Friday Carousel – 11.27.09

photocredit

Happy (Day After) Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers and Happy Day to the rest of my readers! I had a positively amazing Thanksgiving with family & friends; I am so grateful. Speaking of gratitude,
I count my blessings every single day when I wake up in the morning & when I go to sleep at night. This practice humbles & strengthens me. I urge you to do the same. We have so much to be thankful for.

…And now on to this week’s Friday Carousel!

    “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”–JFK

  1. How We Can Help Alleviate World Poverty in Three Easy Steps: The lastest post from Zen Habits and a topic near and dear to my heart.

    there are two points to remember when we think about global problems:

    1. Every action counts;
    2. We are not alone.

  2. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television: From Mother Earth News. Television can be a devil. While there is much good to be gained from it, I think that for most people it is a waste, a sucker of energy, life, and happiness. If I had to classify myself, I’d be *pro-books* and *anti-television*.

    3. “We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.” –William Hazlitt

  3. The Benefits of Pissing People Off: It is no secret that I practice kindness as my religion; but I am also a firm believer that- You can please some of the people some of the time; but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. I really enjoyed this post by Tim Ferriss.

    By facing the fire early and often, we ensure the confidence and breathing room later to do bigger and better things.

  4. From Chelsea Nico.
  5. The Warrior of Light Dances: My latest inspiration from Paulo Coelho’s blog.

    The warrior is careful with people who think they can control the world, determine their own steps, and are certain that they know the right path. They are always so confident in their own capacity of decision that they do not realize the irony with which fate writes everyone’s life.

  6. Live and Let Live: 9 Ways of Letting Go: I absolutely love this post from my friend Jard at Spiritual Zen. Two of my favorite points-

    Be Understanding Rather Than Understood and Stop Being a Victim.

Please share your own links in the comments section. Have a wonderful weekend! Remember to spread love & light wherever you go.

you may also like

  • Carousel — 03.26.10

    Every Friday, I post my favourite links, posts, & resources from around the Web. Expect to learn, grow, & be inspired.

    ———————–

    1. burning questions with Patti Digh: poetic choices: If you read nothing else from this week’s Carousel, read this post. This is honestly one of the most moving & profound interviews that I’ve ever read.

    2. UPDATE ON THE JOURNEY TO EVERY COUNTRY: Incredible! Talk about an incredible journey…

    3. Why I Quit My Job to Travel Around the World: This seems to be “the dream” of so many in my generation. I love to read the stories of those who go out & make it happen.

    4. Be Your Own Guru: Because, in the end, no one else can stand in my shoes. No one else can live my fears, dreams, love, relationships, desires, intellect, challenges, life and lifestyle. No one else can enjoy or suffer the outcome of my decisions or actions. No one else is better equipped to know me. No one else can act but me.

    5. Staying out of Starvation Mode….: Crucial information if you are trying to maintain a healthy body weight & optimal fitness.

    6. Paying it WAY Forward: I discovered Colin and his blog a couple of weeks ago when he did an interview at Untemplater. I developed an e-crush on him & his lifestyle immediately thereafter. I really like this post that he wrote about paying it forward & the idea of “karma.” Great stuff.

    7. How To Find Balls: Hehe… I’ll let this post’s title speak for itself. 😉

    8. what i learned at couples counseling: I love this post—not just because I think counseling is always a good idea—but also because the advice contained within is so fantastic.

    9. The Mindfulist: The Concept—Each day, meditate or think on a new topic. Slow down and focus! How to participate—1. Meditate or create with each daily prompt 2. The prompts come in two flavors. Work/tech-related, found here at The Mindfulist. 3. If you’re public and want to be social, tag what you create #mindfulist

    I like it.

    10. How to Master the Art of Mindful Eating: Fantastic advice about how to eat, the way that food is meant to be eaten. (Bonus = a delicious recipe!)

    ———————–

    Happy Spring, my loves! ♥♥

  • Carousel—03.12.10

    Sunset

    Every Friday, I post my favourite links, posts, & resources from around the Web. Expect to learn, grow, & be inspired.

    ——————————————-

    1. You rock & On self determination & Try different: Three must-read posts from Mr. Seth Godin, genius, this week. Enjoy!

    2. Great Financial Advice from the in Flight Safety Handbook: How is financial planning like a plane crash? Find out in this excellent post. It might just save your life… or at least your bank account.

    3. Video Interview: Unautomate Your Finances with Baker & Video Interview: Untemplate your mind, body, and spirit with Amber Zuckswert: Awesome video interviews with two of my favourite bloggers—Adam Baker from Man vs. Debt & Amber Zuckswert from Epic Self.

    4. 10 Shattered Financial Templates: One more from Untemplater this week (to go along with my credit card debt freedom theme) I had to share this great post about shattering financial templates. Bottom line: out with the old & in with the new!

    5. The Story of Stuff: My boyfriend saw Annie Leonard on the Colbert Report the other night. In true minimalist fashion, he called me up right away to tell me about it. Annie is an activist who has spent the past 10 years traveling the globe fighting environmental threats. In her story, she talks about the real costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. In other words she tells us why we should all be minimalists. Amen! Check out the site for more and to view the “Story of Stuff” short film.

    6. What James Cameron Taught Me About Passion: I love this post by JD where he talks about why reaching our goals & living our passions sometimes requires doing things that we don’t want to. In his case, it’s Internet Marketing. I love his metaphor, “…everybody who is involved with Internet Marketing has an underlying passion that pushes them forward. [It’s] a lot like playing the bass guitar. Few people actually have a passion for it, but if you’re willing to do it you can get in the band.”

    7. Rescue Time & Leech Block: Two awesome productivity tools that I found via Location180. Rescue time is an “automagical time tracking & tools to help you focus (from light ‘nudges’ to blocking for short periods of focus) and track project time.” LeechBlock is a simple productivity tool designed to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day. All you need to do is specify which sites to block and when to block them.

    8. Live your Life as if Everything is a Miracle: Inspirational words & beautiful photographs & quotes, a wonderful guest post on the Good Life Zen blog. “I am realistic. I expect miracles.” —Wayne Dyer

    ——————————————-

    Have a great weekend, loves of my life. Spread love & light where ever you may go.

  • Carousel — 04.02.10

    Every Friday, I post my favourite links, posts, & resources from around the Web. Expect to learn, grow, & be inspired.

    ———————–

    “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” —Lao Tzu

    1. The Rebel’s Manifesto: “1. Do the opposite of what you were taught in school.” This is just chock-full of superb advice.

    2. My Running Mantra: What lovely inspiration!

    3. 18 Tips on how to pack for a trip, how to travel light, how to have fun in airports (where “trip” also equals “life”): This post delivers precisely what the title promises & then some…

    4. Post Secret: If you are one of the ten people left on Earth that isn’t following Post Secret, then I suggest you start now. 😉 PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. It is completely ad-free & gets updated every Sunday. It’s incredible.

    5. A critical message about food. Yes, it is a bit lengthy, but worth every moment of your time.

    Additionally, last week I watched Food, Inc. and to say that my perception about food is drastically altered would be a catastrophic understatement. Every single person living in the USA (perhaps others, too) must watch this film.

    6. A happy mayor: “Not only is Mayor Hazel McCallionhappy of the City of Mississauga in Canada happy at work, she is also 88 years old, has been elected 11 times, has a 91% approval rating AND has kept her city debt-free.” Dear Heaven: Give me a fraction of this woman’s health, enthusiasm, and spirit! I’ll be set forever.

    7. The Crushing Problem of Student Debt: Excellent post about the growing problem of student loan debt faced by so many Americans. This is an excellent follow-up to my two part series about my own financial journey.

    8. Overcoming Fear: I write about overcoming fear quite a bit here; but every now & then it is nice to hear someone else’s perspective on the subject. I really enjoyed this post about overcoming fear, particularly Jared’s personal story about where he allowed fear to take him in his own life.

    9. 25 Beautifully Illustrated Thought-Provoking Questions: “Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of?” Get prepared to think.

    10. Renegade Health Care Reform: Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all political on you! Just click it. I’m sure you’ll agree, no matter which side of the fence you’re standing on.

    11. The Ultimate Minimalist: 5 Powerful Lessons You Can Learn From Gandhi: Really simple, really powerful. This is the most inspired I’ve been by a “minimalism” post in awhile (and I read a lot of them, friends!).

    ———————–

    To all of my friends that celebrate Easter, may your Easter be filled with love & light. To all of my friends who do not, may your weekend be full of passion & grace. xo

  • Carousel — 02.19.10

    sunset, lake

    Oh, what a week! I’ve been busy catching up after my recent trip to South Carolina last weekend. (Thanks for all of the positive energy that sent my way—the presentation was a great success.) For the past two days, I’ve spent 14 hours participating in new database training, so that’s been… interesting. On the bright side, I learned a lot and it’s been exciting to see my company transform as we implement this big change.

    I couldn’t be happier that it’s Friday. I have lots of lovely adventures planned with family, friends, & loves this weekend. So let’s get the party kicked off with this week’s Carousel then. Shall we?

    1. self hatred: beneath sugar-coated criticism + self improvement: Danielle lays it all on the line in the post about how we degrade ourselves with little insecurities. The first step to stopping it, is admitting that you do it.

    2. Phoning It In, The hidden power of a gift, and Frightened, clueless or uninformed?: Three excellent posts from Seth Godin. How have I not discovered this brilliant man sooner? A couple of months ago, I won Seth’s book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us in a Twitter contest. I finally made the time to read it this past weekend during my flights to & from South Carolina. OH. MY. GOODNESS. The book was brilliant. Now I am head over heels for Mr. Godin and of course, have since subscribed to his blog.

    I’ll be posting a review of Tribes in the near future.

    3. Nine Things You Can Do Every Day – Even When You Can’t Do Anything Else.

    4. The Only Problem Standing in Our Way: I loved this post by Marc. It teaches us why sometimes the only problems standing in our way are the ones that we create in our heads.

    5. A panorama of tea: At Vagablogging, Colleen Wilde explores the drink of philosophers—tea! Her lovely descriptions of delicious tea across beautiful cultures warmed my heart.

    6. Giving Up TV and 8 Changes I Experienced After Giving Up TV: A few years ago, I moved out of my parents house & out on my own. One of the first decisions I made at that time was to opt out of cable television. There are a lot of things that I dislike about modern television: glamorization of sexism, violence, addiction; in-your-face ridiculous marketing, etc. I find that I am much more productive without the distraction of television—I read, write, create, love, and live more without it.

    In these posts, Steve talks about his initial decision to take a break from TV and his subsequent decision to give it up altogether. I think it is something that we should all consider. Currently, my partner & I have basic cable which is great because I only watch it once in awhile for programs that enrich me (cultural documentaries, environment/wildlife, home &garden, etc). And it’s a good compromise because he can still tune into his favorites, like Family Guy, while I graciously opt out… most of the time.

    7. “The View” of What’s In a Name?: Dr. Oz talks all about names. Why do some names evoke images of strength & beauty? What things should we keep in mind when naming children, or even pets? What does your name say about you? (I now this isn’t exactly self-improvement; but I’ve always been a fan of names. We’ve all got one!)

    8. be inspired: the “special problem” of strong women looking for love: Sarah Wilson writes about dynamics in man/woman relationships and how it is often necessary for men to be the “stronger” ones. I thought it was interesting & it made me ask questions about the dynamics/expectations within my own relationships.

    9. 8 Helpful Ways To Deal With Critical People: Lucky for me this isn’t much of a problem. I genuinely like criticism— be it constructive or even harsh. Criticism serves as a catalyst for me to be better myself or remove unkind people from my life. For me, criticism is a win-win. However, it hasn’t always been this way & there have been instances in my past where I could have used the good advice in this post.

    ———————————————

    That’s it for this week’s round up. Have a great weekend, friends. Remember to spread love & light wherever you go.

    P.S. I am super sore (in a good way) from a fitness class I took at New York Sports Club last night—Will Power and Grace—I highly recommend it if you have an NYSC in your area!

4 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing Dena.

    I disagree strongly with Tim's post. The goal isn't to piss people off, it's to be beyond what other people will think, say, or do, in reponse to you being you.

    The *really* successful people could care less if they piss people off most of the time. They devote themselves to a purpose.

    Who cares what others think about what you do?

    Reply

  2. I'm loving your Friday Carousels! (And that opening picture is awesome, btw)

    Thanks for showing me some articles that I have missed this week… Those two first points from Leo's post are so moving… 1) Every action counts and 2) We are not alone.
    🙂
    Karen

    Reply

  3. I was at first taken back by Tim's post too (a great provoking headline, no?) but the message he's trying to convey was for us to not fear doing remarkable things.
    Have a great day Dena!

    Reply

  4. @Ryan – I appreciate your feedback. When I read Tim's article, it actually seemed to be mostly in complete agreement with your thoughts. 🙂

    @Karen – I am glad that you liked them. Yes, we can always count on Leo for some inspiration.

    @Ken – Yes, yes! That is exactly the point. I think he was trying to grab attention with that headline but at its core the article was about doing remarklable things.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *