Live.Love.Laugh.: November 2004

Don't Get Caught Up in the Hype

After thanksgiving is the day where all shopaholics young and old shop till they drop. Commercials on t.v. are bombarded by advertisements about how low their prices can go and how early they'll be open today. Some open their doors as early as 5:30 a.m. encouraging shoppers to be the first in line. One major department store even offered a free Santa ornament(which I think would be no more than an inch)for the first 100 or so customers. But many people still get caught up in the hype and binge on things that usually just get stored up in the attic somewhere. It's just crazy. I myself love to shop, but this is ridiculous. The prices aren't really as "low" as they make you think it is. I personally love great deals but Nov. 26 isn't the only day to take advantage of the "good deals". A great way not to get caught up is to shop as early as possible, even before the hoopla starts.

Checklist for Shopping:

Do I need it?
How many do I already have?
How much will I use?
How long will it last?
Could I borrow it from a friend or family member?
Can I do without it?
Am I able to clean, lubricate and/or maintain it myself?
Am I willing to?
Will I be able to repair it?
Have I researched it to get the best quality for the best price?
How will I dispose of it when I'm done using it?
Are the resources that went into it renewable or nonrenewable?
Is it made or recycled materials, and is it recyclable?
Is there anything that I already own that I could substitute for it?

The Real Meaning of Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving, another holiday with a reason to stuff ourselves silly in memory to when we were strangers to this land. The first Europeans, called Pilgrims who fled from England to the New World due to religious persecutions, betrayed the trust of the Native Americans who first setttled here. They formed colonies and established themselves on their new found land. Completely disregarding the natives of the land, they called themselves USA.

Most Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a boar harvest,
but that was just a part of it.

"The whites went after the Wampanoag with guns, swords, cannons, and torches. Most, including Metacomet, were butchered. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies. His body was hideously drawn and quartered."

It was time of dominance, betrayal, slavery, torture and of course, the 3 G's, as what my professor would call it. GOD, GOLD, GLORY.

Nevertheless, I think what is most important is to realize how blessed our life is. And to give back in any possible way to those who need help the most.

Saturday Morning

flannel pj's/t-shirt/maple flavored oatmeal/decaffeinated cofee/chilly yet sunny morning/music:it's a hardknock life/husband paying off bills/danielle has colds/getting ready to go to grandma's house

15 Laws of Life

1. Love Is The Law Of Life

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is the law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2. It's Your Outlook That Matters

It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful

First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves.

4. It's The Way You Feel

Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others

If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul

You have to grow from the inside out. No one can teach you, no one can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.

11. Nothing Is Impossible

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday

The goal of mankind is knowledge ... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man knows, should, in strict psychological language, be what he discovers or unveils; what man learns is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful

Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different

All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

- Swami Vivekananda

--Whiskey River