I took last week off from working out because I came down with a pretty nasty virus.  But I was feeling up to the task yesterday, so now I'm back in the saddle.  I am going to continue working out 20-30 min 3x a week for now.  I may step it up a notch in a month or so.

Alright, well I've never done a musical blog post before, so here goes nothing.  Here's a little song I wrote for my wife back before she was my wife.  It has nothing to do with personal change, but it does have to do with love, lasting commitment, and all that good stuff.  The beginning conversation was from a recording of us talking on our honeymoon, sitting out on our porch in St. Lucia during a tropic downpour.  (p.s. anyone who hasn't been to St. Lucia - make plans to go at some point!)

Click here to see the whole photo album

Long late-afternoon naps = inability to fall asleep at a reasonable time!

Well, I was doing much better with getting rest until last night.  I had tons of energy and was unable to go to sleep, so I did odd jobs around the house until 1:30 in the morning.  The important thing is that I was good from 12/25 until yesterday, and in slipping up I learned a lesson:

• I can't drink coffee at night!

I always used to think that coffee didn't affect me, that I could go to sleep whenever I wanted.  Well, I was wrong - or else it is just a crazy coincidence that the one night I drink coffee at 8 PM, I'm unable to stick to my new goal of getting some rest!  No more late night cups of joe....

Isn't a sign of intelligence the ability to draw correlations, learning from one's mistakes and not repeating the same mistakes in the future? Even rats that get electricuted trying to eat Swiss cheese will quickly learn to avoid the cheese with holes in it.

Then why are humans, a species who can split the atom and send a robot to Mars, unable to apply this simple lesson in their own lives?

Case in point: almost every morning I wake up groggy thinking ‘I really have to get to bed earlier'. Then, I will go to bed early one night and spring out of bed the next morning feeling like a new man.

Does this lesson carry over to the next day?

No. Maybe I'll get to bed early again one night next week.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus(121 AD - 180 AD), Meditations
 
Marcus Aurelius is an ancient Greek emporer and philosopher best known for his role in the movie Gladiator (to jog your memory he is the one who was killed at the beginning of the movie by his incestuous son played by Joaquin Phoenix.)

He also was known to a much lesser degree for authoring one of the most highly regarded books of philosphy in ancient Greece. But only philsophers and historians know anything about that.

So what do you think of his quote?

I partly agree and partly disagree.

I disagree in the sense that I believe that my life is what my actions, not my thoughts, make of it. To be honest, during any given day I have any number amount of loopy thoughts that run through my head. Some that are based in reality, and most that aren't. The key for me is to only act on the ones that are based in reality or the ones that are going to have a positive impact on my life.

However, I agree that people can manifest their own destinies by living in negativity. Does this mean I can always just convince myself to think positively? For me, no it doesn't. I've tried to do this and it ends up just making me feel exhausted in the end. For me I need to do something that is going to make me feel better. Call a friend. Stop for 20 seconds on the way to work to watch the sunrise. Show an extra amount of kindness to someone that I run across throughout my day. These attempts to reduce my self-centeredness and self-reliance are the best ways for me to affect my thinking.

By the way, is it me or could that actor easily pass for the late George Carlin?

On any given day, when I turn on the TV and hear news reports about the current state of our economy, it is very easy for me to blame "big business". I curse investment banks, AIG, and Countrywide. Yet, the truth is that these companies are not solely responsible for the mess we are in.  A larger common denominator exists:  human nature.  Humans are naturally flawed.  It is an unavoidable fact.  However, we have the ability to improve our flaws if we are willing to take an introspective look at how they manifest in our lives.  Simply put, our failure to do this on a collective level is why we are in the throws of a recession. 

Here are a few examples:

• Greed
  
  Companies, lending institutions, homebuyers, credit card users, etc. Collectively, we have been a nation driven by greed.  And our appetites have outpaced our money supply.
  
  
• Unrealistic Expectations
  
  Where did we develop the expectation that we should be able to see a 10% minimum yearly return on our investments?  I am not going to get into a detailed explanation of economic theory here.  It is easy to see that at one point this was a very realistic expectation.  We were developing in leaps and bounds as a nation.  Technology was booming and the business services industry grew as a result.  But recently (over the past 10 years) innovation has slowed, and we have failed to adjust our expectations as a nation of investors.  We still want that 10%, minimum. 
  
  'So whats the big deal?' you ask.  Well, for companies to continue gaining 10% in value each year, one of two things has to happen:
  

  1. They cut costs
     
  2. They sell more stuff

  To "sell more stuff" companies did things like traded collateralized debt obligations and sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them.  But, if the AIGs & Countrywides of the world didn't engage in these questionable practices, investors would have put their money elsewhere - in other companies that did.
  
  
• Impatience & Impulsivity
  
  People don't want to wait for things.  They want them when they want them.  Kids graduate from college and spend money like they have been in the workforce for 10 years.  They lease the BMW that is a third of their monthly budget.  They buy the house that is 4x their yearly salary.  They buy the 80GB iPod with the money that was budgetted for food, but it's ok because they'll just charge the groceries.
  
  I know because I was one of them.  Luckily, I was impulsive about comparatively small purchases - a plasma tv here and a bedroom furniture set there.  Consequently, I had to go on a spending freeze to pay back my debts, which I eventually did - and learned my lesson.  Unfortunately, if the whole country goes on a similar spending freeze at the same time - that is called a depression, and it wouldn't be great.  (lame economy pun) 
  
  
• Insecurity
  
  I remember sitting in a Consumer Behavior class in college as the professor said (and I paraphrase): 'The goal in advertising is not for the audience to feel equal to the people in the ad.  The goal is for the audience to feel less than the people in the ad.' 
  
  Advertisers seek to create this effect for one reason:  it works.  The barbie complex, the adonis complex, the buying a house that is so expensive you don't have the money to furnish it complex, they are all results of the same flaw.  They play on our insecurities, our lack of self-acceptance, and our attempt to compensate by acquiring things.
  
  

This is an extremely complicated topic, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list of examples.  I just wanted to provide some food for thought. Hopefully it didn't leave you feeling gassy. 

Today I want to write a bit about karma and what it means to me.

I think that many people misunderstand the concept of karma.  I use to think karma was something akin to a cosmic order of things, or the notion that if I did something bad the universe might be out to get me one day....when I least expected it.  On the other hand, if I did something good, I might get lucky and hit the lottery, find my soulmate, or become famous.  Bascially, I thought karma was a metaphysical "what goes around comes around".

Nowadays followers of "The Secret" would have you believe that all you have to do is think positive thoughts and fortune will smile favorably upon you.  Do you want to win the lottery?  Now all you have to do is believe that you will strike it rich, and you will!!!!

I am not here to cast stones, and I am even openminded to the idea that anything is possible.  But, in my life, the only thing that has had any lasting effect is the actions that I've taken, the habits that I've changed.

So what does this have to do with karma? 

Well, despite its trancendental underpinnings I believe karma to be simple cause and effect.  It is the concept that every single second affects the second after it.  When applied to my life, it means that the thoughts that I entertain affect the personality that I have.  It means the choices I make affect the person I will become and the life I will have.  It means that my future is being created and altered in profound ways through the seemingly insignificant events of the present.

When I think about the concept of karma I always get a mental image of an object traveling in space, like if Neil Armstrong had taken a Rawlings baseball up to the moon and chucked it out into the void.  That ball's momentum, left unchecked, would send it on a straight path.  However, if it bumped into some tiny stardust particles along the way, changing its trajectory ever so slightly (by 1/10000000 of a degree), in time the ball would have changed course by millions of miles.

In the end, the people who do bad things may have a kick-in-the-butt coming, but I believe it comes in the form of their own concience, the state of their lives, or other consequences of their actions.  People who believe they will succeed may infact be more prone to succeed, but it will be because of the actions they took to get there.

But then again, this is just my belief (and I don't claim to be right).  I'd certainly be interested to hear what other people think.

If I know myself at all, I'm sure this blog will turn into two things. First, it will be a sort of chronological journal for the development of this site, from conceptualization through creation & promotion. Second, it will likely turn into a discourse on personal, interpersonal, and societal growth.

It also may include some/several semi-incoherent ramblings, so you have been warned! Many of my sentences may be grammatically incorrect; don't worry. I know how to write a proper term paper, but this isn't a term paper. It's a blaaahhg!

So here's a thought:

Somewhere along the way I bought in to the 'fact' that the world is the way it is and that there is nothing I can do to change it.

Through some self-introspection over the past few years, I've come to several awarenesses, about my own social programming, personal defects, and fears. However, self-introspection is nothing new to me. I was the kid who was reading Tony Robbins books in highschool....(a telling statement by itself). I would finish the book. Then, sooner rather than later, the state of mind that came with it would slowly fade away. My goal lately has been to rebuild the bridge between best-intentions and action. I believe that I function best in this capacity when I am connected with those around me. That is the goal for this site, to enable others to do the same.

That's all for now.