June 18th, 2010 — Life as a Shared Adventure
Which has higher priority in your life, work or play? Play comes first for me, which doesn’t mean I never do anything that someone else would call work. It’s just I try to enjoy what ever I’m doing as much as possible. As they say, life is short. Way too short not to enjoy it for those of us with one foot in the grave the other on a banana peel. 
Practicing What I Preach
I was going to publish this post this morning, but I received this e-mail from my web host:
Dear Jean:
Your web hosting account for cheerfulmonk.com has been deactivated, as of 06/17/2010. (reason: terms of service violation – malware/virus)
This deactivation was due to a Terms of Service violation associated with your account. At sign-up, all users state that they have read through, understand, and agree to our terms. These terms are legal and binding.
Although your web site has been suspended, your data may still be available for up to 15 days past the date of deactivation; however, if you do not contact us, after this time, your account and all of its files, databases, and emails will be deleted.
If you feel this deactivation was made in error, or in order to gain access to your account, please call our customer service line as soon as possible at (866) 573-4678.
It reminded me of the old joke,
One little A-bomb can ruin your whole weekend.
Needless to say, I canceled most of my plans for the day and worked on getting this mess straightened out. In spite of the unfriendly tone of the e-mail I wasn’t worried. In the past HostMonster’s technical support has been great. I knew they could tell me what to do and that I had enough background to understand what they were saying. It took time but it was a bit of an adventure and good mental exercise. Given the subject of this week’s post, could I have taken any other attitude?
What about you? How important is play to you? How successful are you in integrating it into your everyday life?
June 11th, 2010 — Humor
This cartoon reminds me of Looney saying the Chinese have a rich vocabulary for different kinds of smiles. I wonder what they would call Earl’s in the cartoon above. Or what they would call the father’s smile in this cartoon:
Are you as much of a sucker for a genuine smile as I am? How would you react to the smiles in these two cartoons? I would think Earl’s was coerced… and the father’s smile seems too intrusive. Even if the father isn’t faking his cheerfulness, trying to talk his son into feeling the same way has to be annoying. Have you ever been in a situation like that? Either as the cheerful person or the person being annoyed? Do you agree with the Chinese that there are many kinds of smiles?
June 4th, 2010 — Lifelong Learning
I don’t know what the dog in the kudzu patch is looking for, but scientists down in Antarctica are digging for something of vital interest to us all….more information about global warming.
Most scientists agree that the world is warming up. The question is how much of that current warming is due to human activity and how much is simply natural variation. Scientists have been trying to guess how temperatures have changed in the past by looking at tree rings, harvest records, and sediments in seas and lakes. The trouble is too many assumptions have to be made for all scientists to agree.
As Mining for Cold, Hard Facts explains, American researchers are taking ice cores at the WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) Divide, 600 miles from the South Pole, to see what the climate has been like for the past 100,000 years. Researchers will especially be looking at the relationship between the greenhouse gases and temperature changes.
I think it’s a great way to shed more light and less heat on the global warming issue. What do you think?
May 27th, 2010 — Humor, Living Fully
Earl’s response in the above cartoon reminds me of a Marlo Thomas quote:
Some kind of help is the kind of help that helping’s all about. Some kind of help is the kind of help we can all do without.
Clearly Earl’s is the kind we can all do without, unlike Arlo’s in the following cartoon (click on cartoon for larger version):
What about you? Have you ever had memorable help from someone? What kind was it?
May 21st, 2010 — Lifelong Learning
The above cartoon raises some questions about how our minds work. Do you ever talk to yourself? If so is it out loud or just internally? I’m more of a visual thinker than an auditory one, but I do find myself mentally writing and rewriting my posts, trying to keep them as concise as possible.
A great deal of my thinking is in the form of images. When I think of topics for posts my first step is to try to figure out what picture or graphic to use. As I said, I try to keep my posts relatively short…my main goal is to present food for thought so I can share ideas and experiences with my readers.
Sometimes when I’m thinking of an idea or situation my talking is aimed at some abstract listener. Mostly I’m just observing, I don’t have a sense that “I” am doing the talking. The exception to this is when I’m facing a challenge…then I give myself pep talks and any emotional support I need.
Things are somewhat different when I’m going through a big transition in my life. Then I do a lot of free-association journal writing to make sure my decisions and actions are connected to the deepest part of me. I don’t need to do this at this point in time, but it’s nice to know that method is always there for me when I need it.
What about you? Do you have internal self-talk? Are you an observer or do you have a sense of yourself doing the talking? Does your inner voice tend to be supportive or critical? What exactly is your mind doing when you’re “thinking”?
May 14th, 2010 — Humor, Lifelong Learning
How do you feel about chocolate? I’m not a fan but I know a lot of people who are.
Many people use chocolate to lift their spirits, but according to a recent article about chocolate and depression this hasn’t been scientifically proven yet. That came as a surprise to me, I had assumed that was true. I’m also surprised by another statement in the article….research has shown that people who eat at least one chocolate bar a week are more apt to be depressed than people who eat chocolate less often.
Do you believe this? If so do you think they’re eating chocolate to self-medicate? Or maybe chocolate gives temporary relief with rebound effects. I still remember my husband getting a headache every afternoon and for some reason a Sunkist orange soda relieved it. This went on for month and months until we read an article that Sunkist had caffeine in it. Ah! Who would have guessed? So once he stopped the soda the caffeine headaches went away after a few days.
Anyway, what do you think about chocolate? Scientists have decided more research needs to be done. I personally think it’s a fun topic.
May 7th, 2010 — Lifelong Learning
Have you ever been glad you procrastinated? Have you ever been sorry you didn’t? Hopefully your story isn’t as sad as this poor fellow’s:
Rick’s father was clearly having his last illness and would be dead in a few more weeks. When he died Rick would inherit 40 million dollars. So Rick decided it was time to plan ahead and look for someone to share his good fortune with. Then one night at a singles bar he found the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He went up to her and said he knew he wasn’t much to look at, but in a few weeks he would inherit a fortune. Needless to say she was impressed and went home with him that very evening.
Three days later she became his stepmother.
What about you? Do you have any procrastination stories?
April 30th, 2010 — Humor
Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, is being questioned by the U.S. Senate for some of its unethical practices…the firm sold products that it itself was betting against. Numerous internal e-mails talked about how bad the products were. When a Congressman read one of the e-mails and asked the Chief Financial Officer if he thought Goldman Sachs should have been selling the products the CFO answered, “I think that’s a very unfortunate thing to have on an e-mail.” People in the hearing room burst out laughing. Sometimes it helps to laugh.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil suit for investment fraud against the company, but it isn’t clear that they can prove any law was broken. So Andy Borowitz had fun with the situation in his April 25th report. He claims eleven indicted Somali pirates are claiming their operations have been legal because they weren’t pirates. Instead they are investment bankers. They allegedly became a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs in 2008 and had simply attacked ships that Goldman Sachs had bet against. They merged their operations with the banking giant in order to get their fair share of the government bailout money and also because the laws against investment bankers are much more lenient than the laws against pirates. Borowitz quoted one government source who said, “There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in fact, pirates. But if they’re bankers, our hands are tied.”
What about you? Is this something you can laugh about?
April 23rd, 2010 — Lifelong Learning
Recently Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that inflation in the U.S. is low and will probably stay that way for the next 5 to 10 years. When my husband read that he said either Bernanke is telling us a story or else he has lost touch with reality. What do you think? Do you agree with Bernanke or does inflation seem higher than he says?
Do you think Bernanke deserves the Pinocchio nose? If not, can you think of anyone who does?
If you live in a country other than the U.S. do you have much inflation? Does it affect you much?
April 16th, 2010 — Humor, Lifelong Learning
This past winter Mattel Inc., decided to let their customers choose what Barbie’s next career will be. Anyone who visited the Barbie.com website could vote for architect, anchorwoman, computer engineer, environmentalist or surgeon. More than 600,000 votes were received and computer engineer was the top pick.
The interesting thing is it wasn’t young girls who voted for her…they chose anchorwoman. But the voting was open to anyone. No one could vote more than once, but adults were not excluded. And some female computer engineers who learned about the election launched an internet campaign for Barbie as a computer engineer. Mattel was happy to oblige. Computer-engineer Barbie will come out this coming winter and Mattel hope she “inspires a new generation of girls to explore this important high-tech industry, which continues to grow and need future female leaders.”
I applaud them. I also applaud them for also deciding to honor the youngsters who voted by also producing an Anchorwoman Barbie. The world is big enough for both.
What do you think?
