Be all you can be. No wait, that was the Army’s slogan, right? OK, how about this: make the most of your life.
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Read on to find out just how to do just that by finding out more about each side of the life optimization triangle or scroll down for a full list of life optimization posts.
Emotional Health
The mind…it exerts a powerful Jedi-like force on your whole self. And just like the Force, it can be with you…or not. Emotional health is all about keeping those wheels turning and cogs meshing right upstairs with the ultimate goal of living a satisfied and content (or dare I say happy?) life.
Physical Health
If you ain’t got your health, you ain’t got nothing. It’s hard to fully enjoy life and all of the wonderful experiences it offers if you don’t feel good. So, you have to do all of those boring things like eat right and exercise. I know, I know…but you’ll thank me for it later.
Spiritual Health
Who are you, why are you here, and (to borrow a line from Monty Python) what is your quest? No matter what religion you belong to or if you observe no religion at all, spiritual health is all about building and maintaining a connection to something bigger than you are. It’s about discovering and developing your soul and finding meaning and place in this world. (Wow, this category sounds so “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy”, but I promise to try to keep it fun.)
Inspiration
Everyone occasionally needs a kick in the seat of the pants to go out and BE AWESOME! I hope these posts, snippets, and quotes do the job and inspire you to be amazed and amazing.
I’ve been on a personal/professional development reading kick recently and I just finished reading The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership. Co-written by Bill Walsh and Steven Jamison, it’s an interesting combination of football field-meets-boardroom. To be sure, there are many parallels between coaching a winning football team and a winning business team. However,
“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.” ~Leo Rosten
I just started reading Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars today and came across this passage*: Here’s the other thing that’s changed since the heyday of space exploration. Crews aboard [space craft] are two to three times the size of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo crews, and the mission spans weeks or months, not days. This makes the Mercury-era “right stuff” the wrong stuff. Astronauts have to be people that play well […]
OK, I admit it. When my husband first suggested that we buy our family annual passes to Disney for Christmas, the first thing I said was something like, “Are you crazy?” I mean, I don’t know if you’ve checked the prices for Disney tickets lately but they are quite a hefty investment. So much so that a day at the park isn’t really affordable for the average family of four, […]
We buy these difficult books because we feel that, while not very exciting, they are in some way good for us. It’s sort of literature-as-bran-flakes philosophy. If something is dry and unpalatable, it must be doing something good for our constitutions. ~Chris Baty, No Plot, No Problem
Originally posted on The Daily Post:
Part of the mission that drives The Daily Post is to provide encouragement and inspiration to people who want to be more active writers, bloggers, and creators. We often provide tips on how to write or prompts on what to write, but today, let’s talk about why to write. Science stands firmly in support of what many of us intuitively know: writing is good for you. Studies…
I came across an article in the October issue of Mental Floss (one of my fave magazines) about the role that ambient noise plays in fostering creativity. The article says this: According to a University of Chicago study, moderate noise helps creativity by slowing down the speed at which we process information. The lag keeps us from fixating, prompts abstract thinking, and even provides a healthy dose of mind wandering. […]
After reading the article that inspired this post on what it takes to be a writer, I was reminded of something I read several years ago on the most important predictor of success. You might think the secret to being successful is talent or intelligence. Or maybe it’s having a jumpstart with a good education or a big bank account. Or maybe it’s all a matter of luck—you know, being […]
Talent is the least important thing about a writer, compared to a love of books, which must be deep and abiding.
The only thing a writer really needs is perversity of spirit, the emotional equivalent of a cartoon character’s bouncy springiness, so that after being run over or blown up—or, in the case of the writer, rejected, then rejected some more—the writer is irrationally unfazed by even the most valid criticism and continues with the work of being a writer, magically unharmed.
~Rufi Thorpe on what it takes to be a writer (Poets & Writers, Sept/Oct 2014)
My third and newest Fitbit Zip has arrived! I bought my first Zip about a year ago and shortly thereafter lost it in the airport on my way to San Francisco. Sadness. Fitbit was kind enough to replace it with a new Zip, which just recently died on me. Sadness again. Over the past year, I’ve gotten very accustomed to checking my Zip throughout the day and have become a […]
