NOW ON TO THE CONTINUING STORY

Millions Have Lost Their Compass

If you’re new to the story, you might want to go back and read up on it. Don’t want to? That’s O.K. too. Just jump right in. Right now I’m reflecting on what happens if you lose your “inner compass” and have no idea what to do with your life.

Quite a few folks are in this boat as we speak. How many? Two hundred million in North America maybe. Complete and utter balderdash you say? Yes indeed it is…..but true nonetheless. So how can you figure out which way to take your life if you’ve lost your inner direction? Easy. Ask others. Lots of folks will be happy to tell you what to do. Bosses for instance. Does it help? No it doesn’t. If you’ve lost touch with who you are and can’t hear your inner voice anymore, even the best boss or mentor in the world can’t help you find your way. I just happen to know someone who’d back me up on this if he was scrupulously honest about it. Me.

Who Can Help Me Find Mine?

When young I thought bosses were special people who could read me like a book and tell me which way to go. Wrong. All they could read was my cover…and it was an artfully designed disguise. I believed mentors could give me their formula for success and soon I’d be right behind them. They can….but as everyone eventually discovers, your formula for success is different from everyone who ever lived or will live. Follow someone else and you’ll soon be up to your neck in deep doo doo without a snorkel.

I figured there were experts out there somewhere who could analyze me down to my nuts and bolts and put me back together again….. pointed in the right direction.

Can Powerhouse People Help?

Sure enough. There are powerhouse people out there who can tear you apart and push you somewhere. Somewhere you’ll regret going some day. Even so, many people might say I wasn’t too far off looking to these fine furry folks for help though. Why? Because bosses, mentors and experts really can help us do all sorts of things. Matter of fact, of the billions of questions out there, they can help us answer all but one. Holy geniuses on the moon Batman! One out of billions is a pretty decent track record. Isn’t it? It certainly is. Pardon me? Which little question can’t they answer? What to do with your life.

I Listened to Experts and Mentors

Take me for instance. I watched bosses, mentors and experts closely and learned all kinds of tricks for “getting ahead”. In fact, I climbed to the top of the corporate ladder so quickly it was plain scary to me and anyone witnessing it. Bystanders, acquaintances and best friends alike thought something had to be wrong somewhere. How come? They still thought you had to be smart, talented, and capable of planning a career like a military campaign to get to the top. None of which described me in the least. But I digress. The point is….bosses, mentors and experts helped me do anything but….figure out who I was and which way I should be headed. And….I hate to say it, but it’s true….the very same thing applies to you. There is only one person in the known Universe who can answer the most important question you’ll ever be faced with. You. And the question? Who am I?

And You?

O.K., so now let’s summarize before we carry on with me getting lost very early and aimlessly wandering for decades. Ready? Here we go. If you don’t have a clue what to do with your life right now, and you’re hoping more knowledge and experts will help, I have news for you. Ain’t gonna happen. You may as well bend over and kiss your hind assembly goodbye….because you’ve lost yourself. Maybe forever. But I do have some good news. You can find yourself….and I can tell you how. Pardon me? Didn’t I just say nobody can help you find yourself? Yes I did. Does that make me nuts? Maybe it does. But it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It means I can show you a door, give you a key and….hopefully….watch you go through it to find yourself yourself. Nobody knows what your Path in Life is, including me. But I do know how you can discover it. Don’t believe me? That’s fine. Go to your grave never knowing who you are if you want. Just don’t come back to haunt me after you’re gone. Enough said about that for the moment. Next blog we’ll watch me getting completely lost by about ten years of age.

CONTINUING STORY….DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE

Today is a Heartshot Day!

What is True Vision?

If you’ve happened upon this site for the first time, you might want to know what “Heartshots” are. You can go to the tab above entitled “Why Read This Blog?” for a description if you’d like. But, in essence, Heartshots are happy things you can aspire to having in your life by learning how to be yourself. You might say that heartshots belong on that Great List of Things called “Happiness Is…..”. Clear away the clutter of teensy kitties, cash, coins, bucks and money on this huge list, and you’ll find Heartshots.

Today’s Heartshot is all about real, bona fide, true-blue….Vision. Just so you know, Vision isn’t make-it-up, imagined things you might conjure in your head….like becoming King of America….unless you’re destined to wear that crown. It’s not having Big Gold-Plated Stuff either….unless fate really has this in mind for you. Real Vision is a totally different thing from fantasizing or imagining or visualizing something that’ll make you feel important. To receive the gift of True Vision, you have to learn how to let heart-song back into your life once more. You must dissolve inhibiting fears of having your Life judged that keep Vision from you. So what exactly is True Vision? To make a long story short, Vision is ideas.

Yep. Just ideas, albeit really special ones. Vision ideas are spectacular things that make you say…… “I see!”. And what exactly will you see with real Vision? Who you are…. and…. what to do with your life. Like I said, I’m talking spectacular here.

Here’s something that follows from what I just said above about Vision….that you might not have noticed. The kind of real Vision you’ve read about Saints or World Leaders or Famous Folks having…..can be had by anyone. Why? Everyone comes with seeds of this special insight, because everyone needs to know who they are and what to do with their life. Vision is a natural sense that’s supposed to show us how to grow ourselves until we blossom. Vision is what each of us needs to “manifest our destiny”.

Put another way, to become all we can become, the Path to follow must be clear to us. Vision is the only thing that lets us see our own Road Less Traveled ahead. The thing is, unless you and I can go about our lives….being ourselves….living authentically…following our Truth….we can’t be happy. That’s one reason Vision is such a spectacular thing. It shows us the Path to take to be happy. And Vision is restored in any life the same way. Those special ideas needed to let “our own unique Truth” back into our lives are always held back by fears of having our lives judged.

 Take away the fears and out come the ideas….like a kind of Divine Magic. Remove the inhibiting Force of Fear and our potentials are released….just like water potential is released when you open a tap.

Just to whet your appetite for having Vision in your life again then, here’s a few things you will be able to see with it.

• Opportunities that are right for you.
• Your soul-mate
• Yourself in others (makes you send good Karma out to enrich your life)
• Why you are here
• Life lessons galore at every turn (where you noticed nothing before)
• The value of friendship, love, and beauty (first-hand….instead of from books)

Here’s a few things Vision isn’t

• Visualizing “wants” you think will make you important (Vision ideas come from the heart…..make-me-important “wants” come from T.V.)
• Imagining yourself being better than others (With Vision you don’t need to do this, because you SEE your life is equal in value to any life)
• Hoping (Vision brings with it hope for Happiness….but just plain hoping for happiness brings only sorrow)

Next Blog we’ll carry on with the continuing story.

I bought one of these bad boys after I got my MacBook Pro. Nothing worst than having a $4 latte ruin your $ 2.000 laptop.

We love a good insulated travel mug, especially when the mercury starts to drop. This auto-sealing mug from Contigo keeps our warm beverage close by and ensures you don’t spill it on your lap when driving or your keyboard while working.

Auto-Sealing Insulated Mug Keeps Your Drink Toasty, Won’t Spill – Drinks – Lifehacker

Envelop budgeting.  It is a concept that I learned years ago when I first got married and was trying to set up a budget.  The concept is fairly simple: You take your paycheck, divide it into different “envelopes” for your different expenses, and then pay for those expenses (groceries, gas, mortgage, eating out) out of those envelopes.  When the money is gone from that envelope, then you are done with that category…until your next paycheck, when the process starts over.

The theory is simple.  In practice, managing the envelopes, turning your paycheck into cash, dividing it up and keeping track of all the expenses can be a bit cumbersome.  This is a perfect job for a budgeting/finances software program.

I started trying to envelope budget on Quicken back when it still came as a DOS program on floppy disks.  It didn’t lend itself to envelope budgeting and I had to “hack” it to get it to work using “credit card accounts” for each of my envelopes.  Not an easy solution, but it worked.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of other programs that were either made for “envelope budgeting” or I willed it to do so by using it in a way it was never intended.  One program for which I had some hope was Larry Burket’s “Money Matters” program that was developed in the late 90s.  It was actually designed to manage your finances using virtual envelopes, and for a while, I finally felt like I was using the program like it was intended.

Unfortunately, the program was buggy and it was difficult to manually enter your financial data.  I later got a sample of “Microsoft Money”, and saw how easy it was to import data and do manual data entry and abandoned the envelope budgeting software altogether.

I fought Money for years, trying each new version that came out, hoping that they would somehow incorporate the “envelope budging” concept into it.  I loved how easy it was to use from a data entry standpoint, but always felt like I really didn’t know where all my money was. I just gave up.

In early 2008, I was leading a small group that was to help teach how to budget and get your finances under control, and I found myself again looking for a “envelope budgeting” program.

I ran across a web site, “You Need a Budget.” It sounded corny, but promising.  I had seen them in previously when doing a Google search for “envelope budgeting”, but they had previously only had a spreadsheet budgeting tool.  Now they had “YNAB Pro”, a windows program that followed 4 rules for budgeting.  It wasn’t exactly “envelope budgeting”, but as I played around with the software, I liked it better than any other program I had used in a long time.  The “rules” were compatible with “envelopes” and after using for a few months, I felt like I had control of where all our money was going again.

YNAB is now coming out with a new version that looks even better, easier to use, and runs under Adobe’s AIR framework, so that it can run on platforms other than Windows (i.e. MAC and Linux).

I have found this to be the best tool on the market to track your bank accounts and keep track of your budget.

[Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement.  It is, kind of.  But more of an endorsement of a great product.]

A sure sign that a new year is about to spring forth is when I make my annual trek to the local bookstore to pick up a new Moleskine Planner.

This time I got a Red Moleskine Weekly Notebook Planner.

NOW BACK TO THE CONTINUING STORY

First a quick review. You and I and every single soul on earth arrives here with a plan for growing human. In the beginning, when egg meets sperm, we call this plan “DNA”. It directs all sorts of nifty chemicals to come together to start building a unique baby person. It keeps on showing us which Way to grow for at least nine months. But of course, after birth, each of us continues growing Human in a unique way for quite some time. Then…..like I said last blog….something happens that stops us growing the Way we were meant to grow. It makes us blind to the right Path.

If this bad thing didn’t happen, we’d keep on getting ideas about who we are and how to grow ourselves Our Way. We’d stick to the Path we’ve been on since conception, and eventually blossom into a unique Human Being. But…… sadly… somewhere in our early lives, we learn a simple lesson of fear from parents, teachers, friends and others.

The Bad Lesson

Here’s the bad lesson many learn by ten years of age. If we venture out of our shell to be ourselves, we’ll be judged. Everyone and their uncle’s short-haired spaniel will measure our size, color, strength and smarts and rank us on the “Great Scale of Worthiness”. And what happens if we’re at the bottom of this scale? You got it. We’ll be pronounced… WORTHLESS. But we don’t have to hit bottom to feel bad about ourselves. Soon we’ll discover that guys or gals at the top are “winners”. And we lesser folk somewhere further down that Big Scale of Human Value? We have big signs on our backs on which it is written….”I AM A LOSER….PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR AND KICK ME”.

The Result

So what you say? So this. Nobody wants to discover their life is “worthless”. Who wants to be called a “loser” by man, woman and child alike? Way down deep where our hearts live, the idea we have no value at all is scary with a capital S. The result of all this judgment passed on our Life is predictable. We don’t want to be ourselves. We stop growing that way. We cease and desist with becoming all we can become. Why? Too risky. So what’s the alternative?

The Sad Alternative

Now what? Terrified of being ourselves, we try to be something else. Down where our heart is, we figure we can put out a kind of “dummy us”. If this fake persona is shot down and burned…..it’s not so bad….because the real person is still safe and sound in its shell. So what kind of “dummy” might we become? Anything that gets kudos. Doctors, lawyers or businessmen are “important people” for instance…..so let’s be one of those.

But what if we’re a poet or fireman or farmer at heart? Too bad for us. We ain’t risking being “unimportant”. Or being called a “loser” by someone. On the other hand, maybe we don’t have doctor, lawyer or business smarts. Then what? We’ll try to “get a good job” and forget the world thinks we’re a loser.

What Does That Mean?

All that means we give up growing ourselves in the unique Way we began life with. Instead we grow ourselves some other way. We pick goals off the shelf, designed to make us feel important (according to others)…..and go get ‘em. We grow without proper direction. Which is….. if you recall…..cancerous. We become Huge Human Tumors.

Stop, Look, and Listen

Now I want you to stop for a moment and reflect on what I’ve just said. Imagine someone or something following a Plan from conception. He, she, or it is heading like an atomic arrow to some distant destination. Then, suddenly, for reasons unknown, this person or creature veers off and heads somewhere else. Or perhaps this unfortunate soul begins wandering around in circles.

You’d have to wonder what happened…..wouldn’t you? Imagine you were “looking down on high” at this life before you. From your privileged position you can see this life has veered from the Path it was meant to take….to take a direction that will make its life a mere shadow of what it could be. That is exactly what happens to millions of people.

Real Life Examples

To flesh out this sad state of affairs we’ll pick some real life examples. Me and others. We’ll begin with a real, actual, living person. A youngster I know by the name of Erin. I’ve changed his name, but I can assure you he is live and kicking as we speak. From the time this kid could crawl downhill, he wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Just mention the word helicopter and he’d light up like the moon hit by an asteroid! To say he was passionate about ‘copters would be the Mother of All Understatements. This boy was born to fly, with or without wings. But he was about to run into a bit of trouble. Why? My friends his parents had other ideas. Simple, ready-made ideas like …..“that, my little funny flying friend….is totally unrealistic”. Ideas like…..“Fly copters and you’ll have to move to the North Pole to get-a-good-job”. Even worse, they laid this on him. “You’re an idiot if you go for helicopters”.

The Training Works

Eventually their training worked and Erin gave up on helicopters. Instead of listening to his heart, he listened to his parents. And? Now he’s dropping in and out of one college course after another, aimlessly wandering and totally lost. Poor guy doesn’t know it yet, but he’s given up the love of his life……and he’ll pay dearly for it. Holy cats in the ocean Batman! What just happened here? Fear of having his life judged and found worthless stopped Erin from sticking to the Plan he came with. A Plan that would grow him into who he could be. A Plan that would make him happy by fulfilling his potentials. Next blog I’ll give you another example of how to grow some Way you weren’t meant to. By listening to bosses instead of heart-song.

Each one of us born in this world has a purpose of life that must be fulfilled. There today, gone tomorrow. There’s very little time left with us. And in this constrained time, something advantageous needs to be done. The important thing here is to realize the purpose of life, and that every other person whom you look at, meet, talk to, scorn at, or maybe utterly despise has his/her own life goal ; and that person has set out to realize it. You and I are no-one to question/ridicule/ enfeeble his/her capabilities to realize their dreams.

There are times when you are feeling low, let down, betrayed, disappointed, failing to get to the expectation you set for yourself. Those times can be arduous for the mentally frail. But the sheer inspiration derived by telling oneself that he’s on this part of the universe to achieve something can bail him out of the tricky times. Many of the times we may not even realize what we are in here for..! Life today has become so extraordinarily one-dimensional and abeyant that we hardly think of what we really need to be.

There are 2 techniques of looking at life.
One is to live every day as if it were the last day of life. ‘If today were the last day of my life, what would i want to do? Will I be satisfied doing that?’ That way, we would see to it the best things are done on that day. [this thought is borrowed from The Stanford address by Steve Jobs]

Another way is to see everyday as the 1st day of the rest of your life. Leave the past behind.
Death is a common destination that every one of us share. Death can be a huge driving allow for making you do what you truly want to do. All ego, pride, embarrassment, hate, guilt vanishes in the face of death ; leaving only what is most necessary. Death is actually a cardinal rule!

Realizing one’s true worth is surely an essential purpose of life!

I want to end by quoting Steve jobs -’Don’t let the noise of others’ views drown out your own inner voice. They somehow already know what you actually need to become. The rest is secondary.’.

CONTINUING STORY……DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE

We’re Here to Grow

Let’s review where we’re at for a moment. The real, true, profound nature of callings is this: Callings are all about growing. But not just growing. You and I are called to grow in a unique direction. Best way to see what I mean is in that good old seed analogy. Imagine you and I arrived here as a very special kind of seed. This amazing kernel of potential is supposed to grow and grow, collaborating with its partner the environment, until it blossoms into a mature Human Being.

Each of us is Unique

Every single one of us is like an absolutely different seed however, destined to flower into a unique person. Even so, we all have exactly the same calling, purpose, Mission or reason for being here. Namely….. to grow Human until we’ve fulfilled all our potentials and blossomed into an amazingly different man or woman. This impossible Journey of growth is also called “being ourselves”. Bottom line? Each of us is here to…….. be ourselves. We’re all called to make a living being ourselves.

Callings Aren’t Just Jobs

O.K., so that means a “calling” isn’t…… just a job. Making a living means living all the amazing ways human beings can live. It means growing every part of us. Everyone comes with intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical characters and each facet of our being is supposed to be nurtured and grown until it flowers completely. In a real practical world of course, we’re called to earn money being ourselves. We have to find a Way of supporting ourselves that’s in sync with our unique talents and abilities and passions. Jobs can grow many different parts of us of course, but “extra-curricular” activities outside work are needed too. When all is said and done though, everyone is called to become all they can become in every aspect of their life. Each of us is more diverse than the most amazing patchwork quilt you could imagine.

We Aren’t Supposed to be Cancers

But don’t forget this. You and I can’t just pick careers or hobbies or things to learn that grow us any old way. That’s growing without real direction, and that kind of growth is called…….Cancer. But how on earth can you figure out which direction to grow in? Thankfully, you came with a Plan to grow the right Way…..for you and only you. And…..hard though it may be to believe…..you can learn how to let that Plan back into your life. But first we’d better give you an idea what that plan is all about. So let’s go take a look at it.

A Plan For Growing Human

Right at the very beginnings of your life, what do you think happened? Egg met sperm and an impossible process of growth began. From conception to birth, every cell, organ and part of you was created and assembled in a truly stunning way. But how on earth does this happen? Something somewhere tells basic building blocks how to come together to make up a human being. Today we know all this growth is directed by an amazing plan at the center of you called “DNA”.

How Does DNA Know
What to Do?

What tells DNA how to do this? That’s a good question, but we don’t need to answer it. All we need to do is watch what happens from conception until the birth of every baby human being (or creature for that matter). An astounding process of growth takes place.

After Birth Our Growth Continues

It continues after birth too, as we mature and learn to walk and talk and read and write. So let’s stop and think for a moment about it. Some kind of Plan is at work here for every single one of us, creating a unique human being. Don’t forget, there isn’t just one Plan that churns out the same person time after time. Every single one of us comes with a unique Plan to make a unique person. Each of us is growing “our Way” from conception to birth and for some time afterwards. This Plan in everyone is like a Path each of us is meant to grow along…..to become who we’re meant to be. A Way we’re each meant to travel if we’re to fulfill our potentials.

What Happens To the Plan?

In today’s world, here’s what we think happens as we make our way along that Path….following the Plan to grow human. Somewhere along the way….the Plan creates that big mushy thing between our ears we call a “brain”. Once this big biological computing machine gets going, a truly astonishing thing emerges. We call it a “mind of our own”.

Now we don’t need any kind of “inner DNA Plan” to direct our own growth. Presumably we’re able to make choices and take over the task of taking the Right Path for our life. We’re responsible for carrying on with the Plan for growing….. until we fulfill all our potentials. We’d do exactly that too, if something didn’t blind us to the Way ahead.

The Plan Gets Stopped Dead

Put another way, something stops the original Plan from flowing into that “Mind of our own” . It’s a bit like someone turned a tap off….preventing the right ideas from coming to us. Ideas that’d tell us who we are and what to do with our lives. But if that tap is opened again……the original Plan returns…..with a vengeance. Next blog we’ll really begin to understand “callings” and why they’re so rare.

TODAY’S HEARTSHOT IS….Why People Are Important

Everyone’s heard the old expression “two heads are better than one”. But have you ever heard this one? “Every man, woman and child is like unto a river”. No? That’s because I just made it up to describe a similar truth. A little story will illustrate what I mean.

Imagine a village surrounded by walls so high, no one can climb them. Foundations run so deep as well, that no one has ever managed to dig underneath to see what’s outside. To make matters worse, no doors or windows exist, so villagers are trapped inside. Even so, this village is a productive, happy, fun place to live because of the rivers. Out of the ground in many places flow bountiful rivers. Each delivers different toys, joys, and sustenance of all kinds, like horns of plenty.

A gigantic variety of everything necessary to life springs out of the ground in this hallowed place. And….truth be told, your world and mine is just like this. Except in our world, each Human Being is like an unending river of invention and inspiration. Every person without exception is an endless source of new and different perspectives on the world. But for you and I to profit from these gifts, we must meet many rivers, just like villagers in the story above. We must realize that each soul on earth can help us find our Way. On the other hand, refusing to partake of these gifts, will make us like men or women in the village above who stay away from rivers. Trapped in a place without joys and inspiration we’d live a shallow joyless life. And the moral of this little story? Accept the gift of life from those around you.

Now Back to The Continuing Story

What’s a Calling?

Do you really know what a calling is? I had no idea for decades. I thought I did. But I was wrong. Like most people, I thought a calling was a job sitting out there somewhere I’d fit into perfectly… like one big bad apple tossed into the right sized basket….if I found it.

A job I’d love if I could just track the darn thing down, because it suited me like peanut butter paste suits badly burnt toast. There’s some truth to this of course. But when all is said and done, ideas like this mislead us badly about callings. In truth, callings are very different animals indeed. They’re about a curious sounding thing called “destiny”. Put another way, your calling and mine is what we’re put here to do. There’s a good reason callings are called “callings” too. It’s because an “inner voice” tells us what to do with our lives. It “calls to us” from within, telling us who we are.

Pardon me? Like millions of other people, you don’t believe in destiny or “voices from within”? That’s O.K., There’s a really simple, easy way of looking at callings that’ll make good sense to you. Those famous “inner voices” aren’t difficult to swallow either, if you look at them a bit differently. As a matter of fact, once you take a different look at callings….and follow me to get yours back…you’ll even believe in destiny. By that I mean you’ll discover the purpose your life has always had…..even before you were born.

Happy Days Again

Now go back and look for happy words in the last post. Don’t want to? Alright, here they are. “Playing, exploring, wondering, and discovering”. Last post I talked about how I wished for “happy days” because my life seemed empty. I harked back to youthful days filled with happy words like those above. But those words don’t really just describe “fun and games”. Our early lives aren’t really happy just because we don’t have bills to pay, things to worry about, or responsibilities. Real, true “Happy Days” are all about growing. Those happy words describe growth.

Growing Makes Us Happy

Growing is what you and I were doing right from birth. We all begin our lives growing human, and we’re supposed to keep it up until we die. We’re becoming all we can become in these early years, and that’s what makes us happy. But, sadly, a terrible fear stops most of us from growing. It keeps us from hearing our inner voices and stops us dead in our tracks. Most of us know something is gone missing somewhere. We begin to feel there should be more to life than we’ve got. Somehow we know we have the potential to do bigger and better things….but can’t figure out what those things are. When these feelings hit us, we often wish we were kids again, back in good old “happy days”. What we don’t realize, is we’ve lost our calling. We’ve stopped growing.

Put another way, we stop growing the Right Way. Lots of people keep on growing. But callings aren’t just about growing. Growing isn’t enough to make us happy. I will now give you a very good example of growing that illustrates what I mean.

Growing Isn’t Enough

You and I are supposed to grow in a very particular way from birth to death. We must grow in a direction meant for us. Growing any which way is a very bad thing indeed. The best example of growth without direction is……cancer.

Cancer cells grow wildly. They don’t stop when they’re supposed to or stick to their proper place in the body. They’ve lost the direction they came with and just keep on growing. Anything that simply grows without purpose or direction is….by definition….cancerous. Sadly, that also applies to men and women. You can take school courses and seminars and read book after book, growing in knowledge and acquiring skills galore. But if you don’t know for sure this is the right way to take your life, you and those big cancer tumors are like twins. Your life has turned cancerous on you. You have no idea which way to take your life….but you’re taking it somewhere anyhow. And here’s the thing. To find that famous thing called “authentic happy success”, you have to grow the way you were meant to grow. You have to grow your Way. And……believe it or not….there is only one Way you and I are supposed to grow. Each of us comes here with One path to take. Stray from this Path we’re meant to grow down and we are absolutely lost. How do you find this Path? That’s what this blog will teach you. Next post we’ll continue doing exactly that.

食材の分量を入れてカロリー計算するタイプのツール「CaloRobo」の紹介。

CaloRobo＞栄養カロリー計算
http://calrobo.jp/calcalc.php

結果はこんな風に食材ごとのカロリー, 栄養素, 20～39歳女性に必要な量に対する割合と、カロリー合計が表示される。 結果は固定のURLを吐かれるのでブログに貼ったりできるのが便利だ。

カロリー計算結果☆

You don’t have to be a woman for this to make sense:

http://www.glamgalz.com/index.php/glam-fun/every-woman-should-know-this.html

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Web業界に入ってしばらくして肥え始めｗ, 2年前に半月板の手術をして以来はろくに運動もしなかったら肥え方に拍車がかかって気づけば8Kg アップ（酷いっ）。そもそも美しくないし、ただでさえクッションのなくなった膝に良いわけがないのでダイエットすることにした。 目標：2年で8Kgダウン。つまりは元の体重に戻したいだけなんですけど。 激しいのは長続きしないので、auのKarada Managerで毎日の食事を記録するのと、週2回プールで歩くのをコツコツと続けることにした。歩く時間は多少なりとも体力がつくまでは45分ポッキリと決めた。時間は徐々に延ばしていければいいかなー。 Karada Managerは冗談半分で始めたんだけど、結構励みになっていいですよ。毎日の適正摂取カロリーに対する過不足やBodyデータの変化をグラフで見える化してくれる。コースを選んでおくと週1でがんばりポイントをアドバイスしてくれたり、毎日の食事内容を見てキャラ（私の担当キャラはオカマちゃん♪）が「昨日の摂取カロリーは1500Kcalだったわね」とか、「貧血気味ならこんなメニューがおすすめよ」とか一声かけてくれるの。 なんしか、のんびり楽しみながら続けますー。

CONTINUING STORY…..DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE

If you’re not sure where this blog is coming from, go back and read a few previous posts. It’s a continuing story after all, and we’re carrying on where we left off.

I Got That Good Job

What happens when you “get that first good job”…but don’t have a clue who you are? Well, for a while that massive little entry level paycheque looks pretty good, but soon you’ll realize something seems to be missing somewhere. Take me for instance. Mr. newly minted engineer had no real interest in what he was doing. With zero engineering aptitude, the work was something of a struggle too. Struggle? Did I say struggle? It was more like me and engineering were fighting a battle to the death.

We didn’t much like each other and fought tooth and nail every chance we got. Every day I came home bruised and bleeding. To say the least, I had doubts I’d picked the right career off the shelf.

Soon you’ll see those doubts grow and fester and break out all over me like chicken pox. But in the beginning I just started wishing for “happy days”.

Happy Days?

So there I was, lost in the dark, looking for meaning in all the wrong places. Was it in my new nifty apartment? No. Was it in my shiny red sports car? No. Where was it? I didn’t have the foggiest idea. Then came the flashbacks.

Sitting at my matchbook sized desk at work, trying to figure out why x + y + z = 0, I’d fall into a trance, wishing I was a kid again. Playing with my Treasured Trixie dog would come to mind for example, or exploring creeks and rivers with good old buddy Ken. Early days discovering microscopic elephants in pond water and ebola viruses in ditches would flood back to me. Engineering equations would be tossed overboard as I remembered wonders of the night sky, and the pure magic of sunshine. My heart would be filled with happy days…..but my brain had no idea why.

Why Do We Wish For Happy Days?

Most folks think “Happy Days” are youthful days free of worries and responsibilities. Days when we don’t have joyless jobs and aren’t wondering how to pay all the bills. Stress free times filled with games. At least that’s what I thought “Happy Days” were. But eventually I learned I was dead wrong.

Look closely at the words I used to describe “happy days” above, and you’ll see clues. Clues to what those “Happy Days” really are. Truth be told, they’re special messages, trying to tell us we’ve left our callings behind. Not sure which words I’m talking about? Words like “playing, exploring, wondering, and discovering”. If you have a clear idea why you’re here on earth, those words will be a dead giveaway. If not, they’ll just sound happy. If you’d like to see why those words point directly to the meaning of your life, you’ll have to learn what a calling or “Life-Mission” really is. Next blog we’ll get started by reviewing what most people think about “callings”. But now I’ll throw in a heartshot to keep you warm.

INTEGRITY

Integrity’s something blogs and books far and wide glow over, because it’s a golden feather in anyone’s cap. It’s fair to say most of us want integrity too. But what exactly is integrity anyhow, and why is it so desirable? Like many things in life, there are two forms of integrity. One I like to call “everyday integrity”. The other, a far more potent version, I think of as “Real integrity”. First the smaller cousin.

Everyday Integrity

People with everyday integrity “do what they say they’ll do”. You can count on these folks for obvious reasons, because their actions are in sync with their words. Someone with this kind of integrity borrows money and surely pays it back for example. You can count on a person with everyday integrity to give you a ride to work too, because he or she will deliver every time.

Promises aren’t broken by men or women with integrity either, and lies aren’t the stuff of their dreams. On the other hand, folks lacking ordinary integrity are bad companions. Some will tell you what you want to hear….intending to deceive you as quick as can be. Others won’t hesitate to con you upside and down and backwards to gain for themselves at your expense. Needless to say, you don’t want to go that route. Do so and you’ll be shunned like a very bad virus.

Real Integrity

Real integrity is like ordinary integrity, except slightly more powerful. Approximately four billion times more powerful. Authentic integrity means “doing what’s said”, just like its little brother does. But the difference lies in what’s said. To illustrate the difference between these two kinds of integrity, I’ll make up a story. Here we go.

Let Your Heart Sing

Imagine each of comes into the world as “Head and Heart wrapped up in a useful body”. A bit like a sausage between two buns perhaps, only nicer. Now that you have that in mind, we can explain the two kinds of integrity. Ordinary integrity happens when we do what our head tells us to do. Makes sense? Yes it does, but Real integrity happens when we do what our heart tells us to do. When our lives are in sync with heartsong….. we have real integrity. Why is real integrity so different from its smaller brethren?

What Does the Heart Say?

From our hearts come ideas about who we are and what to do with our lives. It’s our hearts that tell us how to be ourselves and become all we can become. Our brains are really good for all kinds of things….but it’s our hearts that tell us what our dreams are. Real integrity then, is being yourself. It’s going about your life in sync with who you really are. It’s following your Blissful passions to where you’re meant to go. And here’s a bonus. People with real integrity also have the ordinary kind. The reason for this is simple too.

It’s because hearts don’t lie, cheat, steal, or gain at the expense of others. Hearts know down deep that other people and creatures and things are different parts of us. Our hearts realize we and the world are different parts of one whole. Therefore hearts know better than to do bad things to themselves.

How To Have Real Integrity

To have real integrity, learn how to remove fears of judgment. That’s the only thing from keeping your heart from telling you how to live an authentic life.

If you’d like real integrity for yourself, I’ll teach you how to get it in this blog. If you don’t….that’s O.K. too. But don’t forget. Without real integrity you’ll never know what your true passions are. You’ll never be able to make your real dreams come true.

Gretchen Rubin over at the happiness project has 5 happiness hacks that are worth considering.

Would following even one help you enjoy your life more?  Or make you more enjoyable to live with and work with?

# 1 Impulse to tidy up?

Add File 13 – the rubbish bin. See if you can fill it up!

# 2 Determined to exercise some self-control?

Cut down the times you have to self-control to no more than 2 a day! Stop beating yourself up.  Side-step nonsense.

# 3 Think you need a treat to lift you up?

Live well all the time!  Make each meal a treat. Tidy up as you go.  Live elegantly!

# 4 Think you need to help people in the world?

Help people close to home! Look around the room!  Halve some else’s irritation in your own kitchen, your own office, your own commuter train.

An irritation shared is usually quartered.

# 5 Resolving to do something?

Don’t. If you must have a resolution, have one, till it is done! Pick the most important and don’t put anything else on the list!

[Lauren] has created a facial conditioning device dubbed the Happiness Hat. The hat measures a sensor at the wearer’s cheek to determine if the wearer is smiling. When the hat does detects the wearer is not smiling, it activates a servo that prods the wearer. This project is fairly unique in that it provides haptic bio-feedback of what the body is doing, a similar project to the Happillow. While the Happiness Hat seems to work for treating the outward symptoms of unhappiness, this is but an early step towards the droud.

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Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are

Merlin Mann’s video ramble just shook my existential marbles. I don’t know what else to add other than to trust me, find a free 37 minutes of your time, and watch it. I’m still grappling with it. There are many things to chew on here. It’s meta, but not quite.

CONTINUING STORY….DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE

Before we carry on with the ongoing story, it’s time for a heartshot.  Something absolutely real and promising about…… The Secret….. you can take home to warm yourself with.

THE Secret?

Do you know “The Secret”? No? I’d better tell you before we go on. While I’m thinking of it, you might want to visit my September (2009) Secret-related-post too (Breaking the Law of Attraction). Anyhow, first let me paraphrase what a web-site about “The Secret” (book written by Rhonda Byrne and movie of the same name) says:

Throughout history a Law of Nature has run like a golden thread through the lives of all our prophets, seers, sages and saviours, and every great person. This Law has been responsible for their success…. But….until now….it has been kept secret.

So what is this Secret Law of Nature? It’s called the “Law of Attraction”. Here it is below.

Fill your head with positive passionate thoughts about what you want in life, and they will attract what you desire.

This secret is said to be THE Secret to real happy success. And? Well, people selling courses on how to use “The Secret” have gotten rich. But is this Secret Principle of Attraction really the secret door to happiness and success everyone is looking for?

Interestingly, it’s an identical Twin to the real thing. Unfortunately……it’s not the real thing. But…..there IS a real thing…and you can bring it into your life. Nada clue what I’m getting at? Of course not. I haven’t explained myself yet. Now I will.

Imagine two identical twin ladies. They’ve both thought positively night and day about becoming rich and famous opera singers for years. Each has vibrated the same ideas into the Universe like beacons, hoping to attract similar success. One creates a huge career with the Metropolitan Opera and makes millions. The other gets a small gig here and there and ends up depressed and homeless on the street. Identical twins. Identical thoughts vibrated into the void. Both applied The Secret technology of Attracting Abundance equally. Why did The Secret fail? The answer is simple. Twins may look the same, but they’re actually uniquely different people.

The twin ladies above are no exception. As it turns out, one really did have the heart and soul of an opera singer. Those thoughts she filled her head with came directly from her heart. She was passionately heeding her inner voice. People who do that grow themselves the way they’re meant to grow….and discover the Real Law of Attraction.

The Real Law says anyone growing their Way will attract an abundance of everything necessary to their unique life. On the other hand, twin number two actually had the soul of a mathematician. She “adopted” the idea being an opera star and filled her head with “wants and wishes” that weren’t in sync with who she really was. She couldn’t fulfill her destiny like her sister did.

And here’s the moral of the story. You can’t just fill your head with wants and wishes for money and an elite position in society….to harness the Real Secret. If you do, there are only two possible things you’ll get. The first is very little of anything. The second is maybe worse. You might pretend to be something you’re not all your life, gaining money and fame. Only to realize at the end of your life that you’d lived a lie.

Here’s where the heartshot comes in. You can find the golden braid of destiny in your life and the Real Secret every successful person has known.

Learn how to be yourself and your life will become a magnet for the kind of success suited to you. Truth be told, there IS a Secret for attracting Joyful abundance and the riches called “authentic happiness”. You actually can tap into a fabulous, potent Real Magic that’ll bring you Life and love and material wealth. Here’s the secret trick to doing exactly that. Learn how to dissolve fears of judgment that keep you from knowing who you are. Once you’ve done that, your head will fill with positive passionate wishes to achieve your heart’s real desires. And you’ll be driven by passion to go make those dreams real. There you go. You’ve just been given the biggest Secret you could imagine….for nothing.

BACK TO THE CONTINUING STORY

If you’ve arrived here for the first time, here’s where we’re at. A fast review.

Every single soul without exception comes here with a calling, Life-Mission, reason for being, Life-purpose…or whatever else you want to call it. It’s a real Road Less Travelled, because each of us must create this unique path to follow ahead of us as we go. Nobody’s ever been down this road and no one can travel it with us.

Each of us embarks upon this Great Journey at the beginning of our lives, and most of us stick with it for a few years. Then….we hit that Wall of fear I mentioned above, and give up the meaning of our lives. But nobody ever actually forgets their Life-purpose. As a matter of fact, everyone has memories of their calling. Each of us has recollections of times pursuing our heart’s desires. Old memories of who we really are.

Just in case you’re wondering….that means YOU too. So how come you can’t put your finger on a single one. Why is it you’d swear on a stack of 10 commandments you can’t remember why you’re here? The short answer is, you don’t really know what a calling is. You don’t know what you’re looking for.

It’s tough to find something if you have no idea what you’re seeking. If I asked you to go find a shiboofrapple for instance, chances are you’d ask me what the heck it was before rushing out to find one. Wouldn’t you?

 I hope so. Same problem with your calling memories. Your brain has been taught wrong-headed ideas about Life-Missions, callings, and the like. So don’t feel bad if you peer back into the mists of time and can’t see your true aim in life. You’ll need an introductory course in callings first. It’s coming up in the next few blogs. It’s the story of my life. 

Pardon me? Shiboofrapple? You want to know what a shiboofrapple is? From Bakker’s Non-Existing Dictionary of Ridiculous Things:

SHIBOOFRAPPLE: Rarely used noun: “bowl of cornflakes, laced with bacon fat, heaped with ice-cream, and shot through and through with sawdust. Taken once a day to keep regular”.

Got a over priced Mac and need help staying focus on your work?

Yup, that’s right. Productivity’s number one enemy is distraction. The enemy is sly and cunning. It is a master of disguise and sneaks up on you when you least expect it — in the form of an email, an IM message or beeps and alerts from other applications.
To deal with distraction, I’ve come up with not one, not two but three applications. These apps will only allow you to work on one app at a time and hide the rest. Out of sight, out of mind.

CONTINUING STORY….DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE

Today I’m offering nothing but a  Heartshot. Something the Ancients have always known. Apply it to your life and hope for happiness will be yours. Next blog we’ll take up the continuing story.

   Do I Know Thyself?

In my former life, if someone asked me….”do you know yourself?”…I probably would’ve looked at them as if they were crazy. “Of course”…. I’d say…backing away from the nutcase. “If I don’t….who the heck does?”Unfortunately, now I know the answer to that last question can easily be….nobody.

Maybe one in thousands “knows thyself”. If that sounds as ridiculous to you as a twelve legged mule, chances are you don’t. Know thyself that is. But hold on now. I’m not trying to call you names here. Don’t get me wrong. You can be brilliant and rich and hold down the biggest job on your block….and have no idea who you are. You can make it to the top of your class, your company or even Mount Everest….without “knowing thyself”. Makes no sense you say? Think of it this way. Imagine your head was a primo computer attached to a fabulous body. All you have to do is add software to get that head of yours programmed and the rest of you will be off and running. But where do you get the software?

Free Software!

Teachers, televisions, friends, parents and even enemies can provide the education you need to fill that head of yours. So off you go and download ideas, knowledge, beliefs and who-the-heck-knows what kind of neat stuff from all those sources.

You can train to become a ballerina, a lumber-jack, or rocket scientist….and your brain will tell your body how to go do those things. Then you can write out your resume, list all your accomplishments, and tell the world everything you’ve done. Put all that in a Big Book of Your Life and you and everyone else will know who you are….just by reading it. Right? Wrong. Sorry. I hate to tell you, but that ain’t “Knowing Thyself”. The reason is simple too. You just got the wrong software. More accurately, you got your software from the wrong source.

Wrong Source?

To Know Thyself, you have to download software (ideas) from “Source”. What and where is “Source”? Nobody knows. We won’t waste time trying to figure it out either,  because we don’t have to.

Not sure where I’m coming from here? Just imagine  “Source” was “out there” like something on the internet.  When downloading from the net, stuff could come from China or America or Mars. It  doesn’t matter. You don’t have to go there. Just get it to your computer. Right? Exactly. Same with the  software from “Source”. You just need to know how to tap into it.

Tapping into “Source”

To tap into “Source” you remove fears of being judged. Period. End of story. Nothing more to do. Take those fears away and ideas about who you are flow to you….like free stuff from the internet. When your brain gets this special software, you begin to “Know Thyself”. You’ll start to see what your real passion in life is. What to do with your life will dawn on you….and you’ll go do it. Now you’ll start growing yourself in the direction you were meant to grow. Keep it up and you’ll eventually blossom….fulfilling your potentials in the process. NOW you can author the real Book of Your Life.

This story is about who you really are. All the accomplishments, adventures, failures and successes in this Book of Life will depict “Thyself”.

How Do You Dump Those Fears?

How do you dump those fears? Follow me. Don’t want to? No problem.There are many ways to do this, all of which have proven completely unreliable over the Centuries. Just so you know…..unreliable means a snowball would have a better chance in Hell. But what the heck. Here’s a short list. Go try them all out. If none help come back and see me. This blog can help. The Way here is simple and effective…..but does take some work. Don’t like work either? Holy puppies who won’t eat prunes Batman! Go to your grave never knowing who you are if you want then. Just  don’t come back to haunt me after you’re gone.

Ways To Tap Into Source

• The Way of Zen
• Religious Epiphany
• Wilderness Revelation
• Science
• Self-Help
• Meditation
• Near Death Experiences

  As the Hucksters Say

”But Wait…There’s More!”

Just so you’re slightly motivated to actually get your free  software from Source, here’s what “Knowing Thyself” will bring you. Authentic Happiness.