Brownness

30 Ways to Make Today a Good Day


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Marc and Angel <http://www.marcandangel.com>
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30 Ways to Make Today a Good Day <http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/02/07/30-ways-to-make-today-a-good-day/> Posted: 06 Feb 2011 08:11 PM PST

One today is worth two tomorrows.
-Benjamin Franklin

Yesterday is history and tomorrow is merely a figment of your imagination.  So if you think about it, today is the only day you’re truly alive.  Here’s how to make it a good one:

Get started a few minutes early.

  • Work on something that’s meaningful to you.
  • Complete an important piece of unfinished business.
  • Spend time with positive, friendly people.
  • Do something nice for someone else.
  • Be present. Focus on where you are, what you’re doing and who you’re with right now.
  • Do one thing at a time.  (Read Getting Things Done <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000280?ie=UTF8&tag=marandang-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142000280> .)
  • Listen to your self-talk.  When you hear negative thoughts, think about the positive side of things.
  • Smile, even when there’s no pressing reason to do so.
  • Unplug.  Entertain yourself with real-world experiences.
  • Go somewhere new.  See something new.  Meet someone new.
  • Do something that makes you laugh.
  • Challenge your mind.  Learn a new skill <http://www.marcandangel.com/2008/06/02/50-things-everyone-should-know-how-to-do/> .
  • Challenge your body.  Exercise for 30 minutes.  (Read The 4-Hour Body <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030746363X?ie=UTF8&tag=marandang-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=030746363X> .)
  • Let someone help you.
  • Clear a little clutter by getting rid of something you don’t need.
  • Be honest with yourself and those around you.
  • Don’t compare yourself to others.  Instead, let them inspire you.
  • Spend a few minutes alone in silence, just thinking.
  • Focus on solutions.
  • Keep an open mind to new ideas and information.
  • Handle important two-minute tasks immediately.
  • Stay out of other people’s drama.  And don’t needlessly create your own.
  • Say, “Please,” “Thank you,” “I’m sorry” and “I love you,” when you should.
  • Don’t try to please everyone.  Just do what you know is right.
  • Eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  • Savor the natural joy of simple pleasures <http://whatmoneycannotbuy.com/> .
  • Notice what’s right with the world.
  • Focus on all the things you already have, think about them and appreciate them.
  • Get to sleep a little earlier tonight so you’re well rested tomorrow.
    And remember, a smile is the most beautiful curve on the human body.  So go now and strut your stuff.   Photo by: Joisey Showaa <> <https://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/ClejNb_giZ39UBkzoLAegJfE0uA/jNHz5Vqo0_kZMWlKr_B8zEAUtk8/0/pa>  <https://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/ClejNb_giZ39UBkzoLAegJfE0uA/jNHz5Vqo0_kZMWlKr_B8zEAUtk8/1/pa>
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  • Cancer, Myself, Preeti

    Living for Today: My New Blog Post

     

    by Jemal Yarbrough

     

    A beautiful morning, sun bathing the room so much so that I wonder if I have ever seen it like this before. Then it hits that the sun is lighting up what’s inside me, and I smile.  And I smile some more because the external radiation and chemo are done.  Gone is the not knowing, the fear, the constant ache of “will she be ok?”  Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking past the fact that she has internal coming up, but Cancer cannot make us ignorant or scared anymore.  The big bad wolf has turned out to be a mere shadow that we magnified in our mind.

    I cannot help but soak in the sun, letting it breath into me more strength for her.  The burden has gotten lighter, we are beginning to see the end of this trial, and for once can actually discuss the future rather than future appointments, can actually look forward to the weekends as a real break rather just something to give her some breathing room, can plan to run a household rather than worry if the house is poisoning her somehow.

    Still, I cannot get rid of some of my hurts, while looking forward to the new joys.  I miss some greatly while others with a tinge of regret wondering where it all went wrong, and others just not ready to be there for us, and that’s fine.  I love them all, but I am also cautious, I know now that some were unfairly put on high pedestals and some pushed off too swiftly.  So I sit here and learn while the sun continues to fuel me, make appreciate what I have and love, and I know of only one certainty and that is today.  What is it that I can do today that represents, us, and our family.  What is it that I can do in the next moments to just make it a little easier or fun for us.  So I sit here, smile and feed hungrily off the sun waiting for inspiration, oh wait, the better word would be knowledge or perhaps just accept that it was meant to be that my car came back the same day the major part of the treatment ended.

    All that time worrying just really wasted because what was meant to happen, did, and what wasn’t just  resided in the endless loop of thoughts in my head.  So I breathe out slowly, the worries, the fears, the not knowing, and revel in the moment, just enjoying the day, the moment, the realization that we will get through this, that we already have, that what I needed was always there, I just didn’t want to see it that way.

    However, (is there always one)  I know that there is much to be done, much for us to do, to travel, perhaps finally get on a plane together, but more than that for me to get back to work.  That’s really the strange part, I miss it, and finally know what I am meant do there.  I never thought I would say that, but looking at myself through my family’s eyes made me realize that I can be general counsel, and the fears and doubts (particularly the lact of confidence) were my own creations.  I was my own hurdle.  I had convinced myself that I would never learn but worse that I couldn’t learn, but the previous months of reading and writing made me realize how much I miss the law, and why I fell in love in the first place  I also know what kind of lawyer I cant stand, and there are many attorneys who exploit California law to just make money for themselves while claiming to be consumer attorneys.  I no longer will let my ignorance be the reason, my business suffers.  No more.  It’s time to discard the uniform of “I don’t know” and don on “I will get back to you on this.”

    Funny, what a few months of cancer can do to you.  Instead of sapping us of our energy and will, it has renewed it. So thank you cancer, for making me realize what is truly important.  I owe you one but I wont ever like you, and one more thing: fuck you.  Sorry, but your just really not forgivable.  Besides, it’s you who gets my negative emotions or others, and I choose you.  You are my big bad wolf, my enemy, my bad versus good.  So deal with it.  I will be celebrating when you die, and I will dance on your grave.  You maybe “the emperor of all maladies” but you have no clothes.

     

    Brownness

    A Writer’s Toolbox – The Best Tips for Success from Writer’s Digest

    Very tempted to buy these

    Sent from my iPhone

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    Subject: A Writer’s Toolbox – The Best Tips for Success from Writer’s Digest
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    Myself, Writing

    The Rules: A Blog Post

    Cover of "These Are the Rules"
    Cover of These Are the Rules

    I admit, I am a bit hurt (aren’t I aways?) at the near total silence about my last post.  Maybe I did come off as a complete wacko to the blog readers but it was a sincere letter sent to friends and family that perhaps a majority of them either didn’t read or didn’t care.  Then it hits me that yet again I have made it about me, so I breathe out slowly, get into the present and have been reading voraciously. Acknowledge, breath, let go.  🙂

    Been away for a few days now and felt the tug of the words in my brain as of they were already imprinted.  Finished reading if “Life is a game, these are the rules”  by Cherie Carter-Scott, PhD. basically 10 truths we all know or should know because we forgot at birth.  I won’t bore you with the details (I probably will)but , in a nutshell the 10 rules are :1) You will receive a body (love it or leave it) 2) You will be presented with lessons (repeatedly and constantly) 3)There are no mistakes only lessons (really liked this one since it involves Compassion, forgiveness, ethics and honor 4) A lesson is repeated until learned (you are doomed to repeat your “lessons” until you pass the test) 5) Learning does not end 6) There is no better than here (again be present, gee where have I heard the before) I am constantly being reminded of this lesson in pretty much every way as if the universe is conspiring to beat down this lesson down my throat  But it’s hard as hell to be present.  It really is hard to just approach, appreciate, take in what’s around me without thinking of what it meant before, what I should do about it or in general not even notice what’s in front of me.  Oh wait, I am way off track (see?) 7) Others are only mirrors of you(fascinating idea that what you like or dislike about others is what you like or dislike about yourself.  8) What you make of life is up to you (pretty self-explanatory 9) All the answers lie inside of you (this one I found hard to believe until I realized It consisted of listening, trust and inspiration, the 3 things that are helping me write and cope with her cancer) and finally 10) You will forget all of this at birth (just have faith that it’s there). When I looked at the rules like this, it hit me that the author purposely may have written the book backward so he could impart the life lessons to us as we are now, assuming that we need those first.

    So done with another gift from Santoshi and now off to finally crack open my Ipad and read The Art of Choosing by a blind sikh girl (whose name for the life of me I can’t remember. Wish me luck.