Happy Wisdom

HW Praxis#21 - Start over - scrap everything, think fresh I have been on a semi-mission to spend money on books at my local Barnes and Nobel  to ensure it stays there, and this trip I'm delighted to report that I've got a new find - Marie Kondo's " the life-changing magic of tidying up " She is a Japanese organization consultant, which definitely caught my eye.  For those who haven't been to Japan, or don't know Japanese people, they are an astoundingly organized culture.  Notice I didn't say all Japanese people are organised.  "All people do X" is a silly generalization regardless of what you're talking about.  However, I do believe cultures have properties, just like people. consider the definition of culture  " the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively" and I would say tidiness is part of that.  My daughter is studying Japanese and says this property is share...

North Brother Island - Typhoid Mary's Prison Part of happiness is discovery, and this week I discovered, through the kind folks of RadioLab and their podcast episode called " Patient Zero ".  It was about finding the first event of any sort, from disease to who was the first person who gave a high five.   What caught my attention was the story about Typhoid Mary.   Well, I've been using this term for basically my whole life with no idea of where it came from or if it was a real person. I imagined she was from the ancient times, or someone like O'Leary's Cow, but it turns out that she was from the turn of the 20th century  (1869 –1938)  and operated less than 40 miles from the town I grew up in, namely, Oyster Bay, NY, which was the location of the first case of Typhoid. A wealthy family ( somethings never change ) called in to report their very ill little girl. I won't repeat the whole story, but the long and short of it was that this brillia...

Part I.  Inspiration for the day-to-day fight  Budget and Bulge are best fought with daily disciple. For some things you simply need to have the ability to grind every day and make things happen.   You either count calories or count points or fat grams, but in one way or another, you're counting something.  Budget is the same - counting all those dollars that come in and leave, temporary visitors to your checking account. These things can be taxing. As part of the LifeSPARC process we talk about renewal. Using the small part of our brain that is called to fight for what is right vs. what is fun/yummy is a work in futility. Eventually we exhaust our fuel to do the right thing. So, here's a some resources on how to get inspired, or Renewed, the 'R' in SPARC. I love infographics even though they're fairly difficult to consume - hard to see on the screen and hard to print, but they're cool. Section II - Tech  We're all interested in what'...