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How to Be Likable
In my building, there’s a rooftop deck sparsely equipped with a grill, a picnic table nearby, some shrubs that never seem to be in bloom, and a green bench positioned with its back facing the grilling area about 20 feet away. Several years ago when I went to the roof for a smoke, I met an impressive young man. A very likable person. Let’s call him Maxim. He was with a friend. They were sitting at the picnic table, talking while their dinner was cooking on the grill. I sat on the bench – a good distance away from where they were. Not long after I lit my cigarette, though,…
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What Do You Want to Do with Your Life?
“What do you want to do with your life? For many people, including myself, this is a daunting question. “I don’t know.” “I have no idea.” “I wish I knew.” When this question is directed at you, do you feel a pressure inside your chest? Do you feel ashamed that you don’t know? I know I do. For me, the shame is amplified by the fact that I’m 50 years old. By social standards, I’m at an age where I should know what I want by now. Well, I don’t. Or do I? If you were unabashedly honest with yourself, would you actually know the answer? Is it possible that…
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How to Make Reading a Regular Habit
Reading, to me, is one of the joys of life and one of the best habits we can incorporate into our lives. Reading nurtured in me the love of words and made me realize the power that words have to move us. As an only child who was socially awkward, with very few friends, reading offered a temporary escape from feelings of loneliness. Books were my friends, and they remain so to this day. I would be a very different person without the companionship and influence of books throughout my life. Reading cultivates our imagination, exercises our thinking muscles, introduces us to different experiences and perspectives, provides insight into our…
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A Pandemic of Selfishness
Selfishness is being concerned excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one’s own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others. Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted with self-centeredness. Wikipedia Selfish adjective (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure. – Google The pandemic has brought out the ugly in people. This can be observed when reading the comments section of a YouTube video about COVID-19 vaccinations. On more than one occasion I have seen the word “selfish” used to describe and denigrate those who have chosen to not get vaccinated. It made me…
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Thoughts on the Pandemic
I didn’t see this coming. Lockdowns. Masks. Mandatory vaccination policies at the workplace. Vaccine passports to gain access to entertainment venues, gyms, and restaurants. The segregation of society based on one’s vaccination status. Get the jab, or else... It is not the virus that I am afraid of – it is human behaviour, how we are treating each other.
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Things I’m Not Supposed to Say
Everyone’s a hypocrite. Absolute altruism in human’s doesn’t exist. We all have discriminatory tendencies. We all judge. We are all self-centred.
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You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
Reading Jen Sincero’s books is like receiving advice from a really cool, funny, and honest friend. She is not the kind of friend who would blow smoke up your ass to make you (or herself) feel better. I literally laughed out loud multiple times while reading this book. How often do you actually laugh out loud while reading a book? I even laughed while reading the Resources section she includes at the back of the book. When’s the last time you even cracked a smile while reading the Resources section of any book? You probably don’t read the Resources section because you’re not as big of a nerd as I…
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Letter Writing Exercise to Money
One of the best books I read last year was You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero. It stood out to me because it made me look at my relationship with money. I had never thought about money in terms of having a relationship with it. Money was just this thing that I didn’t like to think about because I associated it with feelings of stress and anxiety. “If you ain’t got any money, it’s because if you treated the people in your life with the same regard you treat money, you’d be dining on a Thanksgiving dinner for one…” Jen Sincero,…
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You Can Heal Your Life – Louise L. Hay
“If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.” Louise L. Hay While all the self-help books I’ve read talk about the impact of our thoughts and how they manifest in our lives, this is the first book that talks at length about the mind-body connection and the impact of our negative beliefs on our health. At the beginning of the book, Hay shares her personal philosophy to provide context for what readers can expect while reading the rest of her book. Here are some of Hay’s guiding principles: “The bottom line for everyone is, “I’m not good enough.” “Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now…
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Hunger
When I saw the strings of chewed up spinach tangled in the shower drain my instinct of silence set in. My mind along with my body went numb. Wearing rubber gloves, I picked out the spinach, flushed it down the toilet, and scrubbed the tub clean – erasing all physical evidence of Sasha’s sorrow. Within a few hours Sasha’s sorrow was mine. At first, a quiet whimper emitted from my closed throat, followed by loose tears streaking down my face, then accompanied by uncontrollable wails that so frightened me that I tried to muffle my cries with a towel. As I sit on my couch about to lose myself in…