[Book Review] What is Your What by Steve Olsher

I am reading this book right now.

I hope the book lives up to its title!

Life can be incredibly jam-packed with distractions.

Perhaps this book will help connect the dots,

condense and converge my efforts.

So far, the book introduced some basic ideas

about 4 stages of competencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

And it gives your some follow up exercises to map

where you are currently.

I really liked the exercise about the 'disconnect' we have,

I guess it could be called self-sabotage, or our blind-spots...

The author states that we all have some sort of disconnect(s)
between what we think others think of us, and how we actually are.

The bigger the gap, the more deluded and ineffective we will be.

What is Your What? on Amazon.com

I will do a follow up post, when I finish getting through the book's exercises!

The Buried Life Revisited

My friend mentioned The Buried Life recently on Facebook. Apparently, she had gone to an event and heard them live! Lucky duck! Well, I checked out their Facebook, their official site, and their Pinterest and here are some inspirational pictures from the wonderful team! :-)

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And here are some more!

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In case you're wondering, this is what they look like...

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This is what their original list of 100 looks like!

Happy Daily Living to You!

Namaste,

J. Ahn

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The Art of Living Every Minute of Your Life by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen

I just came across a great video on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xBjIHEhtg

I like her suggestions for journaling.
She recommends that you write the events of your day backwards to the moment you awoke. And then you ask yourself three questions.

1. What surprised me today?
2. What touched my heart today?
3. What inspired me today?

I've found that of all the diaries I kept in the past, there were so many of the entries that didn't really seem to matter much after the years had turned to dust.

I wish I could keep a journal that does more than just that!
I am still looking for the right 'frame of mind' or the right 'thread' that pieces my life that'd hold well, when I look back on it.

Book Review: 20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D. Smith

http://www.amazon.com/20-000-Days-Counting-Mastering/dp/0849948541/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1361457338&sr=8-3

I found this on Kindle the other night. Ever since my best friend from highschool years passed a way last Winter, I've had this feeling of something 'hanging over me' and I just couldn't quite put a finger on how to deal with it.

This book was a helpful read. It DID get me more into the frame of mind I wanted about Death.

The question here posed, 'What if today were your LAST...?' got me to think also about, 'What if there were NO tomorrow...?' and although they have overlaps I feel that ultimately, they drive different points.

The hardest part though is the other aspect of 'framing' this concept around death, if your mindset REALLY got itself wrapped around the notion of ABSOLUTELY NO TOMORROWS, then each day of your life WILL be focusing on using up or enjoying exactly what is in front of you. BUT if you knew you had 20 days left to live, 12 days, or even 3 days left to live, your 'strategy' and what you choose to go for could be entirely different! For me, at least, this is what is driving me crazy and 'stuck.'

I'll have to experiment I guess. For some, they'd be content focusing on really 1 day at a time. For others, a list like Goddard's might do the trick.

Last night, as I pondered over this, my initial thoughts were to go and buy myself a sewing machine. I thought that my biggest regret would be to not have that experience of a buzzing busy sewing machine.

Now that I am semi-awake now, my mind is perplexed at not knowing how to resolve the 'Accomplishment Issue' and how long it takes to complete things.

OK. Well. Today is Day 12,776 for me.
Anything more than 600 feels like quite a lot to me.
But when I think of sequences, anything more than 9 or 12 is quite a bit of length.
Or if you compared 1 day against 2 days, even that is a huge deal!

Argh!!
OK. More to come soon.

Too hungry to think well!

If 2011 Was Going To Be The Last Year Of Your Life, What Would Be In Your Backpack?

http://www.thelastyearofyourlife.com/The_Last_Year_Of_Your_Life/Welcome.html

How To End Procrastination, Fear, Doubt, and DeClutter Your Life -- "The Last Year of Your Life"

I found this video while searching for some motivation to help me declutter. Interestingly, it's really gotten me back to my Bucket-List. :-> Hope this inspires you today!!

I also found one thread on 43things.com:

http://www.43things.com/things/view/1661187/live-one-year-of-my-life-as-if-its-my-last

9 items on my New Bucket List

#1. I'd like to see the AURORA BOREALIS
I saw a picture of it somewhere and it looked ...

#2. Swim with sharks and dolphins

I heard my friend who said she swam with dolphins, ...

#3. Design my own clothes

I've always wanted to design my own clothes! Won't be ...

#4. Write a novel/short story/article and have it published

I've always wanted to be an author!

#5. Live in a brickhouse with a fireplace and garden

I've always had a thing for brickhouses; my uncle lives ...

#6. Support the livelihood of Love Birds

I had a really cute lovebird once. I accidentally killed ...

#7. Share my art work and use profits to help people who need Creativity and Inspiration in their lives.

Art works of so many kind have given me inspiration. ...

#8. Own a sports car

And enjoy the speed, the wind in my hair, and cool image!

 

#9. Choose one small activity that will thread my entire life

When I thought about my death, I really wished I ...

http://www.bucketlist.net/lists/user/jeeyoona/#.Tqm7dOup9SE.email

Wish: Sleep Well At Night / Obstacle: My day isn't over yet blues (GUILT)

Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. That usual sense of *guilt* that I haven't done enough, didn't finish what I was supposed to, or could have done more of was hanging over me. And that feeling just REALLY bothered me.

How is it, that when I am living my own life in my own skin, I can't control this feeling?

Feeling annoyed, wanting to do away with it once and for all, I started searching the words "closure" and "completion" on my Galaxy Tab Kindle. I found one book that merited attention.

I didn't quite finish the book, it was already close to 4am, but I feel I have found a new *mantra* for my predicament. A predicament that's gone on for more than 2 decades now!

You can read the review to the book here. It's called Don't Start What You Can't Finish - The Book Of Completion and written by Morag Campbell. Reading the book, I feel like I have reset my bottomline. So often, I would have these delusional thoughts; thinking I could accomplish a million things all at once. We all know that that is hokum (to quote Sheldon Cooper).

I read somewhere that the best way to feel happy on a daily basis is to live each day and feel that "good tired" feeling at the end of your day.

I just got off the phone with my sister who told me to write out a *realistic* timetable for my day. And see how many free hours I ACTUALLY have. She said hers was at best a 2 hr per day... and that I might have more as I have no kids. She also mentioned that in her experiment to sleep earlier (apparently it helps you lose weight also!) she found that unless there was something fun and enjoyable to do in the morning hours, it was so easy to just go back to sleep after waking up early. So the best way to work this is to a) sleep early, b) watch the fun American TV shows IN THE MORNING. Not at night!

OK. Gotta go now. But I hope this little pebble in the world wide web pond touches upon the lives of other quality-sleep-seekers that come across this post!


Namaste~~

Types of Journal Research: Response Journal

OK. So I found something that could give rise to an on-going project for me.

One type is the reader response journal or literature log, in which learners record their responses to readings. 

 http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/journal.htm




The diaries I kept -- sporadically over the years -- relying on the events of my day and also the intensity of my emotions have consistently proven themselves to be unhelpful. They were unbalanced and temporal at best. Hardly the type of record I would like to preserve as a testament to my life and living.

Instead a consistent theme or a question or cluster of issues with attention to some detail might actually prove more valuable as information over time.

It needs to be a documentation and log, rather than an emotional thing.

Some of my most natural habitual activities are... a) dressing my truth, b) shopping to see what's out and what's new, c) books mostly self-help on Kindle, d) American TV shows, e) health and recovery, and f) interior design.

Hmmm... Maybe I'll keep a Response Journal of American TV shows.

What I Wish for in Life - Unvarying Something

Lately I've been giving more thought to what I would really like at the end of my life. The difficulty in establishing exactly what I want out of life springs from all my competing desires. But out of them all, what I would love to be able to look back on is that one Constant, a thing that threads all the days of my life into one cohesive whole.

I wonder what that *glue* or *thread* might be. For some this would be a diary they keep, others might document their life in video or photo format. But whatever it is, I believe it would be some form or variation of *Observation* they made on Earth during their fleeting stay here.

In order to come to a decision, I will have to explore my options and see what some others have done to preserve the days of their lives.

Some very generic answer might be Anne Frank's diary... a lot of writers and photographers or natural scientist or historians works.

But who knows. I might be able to come across something truly unique and extraordinary!