A Mindful Life

I’m a member of Orkut and in my quest for possibly placing Zoë, I sent out notices to the Austin and cat lover communities there. The note was brief, saying I’m moving cross country and needed a new home for her, asking if anyone who lives in central Texas and is interested to contact [...]

I have three cat companions, and one of them, I fear, will not survive the move cross-country. She’s a little neurotic. Her name is Zoë, and she’s six years old, spayed, declawed, and updated on her annual shots. She’s really gorgeous and has a gentle personality.
So what’s the problem, you ask? [...]

Stately pews glow, and
imbued with human yearning,
resonate with god.

“After Mass” by Ulrika Kellgren ©2003 / ephotograph

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
–George Washington Carver

Today is my birthday; I’ve been alive two score and one year. As each year passes, I am awed at the speed of time. It seems to increase the longer I live.
In a recent post I wrote about a major life decision that I needed to make. It pertained to a move [...]

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.
– Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

Austerity draws
upon graceful resistance
to time’s long passage.

“Mr. Durham’s Place” by Paul Angle ©2003 / ephotograph

For many people, run-ins with a supervisor stirs up old conflicts with parents, siblings or other larger-than-life figures from childhood. Dr. Mark Levey, a psychotherapist in Chicago who consults with corporations, said that nasty bosses often elicited from subordinates defensive habits that they first developed as children, like reflexive submission and explosive rage.
“Once these defensive [...]

I don’t usually put quizzes on this blog (since the focus is on ideas of “substance”), but this struck my fancy.

How to make a mindful life

Ingredients:
1 part friendliness
1 part brilliance
5 parts joy

Method:Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Serve with a slice of fitness and a pinch of salt. Yum!

Username:

Personality cocktailFrom Go-Quiz.com

One [...]

Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too.
Such (allowing for a little journalistic caricature) were the findings reported in last month’s issue of Psychological Science. Researchers found that angry people are more likely to make negative evaluations when judging members of other social groups. That, [...]