From my post Revealing Your Inner Super Hero at Dumb Little Man:

“Everyone wants to be strong, intelligent, confident, and incredibly adept at everything we attempt. Yet everything we do is clouded to some degree by uncertainty and fear. We fear we will make mistakes, we fear we will be rejected, and we fear outright failure. No matter how confident we may outwardly appear, every one of us has inner demons we must battle.

What we forget – or fail to realize at all – is that each one of us has special qualities and talents that make us unique. We cannot excel at everything, but each one of us excels at something.”

Read the rest of Revealing Your Inner Super Hero at Dumb Little Man.

There is an ancient Hebrew teaching that upon our death, not only will we be called upon to account for our sins, but also for every permissible pleasure we refused.

Mind you, this isn’t permission to act irresponsibly or immoderately. Rather, it assumes that within our life falls enough moments of joy, love and pleasure to temper the bad, and that to pass these moments up is to return the gift of life unopened, or at least partially unused.

What a glorious attitude! Life is meant to be lived. But living life with a full appreciation for the beauty and fullness of experience doesn’t come naturally to everyone. In fact, some aspects of our culture seem bound and determined to make us feel guilty for any pleasure or respite we seek, no matter how innocent, positive or life affirming. Read Post

Is it over yet?

March hasn’t been a very good month for Wisconsinites. Witness the following:

1. Although our prized Badgers made it into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, they were taken down by Cinderella team Davidson Friday night in a convincing 16 point win for the Wildcats, thus thwarting an Elite Eight appearance for our home team.

2. This has been one of the most brutal winters for Wisconsin, as we’ve shoveled more snow than at any time, except one season, in the history of snowfall record-keeping. As others experience the signs of spring, we’re still waiting for the ice on the lakes to melt.

3. And then there was The Day That Football Died - Brett Favre’s retirement on March 5th after 17 seasons with the Packers - which sent the manliest of men and strongest of women into counseling for depression. Annette Summersett, a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan and temporarily displaced resident of da Yooper (pronounced duh Yoopur - a description of someone who lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula), offers this tribute to Brett Favre and The Day Football Died:

How can it get any worse? Please make it stop!

April cannot come soon enough.

When it comes to finding happiness and fulfillment in the present, sometimes it helps to look to the past. Each of us has a unique family history, and most of us come from a blend of interesting cultures. Becoming aware, or even intimately familiar, with your family heritage can provide you with a greater sense of place in this world. It may explain your feelings regarding spirituality, it may affect your views on other races or those you view as being different from you, and could explain a great deal about your interactions with others.

For example, DNA analysis points to the fact that roughly 16 million people in this world are direct descendants of Genghis Khan, the ancient Mongol king. Ramesses II, Pharaoh of Egypt, had 50 recorded sons and 50 recorded daughters, not counting the children he sired with concubines and illicit affairs. This makes it possible that hundreds of thousands – or more – people could be his direct descendants.

How would knowing such an important piece of your family heritage affect you? Would it change your outlook on life or your sense of purpose? There are a number of ways in which your life can be enriched by understanding the origins of your family.

1. Enriched Cultural Traditions

Each culture has its own traditions associated with various holidays and significant life events. Add depth and meaning to your life by incorporating some of these traditions into your family holidays. Examine ancient festivals and celebrations for their versions of familiar expressions of joy, such as games, dances, or ritual meals. Sprinkle your current family traditions with bits of your ancient heritage and help the past really come alive again.

2. Improved Social Understanding

You may have preconceived feelings or ideas about certain people or groups of people, and not have any idea why. By understanding your family’s ancient heritage you may gain a greater understanding of your own reactions or interactions with people of a different ethnic or social background than your own. It could explain why you feel a certain affinity for some people yet feel uncomfortable with others. Many of these feelings are learned in childhood from family interactions, but having a greater understanding of the origins of your culture may help you gain a greater insight into the beliefs and feelings of your family. This in turn can help you better assess your interactions with others, and provide you with the opportunity to improve upon the personal relationships in your own life.

3. Greater Spirituality

Perhaps you have found yourself uncomfortable with today’s ideas of religion or spirituality but do not understand why. Examining your ancestry can provide many insights into ancient family beliefs, which may in turn explain your current thoughts and beliefs regarding religion. There may be elements in your ancestors’ belief systems that you feel a connection with, and can utilize in your own life to achieve greater fulfillment. There may be deities you feel a particular fondness for, or you may discover rituals or spiritual observations that bring you a greater sense of inner peace. Learn from your ancient family members, and honor them by incorporating a part of their culture into your personal life. You may find it provides you with renewed inspiration to work towards your life goals.

Many times the discovery of ancient family history leads to the desire to honor their sacrifices and hard work through living a better life right now. We gain a greater understanding of our parents, grandparents, and other distant family members. We gain new perspectives on family traditions, which are given a new richness and greater meaning when we can tie them to events in our family history. We are able to keep the ancient heritage of our families alive by passing on knowledge of their beliefs and traditions to our own children, enriching their lives in the process.

Most importantly, we can affect greater change in our own lives by developing a greater understanding of the origins of our personal belief systems. It allows us to closely examine the sources of our beliefs, likes, dislikes, and prejudices and come to conclusions as to how we have nurtured those feelings throughout our lives. By learning the origins of certain negative feelings, we may be able to examine them with a certain amount of detachment and then form new feelings based upon our own life experiences rather than continue with feelings jaded by family history. This could lead in turn to more satisfying and interesting relationships in our futures.

Copyright 2008 David Bohl and SlowDownFast.com. All rights reserved.

From my article The Beauty of Occasional Abundance at Pick The Brain:

“Depending upon our life experiences, each one of us has a different definition of abundance, much of which is learned during childhood. We are taught at an early age to either want for nothing or yearn for more. We learn how to react to those who have much more than us, and we develop our thoughts and attitudes about sharing with the less fortunate. We decide which things we hunger for the most, many times based upon those things that we lacked early in life.

As we grow and develop, we are constantly bombarded by messages regarding wealth, power, money, and greed. Magazines, newspapers, television, and movies all express society’s thoughts regarding such matters, and as time has progressed, we have developed into a more materialistic society. More emphasis has been placed on the ownership of elaborate possessions and such things as spirituality and family values seem to have been cast aside.

This sets us up for great disappointments, since we are taught that we can never have enough. It leaves us striving to reach an ambiguous and unattainable goal – to have “enough.” Yet there is never any definition of what enough truly is.”

Read the rest of The Beauty of Occasional Abundance.

We’ve all heard the term “mind over matter.” Have you ever thought about how that applies to your health? We’ve also heard about psychosomatic illness or mind/body illness. Have you ever been told it’s all in your head when you were ill and there was no apparent cause?

Although it’s a rapidly expanding field of study today, advancements in mind-body medicine have been slow to evolve. The concept of the mind affecting the body has been in existence in the East for thousands of years, dating back to the early belief that the integration of the body, mind, and spirit could prevent and treat disease. Healing modalities like meditation, massage, and yoga were practiced as a means to create a state of mental relaxation which would then translate into healing energy for the body.

This concept, however, was not as well accepted in the Western world, and it wasn’t until the 1920s when experiments were conducted involving the “fight or flight” response and other body-mind connections. During World War II, the “placebo effect” was tested on ailing soldiers, re-examining the importance of the effect of belief on the body. Read Post

We were all children at one time, so why is it that so many adults find it difficult talking to kids? Maybe it’s because our interests are so different. Maybe it’s because we’re afraid of their uninhibited ways.

Whatever the reason you find it difficult talking to children may be, it’s worth getting past the issue. Kids look up to adults and not just because they’re smaller than we are. They’re interested in what we have to say because they’re going to be like us one of these days.

So here are a few tips to make talking to kids a little easier: Read Post

From my guest post Work Smarter for Better Time Management at Dumb Little Man:

“Today’s business world is constantly changing at breakneck speeds. It requires flexibility, a great deal of organization, and a good sense of humor just to keep up. Companies are retaining fewer employees but the workload continues to increase, making it harder to meet job demands and almost impossible to maintain any kind of work life balance.

Many companies have recognized this disparity and have implemented various types of time management training programs; some are good, most aren’t. Even so, you need to come up with a well thought out plan in order to meet your goals. Luckily there are several things you can do to make the most of your day, get things done, and still have time left over to relax.”

Read the rest of Work Smarter for Better Time Management.

Thanks to Everything Finance for including this post in the Carnival of Everything Finance.

Like being in a relationship, work can become a predictable dance of expected reactions to expected events.

Do you find that you can generally count on people to always behave in a certain way?

Do you jump ahead in your mind, and prepare your response or rebuttal before there is an actual need?

Most people hold back from doing or saying what we really feel. We often hesitate to express our true feelings or share our ideas. Why? Because we expect that the person on the receiving end won’t respond in the way that we’re hoping.

Opting to work like this is a bad decision. That’s because passive behavior trips a chain of events that we have no control over. This puts us in the back seat of our own life, career, and future. Read Post

From my article How to Find Happiness Without Buying It at Dumb Little Man:

“Our materialistic society has led us to believe that happiness cannot be obtained without having money. Rather than learning to be satisfied with what we have, we are taught to want more. We learn from advertising, and from the media, that we need to buy trinkets and toys in order to make ourselves happy, or to fulfill emotional needs, and that the purchases they are trying to talk us into will provide us with the psychological comfort we are looking for.

Unfortunately as a society we have bought into these misguided messages and have come to believe that spending money on certain items will bring us fame, fortune, happiness, beauty, or popularity. We end up using money as a crutch to provide us with something we ultimately must find within ourselves. As we become caught up in this charade, we trade precious hours of our lives trying to earn the money we have been taught to covet so much. We trade hours of our lives working, sacrificing time that could have been spent with our families, for the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

In order to find true happiness, we first must learn to change our attitudes about money.”

Read the rest of How to Find Happiness Without Buying It at Dumb Little Man.

Thanks to Life Insurance Lowdown for including this post in the Carnival of Life, Happiness, and Meaning.