“
I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Think progress, not perfection.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes.
”
”
Dan Rather
“
I have a set of daily habits that help me to be in control of my life. I journal, read, set daily priorities, and don’t consume useless information.
”
”
Darius Foroux (Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things)
“
The grace of writing is upon me.
I love writing. I write daily.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
JOURNAL ENTRY: Stop waiting for something or someone to come and make you happy. Meditate daily. Breathe. Come on. You’re okay. You have friends. Love them. Respect them. Go out and play. Learn to be alone.
”
”
Jenifer Lewis (The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir)
“
God speaks to those who take time to listen, and He listens to those who take time to pray.
”
”
Our Daily Bread Campus Journal
“
On Keeping a Journal.
Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts—like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.
The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather—in many cases—offers an alternative to it.
”
”
Susan Sontag (Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963)
“
Blessed is he who keeps daily diary and compares the work of this week with that of the last, for he will realize God quickly!
”
”
Sivananda Saraswati (Sure Ways for Success in Life and God Realisation)
“
to learn that while you dream and believe in Utopia, you will scratch & scrabble for your daily bread in your home town and be damn glad if there's butter on it
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
The Bible is the Bread of Life, and it never becomes stale.
”
”
Our Daily Bread Campus Journal
“
Each of us struggles daily with the pressures of conformity and the loneliness of difference from which those choices seem to offer escape.
”
”
Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals)
“
those who kept a daily gratitude journal—writing down at least five things for which they were grateful—enjoyed higher levels of emotional and physical well-being.
”
”
Tal Ben-Shahar (Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment)
“
Henry's recollections of the past, in contrast to Proust, are done while in movement. He may remember his first wife while making love to a whore, or he may remember his very first love while walking the streets, traveling to see a friend; and life does not stop while he remembers. Analysis in movement. No static vivisection. Henry's daily and continuous flow of life, his sexual activity, his talks with everyone, his cafe life, his conversations with people in the street, which I once considered an interruption to writing, I now believe to be a quality which distinguishes him from other writers. He never writes in cold blood: he is always writing in white heat.
It is what I do with the journal, carrying it everywhere, writing on cafe tables while waiting for a friend, on the train, on the bus, in waiting rooms at the station, while my hair is washed, at the Sorbonne when the lectures get tedious, on journeys, trips, almost while people are talking.
It is while cooking, gardening, walking, or love-making that I remember my childhood, and not while reading Freud's 'Preface to a Little Girl's Journal.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
“
[I] settled down with the Daily News and the Post, glad to be back with journalism where all murders are “brutal,” all prosecutors are “tough,” and all blondes are
“attractive.” And any lawyer who cooperates with the reporter is
“high-powered.
”
”
Andrew Vachss (Only Child (Burke, #14))
“
Start the healing process by keeping a journal of your child's daily activities and behavior, marking down routine events along with the behavior that accompanies these events. After about a week or two of journaling, parents find that patterns emerge.
”
”
Karyn Purvis (The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family)
“
Take away the newspaper—and this country of ours would become a scene of chaos. Without daily assurance of the exact facts—so far as we are able to know and publish them—the public imagination would run riot. Ten days without the daily newspaper and the strong pressure of worry and fear would throw the people of this country into mob hysteria—feeding upon rumors, alarms, terrified by bugbears and illusions. We have become the watchmen of the night and of a troubled day. . . .
”
”
Harry Chandler
“
I can feel my heart growing daily, which has its uncomfortable aspects, as if it could fall with the weight of love and break.
”
”
Phyllis Theroux (The Journal Keeper: A Memoir)
“
A Christian like life is a message of hope to a searching World.
”
”
Our Daily Bread Campus Journal
“
Nothing is more attractive than being like Jesus
”
”
Our Daily Bread Campus Journal
“
You can tell if a discipline is BS if the degree depends severely on the prestige of the school granting it. I remember when I applied to MBA programs being told that anything outside the top ten or twenty would be a waste of time. On the other hand a degree in mathematics is much less dependent on the school (conditional on being above a certain level, so the heuristic would apply to the difference between top ten and top two thousand schools). The same applies to research papers. In math and physics, a result posted on the repository site arXiv (with a minimum hurdle) is fine. In low-quality fields like academic finance (where papers are usually some form of complicated storytelling), the “prestige” of the journal is the sole criterion.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life)
“
Things designed by people without skin in the game tend to grow in complication (before their final collapse). There is absolutely no benefit for someone in such a position to propose something simple: when you are rewarded for perception, not results, you need to show sophistication. Anyone who has submitted a “scholarly” paper to a journal knows that you usually raise the odds of acceptance by making it more complicated than necessary. Further, there are side effects for problems that grow nonlinearly with such branching-out complications. Worse: Non-skin-in-the-game people don’t get simplicity.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life)
“
This morning I woke up at four and lay awake for an hour or so in a bad state. It is raining again. I got up finally and went about the daily chores, waiting for the sense of doom to lift — and what did it was watering the house plants. Suddenly joy came back because I was fulfilling a simple need, a living one. Dusting never has this effect (and that may be why I am such a poor housekeeper!), but feeding the cats when they are hungry, giving Punch clean water, makes me suddenly feel calm and happy. Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.
”
”
May Sarton (Journal of a Solitude)
“
Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism. They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share.
Post-truth is pre-fascism.
”
”
Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century)
“
Lois Lane is to women in journalism as Superman is to superheroes.
”
”
Tim Hanley (Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet's Ace Reporter)
“
The IYI subscribes to The New Yorker, a journal designed so philistines can learn to fake a conversation about evolution, neurosomething, cognitive biases, and quantum mechanics.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life)
“
This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out of it, but given me to be stored away in eternity as my own.
”
”
Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
“
I can write three hundred and sixty-five grateful thanks.
Cultivate the habit to write gratitude daily.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
Mental nausea of daily squash
flabby cauliflower
and grease dripping slick and sheepish
onto the placid plate of mind.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
Every morning write down three new things you’re grateful for. Journal for two minutes a day about a positive experience from the past 24 hours. Meditate daily for a few minutes. At the start of every day, write an email to someone praising or thanking them. Get fifteen minutes of simple cardio exercise a day.
”
”
Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
“
Don't tell me about the Press. I know *exactly* who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they *ought* to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually *do* run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who *own* the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by *another* country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is.'
"Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?"
"Sun readers don't care *who* runs the country - as long as she's got big tits.
”
”
Antony Jay (Yes Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker)
“
He never asked me what I thought, and I never told him what I thought, because in my view that's the way a journalist ought to behave. You ought not to be going around to people volunteering your feelings. That's daily journalism.
”
”
Janet Malcolm (The Journalist and the Murderer)
“
The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control. —Sören Kierkegaard The Last Years: Journals 1853–55
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
“
use your Daily Reflection as your daily digital detox window. After your PM Reflection, implement a “screens off” policy that lasts until you’ve completed your AM Reflection the following morning. It’s a simple way to get yourself into the habit of unplugging.
”
”
Ryder Carroll (The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future)
“
Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you’ll reach it—no Stoic
would tolerate that assumption—but not having an end in mind is a
guarantee you won’t
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will increase in your life.” - Sanaya Roman
”
”
Rossi Fox (365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal with memories, self-reflection, creativity & direction)
“
A daily written thankful gratitude is a heavenly blessing.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
The thrill of working in this building, with its iconic globe on top, would never fade.
”
”
Gwenda Bond (Triple Threat (Lois Lane, #3))
“
Get warm any way you can, and love God and pray.
”
”
Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
“
127 How do you express your creativity?
”
”
Rossi Fox (365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal with memories, self-reflection, creativity & direction)
“
We cannot fully heal if we cannot experience gratitude on a daily basis.
”
”
Sharon E. Rainey (The Best Part of My Day Healing Journal)
“
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. - Joseph Campbell
”
”
Rossi Fox (365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal with memories, self-reflection, creativity & direction)
“
The truths you establish early stay with you. They’re written in the journal of who you are—the one you carry around in your pocket like an operating manual for life.
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Never Say Never (Welcome to Daily, Texas Book #3))
“
Now, old and dying or dead already, and we have mostly acclimatized to the absurdity of daily life in the fourth decade of the twenty-first century, although occasionally we regress and rant. To journals.
”
”
Blake Crouch (Perfect Little Town)
“
I wish I hadn't met you in the rain: it comes every winter.
I wish you hadn't told me your favorite wine: I've become a drinker.
I wish I never showed you my hidden birthmark:
It looks back at me at night asking where you are.
I wish I hadn't read you my journal, all the pages praising you,
It's corrupted now that I can't tell if I write for me or you.
I wish I hadn't told you my daily routine: it's not mine anymore.
I can't enjoy 11:11, my favorite song, a birthday cake, or a concert tour.
I'm not afraid of the future, it's the past that takes a while.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (Can I Tell You Something?)
“
Shawn Achor’s five happy habits: Every morning write down three new things you’re grateful for. Journal for two minutes a day about a positive experience from the past 24 hours. Meditate daily for a few minutes. At the start of every day, write an email to someone praising or thanking them. Get fifteen minutes of simple cardio exercise a day.
”
”
Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
“
I just hope there’s a Daily Hell I can write for. I could do witty editorials like “Hell: Hath It Lost Its Fury?” and maybe weekly updates on who is torturing whom. I’m guessing there will be a plethora of CEOs and politicians to interview. There won’t be any religious groups to offend in hell, so I imagine I can write anything I want. Maybe it won’t be so bad!
”
”
Chris Colfer (Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (The Land of Stories))
“
When Sadik lost his own lease, we moved in together. And after a few months of closer scrutiny, he began to realize that the city had indeed had an effect on me, although not the one he’d expected. I stopped getting high. I ran three miles a day and fasted on Sundays. For the first time in years, I applied myself to my studies and started keeping a journal of daily reflections and very bad poetry.
”
”
Barack Obama (Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance)
“
To get the maximum benefit from this practice, you’ll need to write in your journal daily about your thoughts and reactions to events and the people in your life. You don’t need to write long entries, but aim to be honest and open about your emotions, motivations and behaviors.
”
”
Tara Swart (The Source: A Transformative Guide to Unlocking Your Mind, Harnessing Neuroplasticity, and Manifesting Success Through the Power of the Law of Attraction)
“
Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer.
”
”
Jeff Rice (The Night Stalker)
“
And if this daily war zone wasn’t enough, survivors then make their way inside to an even more hazardous environment: high school, society’s bright idea to put all the naïve, pubescent, aggressive youth into one environment to torment and emotionally scar each other for life. Way to go, society! Best idea ever.
”
”
Chris Colfer (Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (The Land of Stories))
“
We are spread across the country now, old and dying or dead already, and we have mostly acclimatized to the absurdity of daily life in the fourth decade of the twenty-first century, although occasionally we regress and rant. To journals. Our fellow dinosaurs. To our children who bring their children to visit us in nursing
”
”
Blake Crouch (Perfect Little Town)
“
The illusion we are separate is the biggest lie. We are essential; we are goodness. We are more than individual; we are a part of a collective whole
”
”
Andrea L. Wehlann (Stillness in the Storm: A Conscious Daily Journal of Yoga and Spiritual Healing)
“
Freedom? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Happiness? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Respect of your peers? That too is in the choices you make.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
At a time when the words 'fake' and 'news' are being paired together, "Radio Okapi Kindu" honors journalism and the importance it plays in our daily lives.
”
”
Jennifer Bakody (Radio Okapi Kindu: The Station that Helped Bring Peace to the Congo)
“
Sitting for even five minutes with a journal offers a rare cease-fire in the battle of daily life.
”
”
Alexandra Johnson
“
How crazy it is to be “yourself” by trying to live up to an image of yourself you have unconsciously created in the minds of others.
”
”
Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
“
It’s hard to imagine a profession less suited to Twain’s personality than daily journalism. Four decades later he still shuddered at the memory of its “soulless drudgery.
”
”
Ben Tarnoff (The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature)
“
I am happy that I can at least want to love God. Perhaps that is all I’ve got, but it is already all that is essential. And He will take care of the rest.
”
”
Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
“
Each day, write a thankful note.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
Minimalism is a way of living at the maximum of your potential.
”
”
Anastasiya Kotelnikova
“
You ought to write grateful gratitude every day
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
I felt that I had been driven from the temple where for nineteen years, along with other believers, I had worshiped the great god News on a daily basis.
”
”
Walter Cronkite (A Reporter's Life)
“
well, anyhow, this is what I was meant to make for a man, and to give him this colossal reservoir of faith and love for him to swim in daily,
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
I will often write “GO FIRST” in my morning journal as a daily prompt.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Control your perceptions.
Direct your actions properly.
Willingly accept what's outside of your control.
That's all we need to do.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know difference.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Just begin the work. The rest follows
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Satisfying news hunger no longer involves a twice daily diet of a morning newspaper and evening TV news bulletin: news comes in snack-form
”
”
Ian Hargreaves (Journalism: A Very Short Introduction)
“
Stoicism is designed to be medicine for the soul.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic, [Hardcover] The Daily Stoic Journal, Perennial Seller By Ryan Holiday Collection 3 Books Set)
“
No matter what you put into the journal, it becomes a reflection of who you are, who you think you are and who you want to be.
”
”
Eric M. Scott (Journal Fodder 365: Daily Doses of Inspiration for the Art Addict)
“
Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism.
”
”
Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century)
“
There is a common misconception that love is without cost. I would argue that we pay for love daily, and the currency it requires is time.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2001
”
”
Nathan Van Coops (The Warp Clock (In Times Like These, #4))
“
As an introvert explorer, your soul’s goal is to come home to itself.
”
”
Michaela Chung (The Year of the Introvert: A Journal of Daily Inspiration for the Inwardly Inclined)
“
If we keep our eyes on the mirror of God's Word, we will gradually be conformed to the image of Christ.
”
”
Mary Vogelsong (UP! Daily Devotional Companion Journal (Book One))
“
We are just as sullied by one sin as if we had immersed ourselves in a flood of evil.
”
”
Mary Vogelsong (UP! Daily Devotional Bundle, Books 1-3: Real-Life Strategies and Journal Prompts To Help You Draw Near to God)
“
Mercy flows from the wounds of Christ to heal a wounded world.
”
”
Allene vanOirschot (I TALKED TO GOD TODAY: 4 Week Devotional Prayer Journal Pain, Suffering and Daily Living)
“
The working people of the Flint area hated this rag, but it was our only daily so you read it. Everyone called it the "Flint Urinal." Editorially, the paper had historically been on the wrong side of every major social and political issue of the twentieth century -- "the wrong side" meaning: whatever side the union workers were on, the Urinal took the opposite position.
”
”
Michael Moore (Here Comes Trouble)
“
Cheerfulness is surface-level. Joy, to Seneca, is a deep state of being...can you be fully content with your life...can you bounce back from every kind of adversity without losing a step?
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant!
”
”
Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
“
Disappointed in his hope that I would give him the fictional equivalent of “One Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs” or the “Carnet de la Ménagère,” he began to cross-examine me about my methods of “collecting material.” Did I keep a notebook or a daily journal? Did I jot down thoughts and phrases in a cardindex? Did I systematically frequent the drawing-rooms of the rich and fashionable? Or did I, on the contrary, inhabit the Sussex downs? or spend my evenings looking for “copy” in East End gin-palaces? Did I think it was wise to frequent the company of intellectuals? Was it a good thing for a writer of novels to try to be well educated, or should he confine his reading exclusively to other novels? And so on. I did my best to reply to these questions — as non-committally, of course, as I could.
And as the young man still looked rather disappointed, I volunteered a final piece of advice, gratuitously. “My young friend,” I said, “if you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is to keep a pair of cats.” And with that I left him. I hope, for his own sake, that he took my advice.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Collected Essays)
“
Keep your own journal, whether it’s saved on a computer or in a little notebook. Take time to consciously recall the events of the previous day. Be unflinching in your assessments. Notice what contributed to your happiness and what detracted from it. Write down what you’d like to work on or quotes that you like. By making the effort to record such thoughts, you’re less likely to forget them.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
“
Let any one who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get their daily bread in this city by their labour, whether artificers or meer workmen—I say, let any man consider what must be the miserable condition of this town if, on a sudden, they should all be turned out of employment, that labour should cease, and wages for work be no more.
This was the case with us at that time; and had not the sums of money contributed in charity by well-disposed people of every kind, as well as abroad as at home, been prodigiously great, it had not been in the power of the Lord Mayor and sheriffs to have kept the publick peace. Nor were they without apprehensions, as it was, that desperation should push the people upon tumults and cause them to rifle the houses of rich men and plunder the markets of provisions; in which case the country people, who brought provisions very freely and boldly to town, would have been terrified from coming any more, and the town would have sunk under an unavoidable famine.
”
”
Daniel Defoe (A Journal of the Plague Year)
“
By seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more generous.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
LOVE YOURSELF TODAY BY JUST BEING Be wrong, be right, be strong, be weak, be fierce, be afraid—be whatever your heart wants you to be in this moment. First and foremost, be honest. The worst thing to be is a lie.
”
”
Michaela Chung (The Year of the Introvert: A Journal of Daily Inspiration for the Inwardly Inclined)
“
The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control. —Sören Kierkegaard
The Last Years:
Journals 1853–55
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
“
For instance, let’s say part of your morning routine is to journal for 10 minutes. A decision to check your email “real quick” can lead to all kinds of distractions, such as clicking on a link in an email that goes to a blog post that has links to other blog posts. And of course there are the comments on the blog that you just have to respond to. Suddenly that 10-minute creativity routine has turned into a 30-minute rabbit hole of unproductive tasks.
”
”
S.J. Scott (Level Up Your Day: How to Maximize the 6 Essential Areas of Your Daily Routine)
“
Don't give an inch; over time, an inch becomes two and then three. Before we are aware, our solid footing has eroded and we find ourselves in a desperate struggle to stand against temptation. Look away, turn away, and walk away.
”
”
Mary Vogelsong (UP! Daily Devotional Companion Journal (Book One))
“
For Eric, Columbine was a performance. Homicidal art. He actually referred to his audience in his journal: “the majority of the audience wont even understand my motives,” he complained. He scripted Columbine as made-for-TV murder, and his chief concern was that we would be too stupid to see the point. Fear was Eric’s ultimate weapon. He wanted to maximize the terror. He didn’t want kids to fear isolated events like a sporting event or a dance; he wanted them to fear their daily lives. It worked. Parents across the country were afraid to send their kids to school. Eric didn’t have the political agenda of a terrorist, but he had adopted terrorist tactics. Sociology professor Mark Juergensmeyer identified the central characteristic of terrorism as “performance violence.” Terrorists design events “to be spectacular in their viciousness and awesome in their destructive power. Such instances of exaggerated violence are constructed events: they are mind-numbing, mesmerizing theater.” The audience—for Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, or the Palestine Liberation Organization—was always miles away, watching on TV. Terrorists rarely settle for just shooting; that limits the damage to individuals. They prefer to blow up things—buildings, usually, and the smart ones choose carefully. “During that brief dramatic moment when a terrorist act levels a building or damages some entity that a society regards as central to its existence, the perpetrators of the act assert that they—and not the secular government—have ultimate control over that entity and its centrality,” Juergensmeyer wrote. He pointed out that during the same day as the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, a deadlier attack was leveled against a coffee shop in Cairo. The attacks were presumably coordinated by the same group. The body count was worse in Egypt, yet the explosion was barely reported outside that country. “A coffeehouse is not the World Trade Center,” he explained. Most terrorists target symbols of the system they abhor—generally, iconic government buildings. Eric followed the same logic. He understood that the cornerstone of his plan was the explosives. When all his bombs fizzled, everything about his attack was misread. He didn’t just fail to top Timothy McVeigh’s record—he wasn’t even recognized for trying. He was never categorized with his peer group. We lumped him in with the pathetic loners who shot people.
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Dave Cullen (Columbine)
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It seems to me that I have greater peace and am close to God when I am not “trying to be a contemplative,” or trying to be anything special, but simply orienting my life fully and completely towards what seems to be required of a man like me at a time like this.
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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However, if our judgments are crooked because we don’t use reason, then everything that follows will be crooked, and we will lose our ability to steady ourselves in the chaos and rush of life. If you want to be steady, if
you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
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- be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.
- there is plenty that you could do right, today, that would make the world a better place. There are plenty of small steps that, were you to take them, would help move things forward.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
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So, what does a gratitude practice look like? The folks I interviewed talked about keeping gratitude journals, doing daily gratitude meditations or prayers, creating gratitude art, and even stopping during their stressful, busy days to actually say these words out loud: “I am grateful for …
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Brené Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are)
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Emily Zanotti is a Republican political strategist and author. She is a regular contributor to The American Spectator and a featured opinion columnist with The Wall Street Journal. Her work has appeared across the political spectrum, in National Review, The Daily Caller, Slate, and elsewhere.
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Joanne Bamberger (Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox)
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Brilliant, windy day—cold. It is fall. It is the kind of day in October that Pop used to talk about. I thought about my grandfather as I came up through the hollow, with the sun on the bare persimmon trees, and a song in my mouth. All songs are, as it were, one’s last. I have been grateful for life.
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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People are nicer than they look, but you have to go first. This made me think of a line from fictional character Raylan Givens in the TV series Justified: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” I will often write “GO FIRST” in my morning journal as a daily prompt.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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Many successful people have a morning ritual. For some, it’s meditation. For others, it’s exercise. For many, it’s journaling—just a few pages where they write down their thoughts, fears, hopes. In these cases, the point is not so much the activity itself as it is the ritualized reflection. The idea is to take some time to look inward and examine.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
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With journaling, you see the patterns of your life; you claim—or reclaim—who you really are; you coach yourself into becoming the someone you imagined; you arrive at a sense of balance, of yourself, of wholeness. You can discover productive patterns and nonproductive patterns in your life, and you can choose to embrace the ones that move you forward.
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Rosie Molinary (Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance)
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1998, Fred “Rusty” Gage published a revolutionary paper in the journal Nature Medicine, showing that the hippocampus, where new memories form, generates new neurons on a daily basis from a small population of neural stem cells (NSCs). Until then, it had been believed for nearly a century that no new neurons are ever generated in the adult human brain.
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Rahul Jandial (Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon: Practical Strategies for Peak Health and Performance)
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What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation. “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don’t get tired of looking for me! I know You won’t. For You have found me. All I have to do is stay found. April 11, 1948,
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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He had always kept a journal. When he was a young man, in a village outside Rotherham in Yorkshire, he had written a daily examination of his conscience...In the days of the butchery, his journal was full of his desire to be a great man, and his self-castigation... he was a good Latin teacher... a good supervisor... but he was not using his unique gifts, whatever they were, he was *going* nowhere, and he meant to go far. He could not read the circular and painful journals now, with their cries of suffocation and their self-condemnatory periods, but he had them in a bank, for they were part of a record, of an accurate record, of the development of the mind and character of William Adamson, who still meant to be a great man.
(-Morpho Eugenia, Angels and Insects)
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A.S. Byatt (Angels and Insects)
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I think it is time for a modern War Against Error. A deliberately heightened battle against cultivated ignorance, enforced silence, and metastasizing lies. A wider war that is fought daily by human rights organizations in journals, reports, indexes, dangerous visits, and encounters with malign oppressive forces. A hugely funded and intensified battle of rescue from the violence that is swallowing the dispossessed.
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Toni Morrison (The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations)
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Hitherto, Jack had been too busy working up his crew to pay much attention to the education of his midshipmen, but he had looked at yesterday's slips and they, with a very suspicious unanimity, had shown the Sophie in 39°2I'N, which was fair enough, but also in a longitude that she could only have reached by cleaving the mountain-range behind Valencia to a depth of thirty-seven miles.
'What do you mean by sending me this nonsense?' he asked them. It was not really an answerable question; nor were many of the others that he propounded, and they did not, in fact, attempt to answer them; but they agreed that they were not there to amuse themselves, nor for their manly beauty, but rather to learn their professions; that their journals (which they fetched) were neither accurate, full, nor up to date, and that the ship's cat would have written them better; that they would for the future pay the greatest attention to Mr Marshall's observation and reckoning; that they would prick the chart daily with him; and that no man was fit to pass for a lieutenant, let alone bear any command ('May God forgive me,' said Jack, in an internal aside) who could not instantly tell the position of his ship to within a minute – nay, to within thirty seconds. Furthermore, they would show up their journals every Sunday, cleanly and legibly written.
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Patrick O'Brian (Master & Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1))
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...and the air warm and sweet with dogwood and flowering smells, and the lights quaint and soft, and the wet streets reflecting them. It was good to walk faceless and talk to myself again, to ask where I was going, and who I was, and to realize that I had no idea, that all I could tell you was my name, and not my heritage; my daily schedule for the next week, and not the reason for it; my plans for the summer, and not the purpose I had whittled out for my life.
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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Keep your own journal, whether it’s saved on a computer or in a little notebook. Take time to consciously recall the events of the previous day. Be unflinching in your assessments. Notice what contributed to your happiness and what detracted from it. Write down what you’d like to work on or quotes that you like. By making the effort to record such thoughts, you’re less likely to forget them. An added bonus: you’ll have a running tally to track your progress too.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
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They kept moving past the racks of the Night Vale Daily Journal by the windows. Due to spiraling printing costs and the necessary layoff of nearly its entire staff, the Journal had long ago moved to an imagination-based format. The racks were empty except for a small note reminding you that if you imagined what a hypothetical Night Vale newspaper might look like, then you needed to send a check for $19.95 to the Daily Journal to cover your monthly Imagination Subscription.
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Joseph Fink
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Studies show that the more you pay attention to your body’s statistics, the greater the chance you’ll adopt a healthy lifestyle. This idea underpins the Quantified Self movement, in which adherents track everything from caloric output to selenium levels. The mere act of weighing yourself daily makes it more likely you’ll shed pounds, according to a University of Minnesota study. Keeping a food journal makes you eat fewer fatty foods, according to another study. And pedometers make you walk more.
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A.J. Jacobs (Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection)
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an atmosphere of pain blood and pain and misery or staunch bitter rebellion of body- but no peace- no transfiguration- atmosphere of fear of physical pain - wincing from the knife- the loss of identity which is slavery to physical pain. Brutal, passionate flesh- marisse crucifix- pain smoothed way, identity smoothed away in pain- pure anguish human attempts at deciphering the riddle of pain- blood: florid and ornate-ugly, unredeeemed, ironic- waiting in corridors- cross of flesh x spirit- minor daily crosses-
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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Somehow, Naomi was of another, newer, generation than Nathan, despite the fact that they were the same age. Nathan seemed to have absorbed his sense of journalistic ethics from old movies about newspaper reporters. For Naomi, internet sampling and scratching was a completely valid form of journalism, presenting no ethical clouds on its open-source horizon. To not be photographed daily, even by oneself, to not be recorded and videoed and dispersed into the turbulent winds of the net, was to court nonexistence.
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David Cronenberg (Consumed)
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The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Bible which every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed and which America reads. So wide is its influence. The editor is a preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax is commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of many an intelligent foreigner, as well as my own convictions, when I say, that probably no country was ever rubled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worse, and not the better, nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit.
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Henry David Thoreau (Civil Disobedience and Other Essays)
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A lot of people think I'm brave because I quit my job and traveled the world alone in search of purpose. And yes, doing this required a lot of courage. But for introverts like me, there are things that care us even more than performing or traveling solo. At the top of the list might be saying "I love you" for the first time, or opening up to someone new. Remember, the bravest acts happen in quiet moments. When you feel afraid to speak up or try something new, but you do it anyway, you are the definition of courage.
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Michaela Chung (The Year of the Introvert: A Journal of Daily Inspiration for the Inwardly Inclined)
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his unhappiness was our fault. My mother and I got on his nerves. It was because of us he had a job he couldn’t stand. Everything we did was irritating. He particularly didn’t enjoy being around me, not that he often was: in the mornings, as I got ready for school, he sat puffy-eyed and silent over his coffee with the Wall Street Journal in front of him, his bathrobe open and his hair standing up in cowlicks, and sometimes he was so shaky that the cup sloshed as he brought it to his mouth. Warily he eyed me when I came in, nostrils flaring if I made too much noise with the silverware or the cereal bowl. Apart from this daily awkwardness, I didn’t see him much. He didn’t eat dinner with us or attend school functions; he didn’t play with me or talk to me a lot when he was at home; in fact, he was seldom home at all until after my bedtime, and some days—paydays, especially, every other Friday—he didn’t come clattering in until three or four in the morning: banging the door, dropping his briefcase, crashing and bumping around so erratically that
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Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
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Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism. They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share. Post-truth is pre-fascism. 11 Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles.
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Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century)
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The root-phenomenology of the journalistic is, in a sense, metaphysical. It articulates an epistemology and ethics of spurious temporality. Journalistic presentation generates a temporality of equivalent instantaneity. All things are more or less of equal import; all are only daily. Correspondingly, the content, the possible significance of the material which journalism communicates is 'remaindered' the day after. . . . The utmost beauty or terror shredded a close of day. We are made whole again, and expectant, in time for the morning edition.
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George Steiner (Real Presences)
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Gratefulness is actually good for brain and body health (Korb, 2012). In one study researchers asked participants to keep a daily journal of what they were grateful for. They asked another group to write about what annoyed them. The group who recorded what they were grateful for showed greater determination, attention, enthusiasm, and energy compared to the other group. In another study the same researchers discovered that even keeping a weekly gratefulness journal reduced aches and pains. And in a Chinese study, gratefulness decreased depression and improved sleep.
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Charles Stone (Brain-Savvy Leaders: The Science of Significant Ministry)
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When I ask my students to journal daily, I ask them not to judge and not to filter. Just put it down, I say—whatever you think of, however you want. A week goes by, and I send along a copy of Joan Didion’s short, classic essay “On Keeping a Notebook.” Write three paragraphs about the notebook pages that you have been keeping, I say. What is the value of the notes you have kept? What did they teach you about yourself? How honest are the pages, and what do you expect they will mean to you ten or twenty years from now? What shouts back at you about your voice and the sentences you leave behind?
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Beth Kephart (Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir)
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Anything the Tarahumara eat, you can get very easily,” Tony told me. “It’s mostly pinto beans, squash, chili peppers, wild greens, pinole, and lots of chia. And pinole isn’t as hard to get as you think.” Nativeseeds.org sells it online, along with heritage seeds in case you want to grow your own corn and whiz up some homemade pinole in a coffee grinder. Protein is no problem; according to a 1979 study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the traditional Tarahumara diet exceeds the United Nations’ recommended daily intake by more than 50 percent. As for bone-strengthening calcium, that gets worked into tortillas and pinole with the limestone the Tarahumara women use to soften the corn.
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Christopher McDougall (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen)
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The DID patient should be seen as a whole adult person with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life. Despite patients’ subjective experience of separateness, clinicians must keep in mind that the patient is a single person and generally must hold the whole person (i.e., system of alternate identities) responsible for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities, even in the presence of amnesia or the sense of lack of control or agency over behavior.
From p8
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision: Summary version. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12, 188–212.
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James A. Chu
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18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian communism. This silence is due in part to short-sighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.
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Pope Pius XI (Divini Redemptoris: On Atheistic Communism)
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He had always kept a journal. When he was a young man, in a village outside Rotherham in Yorkshire, he had written a daily examination of his conscience...In the days of the butchery, his journal was full of his desire to be a great man, and his self-castigation... he was a good Latin teacher... a good supervisor... but he was not using his unique gifts, whatever they were, he was *going* nowhere, and he meant to go far. He could not read the circular and painful journals now, with their cries of suffocation and their self-condemnatory periods, but he had them in a bank, for they were part of a record, of an accurate record, of the development of the mind and character of William Adamson, who still meant to be a great man.
(-Angels & Insects: Morpho Eugenia)
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A.S. Byatt
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To live without comparison, to live without any kind of measurement inwardly, never to compare what you are with what you should be. The word 'meditation' means not only to ponder, to think over, to probe, to look, to weigh; it also has a much deeper meaning in Sanskrit - to measure, which is `to become'. In meditation there must be no measurement. This meditation must not be a conscious meditation in deliberately chosen postures. This meditation must be totally unconscious, never knowing that you are meditating. If you deliberately meditate it is another form of desire, as any other expression of desire. The objects may vary; your meditation may be to reach the highest, but the motive is the desire to achieve, as the business man, as the builder of a great cathedral. Meditation is a movement without any motive, without words and the activity of thought. It must be something that is not deliberately set about. Only then is meditation a movement in the infinite, measureless to man, without a goal, without an end and without a beginning. And that has a strange action in daily life, because all life is one and then becomes sacred. And that which is sacred can never be killed. To kill another is unholy. It cries to heaven as a bird kept in a cage. One never realizes how sacred life is, not only your little life but the lives of millions of others, from the things of nature to extraordinary human beings. And in meditation which is without measurement, there is the very action of that which is most noble, most sacred and holy.
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J. Krishnamurti (Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal)
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When his support team on the surface finally called down to him on September 14, the day his experiment was scheduled to wrap up, it was only August 20 in his journal. He thought only a month had gone by. His experience of time’s passage had compressed by a factor of two. Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next—and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.
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Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)
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The Christian faith enables, or should enable, a man to stand back from society and its institutions and realize that they all stand under the inscrutable judgment of God and that, therefore, we can never give an unreserved assent to the policies, the programs and the organizations of men, or to “official” interpretations of the historic process. To do so is idolatry, the same kind of idolatry that was refused by the early martyrs who would not burn incense to the emperor. The policies of men contain within themselves the judgment and doom of God upon their society, and when the Church identifies her policies with theirs, she too is judged with them—for she has in this been unfaithful and is not truly “the Church.” The power of “the Church” (who is not “the Church” if she is rich and powerful) contains the judgment that “begins at the house of God.
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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support group she was leading for women with premenstrual syndrome. One of their self-help methods was to keep a journal of symptoms. Maureen’s journal for the next couple of months clearly showed that her symptoms of anxiety, fluid retention, sugar and chocolate cravings, mood swings, irritability, bloating, edema, headache, and sore breasts escalated before her period and lifted the minute her period began. Taking magnesium supplements may be the solution for PMS, advises Melvyn Werbach, M.D. Recent studies showed that of 192 women taking 400 mg of magnesium daily for PMS, 95 percent experienced less breast pain and had less weight gain, 89 percent suffered less nervous tension, and 43 percent had fewer headaches. (Dr. Werbach and several other researchers also advise that women should take 50 mg of vitamin B6 daily with the magnesium to assist in magnesium absorption.)
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Carolyn Dean (The Magnesium Miracle (Revised and Updated))
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Resisting intense commercial pressure, Walpole’s government had drafted an
Act of Quarantine to keep out vessels suspected of carrying the disease. An author in the government’s pay believed to be Defoe rose vigorously to the Act’s defence in a series of ten articles for the Daily Post, Mist’s Journal, and Applebee’s Journal, signing himself ‘Quarantine’...
Opinion was duly swayed and the Act of Quarantine gained the royal assent on 12 February 1722. Four days earlier, Defoe had published his first major work on plague, Due Preparations for the Plague, as well for the Soul as Body, and in the spring its blend of medicine and piety suffused the grand historical fiction that is A Journal of the Plague Year. If the Marseilles plague gave Defoe a publishing opportunity that had been simmering for years, it also spawned a wealth of new material for him to recycle or refute (David Roberts)
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Daniel Defoe (A Journal of the Plague Year)
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Stoic virtues are sometimes referred to as the four cardinal virtues: Practical wisdom (prudence) Moderation (temperance) Courage (fortitude) Integrity (justice) However, each of them individually is not considered a virtue. They may be thought of as traits or dispositions that strengthen and ennoble humankind but must be used together so one does not override the others. The Stoics sought after ethical notions and solid principles. They came up with eight principles to form the foundation for living a good life[VM10]. These principles have been used by people from all walks of life and can help you achieve your goals. Nature is rational. Illness, poverty, and death are not evil; they are natural. A life following rational nature is virtuous. Passion is irrational (apatheia). Wisdom is the root of all virtue. The universe is governed by a law of reason. Pleasure is neither good nor bad. Virtue should be sought as a matter of duty, not for pleasure.
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Marcus Epictetus (Live a Stoic Life: Using the Ancient Art of Stoicism to Live a Modern Life, Become Tougher, Calmer and More Resilient - Daily Stoic Challenges, Stoicism ... and Stoic Journal (Mastering Stoicism 5))
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Keep a gratitude journal. The mind tends to focus on problems to be solved rather than on what is working. Change this up by starting a gratitude journal. At least once a week write in your journal about the things for which you are grateful. Leave complaining out of this journal! This practice increases the likelihood that you will notice positives in your life, a skill that will reduce your vulnerability to emotion mind. Track your worries (Behar et al. 2009). Each week write down the top three worries in your mind and rate them as to how likely they are to happen. Once a month review your list and see how many of the things you worried about did or did not become problems. Chances are you will find a higher percentage of your worries never manifested. Reflect on the usefulness of constant worrying. Look for ways to make lemonade (Linehan 1993a). As the saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Reflect on things in your life that have seemed like lemons at the time (such as a divorce) that ended up being lemonade (allowing you to find a happier relationship). Try to find opportunities in your daily life to make lemonade out of disappointments or reversals.
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Cedar R. Koons (The Mindfulness Solution for Intense Emotions: Take Control of Borderline Personality Disorder with DBT)
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Here are my 12 Rules for Living: I go to bed and get up at the same time seven days per week (8 p.m. and 4 a.m., respectively). I stick to my diet, avoid caffeine after 1 p.m., and avoid alcohol within three hours of bedtime. I write for at least sixty minutes first thing every morning. I do not check email before noon and I do not talk on the phone unless it is a scheduled interview or conference call. I act polite and courteous, and I do not swear. I create a to-do list at the start & end of every workday and update my daily gratitude & achievement journal. I do not engage in confrontations with anyone, in-person or online. This is a waste of time and energy. If I have caused harm, I apologize and fix the situation. And then I take a deep breath, relax, breathe out, and re-focus my efforts back on my work and goals. I am guided by these two phrases: “Nothing matters.” – I can only work towards my big goals and my vision of helping others, while the opinions of others do not matter. “It will all be over soon.” – Everything, both good and bad, comes to an end. I must enjoy the good while it lasts, and persevere through the bad until I have beaten it. Everything that happens to me—good and bad—is my personal responsibility. I blame no one but myself. These are the choices I’ve made—this is the life I’m living. I accept the consequences of my actions. I will help ten million men and women transform their lives. I will not be the person I don’t want to be. I will not be petty, jealous, or envious, or give in to any other of those lazy emotions. I will not gossip or speak badly of others, no matter who I am with or what environment I am in. I will not be negative when it is easier to be positive. I will not hurt others when it is possible to help. I will know the temptations, situations and environments in life that I must avoid, and I will, in fact, avoid them, even if it means loosening relationships with others who “live” in those environments. It’s my life and that matters more than what other people think of me. “I will always keep the child within me alive.” – Frank McKinney. I will make time to laugh and play every day. “I will write with honesty and feeling.” – Ted Nicholas. The opinion of others does not matter. What matters is the number of people that I can help by sharing advice and encouragement in my writing. My 12 Rules have made me much happier
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Craig Ballantyne (The Perfect Day Formula: How to Own the Day and Control Your Life)
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A Prescription for a Simple Life
1. Write in a journal daily, or almost daily.
2. Take three to four months off every few years and go live in some very different place, preferably a foreign country.
3. Limit your work (outside of the home) to 30 hours a week, 20 if you are a parent.
4. Don't let any material thing come into your home unless you absolutely love it and want to keep it for the rest of your life or until it is beyond repair.
5. Spend at least an hour a week in a natural setting, away from crowds of people, traffic, and buildings. Three to four hours of nature time each week is even better.
6. Live in a home with only those rooms that you or someone in your family use every day.
7. Select a home and place of work no more than 30 minutes away from each other.
8. Do whatever you need to do to connect with a sense of spirit in your life, whether it be prayer, religious services, meditation, spiritually-related reading, or walking in nature.
9. Seek the support of others who want to simplify their lives. Join or start a simplicity circle if you enjoy group interaction.
10. Practice saying no. Say no to those things that don't bring you inner peace and fulfillment, whether it be more things, more career responsibility, or more social activities.
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Linda Breen Pierce (Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World)
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One thing we were sure of, we did not want to become accredited as regular correspondents, with correspondents’ credentials, for in that case we should have been under the sponsorship and control of the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office rules are very strict regarding correspondents, and if we once became their babies, we could not have left Moscow without special permission, which is rarely granted. We could not have traveled with any freedom, and our material would have been subject to Foreign Office censorship. These things we did not want, for we had already talked to the American and British correspondents in Moscow, and we had found that their reporting activities were more or less limited to the translation of Russian daily papers and magazines, and the transmission of their translations, and even then censorship quite often cut large pieces out of their cables. And some of the censorship was completely ridiculous. Once, one American correspondent, in describing the city of Moscow, said that the Kremlin is triangular in shape. He found this piece of information cut out of his copy. Indeed, there were no censorship rules on which one could depend, but the older correspondents, the ones who had been in Moscow a long time, knew approximately what they could and could not get through. That eternal battle between correspondents and censor goes on.
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John Steinbeck (A Russian Journal)
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November 1 SINGING YOUR OWN PRAISES “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” —A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh As an introvert, you might have grown up feeling anything but grateful for your personality. You tried to cure your introversion by mimicking extroverted behavior. Of course, this didn’t work because you can’t fix what isn’t broken. You are an introvert. You like people, but sometimes you like your alone time more. You think deeply and choose your words carefully. You enjoy different pastimes than the extrovert down the street. None of this makes you a bad person. In fact, there are billions of other people who share your preferences. So, let’s try a different approach, shall we? Let’s try on a little self-acceptance for size. Instead of trying to fix or cure, let’s celebrate our strengths. For the longest time, I saw my quietness as a fatal flaw, a sign that I was not friendly or feminine enough. Now, I see it as just another piece of the intricate mosaic that is my personality. Alongside my quietness, there is also intuition, wisdom, and an ability to read between the lines. Sure, I speak slowly and pause often, but I am singing on the inside. Those who matter can hear my silent song. This month’s entries will help you to see the beauty in your introverted nature and guide you toward singing your own praises (quietly, of course).
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Michaela Chung (The Year of the Introvert: A Journal of Daily Inspiration for the Inwardly Inclined)
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But the 1880s are also embedded in our lives in many smaller ways. Over a decade ago, in Creating the Twentieth Century, I traced several daily American experiences through mundane artifacts and actions that stem from that miraculous decade. A woman wakes up today in an American city and makes a cup of Maxwell House coffee (launched in 1886). She considers eating her favorite Aunt Jemima pancakes (sold since 1889) but goes for packaged Quaker Oats (available since 1884). She touches up her blouse with an electric iron (patented in 1882), applies antiperspirant (available since 1888), but cannot pack her lunch because she has run out of brown paper bags (the process to make strong kraft paper was commercialized in the 1880s). She commutes on the light rail system (descended directly from the electric streetcars that began serving US cities in the 1880s), is nearly run over by a bicycle (the modern version of which—with equal-sized wheels and a chain drive—was another creation of the 1880s: see engines are older than bicycles!, this page), then goes through a revolving door (introduced in a Philadelphia building in 1888) into a multistory steel-skeleton skyscraper (the first one was finished in Chicago in 1885). She stops at a newsstand on the first floor, buys a copy of the Wall Street Journal (published since 1889) from a man who rings it up on his cash register (patented in 1883). Then she goes up to the 10th floor in an elevator
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Vaclav Smil (Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World)
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It is often said that Vietnam was the first television war. By the same token, Cleveland was the first war over the protection of children to be fought not in the courts, but in the media. By the summer of 1987 Cleveland had become above all, a hot media story. The Daily Mail, for example, had seven reporters, plus its northern editor, based in Middlesbrough full time. Most other news papers and television news teams followed suit.
What were all the reporters looking for? Not children at risk. Not abusing adults. Aggrieved parents were the mother lode sought by these prospecting journalists. Many of these parents were only too happy to tell — and in some cases, it would appear, sell— their stories. Those stories are truly extraordinary.
In many cases they bore almost no relation to the facts. Parents were allowed - encouraged to portray themselves as the innocent victims of a runaway witch-hunt and these accounts were duly fed to the public. Nowhere in any of the reporting is there any sign of counterbalancing information from child protection workers or the organisations that employed them. Throughout the summer of 1987 newspapers ‘reported’ what they termed a national scandal of innocent families torn apart. The claims were repeated in Parliament and then recycled as established ‘facts’ by the media. The result was that the courts themselves began to be paralysed by the power of this juggernaut of press reporting — ‘journalism’ which created and painstakingly fed a public mood which brooked no other version of the story. (p21)
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Sue Richardson (Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas)
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My mother worked as a saleslady at the well-known Five Corner bakery in Journal Square during the day. Her orders were that I do at least one page of homework for every one of my subjects before she came home. It didn’t matter what my teachers would assign, those were her rules and I didn’t dare to violate them! However, I usually allowed others to make the rules and then decide whether I would follow them. Turning on our small Bakelite radio, I would ignore my mother’s rules and listen to my favorite adventure shows.
“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Tom Mix were my favorite daily half-hour radio programs during the week. Tom Mix was forever solving some mystery that I could help him with, since I had a decoder badge that cost only 10 cents, along with a box top from a Ralston Purina’s “Wheat Chex” cereal box. Since it tasted like straw, wanting to get a decoder badge was the only way I would eat this blah cereal for breakfast.
The radio shows were way too exciting, and my homework always took second place. When my mother finally came home and saw that I had not done my work, she would get quite upset and make me do twice as much, seated at the kitchen table where she could keep her eye on me. Being under her direct supervision wasn’t much fun, but I would sit there until she was satisfied that I had finished my assignments. My mother showed no mercy! If my father found out about my being lax, there would be hell to pay! For whatever reason, I never seemed to learn….
Oh, woe is me, woe is me…. I was in trouble again… No, I was still in trouble!
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Hank Bracker
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It’s a soulful Sunday, somehow I found myself pulling out my journal and started writing a letter to Sensuality. And it goes like this: Sensuality...
You’ve opened me up to a world of possibilities and set me on an adventure that has never ceased to amaze me. You have led me through unfounded territories. Through the highest highs and lowest lows I’ve felt your current, sometimes raging like an angry sea and at times blowing as gentle as a cool summer breeze.
You’ve filled me with such an insatiable desire, which has been both a curse and a blessing. You’ve sensitized my soul, made it to feel even the most gentle touch of the lightest feather. You daily seduce me into your deep waters, waters so deep I find myself drowning, yet not losing my breath.
Sensuality... I love how you soothe me when I’m hurting. I love how you comfort and put me back together when I’m feeling broken. I love how you whisper in my ear and say ‘do not despair, I’m here.’ You uncover my deepest desires and set my soul on fire. You light me up and make me shine like the brightest star on a clear summer night.
There’s never a dull moment with you. Just when I think there can’t possibly be more, you show me again and again that there’s always another level... another layer... another blessing. Your mysteries never run out. I’ve come know you like God’s very own presence. Indeed, you are His very own favour to my soul. His divine beauty, passion and wisdom have I come to know through you. Through you I’ve learned how to stand in my worthiness rather than in my shame. That’s why I love you and will forever hold you close... very close... to my heart. Xoxo.
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Lebo Grand
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CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. —Oprah Winfrey How do you know if your scrappy effort was successful? There’s positive movement—cause to celebrate. It either moves your intention forward or you come closer to achieving your goal. You will know it worked because you feel the win, big or small. I’m a huge believer in champagne moments (or celebratory beer, ice cream, night on the town, whatever your preference). You have to celebrate! This journey is supposed to be fun. Stop and take the time to recognize and enjoy the big wins, little wins, and everything in between. Research shows there is bonus value to celebrating. In her article “Getting Results Through Others,” Loraine Kasprzak writes, quoting her coauthor Jean Oursler, “When others have worked hard to achieve the desired results, celebrate it! ‘It’s important to celebrate because our brains need a memorable reference point—also called a reward—to make the whole journey worthwhile.’” Celebrating creates a positive benchmark in your brain for future reference. According to an article in the Journal of Staff Development by Richard DuFour: Ritual and ceremony help us experience the unseen webs of significance that tie a community together. There may be grand ceremonies for special occasions, but organizations [and individuals] also need simple rituals that infuse meaning and purpose into daily routine. Without ritual and ceremony, transitions become incomplete, a clutter of comings and goings. Life becomes an endless set of Wednesdays. An endless set of Wednesdays? Yuck. Who needs that? Whether you are an individual, a small team, or a large organization, celebrate your scrappy wins as part of the experience and enjoy the ride.
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Terri L. Sjodin (Scrappy: A Little Book About Choosing to Play Big)
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Learn something new and grow somehow, someway, every day.
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Liza Wisner (PowerUp Prime Time 30-Day Journal: Your Daily Masterpiece Day Tracker.)
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There is no point in being a dreamer if you are not a doer.
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Liza Wisner (PowerUp Prime Time 30-Day Journal: Your Daily Masterpiece Day Tracker.)
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St. Eucherius on that sunrise! “Think how much more the splendor of the light will be for us in the future, if it shines upon us so brilliantly now. In what magnificent form will the light shine on eternal things, when it shines so beautifully now on what is passing away!
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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Communication between school and home is important not only because you will feel more secure about the environment being provided for your children, but also because you, as parents, can share in your children's developmental milestones despite your not being available to witness them at all times. A daily journal exchange can facilitate this communication. Your child care providers can be asked to document your children's daily accomplishments. They are likely to understand how important this is for you.
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Sylvia B. Rimm (Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child (Barron's Parenting Keys))
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write down three things you are grateful for each day, journal for five minutes, meditate daily, do one random act of kindness every day, and exercise.
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Joel Salomon (The 9 Money Rules Millionaires Use: Only The Unconventional Ones)
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I spent over $30 on a moleskine journal instead of a $3 journal which was essentially my stake. Because I had invested so much into the journal, I was more motivated to make use of it so my money didn’t go to waste.
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Brandon Nankivell (1% Success Habits: 10 Daily Habits to Crush Your Day)
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All quiet. No lights at Boone’s or Newton’s. Cold. Lay in bed and realized what I was: I was happy. Said the strange word happiness and realized that it was there, not as an “it” or object. It simply was. And I was that.
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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I can suffer less because my mind can create a love story out of any experience
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Andrea L. Wehlann (Stillness in the Storm: A Conscious Daily Journal of Yoga and Spiritual Healing)
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LOCAL SELF AS HOST FOR NONLOCAL SELF When you drop back into your daily life after meditation, you’re changed. You’ve communed with nonlocal mind for an hour, experiencing the highest possible cadence of who you are. That High Self version of you rearranges neurons in your head to create a physical structure to anchor it. You now have a brain that accommodates both the local self and the nonlocal self. My experience has been that the longer you spend in Bliss Brain, whether in or out of meditation, the greater the volume of neural tissue available to anchor that transcendent self in physical experience. Once a critical mass of neurons has wired together, a tipping point occurs. You begin to flash spontaneously into Bliss Brain throughout your day. When you’re idle for a while, like being stuck in traffic or standing in line at the grocery store, the most natural activity seems to be to go into Bliss Brain for a few moments. This reminds you, in the middle of everyday life, that the nonlocal component of your Self exists. It also brings all the enhanced creativity, productivity, and problem-solving ability of Bliss Brain to bear on your daily tasks. You become a happy, creative, and effective person. These enhanced capabilities render you much more able to cope with the challenges of life. They don’t confer exceptional luck. When everyone’s house burns down, yours does too. When the economy nosedives, it takes you with it. But because you possess resilience, and a daily experience of your nonlocal self, you take it in stride. Even when external things vanish, you still have the neural network that Bliss Brain created. No one can take that away from you. DEEPENING PRACTICES Here are practices you can do this week to integrate the information in this chapter into your life: Posttraumatic Growth Exercise 1: In your journal, write down the names of the most resilient people you’ve known personally. They can be alive or dead. They’re people who’ve gone through tragedy and come out intact. Make an appointment to spend time with at least two of the living ones in the coming month. Listen to their stories and allow inspiration to fill you. Neural Reconsolidation Exercise: This week, after a particularly deep meditation, savor the experience. Set a timer and lie down for 15 to 30 minutes. Visualize your synapses wiring together as you deliberately fire them by remembering the deliciousness of the meditation. Choices Exercise: Make 10 photocopies of illustration 7.4, the two doors. Next, analyze in what areas of your environment you often make negative choices. Maybe it’s in online meetings with an annoying colleague at work. Maybe it’s the food choices you make when you walk to the fridge. Maybe it’s the movies you watch on your TV. Tape a copy of the two doors illustration to those objects, such as the monitor, fridge, or TV. This will help you remember, when you’re under stress, that you have a choice.
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Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
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I focused on staying positive every day, despite the money issues, health challenges, and constant reminders of the fire. It took every bit of focus I possessed. Six months after the fire, in the middle of the financial crisis, after one morning’s meditation, I wrote these words in my journal: I woke up this morning feeling like I’m being cradled in the arms of God. The energy of Spirit fills every part of me with blessing. The universe radiates perfection all around me. I am cradled in this field of blessing. It holds us always in love and joy. It nudges us daily to experience the light and beauty at the core of our being. I realize that I’m 100% spiritually successful. I enjoy a life of attunement to the universe. Daily, I celebrate oneness between my human consciousness and the greater consciousness of which I am a part. That’s the ultimate goal of every life, and I’ve lived it from the beginning. I choose to remind myself of this when I’m mesmerized by the things that haven’t materialized in my material world after so many years of visioning and hard work. As I tune in to the universe’s energy, I feel mine change in response. My thoughts become ordered and inspired. I start the day feeling optimistic, positive, enthusiastic, and creative. I embody prosperity. I attune daily to the energy of prosperity, as I have been doing for so many years. I know that material reality arranges itself around the signal that my consciousness produces. The truth is that I am abundant in every possible way, including money. I choose to maintain the joy of that vibration. I celebrate every manifestation of success in my world, no matter how small. I am grateful for my life just the way it is. I remain positive no matter what. I have the most important thing attainable in any life: Oneness with the universe! I attune to its music every morning in meditation. My mind, cells, and energy field come into resonance with its song. I then move into my day inspired and aligned. What a wonderful life. After writing those words, I decided to bask in the experience. I lay down in bed and visualized the experience turning from a delicious but intangible feeling into a hardwired neural fact in my body.
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Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
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And Sam Schechner and Emily Glazer were studying how activists had spread baseless doubts about the COVID vaccine so effectively that Facebook had to reimpose its Break the Glass measures in May 2021—the third time it had done so in the United States in six months. I chipped in on all these stories, but I spent the bulk of my time focusing on two: revealing the existence of XCheck, Facebook’s program to give preferential treatment to VIP users, and then examining its response to January 6. In Puerto Rico, Haugen and I had discussed the merits of publishing the stories slowly, releasing one damning article each week over the span of months, giving the complex issues in each story the attention they deserved. Senior editors at the Journal, unsurprisingly, had other ideas. They wanted stories published daily, dominating a solid week of tech news, a way to clearly demonstrate that the project was something extraordinary.
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Jeff Horwitz (Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets)
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So today I tried to write again
about the most important things—the enormous sun
rising beyond the smokestacks.
The crimes of the entire nation.
And the twisted throat of a song bird
accomplishing its daily heroics during an argument.
But I couldn’t get a line by Elena Shwarts out of my head:
the heart is like a punching bag,
pounded from the inside.
— Anzhelina Polonskaya, “Today,” Oxford Journals: Arts & Humanities: Literary Imagination Volume 15, Issue 3 (translated by Andrew Wachtel)
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Anzhelina Polonskaya
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Find What Inspires You Inspiration does not always come to us in a flash. We often have to go in search of it, especially when we feel stuck. Finding inspiration means discovering the things that make you excited—even when they have nothing to do with your art practice. If you go on a trip, you might find inspiration in architecture, landscapes, or traditional patterns found in old cultures. Whatever speaks to you, infuse these visual stimuli from your life into your work. To work through anxieties or find out what ignites your interest, it helps to carry a journal to do daily entries. Maintaining a journal with both written and visual thoughts is a long-standing tradition among artists that helps you ignite creativity and work through blocks. There is no right or wrong way to keep a journal. You can use a book with lined or unlined pages; it can be a written diary with stream-of-consciousness thoughts or a purely visual notebook with pages of drawings. One thing that is helpful, though, is to choose a journal size that is portable, so that you can carry it around with you. Make a habit of writing or drawing in your journal every day. Some days you’ll have only a quick five minutes and other days a whole hour to devote to it. Don’t worry about whether your writing makes sense or your ideas or drawings are any good. Eventually a pattern will emerge that will help unlock your mission as an artist and even identify new avenues for exploration.
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Lisa Congdon (Art, Inc.: The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist)
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There are multiple ways to implement CBT in your daily life outside of an in-depth subconscious reprogram. Recall that the purpose of CBT is to uproot beliefs that no longer serve you in a positive way. Therefore, to implement CBT daily, look for techniques that allow you to reflect on yourself and your experiences more objectively. Here are some examples: • Journaling. Writing things down not only ensures that memories are accurately recorded for future reflection, but also helps us to evaluate emotions that we experienced in certain situations. From there, we can look for patterns experienced in different areas of life and core wounds that may need to be addressed. • Meditation. Meditation is a wonderful tool that can be an aid to objectively reflect upon ourselves. It helps clear out biases and brings us back to the present. It is incredibly powerful and significantly improves our ability to find contradictory proof throughout the day. • Open Communication. Discuss what you felt throughout the day with your friends, partners, or family. By doing this, you have a sounding board to help you assess the validity of the stories you tell yourself. For example, if you interpreted a friend’s reaction in one way, your partner may be able to give you a new way to look at the situation. Talking through challenges with someone who can be open and unbiased often helps to remove the untrue stories we are telling ourselves. There are a variety of ways to implement certain aspects of CBT in our daily lives, but it is essential to step back and do a deep dive when you feel strongly triggered about something. Generally, the more meaning assigned to a situation and the more pain caused by it, the deeper the trigger and the more important it is to address. By following these steps, fundamental change can be seen in all areas of your life.
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Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
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Look, I’m not joking around. Smartphones are dangerous. Not because they may cause stress, anxiety, and even depression, but because they change your behavior. It seems like we can’t focus on one thing for more than 5 seconds. Why? Well, we can’t because our smartphone is constantly going off. Not because people are calling you (it seems like people are afraid of calling these days, but that’s another topic), but because you’re constantly getting notifications about THINGS THAT DON’T MATTER. Change Your Smartphone Behavior The same study I mentioned above also found something else: “Researchers asked participants to perform a concentration test under four different circumstances: with their smartphone in their pocket, at their desk, locked in a drawer and removed from the room completely.” The results are significant — test results were lowest when the smartphone was on the desk, but with every additional layer of distance between participants and their smartphones, test performance increased. Overall, test results were 26% higher when phones were removed from the room.” Sure, it’s just a study. And you don’t have to believe everything you read. But this is something I can personally attest. For the past two years, I’ve significantly changed my smartphone behavior. Namely: I have turned off ALL my notifications except messages and calls I’ve removed myself from all Whatsapp groups except for one with my closest friends I’ve removed all news apps (if something important happens, you’ll hear it from the people around you) I only consume music, paid journalism, articles from specific authors I follow, podcasts, YouTube videos (mostly to learn, but also for entertainment because I’m not a robot), books, and audiobooks on it For the rest, I use my phone to call, text, and to take notes, photos and videos Also, I’ve stopped immediately responding to notifications. That doesn’t mean I don’t value other people who try to reach me. It means that I refuse to be a slave to my phone. I control my phone. For most of us, it’s the other way around. In the past, Facebook, Instagram, Apple, Google, etc, all controlled my mind. Obviously, they still do because the only way to escape those idiots is to cut yourself off and run to the woods. That’s not realistic. I like my phone. But I don’t need it. The results have been great since I started using my smartphone in the above way. During the past two years, I got more things done than ever. And, I still have time to work out daily, hang out with my friends, have dinner with my family, and
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Darius Foroux (Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things)
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But for a few minutes to an hour every day—sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening—Marcus Aurelius was unreachable. The twentieth-century American philosopher Brand Blanshard marvels at what Marcus accomplished there in the “midnight dimness,” alone with his journal and his thoughts. It didn’t matter where he was or what was happening; Marcus stole the time to sit and think and write.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids)
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You're just like the people who came before you, and you're but a brief stopover until the people just like you who will come after. The earth abides forever, but we will come and go.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
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Finding Miss Ona's journal and reading her story was a lesson in dignity. She'd been a person owned by other persons. Yet when faced with the reality of being "gifted" to yet another master, she knew enough about herself and her inherent worth to know she deserved freedom, and risked life and limb to get it.
She was barely grown but dared to face an unknown world with all its hostilities, uncertainties, and risks because she believed she deserved to be free. Hers is not a household name, yet she's a personal treasure who inspires me daily, enabling me to face any self-doubt and challenges knowing that I have the strength of the ancients. I am the answer to the fervent prayers for freedom that they prayed. I am their future and I'm here because of forbearers like Ona Judge Staines.
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Suzette D. Harrison (My Name Is Ona Judge)
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Man is the image of God and not the shadow of God.
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Thomas Merton (Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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If you desire to increase your understanding of spiritual authority, I encourage you to dig deep into the Book of Ephesians. Look for every verse that includes the phrases “in Christ,” “in Him,” “in the Beloved,” “in the Lord,” “in Whom,” “by Christ,” “from Whom,” “through Christ,” and “with Christ.” Highlight those verses in your Bible and write them out in your journal or on note cards. Study them daily, meditate on them, and pray them over yourself. Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your eyes to the truth of God’s Word and to everything Christ has purchased for you.
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Mike Thompson (Third-Heaven Authority: Discover How to Pray From Heaven's Perspective)
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Then by the second day the prospect of writing so much is daunting, and they procrastinate or abandon the exercise. So apply the principle of “less but better” to your journal. Restrain yourself from writing more until daily journaling has become a habit.
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Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
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For the time being, however, his bent was literary and religious rather than balletic. He loved, and what seventh grader doesn’t, the abstracter foxtrots and more metaphysical twists of a Dostoevsky, a Gide, a Mailer. He longed for the experience of some vivider pain than the mere daily hollowness knotted into his tight young belly, and no weekly stomp-and-holler of group therapy with other jejune eleven-year-olds was going to get him his stripes in the major leagues of suffering, crime, and resurrection. Only a bona-fide crime would do that, and of all the crimes available murder certainly carried the most prestige, as no less an authority than Loretta Couplard was ready to attest, Loretta Couplard being not only the director and co-owner of the Lowen School but the author, as well, of two nationally televised scripts, both about famous murders of the 20th Century. They’d even done a unit in social studies on the topic: A History of Crime in Urban America.
The first of Loretta’s murders was a comedy involving Pauline Campbell, R.N., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, circa 1951, whose skull had been smashed by three drunken teenagers. They had meant to knock her unconscious so they could screw her, which was 1951 in a nutshell. The eighteen-year-olds, Bill Morey and Max Pell, got life; Dave Royal (Loretta’s hero) was a year younger and got off with twenty-two years.
Her second murder was tragic in tone and consequently inspired more respect, though not among the critics, unfortunately. Possibly because her heroine, also a Pauline (Pauline Wichura), though more interesting and complicated had also been more famous in her own day and ever since. Which made the competition, one best-selling novel and a serious film biography, considerably stiffen Miss Wichura had been a welfare worker in Atlanta, Georgia, very much into environment and the population problem, this being the immediate pre-Regents period when anyone and everyone was legitimately starting to fret. Pauline decided to do something, viz., reduce the population herself and in the fairest way possible. So whenever any of the families she visited produced one child above the three she’d fixed, rather generously, as the upward limit, she found some unobtrusive way of thinning that family back to the preferred maximal size. Between 1989 and 1993 Pauline’s journals (Random House, 1994) record twenty-six murders, plus an additional fourteen failed attempts. In addition she had the highest welfare department record in the U.S. for abortions and sterilizations among the families whom she advised.
“Which proves, I think,” Little Mister Kissy Lips had explained one day after school to his friend Jack, “that a murder doesn’t have to be of someone famous to be a form of idealism.”
But of course idealism was only half the story: the other half was curiosity. And beyond idealism and curiosity there was probably even another half, the basic childhood need to grow up and kill someone.
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Thomas M. Disch (334)
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1-Algılarını kontrol et.
2-Eylemlerini doğru yönlendir.
3-Kontrolün dışındaki şeyleri kabul etmeye istekli ol.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
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Through my dark and scary world, Brendon had been a bright light that had steered me toward a new dawn. He showed me that I could thrive in a world without fears and demons and that I could be safe to live. Later that night, I pulled out my journal and wrote my daily events. Only the happy, positive things. I wanted to focus on the good in my life.
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Jo Cassidy (Good Girls Stay Quiet)
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You are angry. Let the feeling settle from within, and think about it. Was it triggered by something seemingly trivial or petty? That is a sure sign that something or someone else is behind it. Perhaps a more uncomfortable emotion is at the source—such as envy or paranoia. You need to look at this square in the eye. Dig below any trigger points to see where they started. For these purposes, it might be wise to use a journal in which you record your self-assessments with ruthless objectivity. Your greatest danger here is your ego and how it makes you unconsciously maintain illusions about yourself. These may be comforting in the moment, but in the long run they make you defensive and unable to learn or progress. Find a neutral position from which you can observe your actions, with a bit of detachment and even humor. Soon all of this will become second nature, and when the Emotional Self suddenly rears its head in some situation, you will see it as it happens and be able to step back and find that neutral position.
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Robert Greene (The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature)
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Everybody has a shadow self to contend with but most manage to contain it effectively as they settle into their regimented routines of daily living. Rock stars, by contrast, are often actively encouraged to cultivate their darker qualities and that’s where the trouble usually starts.
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Nick Kent (The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music 1972-1993)
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I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” —Anaïs Nin, Fire: From A Journal of Love
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Michaela Chung (The Year of the Introvert: A Journal of Daily Inspiration for the Inwardly Inclined)
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Read more books. Walk in nature daily. Let go of the past. Drink more water. Say thank you a lot. Get up at 5 am. Smile at strangers. Meditate. Keep a journal.
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Library Mindset (100 Quotes That Will Change Your life)
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Allocate mental time for reflection. Review your day, noting strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures. Whether through journaling or sharing with someone, this practice helps you acknowledge and learn from your daily experiences.
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Chase Hill (How to Stop Overthinking: The 7-Step Plan to Control and Eliminate Negative Thoughts, Declutter Your Mind and Start Thinking Positively in 5 Minutes or ... (Master the Art of Self-Improvement Book 1))
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MANY YEARS AGO, I had joined the local news desk of a prominent newspaper in Bengaluru, the sleepy south Indian town that became the country’s Silicon Valley. After trying my hand at crime reporting and general business journalism, I developed an interest in tracking technology. Among other things in the mid noughties, I had half a page in the paper to feature new gadgets every week. Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung and a few other companies were regulars on the page. While I was enjoying my work, my salary needed a boost. (The media industry’s decline was just about beginning, and salaries were as poor then as they are today.) Getting out of the rather difficult circumstances that I found myself in, I moved on to the Economic Times to report on technology. The business daily was India’s largest pink paper by circulation, and I worked with some of the best journalists of the time. My job was mainly to write about technology services companies. Soon I got bored with tracking quarterly results and rehearsed statements. This was around 2012, and India’s start-up ecosystem was in its infancy. I quit the paper to join a start-up blog. I didn’t ask for a raise. I was just happy to be able to write about start-ups and their founders. It was something new, and their excitement was infectious. In those days, ‘start-up’ was not a mainstream beat in India. Only niche blogs wrote about them. On the personal front, there were months when I was flat broke. One evening I sold my old Nokia 5800 for ₹300 at a second-hand electronics shop to buy a packet of biryani. That is still the best biryani I’ve ever had. The two years at the start-up blog were also my best two years ever. As start-ups became the buzzword, I went back to the pink paper to write about them. I was able to upgrade my life a little. I moved into a middle-class apartment with my family. I got some furniture and so on. After selling the Nokia phone, I used a feature phone for a few days. But now I had to upgrade my phone. After much research, I zeroed in on a Micromax handset. Micromax, a Gurgaon-based company that began making handsets in 2008, had some smartphones that were affordable on a young journalist’s salary. It was also a leading brand and had some interesting features such as dual SIM and a great touchscreen display. Going from a phone that ran on Symbian (Nokia’s proprietary operating system that failed) to an Android-based phone was like suddenly being
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Jayadevan P.K. (Xiaomi: How a Startup Disrupted the Market and Created a Cult Following)
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Chesterton’s second book of selected journalism was published in October 1902. Twelve Types consisted of articles from the Speaker, the Daily News, and one from the Literary Gazette, with some revisions and additions.
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Ian Ker (G. K. Chesterton: A Biography)
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While Wyeth handled the technology, Tudor focused on business development. He gave ice cream–making demonstrations to confectioners, he offered coffee shop owners a water-cooling jug of his own design, and he came up with ice-block subscription models—customers could sign up for one or two deliveries a day, on a monthly plan. He even designed and built some of the earliest domestic iceboxes, which he called “Little Ice Houses,” so that customers could store their daily allowance of ice at home. Meanwhile, despite his self-pitying journal entries, Tudor had to admit that the nascent ice industry enjoyed some unique advantages. Ships departing New England ports were generally light on their outbound voyages, and frequently resorted to carrying stones as ballast, which they simply tossed overboard at their destination in order to return with foreign cargo. Once they were convinced that most of Tudor’s ice wouldn’t melt in transit, they gladly carried it at low rates: even a discounted cargo made more economic sense than a pile of rocks.
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Nicola Twilley (Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves)
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the simple likelihood of drawing a connection between a dream and a waking experience dwindles with temporal distance from the dream. At this point, it is hard to say if there is any kind of probability curve defining some temporal sweet spot when you are likeliest to identify a waking experience relating to a prior dream. This is one of the many, many open questions that we need armies of precognitive dreamworkers with fat dream journals to help figure out. While the bulk of my precognitive hits occur within about three days of a dream, it is not uncommon to find hits up to a couple weeks after a dream, as well as at yearly intervals (we will discuss calendrical resonances in more detail later). Dunne recommended returning to your dreams up to two days afterward and thereafter discarding dream records. He lived before word processors, and since no one would have the time to check all their dreams on an indefinite daily basis, he felt you had to set limits to make your search most effective. In our day of computer files, it is easy to keep permanent, detailed dream records—they no longer take up space—as well as to search them electronically and potentially perform other kinds of analyses if you are really hardcore. But it remains the case that nobody has the time to compare their entire dream journal, which may grow a bit each day, to their entire life, every day. You can see how that could begin to consume one’s life! You have to make compromises. Revisiting your dream records from the previous three days for a minute or two each evening is minimally sufficient. EMINENT COMPANY In taking the J. W. Dunne challenge, you will be in some brilliant and eminent company. Some of the most influential writers of the mid-twentieth century, including T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, were powerfully inspired by Dunne’s book, and some undertook his experiment. Most fans of Tolkien’s fantasy epics The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings don’t realize that the timeless worldview of his Elven races was based largely on the serial-universe cosmology developed by Dunne on the basis of his dream experiences.4 So far, no dream diary has emerged among Tolkien’s papers that would prove he carried out Dunne’s experiment systematically, but his friend C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, probably did. Lewis hints as much in a posthumously published novel called The Dark Tower, which is partly devoted to Dunne’s ideas.
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Eric Wargo (Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future (A Sacred Planet Book))
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As to Orphism, it soon blended with the worship of the god Dionysus, who originated in Thrace, and who was worshipped there in the form of a bull. Dionysus was quickly accepted in seventh-century Greece, because he was exactly what the Greeks needed to complete their pantheon of gods; under the name Bacchus he became the god of wine, and his symbol was sometimes an enormous phallus. Frazer speaks of Thracian rites involving wild dances, thrilling music and tipsy excess, and notes that such goings-on were foreign to the clear rational nature of the Greeks. But the religion still spread like wildfire throughout Greece, especially among women—indicating, perhaps, a revolt against civilisation. It became a religion of orgies; women worked themselves into a frenzy and rushed about the hills, tearing to pieces any living creature they found. Euripides’ play The Bacchae tells how King Pentheus, who opposed the religion of Bacchus, was torn to pieces by a crowd of women, which included his mother and sisters, all in ‘Bacchic frenzy.’ In their ecstasy the worshippers of Bacchus became animals, and behaved like animals, killing living creatures and eating them raw.
The profound significance of all this was recognised by the philosopher Nietzsche, who declared himself a disciple of the god Dionysus. He spoke of the ‘blissful ecstasy that rises from the innermost depths of man,’ dissolving his sense of personality: in short, the sexual or magical ecstasy. He saw Dionysus as a fundamental principle of human existence; man’s need to throw off his personality, to burst the dream-bubble that surrounds him and to experience total, ecstatic affirmation of everything. In this sense, Dionysus is fundamentally the god, or patron saint, of magic. The spirit of Dionysus pervades all magic, especially the black magic of the later witch cults, with their orgiastic witch’s sabbaths so like the orgies of Dionysus’s female worshippers, even to the use of goats, the animal sacred to Dionysus. (Is it not also significant that Dionysus is a horned god, like the Christian devil?) The ‘scent of truth’ that made Ouspensky prefer books on magic to the ‘hard facts’ of daily journalism is the scent of Dionysian freedom, man’s sudden absurd glimpse of his godlike potentialities. It is also true that the spirit of Dionysus, pushed to new extremes through frustration and egomania, permeates the work of De Sade. As Philip Vellacot remarks of Dionysus in his introduction to The Bacchae: ‘But, though in the first half of the play there is some room for sympathy with Dionysus, this sympathy steadily diminishes until at the end of the play, his inhuman cruelty inspires nothing but horror.’ But this misses the point about Dionysus—that sympathy is hardly an emotion he would appreciate. He descends like a storm wind, scattering all human emotion.
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Colin Wilson (The Occult)
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People should understand one thing, nowhere is a journalist, what you see on your TV or Mobile screen, most of them are poor daily wages worker,
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Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
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Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.
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George Tanner (Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal : On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life)
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because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.
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George Tanner (Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal : On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life)
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I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:11
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Jennifer Hayes Yates (Seek Him Daily: A 40-Day Journal for Spiritual Growth)
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The sooner we can face the bizarre fact that we make our past in the process of finding it, and find it in the process of making it, the sooner our attitude can become one of care for our Long Self in the block universe. Dream journaling with an eye to precognition—precognitive dreamwork—is the first step. But you may find, as you build up a corpus of precognitive dreams and come face to face with the reality of that Long Self on a daily or near-daily basis, that mapping out those dream connections and reexploring what may have seemed like dead-and-gone territory—your past life, however meandering it may have seemed at the time, however traumatic it may have been, even—starts to brings even more amazing rewards and insights than just identifying discrete precognitive dream hits. This is because even if we can’t change the past or future, precognition (and the retrocausation it implies) changes everything we thought we knew about both. It is redemptive. We see our past and future selves unclearly and obliquely. But in fact, the distance between you now and you decades from now, or decades ago, may be just a wrinkled piece of cellophane. When we realize that our major upheavals in the second half of life may actually have been the billiard balls deflecting us when we were younger, it compels a new kind of sympathy and understanding for that immature being we once were—and by extension, a new kind of loyalty to the person we will become. The Long Self is truly an epic composition, and you are the one composing it. Like a writer of your soul, your aesthetic decisions now turn out to have shaped yourself long in the past, and your decisions in your future are shaping your experience now. Tobi characterizes it this way: “I believe we are involved in creating the already-written lives that we enact.” To consciously manifest and realize this amazing fact, you must build habits of self-care. Recognize that care for yourself at other ages is not just an attitude but has a real effect, a real outcome in the past—and via the past, in your future. “This is the part of the route without a short cut,” Tobi insists. “You must do the tasks, you must care.” Tobi wrote in another email: “It delights me to think that all those times I wished aloud to my family that I could go back and assure my younger self and the younger selves of my family members that we got through that time, that all would be well, that we survived, that I actually was doing that.
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Eric Wargo (Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future (A Sacred Planet Book))
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They are slight edge actions for happiness: happy habits. Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According to Shawn, if you do any one of these things faithfully for just three weeks, twenty-one days in a row, it will start to become a habit—a happy habit.
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Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
Lynnette Kuipers (Daily Journal)
Lynnette Kuipers (Daily Journal)
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Daily: staying in touch with your life as it unfolds History: reconstructing the contours of your past Dialogue: journaling a “conversation” Pilgrimage: exercises to promote personal growth Bible study: analyzing and applying Scripture Dreams: recording your nightly images Musings: recording insights, thoughts, and reflections Family: marking key events in your family’s development Work: keeping notes and materials related to your job8
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Adam L. Feldman (Journaling: Catalyzing Spiritual Growth Through Reflection)
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The Oregon Daily Journal reported on some black soldiers from California who in the summer of 1918 were angered by a sign they saw in the window of a restaurant in Portland. The sign read, “We employ white help and cater to white trade only.” The soldiers entered the restaurant and destroyed the sign.
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Anonymous
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The show, Le Petit Journal, is France’s version of ‘‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’’ — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.
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Anonymous
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A ‘journal’ is ‘any paper published daily’, despite his own experience of journals that weren’t daily. Occasionally he insists on a meaning that barely exists simply so as to enforce a strict sense of etymological correctness. For example, a ‘terrier’ is ‘a dog that follows his game under ground’, because it comes from the Latin word for ‘ground’, terra. The first sense of ‘candid’ is ‘white’, because this accords with its Latin root candidus, even though, as Johnson admits, ‘This sense is very rare.’ For the same reason an ‘insult’ is ‘the act of jumping upon any thing’ before it is an ‘act or speech of insolence or contempt’: insultare is the Latin for ‘to leap on’ or ‘to trample’. As if to license these fussy spurts of Latinism, the Dictionary frequently reminds its readers that etymology is no easy business.
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Henry Hitchings (Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary)
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Deliver me, O God, from too intense an application to even necessary business. I know how this dissipates my thoughts from the one end of all my business, and impairs that lively perception I would ever retain of thee standing at my right hand. I know the narrowness of my heart, and that an eager attention to earthly things leaves it no room for the things of heaven. O teach me to go through all my employments with so truly disengaged a heart, that I may still see thee in all things, and see thee therein as continually looking upon me, and searching my reins; and that I may never impair that liberty of spirit which is necessary for the love of thee.
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Steven W. Manskar (A Disciple's Journal 2016: A Guide for Daily Prayer, Bible Reading, and Discipleship)
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In the twenties and thirties, many journalists observed with growing
anxiety that facts themselves, or what they had taken to be facts, could not be trusted. One response to this discomfiting view was the institutionalization in the daily paper of new genres of subjective reporting, like the political column. Another response turned the journalists' anxiety on its head and encouraged journalists to replace a simple faith in facts with an allegiance to rules and procedures created for a world in which even facts were in question. This was "objectivity." Objectivity, in this sense, means that a person's statements about the world can be trusted if they are submitted to established rules deemed legitimate by a professional community. Facts here are not aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it a While naive empiricism has not disappeared in journalism and survives, to some extent, in all of us, after World War I it was subordinated to the more sophisticated ideal of "objectivity.
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Michael Schudson (Discovering The News: A Social History Of American Newspapers)
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Lion Daily Schedule 5:30 a.m.: Wake up, no snooze. 5:45 a.m.: Breakfast: high-protein, low-carb. 6:15 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.: Big-picture conceptualizing and organizing. Morning meditation. 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.: Sex. If you have kids who need help getting ready for school, make it a quickie. 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.: Cool shower, get dressed, interact with friends or family before heading to work. 9:00 a.m.: Small snack: 250 calories, 25 percent protein, 75 percent carbs. Ideally, have it at a breakfast meeting. 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.: Personal interactions, morning meetings, phone calls, emails, strategic problem solving. 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.: Balanced lunch. Go outside for sunlight exposure, if possible. 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Creative thinking time. Listen to music, catch up on reading and journaling. In a workplace setting, lead or attend brainstorming meetings. 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.: Exercise, preferably outdoors, followed by a cool shower. 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Dinner. Keep it balanced—equal parts protein, carbs, and healthy fats. A carb-heavy meal like pasta might make you crash. 7:30 p.m.: Last call for alcohol. A drink after this hour will knock you out. 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.: Socialize on the town, or connect with loved ones online while relaxing at home. You bought yourself an extra hour, so make the most of it! 10:00 p.m.: Be in your home environment by now. Turn off all screens to begin the downshift before bed. 10:30 p.m.: Go to sleep.
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Michael Breus (The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype—and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More)
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Finally, I applied to one of my roommates, more sagacious than the rest, for advice. Dave, I said. I’m broke and without prospects. I’ve blown my GI Bill on flying lessons. I can’t hide out here in college much longer. What should I do?
Well, he said, at this crucial juncture you need to coldly appraise yourself. “I’ve only known you these few short years, but it strikes me you wouldn’t be good for anything important; I’d have to say you’re lazy, self-absorbed, glib and facetious, always ready to mock the suggestions of others, but never offering anything positive of your own. Intellectually shallow, no tap root anywhere, spiritually neutered, without feeling or compassion, unsteady of focus, lacking the fortitude for the long pull, with no fixed belief in anything.”
I shook his hand and thanked him. The acuity of his analysis made my path clear. My only hope lay in daily journalism.
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Phil Garlington (Rancho Costa Nada: The Dirt Cheap Desert Homestead)
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It is nine o'clock, and London has breakfasted. Some unconsidered tens of thousands have, it is true, already enjoyed with what appetite they might their pre-prandial meal; the upper fifty thousand, again, have not yet left their luxurious couches, and will not breakfast till ten, eleven o'clock, noon; nay, there shall be sundry listless, languid members of fast military clubs, dwellers among the tents of Jermyn Street, and the high-priced second floors of Little Ryder Street, St. James's, upon whom one, two, and three o'clock in the afternoon shall be but as dawn, and whose broiled bones and devilled kidneys shall scarcely be laid on the damask breakfast-cloth before Sol is red in the western horizon.
I wish that, in this age so enamoured of statistical information, when we must needs know how many loads of manure go to every acre of turnip-field, and how many jail-birds are thrust into the black hole per mensem for fracturing their pannikins, or tearing their convict jackets, that some M'Culloch or Caird would tabulate for me the amount of provisions, solid and liquid, consumed at the breakfasts of London every morning. I want to know how many thousand eggs are daily chipped, how many of those embryo chickens are poached, and how many fried; how many tons of quartern loaves are cut up to make bread-and-butter, thick and thin; how many porkers have been sacrificed to provide the bacon rashers, fat and streaky ; what rivers have been drained, what fuel consumed, what mounds of salt employed, what volumes of smoke emitted, to catch and cure the finny haddocks and the Yarmouth bloaters, that grace our morning repast. Say, too, Crosse and Blackwell, what multitudinous demands are matutinally made on thee for pots of anchovy paste and preserved tongue, covered with that circular layer - abominable disc! - of oleaginous nastiness, apparently composed of rancid pomatum, but technically known as clarified butter, and yet not so nasty as that adipose horror that surrounds the truffle bedecked pate de foie gras. Say, Elizabeth Lazenby, how many hundred bottles of thy sauce (none of which are genuine unless signed by thee) are in request to give a relish to cold meat, game, and fish. Mysteries upon mysteries are there connected with nine o'clock breakfasts.
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George Augustus Sala (Twice Round the Clock, or the Hours of the Day and Night in London)
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happy habits. Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According
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Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
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You can replace all your fears and darkness with happiness and freedom if you simply commit to a daily practice of awakening the magic within you.
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Heath Armstrong (Sweet Ass Journal to Develop Your Happiness Muscle in 100 Days - Guide & Journal - Non Dated: A Simple Daily Practice to Create Happiness Forever - Productivity, Mindfulness, Focus & Bliss)
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If you stick to your commitment to make progress, you will always make progress. It’s as simple as that. When I made my commitment, I realized I had two
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Heath Armstrong (Sweet Ass Journal to Develop Your Happiness Muscle in 100 Days - Guide & Journal - Non Dated: A Simple Daily Practice to Create Happiness Forever - Productivity, Mindfulness, Focus & Bliss)
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Practicing daily mindset journaling brings progression, and progression brings the manifestation!
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Jaclyn Nicole Johnston
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Possibly, what is required of some of us, and chiefly of me, is a solitary and personal response in the form of nonacquiescence, but quiet, definite and pure.
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Thomas Merton (A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life)
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The Gratitude Journal is a polite, daily thank-you note to the Universe
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Sarah Ban Breathnach (The Simple Abundance Companion: Following Your Authentic Path to Something More)
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As you decide on your daily or weekly affirmative statement, consider where you need the most change or support in your life. A relationship? Your self-image? Your professional success? You might consider choosing a “theme” for the week related to this issue and create several related affirmations to repeat during each session. Stand in front of a mirror and speak to yourself out loud in a clear, strong, and confident voice, saying affirmative positive statements that encourage and inspire you. Begin by repeating your affirmations for two to three minutes. If you want to reinforce your verbal statements, write them down in a journal as well.
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S.J. Scott (10-Minute Mindfulness: 71 Habits for Living in the Present Moment (Mindfulness Books Series Book 2))
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Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According
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Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
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Riding an omnibus or street railway was a novel experience. For the first time in human history, people other than the very wealthy could, as a part of their daily life, ride in vehicles they were not responcible for driving. Their eyes and their hands were free; they could read on the bus. George Juergens has suggested that the World's change to a sensational style and layout was adapted to the needs of commuters: reading on the bus was difficult with the small print and large-sized pages of most papers. So the World reduced the size of the page, increased the size of headlines and the use of pictures, and developed the "lead" paragraph, in which all of the most vital information of a story would be concentrated.
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Michael Schudson (Discovering The News: A Social History Of American Newspapers)
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For about 81 weeks as of this writing, I’ve tracked my daily habits on a “Lights Spreadsheet”; it’s got entries like — Did I adhere to set wake-time? Did I wake 3+ hours before first appointments? Is today clear/known? Is health high, moderate, low? Morning Routine Meditate 10+ Min Zazen Journal Move Active Project(s) Forwards Early Review Commitments and Time Sensitive Recharge: Nap Recharge: Music Health & Athletics Eat Right (Y: 8 Best Groups, Half: Nothing Processed, N: Something processed) Review Day Plan Tomorrow Set Wake Time Sleep Well I mark those with a simple green “Y” if I do them, a yellow “Half” if I partially did them, a red “N” if I don’t do them. ***
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Sebastian Marshall (PROGRESSION)
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Create a goal journal. Write it down to bring the much-needed clarity. Primary goal aligned with passion. The goal should be aligned with your passion to make it easier and workable. Small achievable goals. Think big, but target small, doable things for daily goals. It builds momentum. An accountability partner for your goals. Goals shouldn’t just remain on paper and this is where an accountability partner can help. Enjoy the journey, celebrate each milestone. Treat yourself to something small that you enjoy as you accomplish each task in your list.
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Rich Redwood (11 SIMPLE HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE: A QUICK READ FOR THE DISCERNING READER TO ACHIEVE GREATER SUCCESS, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS (SUCCESS, MONEY, HAPPINESS Book 1))
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A research study done by Emmons and McCullough demonstrated that people who kept a daily gratitude journal showed higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy when compared to groups who either recorded events of the day or who recorded unpleasant things that happened during their day.2 The grateful group also experienced less depression and stress, exercised more, had healthier coping strategies and problem solving, slept better, and were more likely to help others. Obviously gratitude is good for the mind, body, and spirit.
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Julie Winter (ReNew: Breaking Free from Negative Thinking, Anxiety, and Depression)