The new year is quickly approaching, I am typing this on December the 15th, only 16 days until the new year. With the new year brings my resolutions. I have so much I want to accomplish that I have to pare down my list. I will have a refined list this year and I will get it done. This is my hope for me and you.
How though will we do it? We will grind! We will wake up and grind every day. There is no secret to success, other than trying failing and trying again. My only wish for you and myself for next year is that you grind. I will not wish for it to be easy because it will not be easy. I will not wish for success because we will fail more than succeed. I will not wish for you to be comfortable because comfort does not help us grow. I will not wish for you to be satiated because hunger moves us better than anything. I will wish for us to never quit grinding though.
Don’t let anyone stop you next year including you!! happy holidays and Happy New Year!!
I am a big fan of new years resolutions and very soon those of us in the United States and all the countries that use the Gregorian calendar will get to experience New years!! Party Time! Pop the champagne, sing the songs and kiss your special someone.
Are you making any new years resolutions? Why are your resolutions for 2024? Why did you choose these resolutions? Why aren’t you making any resolutions? What more do you want from life? What would you like to see happen differently in 2024? I ask myself all these questions and more when I am crafting my resolutions list. I love facing the new year armed with hope and a checklist of things I want to see done by me.
I hope that you will feel empowered with the new year coming and hopeful about the new year. I also wish you and your family a great holiday season and a prosperous safe and happy 2024.
“Give it a month”. I can still hear my grandma telling me that it takes a month to create a habit and I should not quit doing something for at least one month. Scientists and researchers do not seem to agree with grandma. Habits form within 21 to 254 days to become a habit. The sweet spot seemed to be 66 days. The study seems interesting and at the end of it what seemed to mater a lot was mindset.
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
Here in the United States and throughout much of Europe we are entering the Holiday season. We will experience thanksgiving, followed by xmas and conclude with New Years. I love making New Years resolutions. It is so fun to see the new year and decide who I want to be and how I plan to get there. I feel young and fresh and hopeful. New Year resolutions are great. You are resolving to be a better you!
This 2024 I plan on approaching resolutions as new habits. I want to create new good habits that will make me a better person. I am not sure what those habits will and should be just yet but I have the holiday season to figure that out. I will keep you posted and I wish you luck on finding good new habits for yourself in 2024.
My wife and I were dating for a little of two years. My wife was working in Manhattan and I visited her at the end of her work trip and stayed for a weekend. We scored Wicked Tickets and watched the show. We had a blast watching Wicked. One of my favorite parts of the play was a scene where one woman promised the other woman that she would make that woman popular, as a show of her friendship towards the unpopular woman.
There is a new book by Mitch Prinstein titled Popular. The book outlines the issues we face in society because our bodies have not evolved beyond worrying about status and popularity. More aptly put we need to evolve beyond worrying about convention popularity and status and be more concerned about likeability and with compassion.
Often what makes us gain status and become more popular is not good for the modern world we live in. What the world needs now is love sweet love (I could not resist myself). Honestly though we need to reprogram society and change what is popular and gains status.
“The world is a show and the show is a performance of the wealthy, the beautiful and the fortunate. The invulnerable, the matchless and the exclusive live a life like dazzling fish in a scintillating seascape behind glass. Everybody may admire them, but nobody can touch them. ( “Keeping up with the Joneses” )”
Erik Pevernagie
Most billionaires are psychopaths and have taken much much much more from society then they have contributed. Even the most philanthropic billionaires have only given away 20% of their wealth so far. Most Billionaires in the United States hover between 1% and 5% of their wealth in their philanthropic endeavors. However society has been programed to make these folks popular and important when they should not be. In a fair and just society billionaires should not exist. Billionaires are proof that our society is broken and the popularity of billionaires does not point towards the development of a better society in the near future.
Take time today to reward and seek the things that should matter and make those popular. what matters most is compassion love, human connection and relationships.
The country music singer Jelly Roll won the award for new CMA Artist of the year thsi year. Jelly Roll sings the song Need a Favor. Need a Favor is a catchy song and I really like listening to it. It was playing on the radio when I told my wife that I like the song but didn’t really understand the lyrics. My wife let me know that I didn’t understand the lyrics because I hadn’t dealt with addiction. Now when I hear and see the lyrics I understand them and the song has moved from catchy to meaningful.
Addiction is tough on the people addicted and the families of those who are addicted. Addictions can and are beaten however they are not often beaten alone. If you or a loved one struggle with addiction in the United States reach out to someone at 1-800-662-4357. There is no shame in getting help for addiction or any health problem.
When the world was introduced to Covid 19 in 2019 I like almost all citizens of the world watched the news and heard all about how the virus was spreading and I thought growing. After a deeper dive I learned that the virus or any virus for that matter did not grow. The fact that the virus does not grow classifies the virus as a dead thing. There are 7 criteria to determine if something is alive and not growing was one of the two test’s the virus did not pass, the other test was the ability to maintain homeostasis.
maintain homeostasis
have different levels of organization
reproduce
grow
use energy
respond to stimuli
adapt to their environment
Notice that thrive is not among the 7 criteria. During our live we will all in one way or another satisfy the 7 criteria. One thing we may or may not do is thrive. To thrive is to work towards and realize goals with ones growth.
Their are lots of elements involved when you want to thrive but one important one is intrinsic in you being alive and that is growing. Until you die you will grow, how you grow will be determined by your circumstances and attitude. Often we cannot control our circumstances but we can always control our attitude.
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking
Zig Ziglar
A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.
I am a pretty big sports fan. I grew up in Cleveland Ohio so I am a fan of all the local professional sport teams that are based in Cleveland. One of the teams is a professional football team named the Cleveland Browns. Right now the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns has not played a full game in the last three games due to an injury to his shoulder.
American football is a sport that seems to have injury to players as part of its DNA so an injury is not scandalous or controversial, the extra layer to this story is that, someone leaked to the press that doctors cleared the quarterback to play the day after the shoulder injury. Now fans and everyone are weighing in on the quarterback and most of the comments are not positive.
Peer pressure can force us to do dumb things and when it comes to your own well being it is important to listen to (what is often the most quiet voice) you. You should know how you feel and if you need to recover go ahead and recover. If you are sick and need to stay home and get some rest go ahead and do that. It is very important to listen to your body and mind and when needed to take breaks.
Do you work in an office, factory, warehouse or home? Were you on time for work yesterday or today or everyday of the work month for the past month? Do you live in the United States? If you have answered no then yes, then you are part of the nearly 30 % of Americans that are late for work. Being late for work cost money, is inconsiderate to our colleagues and just not a best practice for work. Most that arrive late for work are not doing this intentionally and would love to employ a strategy to arrive on time.
Self talk is the way we talk to ourselves another word for self talk is inner voice. Everyone does it and when we learn to use it correctly the sky’s the limit. What time do you need to be at work to be on time? How did you answer that question? Did you say something like, I must arrive to work at 7 am? What if you changed the response from at to before? I must arrive at work before 7 am.? There is a comedian who does a funny sketch about people being late for things. He mentions how being on time is easy because you just have to be early. You have hours and hours to be early but you only have minutes to be on time. A quite talk with oneself can change when and how we arrive for work or any of our appointments’. So take some time and have the talk with yourself today and be kind to yourself.
Terra Lopez, an artist created an exhibit that called “This is What it feels like”. The exhibit is a recording of male presenting people reading scripts that are catcalls, the catcalls go from annoying to aggressive and the people that leave the exhibit all seem pretty moved however, cat calling does not seem to be stopping and people who identify as female are very likely to be catcalled. One in ten girls are catcalled before the age of 11 in the United States.
Toxic masculinity within the United States has created a country in which it is very dangerous for a person to identify as a female. Misogyny, homophobia and violence are now mainstream acceptable and promoted. In 2022 senator Marsha Blackburn asked supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to define a woman. This question was much more than a dog whistle and dripped with hate for people that Marsha Blackburn does not understand.
Change should start from the top down. The top is eaten up with hateful people like Marsha Blackburn and the senator influences our children and promotes toxic masculinity. If we want change we need to respect all life even the lives of those that we do not understand.
Food we all eat it every day. Usually everyone uses money to buy that food. Because money is used to buy that food the news reports on how valuable or money is every day. We can see this value and make decisions like, should I invest more save more or get a part time job.
Corp yield is how much grain or food can be produced per a certain area of land. Farmers and food producers use this number to determine how much land they need to buy or lease however, buying and leasing land is not the only facet involved in increasing or decreasing crop yield. Crop yields is influenced by the health of the eco system that the crops are grown in and the ecosystem is all connected.
Instead of the value of the dollar the news should let the watchers know what the health of the eco system is. The stock market is a poor indicator for the health of a society. The United States is one of the richest nations on earth but, the United States has more poverty than any other developed country in the world. In the 1930’s the United States faced the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was an ecological disaster that was brought on by poor farming techniques and bad priorities. It seems that lessons have been learned since the Dust Bowl but only lessons for the agriculture community not the country or the world as a whole. Currently (since 1980), the United States has experienced 372 weather and climate disasters that have caused about 2.6 trillion dollars.
If our species is to survive we must shift our priorities away from financial wellness and financial health and focus on wellness and health. Our planet is sick and so are our bodies. Instead of a stock market ticker we should see a daily report of green house gas emissions, Crop Yield, and Recycling rates.
There are things we can do own our own, however as a group we have to demand action from our leadership. The Paris climate accord was a good start but is far short from where we need to be. Election season is starting soon do not vote for a cnidate that has bad priorities the economy should not be a focus the planet and people should at the end of the day we cannot eat money. We may be the first species that destroys itself because it was economical and we made a profit.
The Corrigan Encore 