Ideas That Inspire Me - Plus A Blog

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The Pause Upon Which All Else Relies Posted: 09 Feb 2012 07:56 AM PST Post written by Leo Babauta. There is one little habit I’ve learned that has changed everything else in my life. The pause. When we fail, it’s because we act on urges without thinking, without realizing it. We have the urge to eat junk, and we do it. We have the urge to check email instead of writing a chapter of our book, and so we open our inbox. We have an urge to smoke, to drink, to do drugs, to chew our nails, to play a Facebook game, to procrastinate, to skip a workout, to eat more fries, to criticize, to act in jealousy or anger, to be rude … and we act on that urge. What if instead we learned to pause after each urge? What if we stopped, looked at that urge, paid close attention to what it feels like inside our bodies, but didn’t act? The urge would no longer control us. We would be able to make conscious choices that might be healthier for us, help us be happier. If we can pause, we create space. Space to breathe, to think, to be without acting. The pause is the answer to so many of our problems. Such a small thing, and so powerful. To develop the pause, notice your next urge. Is it an urge to go check something online? Or eat something you know isn’t healthy for you? Pay attention to the urge, learn as much as you can about it. If you act on it after the pause, that’s OK. Just notice it, and pause, and pay attention. Do it again for the next urge, and the next. You will get good at it with practice, and you’ll have lots of opportunities to practice. The urges won’t go away, but your ability to pause will get stronger. And when you have the pause, you have everything. **  I have been reading Leo Babauta's posts for couple of years and this is one writer that has yet to bore me.   Really worth your time and reflections to check out his  blog http://zenhabits.net/archives/.  Thank you Leo for your generosity of thoughts and actions by allowing me to repost.

Chocolate comments

Greetings from my mind's abyss.  

Finally, after 4 weeks, I have made peace with my new job.  Changes in life, let alone finances, can be so arduous.  What I perceived as a false start, turned out to be the real thing.   I am feeling the glow of sunshine at the end of the tunnel.   Peace out! 

Parashevidekatriaphobia!!

Got a fear of "Friday The 13th"?  Then you have parashevidekatriaphobia!!
Also goes by the name of friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Not to worry, there are only three days this leap year 

January 13th, April 13th, & July 13th 

that you will have to contend with.

Just in case you need inspiration, here's a list of 13 superstitions
associated with the bad luck that Friday the 13th might bring.
Don't walk under a ladder
Don't let a black cat cross your path
Don't break a mirror
Don't spill the salt
Don't put your shoes on the table
Don't step on a crack
Don't open a umbrella indoors
Don't give knives as gifts
If you give a wallet as a gift make sure you put money in it
Don't stay in a room on the 13th floor
Don't back horse number 13
If you're a rabbit, don't let someone cut off your foot
Airplanes have no 13th aisle

OR

You might find inspiration with the number 13, which sometimes falls on a Friday.
Thomas Jefferson did, he came into this world on Friday 13,1743
Aluminum has the atomic #13
 Black Sabbath released their debut album "Black Sabbath" on this day in 1970
Place your bet on "Lucky 13" in poker
People celebrate this day with a motorcycle rally at Port Dover in Ontario, Canada
"Friday The 13th" movie was so popular, 12 movies were made
The United States of America started with 13 colonies
A marigold flower has 13 petals
13 - the age when a kid becomes a teenager
Bar Mitzvah celebrates a Jewish boy turning 13
A coven of witches has, traditionally, 13 in it
Lots of people get "Lucky 13" tattoos for good luck
Once upon a time, a Baker's Dozen contain 13

70% chocolate

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."  ~ Albert Einstein

"My karma ran over your dogma."  ~ Author Unknown

"There are the waves and there is the wind, seen and unseen forces.  Everyone has these same elements in their lives, the seen and unseen, karma and free will."  ~ Kuan Yin

Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don't even notice it.  ~Sakyong Mipham

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.  So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.  You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.  This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.  ~Steve Jobs

"Treat people as you would like to be treated.  Karma's only a bitch if you are."  ~ Author Unknown

"This Is Our House"

It's basketball season around our house ... 5 days a week, with 2 of those days usually being games.  "The Kid" is in his second year of being on the team and I have seen vast amounts of improvement from the previous year.  Nice to think "The Kid" is both ... athletic and academic.  What does this have to do with the blog title, you ask?  Well, Friday night I was attending "The Kid's" bb game when our team the PCPA "Bears" started chanting "This Is Our House".  Letting everyone know that we had home court advantage and no one was going to take this win away from us.  The final score had only 1 point difference.  The power of words .. really pumped up the boys & the audience.  Very Smart ... Coach McP!!

I wouldn't think of leaving out the girl's team.  Their jerseys read PCPA "Lady Bears", how cute is that!  The gal in pink is Coach B, coaching is just one of the many hats she wears at PCPA High School.
** notice the second girl in from the left side - she is doing a peace sign, peace out!

"The Point Isn't The Points ... The Point Is The Poetry"

LOUDER THAN A BOMB!

A Mic.
A Stage.
A Pen.
A Page.

*  I am forever changed in the way I think when it comes to Chicago, poetry, and "The Kid's" generation.  I found myself clapping, cheering & getting goose bumps while the contestants recited their poetry.  This is a documentary that I will not be forgetting anytime soon.  Worth watching and worth passing on!

The Habit Of ... Reading

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle."  - Amazon

"Inspired by the author's original family memoirs, this absorbing story introduces us to the questing, indomitable Sarah Prine, one of the most memorable women ever to survive and prevail in the Arizona Territory of the late 1800s. As a child, a fiery young woman, and finally a caring mother, Sarah forges a life as full and as fascinating as our deepest needs, our most secret hopes and our grandest dreams. She rides Indian-style and shoots with deadly aim, greedily devours a treasure trove of leatherbound books, downs fire, flood, Comanche raids and other mortal perils with the unique courage that forged the character of the American West." - Amazon

http://www.miningswindles.com/html/the_baron_of_arizona.html

"The most famous case was brought by James Addison Reavis, who claimed to be the hereditary Baron of Arizona, and heir to an old Spanish land grant that made him the rightful owner of a huge swath of land in Arizona and New Mexico, including the city of Phoenix, and the rich mining districts of Globe, Clifton-Morenci, and Silver City.

He almost succeed."