I would like to keep tapping into the information and awareness I cannot quite grasp.
Read Consciousness Beyond Life by Pim van Lommel, M.D.
Read The Power of the Kabbala by Yehuda Berg
See More Resource Books for continued study.
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How Often Do You Recharge?
Posted by: | CommentsGourmets believe you clean the palate for each new entrée with some sorbet.
I like to keep my house clean as I work and always clean up after meals just to know the kitchen is ready for the next preparation.
I need to refresh my mind constantly so that each new effort has my full energy and focus. I will do this by getting up and going outside or across the street to smell ocean air. I will go on a walk. I will put on my wetsuit and do a little surfing. I will take a short nap. I will have some food.
This week I read Pim van Lommel’s book about never ending consciousness and quantum physics. I will report on it soon. It has changed my view point and brought several of my past experiences to light. It has also opened a line of thinking that has connected me to a few new people who think the same.
My world will change dramatically as a result. I am also reading “Whole Earth Discipline” by Steward Brand which, for one, talks about how half the world lives in what we call slums, but they are the fastest growing segment of every economy. Large corporations see the potential in assisting these dwellers with services who on average earn $1.50 a day.
I have felt the need arise to clear out my past information sources and open up to a whole new army of information sources. So I am unsubscribing from my current daily emails.
Our bodies are destroying and renovating billions of cells a day. Our entire body is replaced each year. Because our mind/brain can’t keep track of the replacement process or even the speed at which cells communicate we experience it as a continuum.
Movies are made with multiple frames per second that we can’t see but we also see the movie as a continuum. Our days are put together at a speed we can feel but we can’t remember them so our past seems like one long continuum with not enough specific recall.
Really being conscious of what you feel, think and experience on a daily basis is an exercise that escapes most of us. We let the days drift into a continuum that often looks like monotony or a rut or boredom.
I have calculated that I have a good 7500 days left and want to make each day important. But then, why not make the hours important as well. Improving performance is often a matter of concentrating on more specific details.
I mentioned in the book “You Already Know How to Be Great” that Alan Fine as a sports coach gets clients to look at specific details like the seams of a tennis ball to free the mind and body. What you concentrate on or think or allow to occupy your stream of consciousness can regulate your progress and determine your happiness.
If we keep refreshing our perspective and focus on higher plateaus and bigger pictures, our mind and body can find happiness for us. Our ultimate purpose is happiness. People who have had near death experience and left for a few minutes and returned report on encountering a whole new world.
They often spend the rest of their lives shedding material pursuits and engaging in more love and appreciation. I was fortunate to meet a young person yesterday that already has this recognition. I thought it was amazing at her age to be where it has taken me a lifetime. But she has been surrounded by generations of artists that have taken self expression as their primary enjoyment.
We need to keep getting refreshed, more specific, and seeing the bigger picture as our path to elevated consciousness.
**
See Resource Books for continued learning
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Is Technology Accelerating Unemployment?
Posted by: | CommentsThe global economy is fueled by conflicting independent forces.
Consumption powers employment. The developing nations have depended for their growth on the developed nations consumptions of goods and services.
In “The PostCastrophe Economy” by Gordon Brown, Britain’s former Prime Minister, he says that employment and consumption are necessary for the currently 200 million plus unemployed and 3 billion people living in poverty.
Even though consumption varies between boom and bust, technology advance doubles every few years. It is predicted that by 2029, computers may have more intelligence than humans. In “Lights in the Tunnel” Martin Ford a software entrepreneur, sees a potentially out of control future where smarter than human technology starts improving itself at a pace no one can comprehend and that humans won’t understand.
It’s the nightmare scenario that makes good movies. But in any case, what is clear that in the recovery big business is spending their capital reserves on technology more than on hiring new employees. Even it China, automation in the form of technology and robotics are replacing millions of workers.
The problem for the generalists in the global economy is they comprise up to 50% of the employment roles and new jobs are not being created for them. The green machine creates few jobs and they either for specialists or for $12 an hour generalists.
College graduates do not emerge with skills for the new world. They will join the ranks of the generalists as unemployable except for their needed youthful enthusiasm and interpersonal relationship skills.
Martin sees outsourcing as the first phase of full automation. At first business sends manufacturing and services to lower wage countries like China, India, and South Viet Nam. Then technology automates those jobs. The developing countries see the threat of automation and continued low consumption and are trying to climb the high value consumption ladder.
At a certain point if technology and automation eliminate unemployment, it will eliminate the need for higher production. When revenues drop, more people become unemployed.
The myth is that technology always creates more jobs. At this point, only government spending seems to be creating more jobs. China is spending billions on infrastructure which employs and creates greater productivity dividends, but at some point it has a diminishing return.
Several systems will need to be revamped. Education will need to comprehend the requirements of potential employment. The value of liberal arts will intersect with the increasing costs of study and see a serious drop off rate. College for the masses will need to produce technology skills.
Governments will need to revamp taxation. As the aging boomers and unemployed start relying on entitlements, the tax base dwindles to unsustainable levels. Developing countries need to create the social safety nets to lower the 30% savings rate seen in their populations.
We marvel at IPhones, I Pads, and Plasma screens, but they are not increasing production and mass employment. The real production for which we don’t marvel is increasing computing power, software production, and robotics.
There will always be basic jobs like housekeeping, mechanics, truck drivers, and all the interpersonal requirements of certain businesses, but they don’t pay the wages for the necessary consumption
The best solution for the next generation is awareness.
**
Read “The Lights in the Tunnel” by Martin Ford
Read “The PostCastrophe Economy” by Eric Janzen
Beyond the Crash by Gordon Brown
Read Third World America by Arianna Huffington
See Resource Books for additional knowledge
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The Value in Daily Journaling of Your Favorite Activities
Posted by: | CommentsEach day I write in my calendar book the weather, the height of the local waves and my experience surfing that day. I also note if I ran my stairs first as warm up. This allows me to view my progress and envision what I want to be able to write on the next entry.
Since I want to increase my fitness and my surfing capability, daily entries allow me to get a perspective of where I think I am and where I want to be. It is like being a third party observer.
Then, each week I write a report on my website writing activities to my friend Jim Greenwood and save my reports in a continuing file on my hard drive. They are segments that allow me to see if I am conscious of any progress or changes. They are also stepping stones to somewhere as opposed to unconsciously engaging in the process.
Jim has always said that writing is a good process to see what is on your mind and taking small steps is the way to progress. Tossly.com.
The writings sort of clear my head; they journal my progress. They create a fresh start until the next entry. In the mornings, I create by writing posts for my websites. Then I create my surfing experience by visualizing what I want to accomplish or practice.
The writings would immediately expose if I was in a flat spot with no aspirations. They tell me how I feel about what I am doing. They bring out the most noteworthy or exciting part of my experiences and progress. On bad days, I get in touch with my frustrations and that gives me a point for rebound and improvement.
I keep thinking I will look back some day and enjoy my progress or just get in touch with what I was experiencing at a particular time. Maybe my future grandchildren will read the process of how their grandfather became a famous surfer.
It keeps me accountable for my time and thoughts. If you are a regular reader of my posts you will recall I even reported to you on my January’s progress. That gives me a fresh slate to create new plateaus for February anticipating that I will report back to you.
I now become accountable to you for learning more than I knew in January.
The value was also brought home to me in reading Alan Fines book “You Already Know How to Be Great”. When working with clients in sports and especially business, he gets them to reveal and accept ownership of their own talents, aspirations, and then future plans.
One tennis student couldn’t get the ball on the appropriate side of the court and in bounds. Alan could have told him what to do. It’s what he was getting paid to do.
But Allan has learned that the students already had heard enough coaching on the proper things to do. I remember when I was learning how to ski, an expert friend of mine told me at least 20 things to think about on edging, balance, and turning. When you are descending a hill you are only thinking about crashing and don’t have time to run down the check list.
Alan has learned to get inside the students head to see if there is a schism between what they are being told and what they are thinking. He asked this one student what he was thinking as he saw the ball coming toward him. By getting the students mind off the lessons and concentrating on one specific item, like looking for the seams, it freed the students mind to let his body react normally.
I learned in skiing that instead of concentrating on getting all 20 tips into one run, I would work on one tip at a time. There is a neuroplasticity to the brain where one message given repeatedly can create new growth and recognition.
Getting too many messages at once creates over load. Don’t we experience that in our daily lives? We are thinking of 20 things at a time and not concentrating on one item. Even when we are working on one item we still have 20 items playing music in the background.
If we were concentrating on one item only, chances are we would fall into “flow” and thoroughly enjoy the experience. In fact, “flow” is like runner’s high and can become addictive. It is where we concentrate on one activity and eliminate all distractions. If we can engage without distractions, it creates true happiness.
Constantly freezing our thoughts about something we like in writing allows us to more consciously engage in a process of remembering them and focusing on them. Each time we list our current status, it allows us to then think of what we would like to see in our next status report.
Allan has found that the more specific his clients/students can get about what they are seeing in their experience, the more likely they are to see the next step.
We learn to think about what we think. We can be observers as to what is going on in our mind.
Whole brain thinking engages the left brain to write out specifics about a problem or goal. Then when we give it a rest or suspend the left brain thinking to engage in other activities, the right brain starts to cogitate on solutions or alternatives. The left brain can then come back to evaluate the best alternatives. Revelations, epiphanies, and ahas come from right brain thinking while we are engaged in monotonous exercise activities like running, gardening, showering, or sleeping.
Writing down what you do and enjoy gives you more focus than you would imagine. It helps you decide what is important about the activity. Ever have something exciting happen to you and you want to call someone and tell them about it.
I look for the opportunities to create memorable experiences. I am visualizing where I would enjoy being next. I don’t like goal setting but I enjoy visualizing the next happy plateau.
**
Read “You Already Know How to Be Great” by Alan Fine
Read “Whole Brain Thinking” by Jacelyn Wonder
See Tossly.com “the power of small steps”
See Resource Books for more learning
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What is the Next Step to Getting Better?
Posted by: | CommentsWe already are the best we can be for the moment.
Why don’t we always get the best performance?
“If we did things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves” Thomas A. Edison.
I am reading a book about the late Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinal who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. He was always considered too small to play football at every level. But he had unbelievable faith and determination. He used to push himself to do dare devil death defying stunts. He said it was how he stayed sharp.
I have always pushed my exercise programs to new limits when I needed the personal where withall to reach new business goals. The underlying message is that we have what we need for now, we just need to access it.
In his book “You Already Know How to be Great” Alan Fine says we need to access three sources; Faith, Fire, and Focus. We have to have the faith we can accomplish what we set out to do. We have to have the personal interest in that accomplishment. We have to be able to focus without distractions.
Alan says we are born with pure curiosity and determination. Along the way we are reprimanded for our explorations by our parents, we are shown our limitations by our teachers, we may get schooled by our peers, and life has a way of throwing up a few road blocks.
Soon we hear voices about what we can and can’t do. In Alan’s coaching of world class athletes, he works on getting them to focus on something other than those little voices during performances.
We are often subject to monkey chatter in our brains. The mind is telling us too many messages about what is going to get us. Our stream of consciousness might be a continual parade of bad little messages about our past and what could get us in the future.
The little voices often come up when we don’t want them. Yesterday I was surfing on a perfect wave day. One of the surfers who I aspire to emulate is frequently out at the same time I am. We courteously give each other wave when we start up at the same time. I was about to catch a great wave and he was coming back out and if front of me. I really wanted this wave and would have been proud to impress him.
I thought about impressing him a little too much as I fell off the wave. In the second I lost focus listening to the little voice, I choked. I was mad at myself for missing the wave, for needing to impress him, and not performing with the pressure.
But that happens to us often in many ways. Sometimes we make up the pressure. Before we even start something that would be meaningful we are telling ourselves we can’t do it. Before we want to introduce our selves to someone we are saying they won’t like us. Before we dream of making our lives perfect we say it can’t be done.
Alan talks about a subject I write on frequently; Flow. He says the best performance we are capable of delivering comes from exercising an activity in which we have practiced. We are challenged and not bored. The activity has personal meaning. As we enter the portal we bar all distractions. We then can produce our best performance.
To get athletes, his tennis students, and even his business executives to concentrate or focus he gets them to picture just one aspect of their game. With tennis students, to get their mind off the little voices he will ask them to concentrate on the seams of the ball.
To get golfers to concentrate on their swing and not the crowds, he will get them to picture something specific and let it take over their mind. If you concentrate on one thing, it might shut out everything else.
When I surf to catch a wave, its paddle, push up, and stand. But while that is going on in my mind my body is doing what it already knows how to do after having ridden hundreds of waves. I just have to have all my senses working together to get the timing and coordination. They have to be in perfect touch with each other without distraction.
You can have flow in your activities but you can also have flow in your life if you can eliminate enough distractions.
**
I want to thank my friend Jim Greenwood who writes Tossly.com, “the truth of small steps” for his constant editing and feed back.
Read ‘You Already Know How to Be Great” by Alan Fine
Read “Where Men Win Glory” by Jon Krakauer. About Pat Tillman and how we created Osama BinLaden, 9/11, and our Afghanistan nightmare. We helped create and fund our current enemies to defeat the Russians in the same manner Iran is doing to us now and China did in Viet Nam. There seems to be a “CIA type mentality” in all major rivals for global supremacy.
**
See additional Resource Books for your development
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How to Over Come Slow Progress
Posted by: | CommentsResistance and gravity seem to be natural laws in spirituality, business, and life.
Making things more aerodynamic is a technology present in commerce and sports.
“Over coming” and “trying harder” are two phrases we hear often in our motivation to succeed.
When things don’t go as planned, resistance is winning. We have all experienced times when everything works as planned and get frustrated when our efforts seem to have no results or even worse, negative results.
I have faced many obstacles in my years and learned three lessons. First, I exert my best efforts and talents to achieve an objective. If find that I cannot reach that objective, then I create a new strategy.
Secondly, the objective is usually part of a larger goal. If my goal is to make $100,000 this year, for example, it is part of a larger goal of taking care of my family, creating savings, collecting a deposit for a purchase of a house, or creating financial independence.
So if I don’t make the $100,000, then I have to reach my goals with a different strategy.
Thirdly, don’t ever quit. I listened to a great discussion with Donald Trump and students at a university with him on stage and them firing him questions for an hour. When asked at the end, what is one thing he would tell everyone, he said “Don’t ever quit.”
We often hit flat spots where we start to question the value, the likelihood, the feasibility of continuing our efforts. It is important to understand the relevance of our near term objective to how we want to live. Is this particular endeavor something we want to do for the rest of our lives or does it express who we are?
I have realized in my latest avocation at the end of my real estate days, that writing is one of three of four things that I want in my life. Therefore, I write every day. My style and the ease of it have morphed over time, but I never get tired of it.
I have realized that since I moved to the beach fitness and especially surfing are two things I wanted in my life. Surfing can be frustrating and it is easier to learn when you are 15 years old, but nonetheless, I want it in my life. Therefore I surf every day.
Two things happen when you commit to an activity or objective and practice every day. You become used to the activity and develop some reasonable competence. It gets to the point that you don’t have to concentrate on the mechanics. You just do it.
As you engage in a distraction free environment you experience the activity and everything else in the world seems to be a noise that is far away. Soon you are fully engrossed and time loses meaning. You are not worried about judgment and you are not doing it for a material reward. You are just doing it because you enjoy what is happening.
This is flow or being in the zone. Your brain is producing endorphins and dopamine and these are the chemicals associated with happiness. Selig Martin, a known psychologist, says happiness is a process.
So if you are frustrated with your progress you have to ask yourself whether the activity really has meaning for you. Are you engaged because there is a motivation such as a pay check or are you engaging because you are inspired?
It is difficult to pursue something that is not you. It is difficult to get into flow in an activity that does not have meaning for you. Since flow is where the happiness is, you need to consider the value of your endeavor.
If the objective is not you, then you should consider it a short term objective and transition to something that allows you to express who you are.
**
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What Does it Take to Go From Loser to Winner?
Posted by: | CommentsOur culture creates some paralyzing stigmas.
We tend to see things in black and white.
Our brains and personalities are designed from birth to create categories.
The creation of categories into which we can distribute the incoming stimulus from our five senses keeps the brain from going into overwhelm. Our genetics and early development have an influence on how we sort and categorize information.
In our development we start to accept our cultures labels for certain activities, events, results, and status. In the natural world animals do not have choice. They are born with instincts and capabilities. They survive on those two assets. They eat and get eaten.
Man has evolved into higher capabilities but he still does not have the free will he thinks he has. He is still limited by genes, early development, and circumstances. He has instincts and intelligence. He has goals that are generally set early by his interpretation of what society has to offer him.
The words loser and winner have no real meaning in the natural world. They are categories and they are stigmas. I have asked sales people what they fear most and they often are not sure whether they fear success or failure most.
Success has responsibilities and expectations. Failure has a release of expectations but maybe accompanied by scorn. Do you want to be held to expectations? Top tennis players have said the pressure of being number one in the world is unbearable to many with the talent to be number one.
Today we have a Super Bowl game with one quarterback that seems to relish the big opportunity. We’ll see how it goes. How come he doesn’t wilt under pressure but seems to excel?
The one quality that cannot be measured until it is proven and maybe the consolidation of genes, personality, early development, and circumstances is Spirit. Spirit is totally individual. It may be inherited but more likely it is the result of interpretation of everything that passes through a person’s stimulus receptors and is stored and categorized in the hippocampus and amygdale.
We develop a deep seated response to whether we can over come all obstacles or whether we can’t. We decide whether we have an equal chance of getting what we want if we put in the time or we decide we don’t have a chance.
Winners never quit. There is no failure if there is no quit. Winners see stalled ambitions as running into failure of short term objectives. They then change strategies and try again. There is no winners and losers. Winners will not be denied.
On a more spiritual level there is the realm of what we can comprehend through left brain thinking and there is the larger realm which we cannot comprehend. We connect only to the larger realm through intuition, revelation, epiphanies, and ahas. There is a universal energy or intelligence that we have ascribed to certain fore bearers.
There is a belief in this intelligence and ability to access it that gave people like Abraham, the founder of several religions, Socrates, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, Mozart, and Einstein to name a few the ability to understand, comprehend, intuit things beyond normal left brain thinking.
Part of it is faith and part of it is connection. We often get glimpses of something beyond what we see or hear with our senses. We often get messages in subtle ways. Some are better at hearing and paying attention than others. Some of these people we might even call psychics.
We are all created perfect in every way. There is no imperfection in the natural world. You don’t see planets veering out of orbit and crashing into other planets after even billions of years; 15 billion to be more exact. The universe is tried and tested.
You can believe in your own imperfections which may just be your comparison of your genes, early development and circumstances compared to someone else’s. But you have access to the same spirit, which is energy, that created the universe.
Even Tom Brady, who was drafted to the Patriots number 198 or thereabouts likes to remind people he was considered almost a loser in his sphere. He was even sixth string in college.
San Diego State basket ball team has not won a NCAA play off game in 41 years and maybe seeded number one in their region this year. They have been the ultimate example of “losers”. They are not deterred because their coach Steve Fisher never gives up.
Loser is a term in other people’s minds. Only you can determine what is in your mind.
**
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How to Create Focus and Flow in Our Lives
Posted by: | CommentsMost everything is a distraction.
We feel we have free will and can attain anything we wish. One of our problems is we are not sure what we want. We have some general ideas from the time we are young that we want wealth, fame, power, family, happiness and wonderful retirement.
We are given lots of examples of people who have achieved. We read about them and see them in the media every day. We may decide at one point to go in a certain direction.
Our lives are somewhat predetermined. We have certain genetics. Our personalities are formed from being influenced by our parents, friends, and circumstances. We therefore have certain personality traits, a level of intelligence, and spirit.
Our lives are often directed by what we like and don’t like. We pursue the pleasures and avoid the pains. Our minds have a great influence on us and we trust them because they seem to feel they know us.
So we are in pursuit of all our dreams. In the meantime there are lots of distractions. We get involved in careers, relationships, and pleasurable pursuits. The more money we have the more we can enjoy. We were put here most of us believe to live the good life.
Distractions can create a lot of disharmony. We pursue very few goals with calm committed unwavering diligence. We are not often aware of our core competencies and how to build them into a meaningful contribution. We often accept our job or current income as our fate. These days, most people feel they cannot get what they want or even sustain what they have.
Animals have less choice and maybe they are better for it. The life of the cheetah is predetermined. It has certain skills. It knows what it needs to survive and where to find it. It uses it speed to survive. It lives within the balance of nature. When there is plentiful game there may be more cheetahs. When there is less game there may be fewer.
I have noticed when I surf that when I get into the water I am assessing the current waves, the amount of people competing for the waves, and my ability to catch them in the way that they are breaking. In the beginning, I have a lot on my mind. When I am positioning for the first few waves I am not concentrating on the ride, I am thinking of what is going on around me including what the wave is doing.
After a while, I am in motion and I am just riding, positioning and completing. I have a feel for what everyone else is doing and I can watch them, but they are blocked out of my mind. I am in flow.
In our lives we have dreams and we have core competencies. We have to properly assess our gifts and talents and how to utilize them to create the maximum return for ourselves.
We are very distracted by what is happening in our environment. We are often anxious about what is happening around us and our ability to get what we want or need. We don’t focus on what we can deliver.
When an athlete can focus and shut out the noise, he is in the zone. When he can’t, he may choke. Choking occurs when we are so focused on the ramifications of our actions that our adrenaline impedes our performance.
Flow is engaging in activities that are challenging but within our competence. In the act, we do not see the distractions. We act without concern for judgment. We act not worried about the outcome. We are purely enjoying our ability to deliver at our own peak performance level.
Neuroscientists say that in the “flow” our brain chemicals are producing endorphins and dopamine which are associated with happiness. Amazing how that which we do best might also make us happiest.
We allow the distractions. We create the distractions. We often fail to keep building on our core competencies by continuously learning. We allow all our goals to keep us from focusing on one or two. We see all the candy in the store and can’t decide which we want. We are the cheetah who knows he lives off speed and decides he wants fish.
We can have flow in our lives just as we can have flow in a single pursuit. Just expand the same parameters. Focus on a few passions and make them part of your life. Build a community of family and friends that you support and who will support you.
Our brain chemicals give us a double pop when our talents are contributing to a greater good. If we are all pursing our core competencies and are in flow with our activities and lives, we are contributing to the greater good.
**
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Dopamine or Adrenaline, Which is Your Style?
Posted by: | CommentsThey are good indications of whether we are living at the affect of life around us or whether we are creating the life we lead.
Dopamine is a brain chemical created when life is agreeing with us or when we are engaged in activities we enjoy. We are in control of our emotions. When we get into territory where situations or life is getting out of control we start producing adrenaline.
Adrenaline can interrupt the synchronization of the brain where the rational, creative and emotional brains are working together. Adrenaline to excess can cause dysfunctional behavior. An excess of adrenaline is responsible for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and ADD.
To a lesser degree it causes anxiety and can lead to depression. Just as harmful as too much adrenaline resulting from beta waves over 30 hertz is the escape path people pursue to get a moment’s peace.
People with high anxiety are more likely to use alcohol and drugs to suspend the left brain sphere of the neo cortex and relax into the peace of the right brain sphere.
Dopamine is the result of joyous peaks or sustained happiness. From dopamine we get a boost of serotonin, elevated neurotransmitters, and stimulated endorphins. Dopamine is the result of working on challenging satisfying tasks.
The more your life is in order, the more dopamine you will experience and the more satisfying your days. Flow is one measure of working on meaningful tasks that allow your talents to be engaged while you stonewall the distractions. Being in the zone is another common term for flow.
Eliminating distractions requires a concerted effort in this era. First on most people’s mind are their economic circumstances or job, asset, and income security. The bottom line is whether we expect our income to exceed expenses.
We create more stress by how we structure our activity. Many people dive right into the news and allow them selves to get anxious by upheavals, economic reports, and politics. They don’t allow the brain to refresh during the day as they stay constantly connected to digital devices and emails.
The brain could be relieved of adrenaline and anxiety by getting into monotonous activities like meditating, long runs or walks. A few breaks during the day could cause increased productivity and a relieved nervous system.
Then we could look at restructuring our lives so that the brain has more peace.
The first line of defense would be to reduce debts and living expenses to bring them within the boundaries of income. The second most pressing issue today might be job security so we should be continuously learning and improving our skills. It seems health weighs on people minds so we should be more self reliant with healthy eating and exercise. Retirement weighs on more people these days so savings should become a habit even if its $10 a week.
Your brain registers that you are making progress in each area and finds solace. Then it can work on improving each area in a pro active manner instead of being at the affect of doing nothing in each area.
Dopamine production requires positive thinking and optimism. Getting your life in order with pro active planning turns the tide. Warren Berger in discussing how designers have been called upon to solve so many quantitative and qualitative issues says they have to be optimistic. They are often asked to solve the seemingly impossible.
If what we are working on is boring, we will not enter flow. If what we are working on is beyond our capacity, we will be to “adrenalized” to enter flow. So how does a designer get into flow working on what have heretofore been impossible solutions?
“An engineer becomes a designer when he truly begins to empathize with human needs and desires” Warren Berger “Glimmer”. The design industry and the social sector blend because the first is about solving problems and the second is about unsolved problems.
In “The Happiness Advantage” Shaw Achor says that as you add core competencies you will feel better, enhance your productivity, and become more motivated. We can’t add core competencies ad infinitum, but we can keep learning.
We find that the practices of constant learning, building skills, and developing discipline, create confidence, self esteem, and a positive vision for the future. With this outlook, each of our activities can start creating dopamine and happiness.
Anxieties begin in the brain/mind generally as fear. There are a number of things that can reduce anxiety. Eating to normalize blood sugar which means eating healthy and avoiding ups and downs created by sugar and alcohol. Exercise balances out the alpha and beta waves of our brain, boosts metabolism, and stabilizes blood sugar.
Several other activities can reduce adrenaline and support creativity such as hobbies, monotonous exercise like running, eliminating distractions, household chores, car washing, gardening, yoga, meditating, and reading.
So you can see a pattern developing. Get your life in order. Get control of your mind through discipline. Reduce anxiety with monotonous or consuming activities that suspend left brain activity. Engage in core competencies or passions. Use your talents to benefit a greater good. Create support with family, friends, and community.
See everything as the glass is half full. Create or seek positive environments and avoid toxic people or situations. Try to do less at a time rather than more at a time. Multi tasking results in anxiety and less meaningful results.
Be accountable for where you are, don’t judge others, don’t react negatively to anyone as in anger or revenge, help as many people as you can each day, and know that if you believe you can succeed you are half way there.
**
Read “Glimmer” by Warren Berger
Read “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor
Read “Heal Your Mind Rewire Your Brain” by Patt Lind Kyle
Read “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman
Read Whole Brain Thinking by Jacelyn Wonder
Read “The PostCastrophe Economy” by Eric Janzen
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How Do You Know Your Purpose?
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes in our busy routines we might ask why we are here.
I don’t remember anyone ever talking to me about my purpose for being here. I know that I have plenty of responsibilities to fulfill while I am here. I grew up thinking my purpose was the traditional good grades, good college, good job, and good income.
Happiness has always seemed to be like the gift from heaven that you received if you did everything you were supposed to do. It seems, however, that philosophers, neuroscientists, scientists, and psychologists have given a different definition that could be followed.
They all seem to agree on basically the same path and for the same reasons. They would point out that an achievement or victory or single event creates happiness that is reflected in the elevation of neurotransmitters, endorphins, and dopamine (NED). Winning is addictive. Achievement is addictive. Feeling naturally high is addictive.
Sustaining the happiness syndrome would be a worthwhile goal especially if it were the result of fully expressing our selves, making a contribution, or using our talents for the good of the community. This would be the ultimate positive use of our energy and the activities that would sustain the chemicals that neuroscientists call our happy state.
In “Glimmer” by Warren Berger, he says designers are being asked to solve quality of life issues for cities and nations and would naturally wonder about designing better personal lives. He lists “emergence” as a worthwhile goal and the Fibonacci Sequence as a good model.
In emergence, you set a goal for personal growth and the environment for it and by the Fibonnacci Sequence, you don’t know where it will end. It just keeps growing and maybe not completely in your control.
4 key lessons for designing Emergence would be:
- Create you own eco system that is self sustaining and conducive to growth.
- Develop a strong supportive relationship with the community around you
- Keep learning
- Keep creating and reinventing
These four themes are recurrent with leading designers on how to design a better life. Continuous learning is the first major building block. “The way to design more learning forever is to continuously move away from what you know” Bruce Mau. He defined learning as moving in breadth and depth into new topics to form a line of T’s TTTTTTT.
Richard Wurman, the founder of TED (technology, entertainment and design) and author of 80 books said “if we are able to design our own lives wouldn’t the best measure of success ultimately be that every day is interesting”
Martin Seligman of University of Pennsylvania and former President of American Psychological Association says happiness is more of a process than an end. Richard Wurman’s process of continuous learning and producing has been associated with Flow.
Flow occurs when we know we have skills to master a challenge and then immerse ourselves. Once we have mastered the challenge we can lose flow. If the difficulties of the challenge are too great we fall out of flow until we learn new skills. Berger
How do scientists define happy? “The experience of positive emotions of pleasure combined with deeper meaning.” Shawn Achor in the the “Happiness Advantage”.
Shawn says we are hard wired to perform better when we have positive thoughts. The affects of a positive perspective is to make us more:
- Thoughtful
- Creative
- Open to New Ideas
“Positive emotions flood our brain with dopamine and serotonin and improve our problem solving capabilities. A burst of happiness is a primer for Creativeness and Innovation.” Achor
What are some good tips for getting into positive states:
- Meditate
- Look forward to something
- Be kind to someone
- Create positive surroundings
- Eliminate Distractions
- Exercise to elevate endorphins
- Use and Develop Core Competencies
Shawn Achor says we can use the principal of the Archimedes fulcrum in that the more we believe in our ability to succeed, the more likely we will. When our brains are continuously scanning for and focus on the positive we tend to be more:
- Happy
- Have more gratitude
- Be more optimistic
The more gratitude people have the more they tend to be:
- Happy
- Positive
- Optimistic
- More Socially Connected
- Better Sleepers
- Fewer Headaches
So back to Martin Seligman who says the more time we spend in “Engaging Activities” which are the challenging and creative activities that lead to “Flow” the more we are involved in the activities of happiness.
“These types of creative activities engage a part of the brain called the Nucleus Accumbens that control how we feel about life” Dr. S Ausiim Azizi Chairman of Dept of Neurology Temple University.
So continues Martin,”engaging or creating stimulating activities that are also meaningful and contribute to a cause bigger than your self achieves the highest activation of positive brain chemicals.” Maybe this is the secret to the pay off of philanthropy.
“Being in the flow raises the level of neurotransmitters in your brain (NED) and keeps you focused and energized”. Dr. Gabriela Cora of The Florida Neuroscience Center.
The Kabala, studied by Sir Isaac Newton, Plato, and Pythagoras says the purpose of life is to transform into a life that is Pro Active. It seems there is certainly a body of evidence and credibility pointing to a pro active, positive, optimistic effort to use our core competencies to work for the better good as a process to activate our purpose.
**
Read “Glimmer” by Warren Berger
Read “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor
Read “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman
Read “The Power of Kabala” by Yehuda Berg
See Resource Books on other topics
Ideas for your future brought to you by
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Why We Love Fear
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a powerful narcotic.
It tests how manly/womanly we are.
All great record breaking accomplishments pass through fear.
Nothing rocks your body naturally like the chemicals produced by fear.
Adrenaline makes us feel alive because we don’t know how to produce a steady stream of endorphins and dopamine.
Long before we were homo sapiens we were like reptiles on two legs. We were kind of bent over for awhile so we kind of hobbled along on two legs before we were early man erectus.
Life was like living in Bagdad. You never knew if you were going to come home at night. We had only one brain and that reptilian brain had just a few options. We recognized animate objects as prey, predator, or mate. Survival and procreation were our two strongest instincts.
Before the limbic brain there was no love as we know it today. Lizards will kill and eat their young. Man not only had to worry about a lot of animals that had him over matched, he had to worry about finding enough food not to starve. He didn’t think much about leisure or vacations. He only lived to his early 30’s. There were no safety nets.
We haven’t traveled as far as you think. We have two new brains developed about 100,000 years ago as we became homo sapiens, but they can be dominated by the early stimulus receptors of the reptilian and limbic brains.
Fear can really make you feel alive as it sets off a highly reactive adrenaline pump in nanoseconds. Think of why we are so addicted to coffee. We like adrenaline. Think of why we are so addicted to action sports as both participants and spectators. Why do people like creepy movies where things can jump out of closets with knives?
We make decisions of whether we want to participate in adrenaline pumping activities where we may make it out alive or whether we may not. New Zealand is the adrenaline mecca where a lack of U.S. insurance restrictions and home of bungee jumping allow people to experience all sorts of scary real adventures that won’t kill them.
But nonetheless, all over the world people like to take off the leash. I like to hike but I don’t like to free climb steep rock walls without ropes. I don’t want to climb to 28,000 feet where there is no oxygen. I like to read about people who do.
Today I surf and see little danger in it other than some good thrashings when the swells are bigger. But I try to keep my finances in order so that I won’t starve and my health in good stead so I won’t get sick or diseased. I try and take care of my responsibilities so I won’t get hassled. I live orderly out of fear of the consequences from not taking care of things.
Earlier in life I had less regard for the danger of spending more than I made. I had less regard for the risk of buying assets with financing even if they were depreciating assets. I had less regard for the consequences of saying things that might have negative affects.
Do we live with a little recklessness laughing in the face of fear? Do we get intoxicated and do crazy things daring the God of death to play with us? Do we smoke knowing it can kill us but throw caution to the wind because we are bigger than life? Do we eat what ever we want because we like the thought of tempting disease to try and get us?
These are reactive fears. We do things we want that are risky and figure we can make it across the tracks before the train gets us. We could turn it the other way. We could do things that were good for us and then see how far we could push our talents. We could do the really scary thing of finding out who we really are.
We could sit for 45 minutes in isolation to see if we would actually go crazy. We could put down all the digital devices to see what our mind has to say to us. We could allow our brains to rest to see if boredom would kill us.
We could give ourselves some private time to see if we could actually come up with some creative ideas. What if we couldn’t think of anything? That would be scary.
In “Hamlet’s BackBerry”, William Powers writes about how to break or even give a break to our digital connectivity addictions. He says his family of three would sit in their living room after dinner in front of a cozy fire and one by one people would peel off to go sit in front of a monitor to talk with someone else.
He said their family finally decided they would not engage in the internet on week ends. After several months they started really enjoying their time together and started appreciating more of life’s offerings after they slowed down.
Can you believe that now our biggest fear seems to be spending time in solitude? Our biggest fear is sitting with people we like for awhile and not knowing what might be happening on our Iphones or who might be sending us an email or whether someone thinks we are not paying attention to them or wondering if anyone out there loves us?
We are living reactively and allowing things and fears to control our lives. That is not fun and does not excite the chemicals we want activated. It does the opposite and creates anxiety and depression.
Rather than watch how the world is consuming us through economics and war, we could do really important work and throw it out into the universe to be judged.This would create the positive brain chemicals known for happiness. This would cause a fear we could learn to manage.
We need to live pro actively to really find happiness. We need to take our lives back and force our will on our minds with healthy eating and exercise, share our love with people we visit, challenge ourselves to find out who we are and push our own envelope to make meaningful record breaking contributions.
These are the activities that excite the endorphins, neurotransmitters, and dopamine that are responsible for happiness. These are the chemicals that we enjoy more than adrenaline.
Flow is engaging in activities using our talents that we know we can accomplish even though they are challenging. It is a pro active act to reach peak performance and contribute to the greater good.
Let’s get pro active and go through fear to accomplish and make a statement. Let’s not live with fear that is coming at us and controlled by others. When we live at the affect of everything, we snap on Friday nights and go out and engage in some really scary behavior.
**
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How Flow, Kabbalah, and Science Open Door to Happiness
Posted by: | Comments“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music” Angela Monet
Ever have a dream where you were so close to eternal happiness but couldn’t get through the barrier and you woke up.
Scientists of the 21st Century and the Kabbala written 2,000 years ago agree in principal on the big bang theory that occurred 15 billion years ago to bring the universe into being. They agree on the ten dimensions of existence. Scientists call it String Theory.
Six of the dimensions are just beyond our perception, but we reach them on a regular basis with revelations, epiphanies and ahas. The five senses do not give us real contact with a much larger reality of natural laws.
Einstein, Newton, Galileo, and DaVinci, did not invent the ideas for which they are famous, they discovered them. Everything we would like to know in science, medicine, psychology, music, and technology already exists on a different plane.
When we have revelations or use intuition we are in touch with this energy field that holds all knowledge. The five senses relate stimulus on what exists in our physical world. They do not reach into a larger source of inspiration, innovation, intuition, rapture, or joy that is also available.
The Kabbala says as interpreted in a book “The Power of Kabala” by Yehuda Berg that we tend to abandon things we receive too easily. We really want to work for the something that will have a tremendous payoff because we earned it.
A mountain climber could summit a 10,000 foot mountain three times a week and see great views, get plenty of exercise and return safely each night. Why do we have to climb Everest?
Flow is a step child of the Kabala but makes happiness simpler on a more achievable plane. As the top rung of the Emotional Intelligence ladder, flow is engaging in activities in which we have competence but are not beyond our capabilities.
As we engage, the endorphins and dopamine hit a euphoric level of production. Our mind and body work to the best of our ability to produce our peak performance. The periods of engagement create what neuroscientists call our zone of happiness.
Kabbala also discusses that most of our pursuits are for temporary happiness. Things we buy, things we achieve, trophies, new clothes, fast cars, drugs, only give us a temporary lift.
Just as the universe of energy contains all the laws of science, medicine, and technology that we have yet to discover, it also contains all the laws of fulfillment that we would like to enjoy. Just as undiscovered knowledge cannot be found on Google, undiscovered fulfillment cannot be purchased.
Einstein said there is a spiritual dimension where all laws exist. Mozart said he heard entire symphonies in his head before he wrote a note. Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed the “Kubla Khan” flowed out of him in a one half hour sitting and he never changed a word.
We can reach this energy field with intuition and with flow. To find long lasting fulfillment we have to work for it. It is the way we would want it
The Kaballah as interpreted by Berg says the purpose of life is a spiritual transformation from the Reactive to Pro Active.
In Pro Active we have the attributes of Being:
- The cause
- The creator
- In control
- Sharing
In the Reactive mode we are
- At the affect
- Being created
- Being controlled by everything
- Receiving
It should be noted first that gratification is a balance between sharing and receiving. Secondly, Reactive Behavior is any reaction we have to external stimulus that results in resentment, jealousy, pride, low self esteem, vindictiveness, frustration, hatred, or irritation to name a few.
These reactions set off negative feelings that separate us from the energy we seek. They separate us from our intuition.
Instead of reacting to stimulus we have to fail to react. When we react we are consumed with negative thoughts, selfish impulses, and egocentric urges.
An important rule that underlies all our behavior is we must never judge or blame others or events for why we are where we are. Everything is meant to be and we are to work our way out.
The negatives we see in others are a reflection of what we see in ourselves. Everything we have is a reflection of seeds we have sown. As we work through our own trials we will start to see fewer issues with other people and with external events.
Even in global economic peril we will be focusing on our own ascension to connect with our intuition, expression of our capabilities, sharing with others, and controlling our reactions.
In each trial, we are not dealing with other people or events, we are dealing with our own personal opponent that would like to see us fail. Defeating this personal opponent who wants to see negative reactions is how we reach our personal Super Bowl.
I realize that my opponent has cursed me with a few real life irritations. I get irrational over barking dogs. They disturb my tranquility. Then offend my sense of privacy. I want to take vengeance on the dogs and the owners.
I take the same umbrage with people who are talking loud near me or on their cell phones in my space. I used to have a very low voice that vibrated through a room like the base on stereo speakers and people would look at me because I was clearly irritating them without even being in their conversations. Payback.
We all can recognize a few real irritants and how others behavior might reflect something of ourselves.
The fact that the psychological study of human emotional intelligence in flow, the philosophical study of transformation in Kabbala, and the scientific studies of natural laws would all point to an energy field just beyond our comprehension has to lend some credence to its existence.
They point to the lesson that money and power lead to egotistical satisfaction and short term happiness, not to the real truth or the discovery of our real purpose.
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Read The Power of Kabbala by Yehuda Berg
Read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
See Resource Books for more discovery.
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