if all you have is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail

We were watching the film Mulholland Drive yesterday and it suddenly hit us like a bolt of lightening. How many times we misdiagnose a situation. How many times we carry on a path not knowing that our assumption have taken us miles off course.

It’s like playing golf and only knowing how to use three clubs and having to use them in every situation.

It’s like looking through a camera zoom lens instead of a wide angle.

It’s like blindly following another’s opinion.

The fact is that most of our lives are spent reusing the information collected in our formative years. Thus, when anything new enters our arena we immediately go to the past to try to make sense of it.

The outcome is: we each live an illusion. We each see our world through some really heavily tinted spectacles. We each act as though we are a hammer and everything that comes in front of us is a nail.

The problem is. IT DOESN’T WORK.

We were amazed how easily we fell into the trap. How easily we interpreted what was happening before our eyes and made it logical. How easily we searched for closure.

To make us comfortable we wanted to put things into a comfortable category. We wanted to place happenings in a box in the same way a librarian codes books for easy access. Ah! That goes in the family box. That is rude behaviour. That is unacceptable in public. That shows he is uneducated etc etc etc…

Yes, you could argue that this form of coding is important in life because it helps us get through life quickly.

BUT!!!

Why do we like to put ourselves and others into ‘psychological boxes’? What is it about us that we like to say we are this type of person or that? Why do we want to limit ourselves? Why do we want to sell ourselves short?

It’s like being a carpenter who only has a hammer in his toolbox. We are restricting ourselves beyond belief. Just imagine how restricting it would be if you only had a hammer in your toolbox? How can you get passionate about anything if all you are capable of is knocking the brains out of any information that comes your way?

How do you find out what you were brought onto this planet to do if all you can do is respond in the same way to whatever is put in front of you.

How do you develop and grow your children if all they see is the same behaviour irrespective of the problem posed.

How do you rise to the challenges of our society if all you do is apply the same reasoning even though it doesn’t fit?

As Howard Schatz. The famous New York dance photographer stated in one of his books:

“I told each dancer that when it was easy, it had probably been done

before, probably many times. I explained that only when it was so hard

that it was nearly impossible were we perhaps close to getting something

unique and extraordinary.”

Is this why we like to categorise situations and people? We actually don’t like hard work.

Is it that we don’t like the pressure of being our true selves? Because to do that we have to stand out?

Is it that we can’t cope with being unique and extraordinary, so we just want to be similar and ordinary?

Is it that we are afraid of who we might be? Are we afraid that we can be successful? Afraid that if we admit to ourselves that we have talent we might have to do something with our lives?

Is it that we don’t really want to find out who we really are and what we are capable of?

We don’t know about you but we want to be unique, we want to find out and use our uniqueness. We want to be fulfilled. We want to find our energy source that is released when we are doing what we are intended to do. We want to be in the flow, as some writers describe it.

We have come to realise that what stops us from being in the flow all the time. What stops us from releasing our passion. What stops us from behaving naturally. What makes us waste energy.

FEAR.

Fear keeps us placing people and situations into categories.

Fear stops us from leading ourselves.

Fear stops us from letting go of the past.

Fear keeps our habitual patterns in place.

Being frightened and feeling second best stop us from finding our true selves.

Fear buries the natural me.

“A musician must make music, and artists must paint,

a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

What a man can be, he must be”

(Maslow)

What about you?

Good Luck

Graham and Julie

desktop-meditation. com

How to house a successful online business

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It is worth taking the time to make your site more search engine friendly, because it will bring you profit and appropriate exposure. Here are some simple advices on building successful web site for your online business.

How to build search engine friendly website? You can find plenty material when browsing the Internet, but a good foundation cannot sabotage your online initiative. A search engine friendly site is not just beneficial for top ranking in the search engines, but also helps to attract customers, thus getting business for you.

Before designing a site, make sure you have got a good domain name. The Domain name is your URL or Universal Resource Locator as in what a person types into the search engine bar like yoursite. com and others. Hypothetically, if your business is related to something like ruleta then it is good to have the word "ruleta" included into the domain name separated by dashes from other words or numbers. Generic domain names may help in search engine listing. It will be easier to find the sequence of words within a domain name directly related to the main idea of your business.

Make your site content based with at least two hundred words holding clear information of your products, services and business. This will help your potential customer to know about you and get some information on products they require. Apart from verbal description, you might use web design attributes to underline your point. Please do not startle the visitor of your web site with blinking texts, shocking colors and confusing animations on the web pages. The website must have a clean look so that the web visitor will feel relaxed to get all relevant information about your services, otherwise, he will shut it down within a minutes.

Keep the site simple and easy to navigate. Complicated navigation will confuse the visitors. The navigation must be user-friendly and easily understood by the visitors. If you search through search engine results, you will find all the top ranking websites are optimized properly. These optimized websites make their presence felt in the search engines by making their site user friendly with good navigation, content texts, and Meta tags relevant to their websites, and having proper placed images. Why shouldn't you use such simple tool like navigation at your favorite?

News relevant to your site is also a great way to bring in traffic. Many people nowadays get their news online and not just world news. Maybe someone wants to read about the gambling bill that was passed in congress recently to ban money transfers to and from online casinos, a great advantage to having news on your page is that if it is well written piece of writing, other news sources like Yahoo and Google may take your masterpiece and put a link to it from their site. This would give you thousands of hits, and that is the goal.

While designing your website, the most important thing to remember your website is not to trick search engines by adding hidden texts or hidden links, irrelevant keywords or text, or very small text which is hardly visible for human eyes. Google usually punishes these websites by giving them low rank or sometimes removing them forever.

If you incorporate all these tips when building your website I can guarantee it will make your job much easier, no one wants to build a site and then find out they need to star over from scratch, because every day offline is potential money lost.

Use the above suggestions and utilize them into your company website in order to guarantee you stop losing money that you could be making.

How to build powerful residual income with a simple real estate website

Did you know that several countries have been enjoying a property investment boom in recent times? Have you seen the amount of money that people invest in real estate - some say that it's the ultimate form of investment, returning not only a rental yield but (on historical average) a 10% return on investment per year. Look, I have a degree in business studies -

I have worked in an investment bank for over 7 years...through my personal experience alone I can tell you that property investment is an incredibly hot niche (and in my opinion it's only going to get bigger with an exploding global population and finite amount of land and property available).

In fact you have entire funds and bonds dedicated exclusively to real estate investment. If nothing else that should tell you that (a) there is a lot of potential there and (b) there is a lot of MONEY in this niche.

But for you and me that's just a tempting little side fact - the main issue is that people will pay good money for premium information in this niche!

· They will pay for information on how to purchase properties in different real estate hotspots around the world.

· They will pay for information on how to purchase & expand their property portfolios with little or no money down.

· They also will eagerly subscribe to newsletters that will teach them more about real estate investment (and what additional products they can buy to make money with it). Use the bonus in part 3 of Property Investor Pro as a list building offer and you can build an opt in mailing list of thousands of prospects very quickly. How much additional back-end revenue could you make with that? Have you seen the commissions that some affiliate programs offer in the real estate niche? Fat.

· Property advertisers will pay to have their message on your site/blog (remember you get private label rights to part one of the course). That's additional Adsense income potential right there.

There are several different business models you could apply to this package. You could sell the entire product as a high ticket item. You could offer part of it as a list building incentive (and have people clicking your affiliate links like crazy). You could offer resell rights or master rights and make it a viral time-bomb. You could use the private label rights content to create your own high quality reports and products and sell these on individually (and pepper them with even more affiliate programs). The opportunities are really endless.

Laughter use it to pick up women

Humour, some say, is the fruit of life, and this is especially true when it comes to picking up on a girl no matter where the location. Make them laugh, and I guarantee, that you are very close to getting their phone number and even to getting them to go out with you.

But, as we all know, making them laugh, is easier said than done. Precisely for those who find it difficult to come up with something funny to say, I am adding some funny anecdotes and wise cracks that you can memorize and then use in those situations where you need to get the girl in front of you to laugh.

1) The Prescription:

Did you hear of the lady, who walked into the pharmacist and asked for arsenic?

The man behind the counter asked in wonder, "What do you need that for?

The lady calmly replied," to kill my husband."

The pharmacist was taken aback," Are you crazy? Do you want to get us both into jail? And, anyway, why do you want to kill him? Go to a counselor. Get help for your marriage."

The lady paused and from her purse she removed a set of pictures of her husband and the wife of the pharmacist in some very creative postures.

The pharmacist looked at the snaps, put them down and smiled," lady, why did you not tell me that you have a prescription?"

2) The Tip Book

A wife calls out to her husband, "Have you seen the book, 101 Tips to Live for More Than a Hundred Years?

The husband sheepishly replies, "I burnt it."

"What?" the wife shouted out," why?"

The husband whispered back," Because your mother wanted to read it."

3) Range of Food

Looking at his wife fry meat balls in all kinds of shapes and sizes, Tom tapped her on the shoulder, "Why?"

His wife turned," Because you asked for a variety of food."

4) Mushrooms

Tom was picking mushrooms from the forest floor with his wife, when she picked up one and showed it to Tom," Is this for eating?"

Tom smiled," Yes. As long as you do not cook it."

5) Driving Around

Tom greeted his wife when she returned home," So, my dear, how was your first time driving all alone?"

His wife smiled coyly, "Do you want to hear it from me or read about it in the papers?

6) Drama

A couple are watching a film in their local theater when the wife snuggles close to her husband and points to the screen," Do you think that they will get married in the end?"

The husband sighs," Yes. These movies always have bad endings."

7) The Library

Tom visited the local library, walks up to the librarian and asks, "Do you know where I can find the book, the Supremacy of Men over Women?"

The librarian conducts a short search on the computer and looks up," you will be able to find it in the science fiction."

Conclusion:

While some of these might sound offensive, if you use them well you will be able to display not just a sense of humour, but also that you are exactly the opposite of the stereotype. How? Immediately, after you done, lean over and whisper, But I am not like that, and if you allow me to take you out, you will see that for yourself.

Give a miracle by giving yourself

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The bodies that God miraculously gave us are very complex. Regardless of all of the advances in technology, we can't create a substitute for many parts of our bodies.

Doctors are dependent on donations from individuals for items such as blood, organs and tissue to help save lives. Consider the following ways you can donate a portion of yourself to help save and improve the lives of others:

Give your blood.

Every two seconds someone in America needs blood. That comes out to 86,400 people needing blood today just in America. Are you aware that you are saving as many as three lives for each pint of blood that you donate? That is the amount of blood donated in one visit. You will be saving multiple lives by being a blood donor. In addition, your body is designed to remanufacture new blood to replace the amount you donated. You haven't given up anything except a small amount of time. Contact Red Cross at givelife. org or 1-800-GIVELIFE (1-800-448-3543) to learn about giving blood and schedule a time to donate.

Give your hair.

There are thousands of financially disadvantaged children that suffer from long-term medical hair loss. Something as simple as wearing a hairpiece can help increase their self-esteem and confidence. If you have long hair, consider donating locks of it to make these needed hairpieces available. This is something children can do as well. Contact Locks of Love at locksoflove. org or 1-888-896-1588 to learn about how you can participate.

Give your marrow.

Did you know there are as many as 35,000 children and adults that have life threatening diseases each year that could benefit from a marrow or blood cell transplant? Many of these individuals suffer from leukemia, lymphomas, and other blood cancers. Although being a marrow or blood cell donor is not as quick and simple as donating blood, it is another critically needed way that you can help save lives. Contact the National Marrow Donor Program at marrow. org or 1-800-MARROW2 (1-800-627-7692) to learn about how to register as a potential donor.

Give your organs and tissue.

How would you like to continue to save lives even after you die? An average of 17 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant. You can help save up to 7 people's lives when you donate your organs and improve up to 50 lives as a tissue donor. We are all going to die someday and what better way to leave this planet than to continue to help others with what we leave behind. Contact the Coalition on Donation at shareyourlife. org or 1-804-782-4920 to learn more about organ and tissue donations.

Start saving lives now!

Many people think you have to be a doctor or firefighter to save lives on a regular basis. We need to start thinking differently. You can save lives on a regular basis and it will cost you almost nothing. It takes so little time it can be done during your lunch break. Get started today!

7 materials for creating the perfect kitchen countertop

The kitchen countertop has to be able to take a lot of abuse including the heat of pots, cutting and knives and abrasive cleansers. The ideal countertop should be able to stand up to heat and the sharp edge of a knife.

Let us take a look at 7 of the most popular kitchen countertop materials being used today:

Granite - A natural stone, granite is a popular choice for it’s classic beauty and durability. Granite is the hardest and densest of the natural stones. It can create a kitchen countertop that is extremely scratch resistant and can keep its luster longer than most materials. granite slabs are the most expensive of all kitchen countertop surfaces, although it is still considered a very practical material in that it is virtually indestructible.

Marble – Another natural stone, marble is considered to be the height of elegance and will last longer than most kitchens. It is however, is very expensive and requires some care: acidic foods such as orange juice will etch the finished surface of a marble kitchen countertop.

Slate – Because of it richness and beauty slate is usually used in interior applications such as kitchen countertops, bathroom sinks or fireplace surrounds. It can be used in either modern or traditional kitchens as well as in combination with marble. Slate is durable, strong, and can withstand hard use. It is less expensive than marble

Concrete – This is one of the biggest trends in kitchen countertops today. It is a good look for clean, industrial and contemporary kitchen designs. Available in pre formed sections or poured and formed on-site. Concrete is a good material for unusually shaped counters. Concrete kitchen countertopsare expensive, require a sealant and must be treated with care. The countertop can crack if the concrete should contract. Concrete can be stained any color. The most popular color is a natural gray tone. The top layer can be finished as desired.

Corian – A solid surface material that first became popular in the 1990’s It is highly recommended by kitchen countertop experts. It is a totally manmade product and is not porous. As a solid surface it can easily be repaired if scratched or burned.

Stainless Steel – Advantages include very hygienic, easy to clean, has ability to stand up to exteme wear and heat. Stainless steel can provide a great look for an ultra modern kitchen. Some disadvantages with stainless is that it can be noisy and that scratches can develop.

Tile – Tile surfaces can be tough, hard-wearing, takes hot pans, heat and stain resistant as well as beautiful. There are many types of tiles including ceramic, porcelain, quarry, glass, natural stone and mosiac. Available in many colors, sizes and textures. It has good design flexibility. Tile can often be used for trim or backsplashes. The downside of tile is that the grouts can be easily stained. Also the tiles can become chipped or cracked.

Back pain

Back pain is one thing most likely to elicit a twinge of sympathy from the hardest of hearts. It is estimated that every person in the world will suffer from it in his/her lifetime - mild to serious, chronic or temporary.

You could get an attack at any point along the spine, especially the lower back area which takes on the maximum weight and stress. Most common causes: strain or bruising of muscles; sprain or injury to ligaments; and spasms when the injured muscle knots up as part of the body’s attempt to immobilize it to prevent further injury. Other causes include osteoporosis, arthritis, a slipped disc, or even excessive gas, besides more serious causes like tumors, diabetes or kidney malfunctions that emerge in a doctor’s clinic.

Blame it on your Lifestyle

An important factor and one that is entirely in you hands, is lifestyle. For instance, improper postures while sitting and sleeping, and carelessness during walking, stretching or playing, especially when you are overweight, are few common causes. Grand illusions of being a Hercules incarnate and lifting heavy weights or improperly hefting them around are other frequent errors.

Bad posture is the biggest culprit. Desk jobs mean sitting for hours before computers where we unconsciously slump into odd positions. Or twist our backs frequently while trying to reach for something behind or beside us, or stretch forward too far; too fast. We also unconsciously slip into awkward positions while reading or watching TV sprawled on the bed or sofa.

Sit up

Chairs with gaps at the lower back level are deadly - avoid them. And if you think you are invulnerable because you have that perfectly ‘ergonomically’ designed chair; know this - most people unconsciously lean forward in such a way that their lower back moves away from the chair base and thus remains unsupported.

Get up and Walk around

Sitting anywhere, anyhow, for long periods means that dangerous pressure points develop along the back. The load on you back is the highest when you are sitting, less while standing and least when you are sleeping.

The golden rule is to get up and walk around every 15-20 minutes. When on a long drive, get out of the car, walk around, stretch you limbs after every two hours. While driving, the back of the car seat should not recline beyond 30 degrees and ideally the seat bottom should be tilted up slightly in front.

It’s not a high

Avoid regular use of high heels - they hamper good posture, ruin you body’s alignment and hurt the back, feet and neck. Our feet are designed to bear the entire weight of the body evenly across their surface. However, the feet and legs are placed in and unnatural position when you wear heels. Most of the pressure is transferred to the front of the foot.

Stressed Out

The modern-day stress epidemic is another factor since back pain can be psychosomatic. Stress/emotional problems both cause back pain and aggravate any existing pain. Yoga and meditation sessions are effective in such cases.

Weak stomach muscles heighten back strain and cause you pelvis to twist abnormally. Regular and proper exercise help tremendously since it keeps joints mobile, muscles conditioned and, more importantly, raises your pain threshold.

Don’t over Exercise

Doctors receive many back-pain patients who are victims of improperly-trained gym instructors or half-baked yoga teachers. Suddenly launching into heavy, unaccustomed activity is a sure recipe for disaster.