Archive for 2010

Throughout my “lifestyle design” journey I discovered a few eBooks that showed me that a better life was in fact possible. I don’t think you should just take my word for it, though. Never believe anything without being skeptic about it first is my motto. For example, there are a ton of free books out there (not just ten).

But, being the generous soul that I am (self-praise is good for you :)), I’ve decided to offer you ten of the best eBooks I’ve read on personal development, doing what you love, questioning life, lifestyle design, and general thought provokingI guarantee. But no matter what, the message is still the same (as it is with all free knowledge):
topics out there (by some of the best people). If you take the time to actually read them you’ll learn something new,

Download them, read them, learn from them… And hopefully share them.

You can either read them here or Right Click & Click Save As to download to your computer. Continue Reading →

Our senses are a blessing and a curse. Believe me, I’m thankful that I have eyes to see with, ears to hear with, and a mouth to speak with, but I’m well aware of just how limited they are.

Think about it, do we experience the ‘real’ world with out current senses? Do we see the atoms? Do we see the electrons and neutrons? Do we hear the radio waves/signals all around us? Do we hear sonar when we go swimming at the beach? Our senses can be compared to a crack in a door. We see through the crack, but we don’t realize just how small that crack is. And, most people even take the crack for the picture in it’s entirety. Continue Reading →

Every-time I hear some talk about their passion and about quitting their job, I get overly happy… Until they say “I can’t wait ‘till retirement”. Then I cringe. DUDE, YOU CAN QUIT NOW, DO WHAT YOU WANT, AND BE SO MUCH HAPPIER IN LIFE!… And here are a few, slightly thought provoking, reasons why: Continue Reading →

Imagine you’re a cave-man (cave-being for those who care about me being politically correct). All you and the people around you have ever known is the cave and it’s inhabitants: the darkness, stalagmites/stalactites, hard bumpy rocks, bats, etc., etc. (use your imagination).

One day, while going about your everyday cave-man life, you bump into someone. This “someone” tells you that they’re from “outside” the cave. Confused you ask them to clarify, and they do.

They tell you that the world you know, in its’ entirety is but a cave, a small thing compared to the rest of the world. They tell you that the world outside is not only bigger, but better. They describe for you how things out there are brighter and warmer due to a thing called the sun (and that even when the sun’s gone there’s still light due to another thing called a moon). They explain to you just how wonderful it is to feel sand beneath your feet while walking on a beach (which they also explain). They describe for you just how pleasant it is to feel a warm breeze upon your face. They, fugitively speaking, give you the world.

There’s just one problem. Continue Reading →

My one goal in everything that I do this year is going to be total immersion. Total immersion is the obvious-yet-overlooked key to success and extreme productivity in life. I got the idea from language learning. In the world of language learning there are those few people who learn languages in two to six months. And you know what they apply to their lives? Total immersion.

To make it clear, total immersion is not about a balanced life. It’s not about doing a little of everything every single day. And it’s not about giving equal time to everything. Total immersion is about focusing on only one thing for an insane amount of time. It’s about letting everything else wither away in the meantime. And it’s about leading an unbalanced, yet highly passionate, and driven life.

Total immersion requires that you lose any and all sense of balance you hold dear to you. Repeat, any and all sense of balance. It means watching your social life dwindle to nothing while you focus entirely on your career. And on the contrary, it means watching your career dwindle down to nothing while you focus on your social life (a social life is necessary but it shouldn’t be all consuming, all the time).

Way too many people live the “I multi-task” lifestyle. Continue Reading →

One of the most profound, and thought provoking things, I have ever learned [this week] came from a movie. The movie was somewhat well put together (it tended to jump all over the place and be stereotypical). But it was thought provoking, and drastically different. That movie was “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” (I have to read the book). I won’t ruin the movie for you, because if anything you will learn a lot more than I can tell you by watching it firsthand. But there are two stories (retold/revised) about rape (this is where they thought provoking part comes in) that came out of me watching it, and that must be shared with the you, the world.

Continue Reading →

Yes, it’s true, zombies [might] exist, and so might highly advanced humanoid robots; it’s a really thought provoking thing to think about… if you think about it. See, someone once said that if people turned into zombies, or were replaced by humanoid robots, we wouldn’t be able recognize it. Why? Because they would do everything a normal person would. They would speak when spoken to, hold a proper conversation, get angry, sad, and happy when necessary and do the everyday common things like eating, sleeping, etc.

But, the difference is that they wouldn’t understand what they are doing. They would just be intelligent enough to give you the proper/desired output when you provided the proper input. They wouldn’t be able to understand why “1 + 1 = 2”, but when asked what 1 + 1 equals, they would tell you 2. When they see a red light they would stop, yellow- slow down, and green- keep on going, but they wouldn’t be able to actually know why they are doing it, they would, as said, just be giving you the proper/desired output. Continue Reading →

GOAL : 14 hours sleep per week

PROGRESS: 14.5 hours sleep this week

This week turned out to be much better than last week. Although, if you take into account the first few days in, you would have never noticed. If you saw my Twitter updates you would have noticed that I went through a rough patch where I felt like “screeching monkeys were in my head having a loudest screeching monkey contest”… basically ONE BIG HEADACHE. Due to this I overslept two of my first naps by 15 minutes adding 30 more minutes to my goal of 14 hours. My only times oversleeping. I kept going though, and life got better. Noting my earlier progress from week one, I can say I fixed most of the mistakes I had. For example:

• I no longer sleep on beds

This was weird at first, but I got used to it. Stupid mistake I made the first few times was sleeping on my arm. After waking up I always felt like blood had rushed to them. I can describe to you the fun I had in turning off alarms while feeling as if my arms were balloons, but I won’t. Continue Reading →

December was the best month I’ve had so far. I also discovered how to use fingered citron (pictured above) to make salads taste better, which was… an experience in itself.

Here’s the list of things I ate outside of the diet/lifestyle; Continue Reading →

Earlier I listed my “top 10 fictional books” and I promised I’d post the list with my “top 10 nonfictional books”. So, here I am, keeping my promise (I’m a bit late). The books here are a mix of “face reality” , “thought provoking”, and “do better in life” books, which I’m all for.

Quick word- The fictional books were the books that opened up my eyes and let me see these nonfictional books, which are loaded with much more amazing info due to it being true. But, both lists are dire to the shaping of who I am today and I’m thankful I read them all. Without further ado, I will shut up, and just list them already:

Continue Reading →