Thursday, May 31, 2012

Seven Steps

Take back your life in seven simple steps - read this article.

Schwartz suggests:
1. Focus on what you're doing with your attention.
2. Spend a few minutes every day writing down what you want to accomplish the next day
3. Do the most important activity in the morning (really important, I think)
4. Eliminate as much insecurity work from life as possible
5. Keep a running list of everything on your mind
6. Ask yourself "Is this the best use of my time?"
7. Train your attention systematically.

But really, it's a short article so go read the whole thing.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Restlessnessnessness

Yesterday, somewhere between loving my post graduate education and hating exams and wanting to hear the sound of the ocean and having no idea where I'm going to be living in three months, I was overcome with a very sharp and overwhelming sense of restlessness. My brain was frazzled and I couldn't keep a single thought in my head for longer than about 5 seconds. So I did the only thing I could imagine doing: curled up on the couch with a good book for a while then watched a movie. They helped calm down the frazzled nerves for a bit. But why did I feel the need to control this restlessness?

I woke up this morning and remembered reading this post on Prolific Living last week and the best sentence ever:

Your greatest regret will be to ignore your hunger and to deny your restlessness a chance.

What are you restless for? There is a common obsession with living calm lives. Why is restlessness shunned? Why is it deemed a negative source of energy? Being restless doesn't mean that your inner peace has somehow vanished or that you are aimless.

Not all those who wander are lost.

So I have made a decision today. I will love my restlessness. I will harness its power and feed it into positive change. I will utilize this beautiful effort and energy and I will stop telling my brain to calm down. I know that I am at peace within and if my energy decides to flux and go insane for an afternoon or a whole week I will just let it be and use that energy to stay positively restless.

Change the mindset. Learn to view what makes you tick in a positive light and it will be so.

Paris vs NYC


I saw this photo on a tumblr last night and immediately wondered if this book was real. My teenage dreams of living in NYC (even though I have yet to visit) and my constant love of all things Parisian collided into one book! And what's more is that this book is not just real, it's also a visual memoir. C'est plus que parfait. Merci to Vahram Muratyan and his dandy blog for reigniting my love of both huge cities :) Can't wait to get my hands on this inspiring book!

The Pale Blue Dot



Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger? I used to draw the solar system and make planet models and wonder about how far the stars are. I wanted to go to Pluto and look out to see if there's anything else behind it. I then discovered that physics was a lot more difficult than it sounded, so that dream ended quite fast. But still, what lies beyond this Earth remains one of the world's unsolvable mysteries; actually, we've barely begun to know anything about our own Earth at all. Such a humbling place, such an experience. The video above has been one of my favorites ever since a friend showed it to me a good few years ago. I watch it every now and again to remind myself that at the end of the day, we humans spend much more time bickering over a fraction of a pale blue dot, and that in the grand scheme of things, we really need to stop that.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Reminisce

Where did we go
And what did we do?
I don't remember it all
But it was just me and you
We lay on our backs
And watched the stars
And promised we would stay like this
For all of our times
Don't ask me if I remember
I don't remember it all
But what I do remember
Is all of those stars
And no matter how much has changed
And how much time has passed
What we had was golden
Yet we'll never be the same.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Siwa Oasis, Egypt

January 2011, right before the Egyptian revolution, I was hanging out in the Siwa Oasis and went hiking in the desert with some friends, way out near the Western boarder of Egypt. I took this photograph and my university picked it for their monthly photo gallery.


It's a lovely memory.

On Simplicity

Honestly, if you can't declutter your life, it will take you so much more time to accomplish anything you set your mind to. Inefficiency and un-productivity will rein supreme. Guaranteed. Here's a quick summary of a great 99% article.

1. Simplify access: de-clutter your physical space and centralize your materials.
2. Simplify your space: there's a reason yoga studios don't look like your grandmother's attic.
3. Simplify your tools: when was the last time you actually used pen and paper?

Of course, the master of simplicity is Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. So much love.

Be simple, live the moment, do the work, accomplish life.

Lois Weisberg

Hey, can you do yourself a huge favor and read this article? The Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg is a must read for anyone interested in networking, social work, social research, community organizing, human beings... Ya. It's longish. It's delightful. Go forth and read lovely people.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

A Small Coastal Village


Such simple beauty.
(sorry it's a bit blurry, didn't write this but Ive seen it around a bunch of times)