Incline Your Mind Toward Joy

“One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside of people. He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all. One is Unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is Happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion.”The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” ~ Marci Shimoff from Happy for No Reason

Read the full posting at...
http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/503-philosophers-notes/episodes/47894-incline-mind-toward

The Responsibility to Trust Your Head and Heart

"If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole."
-- Rollo May (1909-1994), American psychologist, from The Courage to Create

Read the full article here...
http://www.clarityconsulting.com/resources/success-tip.php?id=33&title=The%20Responsibility%20to%20Trust%20Your%20Head%20and%20Heart

Man in the mirror

Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror
Uploaded by classics007. - See the latest featured music videos.

Dogs have souls

For centuries, humans have imagined they are the only animals with morals. But humans are not alone in the moral arena, a new breed of behavior experts says.

Natural historian Jake Page said some scientists are acknowledging what pet owners have told their canines all along: "Good dog."

Read the full article at...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009226383_dogs16.html

Dancing Guy starts a Dance Riot at Sasquatch 2009

One man truly can make a difference...

How to Awaken Your Heart

First, train in the preliminaries.

The preliminaries are also known as the four reminders. In your daily life, try to 1) Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life. 2) Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone. 3) Recall that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, has a result; what goes around comes around. 4) Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will suffer. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.

Read more slogans by Pema Chödrön...
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1562

Forgive

To tolerate someone else's mistakes is one thing. To forgive them is even greater.

www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

The Difference Makers

Choosing to Live Fully

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!' He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Read the full posting here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=12901

Control over consciousness

“The knowledge of how to control consciousness must be reformulated every time the cultural context changes. The wisdom of the mystics, of the Sufi, of the great yogis, or of the Zen masters might have been excellent in their own time—and might still be the best, if we lived in those times and in those cultures. But when transplanted to contemporary California those systems lose quite a bit of their original power. They contain elements that are specific to their original contexts, and when these accidental components are not distinguished from what is essential, the path to freedom gets overgrown by brambles of meaningless mumbo jumbo. Ritual form wins over substance, and the seeker is back where he started.
Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to be.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from Flow

Read Brian Johnson's illuminating comments here...
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=207821200345

Stir Your World 2007

Train Yourself to Be Positive in 5 Simple Steps

For a girl like me, being positive is not easy. When I think of the world, I tend to see it through a negative perspective, looking for the bad and ignoring the good. But, lately, I’ve discovered that it is possible to change that perspective. Earlier this year I decided that I was going to make a change in my life. I was going to start looking for the good, seeking the positive, and striving to make every day a joyful experience. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy task

Read the full post here...
http://calmandcool.com/130/be-positive.htm

Mankind is no island

Spotting Qualities

A compassionate person develops an eye for spotting the qualities that make each person special. Even when others are at their lowest ebb, it is possible to help them restore their self-belief by keeping a firm, clear vision of their goodness and specialities. Taking a gently encouraging approach, I must never give up on anyone.

www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Destination Addiction

Be aware of this affliction, something that we surely all suffer from to some degree.

Destination addiction is an attempt to get on with life faster in the hope that we will enjoy our lives better.

Read the full descriptions below...
http://www.itn.org.za/News/Articles/Destination.htm

http://frugaldad.com/2009/01/05/do-you-suffer-from-destination-addiction

Some great quotes...

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. --Ben Okri

Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant. --Stephen Covey

If at any time I begin to lose hope in myself, let me simply look inside my heart and see all the good actions I have ever performed, from the smallest to the grandest. When I see how much happiness I have given, I easily remember the purpose of my life. --ThoughtForToday (11 June 09)

Living Wealthy On A Daily Basis

Do you really think that living wealthy is all about having an abundance of money? What good is it if that's all you have?

Read the full article here...

http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk/inspiration-successsecrets/

The Origin of the Word "Kind"

Have you ever wondered why we make such a big deal about living kindly? For a lot of us it’s just innate, feels like the right thing to do. But, that little voice in my head warned me one night, “Don’t take kindness for granted—find out why!” So I did, and made an exciting discovery in the process.

Read the full storey here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=12559

Home Project

http://www.home-2009.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

A long movie (1h 33m) and well worth watching if you have the time. Some more positive facts towards the end.

Breathing Earth

http://www.breathingearth.net/

This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Estonia Clean Up

President Obama calls for a "new beginning" between the US and Muslims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8082948.stm

The Stuart Davis Show – Episode 12 – A Foothill in the Mouth

The Stuart Davis Show – Episode 12 – A Foothill in the Mouth from integral ecology on Vimeo.

Dan Goleman: Ecological Intelligence

There's a new kind of math for the environmentally concerned, one that answers those everyday eco-conundrums like, Which is better: a reusable stainless steel water bottle, or those throwaway plastic ones?

Read the full article here...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-goleman/ecological-intelligence_b_192437.html

What about me?