Knowing Yourself Archives - Page 13 of 15

Learning About Happiness from Students

“Happiness is all about everyday, normal activities, psychologists have argued, but do we intuitively understand what strategies increase happiness or not?”

December 9, 2007

Six Days for a Fifteen Hour Trip?

What’s important about this little story is not the actual drive from one location to another, or the details of what she’s going to do on that trip, where she’ll stay, what she’ll see or how she’ll spend her time.
What I think is important is the willingness to take a little longer to reach a destination, and to really explore the world while doing so.

December 7, 2007

6 Tips for Avoiding “Broken Windows” in Your Life

6 tips for keeping your life in order using the broken windows theory of crime fighting and prevention; available at Dumb Little Man.

December 3, 2007

Get Rid of Black and White Thinking Once and for All

Very few things are simple, and the more we try to simplify our thinking into this/that, black/white, good/bad, the worse we’re going to make our lives, because life just isn’t like that. We’re not like that, no one is like that, and no one ever will be.

December 3, 2007

Here’s a Quick Way to Discover Your Passions (and have some fun at the same time)

Passion is about discovering what you like along with what you don’t like. Stimulate you five senses in order to invoke passion, and here are

December 2, 2007

Get in Touch with You and Yours: Write a Letter

When was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter? I’m not talking about an email. A real letter. By hand, preferably on your personal stationery with a fountain pen.

Writing letters has a lot of benefits, but I’ve noticed that since I entered the computer age, I have fallen out of the habit of writing letters. As a matter of fact, I actually struggle to write readably because I’m so unpracticed at it.

November 28, 2007

Beware of Healthy Restaurants

Feeling a little stuffed after yesterday’s meal?
Still cleaning up the dishes?
Don’t feel like cooking today?
Be careful if you decide to dine out.

November 23, 2007

Personal Development: What’s Your Dream?

Priscilla Palmer of PriscillaPalmer.com directed me to Neil Sattin’s Reveal Your Dream: A Personal Development Challenge. Here’s my addition:

November 18, 2007

Getting Things Done – Take a Walk

Have you ever found yourself sitting at your desk, maybe first thing in the morning or right after lunch, and just not feeling functional? Many people call this “can’t get motivated,” but I really think of it as not being able to function correctly. My brain won’t go into gear, I can’t get started on anything, and when I do get started, I can’t keep going.

October 31, 2007

Jon Bon Jovi: Fatherhood and Work-Life Balance

Do you think you know what it’s like to be a rock star dad? You’ve read over the years of the trials and tribulations of some of the world’s most popular icons. You’re sick and tired of hearing about their collective demise, yet feel compassion for those living the Sex/Drugs/Rock ‘n Roll lifestyle because of the insurmountable odds they face in trying to triumph over the challenges of that life and culture.

There have been troubles with the law, divorces, stints in rehabs, 12-Step meetings, illnesses, and even tragic deaths.

If you’ve heard it all before, and and just know where things always seen to lead, why do you want to know about Jon Bon Jovi’s life? Because he’s much like you and me.

October 30, 2007

Being Who You Are and Who You Want to Be

A wonderful woman I’m familiar with is the absolute essence of New York Society – except that she has spent her entire life living in the South.

But I also find it interesting that someone who so clearly loves both New York, with its theatre scene, and Arkansas, where she has lived most of her life excluding graduate school, has found a balance between the two.

October 25, 2007

What Our Kids Teach us About Life Balance

As my kids have grown, and I’ve been fortunate enough to step away from a brutal workaholic schedule and watch them grow up and become young adults, I’ve really enjoyed learning how children just seem to understand balance, and they can teach it to us when we’re willing to learn.

Of course that’s a big if.

October 24, 2007

Living Around Principles vs. Living In Integrity

After I titled this post “Living Around Principles,” it occurred to me that might sound like I mean living by getting around your principles, shoving them aside and living the life you’d be leading if you didn’t have any principles.

Uh, no. I left the title alone because I wanted to go ahead and bring up that idea, and then talk about why it doesn’t work and what I really meant.

Getting around your principles will not create the kind of life you want.

October 23, 2007

Personal Fulfillment: Why Hobbies Matter

In my previous life, before I threw up my hands (and my career as a financial trader), moved to Wisconsin and started living a life I truly enjoyed, I didn’t have time for a hobby. I was like the guy in the recent New Yorker cartoon lying on the beach with his laptop. He says to his wife, “It’s not that I’m a workaholic. I just work to relax.”

If anyone had asked me if I had a hobby I would probably have said, “Yeah, I work. That’s how I spend my free time.” Well, as you probably agree, working between eighty and one hundred hours every week is not exactly conducive to having a hobby, and no, I don’t think working really counts as a hobby.

October 19, 2007

Are You Addicted to Sugar and Caffeine?

When you think of addictions you probably think of alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc. But sugar and caffeine can be habit-forming in their own rights, although to not as strong a degree and not in such a strong physical way.

October 12, 2007

Happiness and Fulfillment: How to be Childlike (not Childish)

I ran across an article recently that mentioned the difference between ‘childlike’ and ‘childish,’ and called someone to task for childish behavior. The gist of the article was that we want to be childlike, but not childish.

That got me thinking about what childlike is for me, and how it fits in with my goals for personal growth. I also gave some thought to how childishness gets in my way, and how I can keep that from happening.

October 10, 2007

When You Discount Yourself, You Discount Me

You’ve probably met someone like this. You’re in a class, for example, and get an A on a very hard class. The smartest person in the class, who happens to be someone you really can’t stand, says, “Well, it wasn’t all that hard a test. I wouldn’t have been able to do so well on it if it had really been hard.” This person is not being egotistical. She really believes that she couldn’t have done well on the test unless it were an easy test. She is genuinely discounting her skills and knowledge.

But she’s also discounting your skill and ability.

October 4, 2007

Focus on Change: Girlfriend Cashes $100,000 Check from Cheating Boyfriend

This from the New York Post:

“A hard-partying Wall Street trader and his ex-girlfriend are in court over an allegedly broken $100,000 promise to keep on the straight and narrow.”

According to disgruntled, but wealthier, girlfriend Elisa Kwon, her boyfriend offered more than a promise not to commit moral turpitude (depravity). Greg Calvino handed Kwon a check for $100,000 and instructed her to cash it is he used drugs, stayed out late, and/or patronized strippers or prostitutes.

What were these two thinking?

October 3, 2007

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DAVID B. BOHL

Relinquishee, Adoptee, MPE
Author, Speaker.