Why I Don't Like Britney

I harbor, within my cerebral cortex, an intense dislike for the trendy. If everybody's doing it, saying it, reading it, or otherwise incorporating it into their lives, I will naturally try to avoid it. This does not make me a more worthwhile human being than most, just a better one. If you come to me recommending a book that "everyone's reading," I will nod my head and make encouraging sounds while mentally vomiting. The book may be fantastic, and I may be sadly diminished because of my obstinacy, but I will resist reading it just because I dislike the trendy.

Therefore, Britney is considered persona not grata in my book, though I am not above using her name in this blog in order to improve my SEO (that's search engine optimization for you non-bloggers, God bless you every one). I'm clearly not above using her likeness either. However, this post is not only about Britney, the number one search term on the internet (could someone please explain that to me, without referring to the apocalypse?). Here are some other trendy things I dislike:

• The GTD system. No thanks. If I was the most disorganized person in the galaxy, I would not try it. If you've never heard of it, consider yourself extremely fortunate.
  
• The word "deal" used on its own as a verb, e.g. "He just won't deal!" (Nothing to do with a deck of cards, either.)
• Promise Keepers.
• The Purpose Driven anything!
• The word "empower." What drivel.
• The phrase "It's all good." No, it's not.
• The phrase "You go girl!" (This was OK to use once in all of recorded history. Stop saying it.)
• The word "bling." You say it, you're an idiot.
• All TV shows with people renovating stuff. The people may know about renovation, but they are completely ignorant about humor, laughing at their own sophomoric dim-witticisms. Stop laughing at your own jokes, you moron!
  

Do you have some dislikes of your own? Care to comment?

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How to Avoid Religious Scams

I have a very strong antipathy toward all scams and everyone who perpetrates them. I suppose most of us do. But of all scams, the kind that seems to be able to fly under the radar most often is the religious scam. For whatever sociological reasons, almost anything someone does in the name of faith lies beyond questioning. In any other context, an act may be considered stupid, or even contemptible, but place it within a religious framework and somehow it is off-limits for any critical inspection. There are religious scammers by the dozen who have been exposed in the national media as frauds and bandits, and yet they are able to continue sucking their faithful followers dry, year after year. According to a 2001 article in USA Today,

"in the past 3 years, scams in 27 states used the name of God to rip off $1.9 billion."

In some ways I am tempted to believe that saying: It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money. There is certainly a bit of truth there. Also, one might argue that the religious scammer is actually providing people with some sort of comfort, so the money they give is not for nothing. There's some truth there, too. But I believe that there are many people who would not give these liars one penny, if they knew that their favorite evangelist is in reality a wolf, dressed in the garments of a sheep. And so, this phenomenon seems to me to be a worthwhile subject for discussion. Therefore, I begin.

Over on another of my witty and dense-with-value blogs, Barry's Best, I posted about people (I call them idiots) who fall for the pump-and-dump penny-stock spam-scam. It might seem blindingly obvious to normal humans that these come-ons are designed to rob them sightless. In the same way, some of the religious cons appear clearly to be fraudulent. And yet there are many, many gullible faithful who not only cannot see past the flimflammery, but will attack anyone who attempts to correct their occluded vision. Well, they don't scare me, and if they do, it's only a little bit. So I will proceed to highlight one of the most egregious deceivers in the pantheon of religious cons, Prophet Peter Popoff. According to his web site:

"Rev. Peter Popoff, People United for Christ founder, has utilized every media to communicate the supernatural Good News of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to a lost and dying world. He has exploded onto the Christian scene with an energy for the supernatural and the miraculous move of God to heal and save millions of people around the world. In fact, he has preached around the world, in many crusade services where over 10,000 have come forward in one service to receive Jesus as their personal Savior."

Sounds quite legitimate. Perhaps you want to purchase his "Divine Transfer Kit," which he will gladly send to you as soon as you hand over a "love gift of $89.99." There are 15 items in the kit, one of which is a "Beautiful Cross Necklace Personally Brought Back From Israel By Rev. Popoff Filled with Holy Land Soil and Water." Wow. That sounds good. What's more, if you turn over your contact information to Rev. Popoff, he will send you some of his "Miracle Spring Water!" I'd say that's a great deal. For Rev. Popoff. And if you make a donation online, you can rest assured that "your seed is being sown into good ground and will be used to bring the Word with simplicity and power to the whole world. God bless you for being obedient!" If you still aren't convinced to fork over your hard-earned cash, just read a few Financial Testimonials. Brother E. Sotomayor, from Bronx, NY writes, "I received the miracle spring water and the blessed cakes in Jesus' name. Everything around me and my family is different. Blessings have been occurring. You were not wrong; it was a $17,000 loan that was granted to me to pay off most of my debts. You're a guiding light. I thank the Lord for your prayers. I see myself now walking in the right path." I'll tell you, I'm starting to feel a lump in my throat. Wait, now it's in my mouth! If you happen to contact Rev. Popoff, or even if you don't, you might get a letter like this one.

Still not moved to pull out your wallet? Don't worry, there are many others who will be. So fear not, the Rev. Popoff will continue to do just fine.

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What Are Little Boys (and Girls) Made Of?

Do you remember that little nursery rhyme? If not, here it is:

What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails,
And puppy dog tails,
That's what little boys are made of.

And its complement:

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but, well, that's not exactly true. I'm going to tell you what we're all made of. Star dust. The remains of exploded stars. If you'll stick with me, I'll explain, and you will be enriched by the knowledge.

You see, first there was the Big Bang. About 13.7 billion years ago, the universe emerged "from a tremendously hot and dense state." In the beginning, there was only one element. Hydrogen, the lightest element, consisting of one proton and one electron. The hydrogen atoms eventually coalesced due to the force of gravity into stars. Stars, initially composed of hydrogen in plasma form, begin to burn when the temperature and pressure in the interior become great enough to set off nuclear fusion. The hydrogen is squeezed together, a nuclear reaction takes place, and Helium is created. Eventually, much of the hydrogen is burned up. When the star cools because its hydrogen fuel is running out, it's no longer able to balance the force of gravity trying to crush it, so it begins to collapse. At some point, the increase in density brings about a high enough temperature and pressure to begin a new fusion reaction, this time the fuel is Helium, and the result it the formation of Carbon and Oxygen. This cycle repeats itself, each time fusing the elements into even heavier elements. From Carbon and Oxygen comes Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Sulphur, Silicon, Calcium, Iron, Nickel, Chromium, Copper. Eventually, if a star is massive enough, it will go all the way to supernova, and it's in this tremendous explosion that the rest of the heavier elements are formed, and the whole stew of elements is sprayed out into space. That's where we start to figure into it.

These heavier elements eventually formed planets like our earth, with its abundance of the stuff we are made of. By weight, we are 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, and small fractions of other heavy elements. None of these elements, except for hydrogen, would exist without stars and the process of nuclear fusion that takes place in their cores. If you'd like to learn more about this process, visit a very nice animation here.

P.S. A link to this article can be found on Cris Rowan's Philosphia Naturalis, a very nice blog carnival. Check out the carnival here.

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Five Fabulously Fruitful Time-Management Tips!

They say that if you want to find the most efficient way to do something, consult a lazy person (LP). LPs are supposedly averse to unnecessary thinking or movement. I would imagine there must be some flaw in this claim, but I don’t want to take the time to figure out what it might be, because I am managing my time well. If you’re like me (shudder), you’ve probably read a hundred or more lists of time management tips in the course of your lifetime. Just think if you could get all that time back, what wonderful things you could do! OK, stop blubbering. It’s gone, it’s the past. But you can do something about the future. This list is different. It’s short. It’s sweet. Read it. Implement it. You WILL save time and get more done. Here goes:

• Switch tasks when you hit a mental roadblock. A huge part of your brain (your subconscious) will continue to work on things while your conscious mind is doing something else. This is real multitasking. When you come back to whatever you were laboring at, you may find that you have some fresh paths to follow where before there was only a gigantic rockslide in front of you. Sometimes procrastination works! The phrase, “Let me sleep on it” reveals that people knew from their own experience, even though they didn’t know why it was so, that our minds are silently sorting out problems even when they are consciously occupied with something completely unrelated. Putting off a difficult decision can often produce a clarity of thought about the issues involved that no amount of conscious cogitation could achieve.
• Do the important before the urgent on a regular basis. If you make this a habit, you will find that the urgent tasks become fewer in number over time. How does this work? It’s fairly intuitively apparent if you think about it. Say you have an assistant who is always messing up at a particular task, which means that you have to step in and do it yourself. You never seem to be able to find the time to train the pitiable, somewhat incompetent subordinate to do that assignment properly, so instead you spend gobs of time cleaning up the chaos. Stop it. Make time to train! It’s not urgent, but it is important. Make appointments with yourself to do the important things. When someone tries to take away that time, tell them you have an appointment. You do, you’re not lying. If you leave that space in your calendar blank, it’s a vacuum just begging to be filled with urgent stuff.
• Do not allow someone else’s lack of planning to become your emergency (unless they have the power to make you unemployed). Some of us are too nice for our own good. We find it impossible to say no. We have a virtual sign on our back that everyone around us can read clearly. It says, “Go ahead and get yourself in a mess…I will drop whatever I’m doing to come pull you out of it! Come on, don’t be shy, step up, step up.” Helping a coworker is part of being a team, I’m not discounting that. On the other hand, someone who continually ropes you in to rescue them, on short to no notice, simply because they couldn’t be bothered to plan, will frustrate your own productivity. Learn to say the two-letter magic word. And learn to mean it.
• Keep the things you need where you can access them quickly. This rule applies equally well to digital and analog items. First question: What does your computer desktop look like? Is it a chaotic mess filled with every icon known to man? Do you dump every file you create into your My Documents folder, with not even the idea of a file system in sight? Well, you’re in luck because programmers are working feverishly to perfect desktop search engines that will relieve you of the need to organize your files. In the meantime though, this is one of those important but not urgent things to do. Clean up your desktop, both digital and analog. Delete files you no longer need. Trash paper you are done with. Put the rest into a file system that will save you from having to spend many moons searching hysterically for what you happen to need at the moment.
• Automate repetitive tasks. In one of my M.B.A. classes I took a bit of extra time to set up a spreadsheet calculation because I knew I’d be given several more of the same type of problem. Saved me time! Every time a new problem came up, all I had to do was plug the numbers into my spreadsheet and presto-change-o! Taking 30 minutes to set up a macro or type up a bit of oft-needed boilerplate text can save you many times that in the long run. Macros, password managers, there are so many ways for you to use technology to save time that you don’t know about or have been reluctant to learn. That’s a shame. Learning is important, but not urgent. Make an appointment with someone who can teach you these techniques. You’ll thank me later.

What did I tell you? Short and sweet.

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Existing Home Sales: Back-to-Back Gains

Existing Home Sales rose by 0.6% in November to 6.28 million, compared to expectations for a small decline to 6.20 million. This was the first back-to-back increase in home re-sales since March/April 2005. Despite these gains, existing homes sales are still 10.7% below their year ago level and 13.6% below their June 2005 peak level. Single-family existing home sales increased by 0.2% while condo/co-op sales jumped by 3.1%. Home re-sales are counted when the
transaction closes for these data are primarily for sales that were initiated in September. The Inventory of Homes Available for Sale fell by 1.0% to 3,820k, a level that is only slightly below its record level in July. Stocks of unsold single family homes dropped by 1.5% while unsold inventories of condos/co-ops increased by 1.8%. Despite the decline, the number of homes available for sale is 30.6% above year ago levels; the number of single family homes for sale are
up 29.6% over the past year while the number of condos/co-ops available for sale are 36.8% above year ago levels. The Months' Supply eased to 7.3, after hitting its highest level in more than 7 years in October. Home Prices fell on a year-on-year basis for the fourth consecutive month, the first time this has happened during the 38 years of data collection. Average prices slipped by 1.8% and median prices dropped by 3.1%. Bottom Line: Existing home sales peaked during the summer of 2005 and fell hard between then and September. However, in the past 2 months, home re-sales appear to have stabilized. Slower sales have kept inventories of unsold homes at very high levels although they are beginning to trend lower. In turn, this has pressured prices, which are now falling. Further declines are anticipated. Although home sales appear to be stabilizing, home construction will continue to shrink.

Click here to download today's free Hot Sheet! (PDF)

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Why We Give Away Our Autonomy

1. What is autonomy?

The dictionary defines it as: Immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority; personal independence. Personal autonomy, then, is the condition in which I, not another, govern myself. Is this autonomy based upon the edict of a government? Is it conferred upon me by the society in which I live? No. Since I am the only "agent" who can initiate my own actions, therefore I am naturally an autonomous being. My computer does not initiate its own actions (yet). Therefore it is not autonomous (yet). But I am. As are you. But as undeniable as it is that I am an autonomous being, it is equally undeniable that I may cede my personal self-government to another. Of course this is not literally true, in that I still retain my freedom of will; it is only in my mind that the power has shifted. And herein lies the problem I wish to address in this article: We are prone to grant power over ourselves to people who lay claim to it. This is a frightening thought, is it not? The very idea that someone can come along and say to me, "I am in authority over you. You will do as I say," and I might just go along with them, simply on their say-so! Preposterous? And yet it happens every day.

2. Why do people want to take it?

The answer to this is simple. People want power. And control over you adds to their power. (As to the reasons why people want power, that is a deeper question that I will happily leave to the psychologists.) There are individuals all around you who have appropriated the autonomy of other people. Some wreak havoc with this power. Consider Adolph Hitler, to whom millions of Germans gifted their autonomy. He led them into a maelstrom of barbarity and cruelty. Others claim to do good with it, but I am doubtful that good can come from anyone allowing their very identity to be subsumed into the mysterious vision of some charismatic leader. But I'm not really concerned with the charismatic leaders in this article; I'm concerned with you and me. Why do we have such a penchant for handing over our autonomy to others? Why do we credit other human beings with sainthood or even godhood? Why do we willingly elevate the fallible to the status of infallibility? Why do we assume that another mind should be given headship over our mind?

3. Why do we give it away?

An evolutionary explanation might be that surrendering autonomy is an advantageous trait among young children. Those who don't listen to the wisdom and experience of their elders end up wandering off and being eaten by predators, and accordingly their autonomy-genes would be short-circuited. Perhaps surrendering a certain degree of autonomy to each other also proves to be beneficial among adults by creating a harmonious and efficient group. For example, when I defer to my wife's wishes as to which movie we will go to see, that is another day I will live and have occasion to procreate. When I allow my employer to choose what time the meeting will be, that is a good thing (providing it is within reason, of course), since that allows a time to be set quickly and efficiently. Groups that continually debate meeting times would tend never to hold meetings and consequently get little accomplished. So far, so good. But it is the unfortunate negative hyper-extension of this normally useful practice that concerns us here, i.e. the surrendering of good judgment, of morality, integrity and ethical behavior; fawning celebrity worship; acceptance of abuse; in fact, all of the malformed step-children of a positive thing allowed to go too far. They say that some people are meant to lead, and others are meant to follow. In the context of this discussion, I would put it this way: Some people crave power, and others crave people who crave power. For some reason, the two seem to need each other. They form some kind of emotional symbiosis, each feeding off the other's lack. In the words of our self-help culture, which I usually try to avoid, they become co-dependent. If you are one of those who has been handing over your autonomy, you can take it back, and you can hold on to it.

4. How can we keep it?

Consider for a moment the exercise of personal autonomy in circumstances where one's choices and control over one's environment are narrowed to absolute zero, the minimum possible. When you feel like a victim, when you believe that you are out of choices and must relinquish your autonomy, consider someone who should have surrendered his, but did not. Take inspiration from a man such as Admiral James Stockdale, he of the unfortunate Vice-Presidential debate of 1992. A Wikipedia article points out that Stockdale "was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy," was shot down over enemy territory and spent 8 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was tortured for many years during his imprisonment. Admiral Stockdale, an admirer of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, in an address at the Marine Amphibious Warfare School, described the memories he had on hand when he fell into North Vietnamese hands:

"What I had in hand was the understanding that the Stoic, particularly the disciple of Epictetus who developed this accounting, always keeps separate files in his mind for: (a) those things which are "up to him" and (b) those things which are "not up to him;" or another way of saying it, (a) those things which are "within his power" and (b) those things which are "beyond his power; " or still another way of saying it: (a) those things which are within the grasp of "his will, his free will," and (b ) those things which are beyond it. Among the relatively few things that are "up to me, within my power," within my will, are my opinions, my aims, my aversions, my own grief, my own joy, my moral purpose or will, my attitude toward what is going on, my own good, and my own evil."

On another occasion he said this:

"Epictetus was telling his students that there can be no such thing as being the 'victim' of another. You can only be a 'victim' of yourself. It's all in how you discipline your mind. Who is your master? 'He who has authority over any of the things on which you have set your heart… What is the result at which all virtue aims? Serenity… Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and I'll show you a Stoic.'"

In the words of another blogger:

"So here we have strategies for maintaining a sense of freedom - a psychological feeling of choice, control, agency, and self-efficacy - under conditions where the external menu of open alternatives is more or less blank. Both push us to consider what ultimately is and is not in our power. In the end, the only steadfast choices, the only ones that cannot be taken away, are choices about how to orient our minds, and about our attitude toward our situation. This implies that we can maintain a sense of freedom and openness, and the sense of responsibility and dignity that entails, even under conditions where we are not at liberty to act on most of our desires. The Stoic also implies that other freedoms, because they can be taken away, are not genuine freedoms, and so we should cultivate an attitude of indifference toward them. The only true freedom for the stoic is in virtue, and virtue is entirely a matter of what is genuinely up to us, and the only thing that is genuinely up to us is the maintenance of our composure" (Happiness and Public Policy, 2005).

I leave you with this final thought. You are the agent of your own volition. You are an autonomous being. Hang on to your autonomy.

References:

"Happiness and Public Policy," October 10, 2005. Retrieved December 27, 2006 from http://happinesspolicy.com/category/autonomy/

To learn more about Epictetus:



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Dear Heaven, it’s (Almost) 2007!

There comes a time of year when the number of the year seems outdated and you wonder why it’s still around. For me, that happens around the end of summer, Labor Day or thereabouts. 2006 is passé! Off with its head! When the next year actually deigns to arrive, it has already lost its shine, its cachet. So it has come about that 2007 no longer seems novel, even though we’re not even there yet. Kind of sad, really. But there’s something we can do to make 2007 feel special when it gets here. We can all pretend that we’re surprised, and act all, Wow, you’re here already?! Sure didn’t expect you so soon, dude! OK? I think it would mean a lot.

What’s 2007 going to bring with it? There’ll be Vista, so there’s that. Stuff will probably happen with North Korea and Iran, lots of U.N. hive-mind activity there. Iraq, well, we all wish we could just forget about that. So let’s. (That was easy.) But what will 2007 bring for you and me? There will be stuff that’s beyond our control, yes, certainly. But there will be a lot that is within our power to bring about. We won’t get into anything so defunct and overused as “New Year’s Resolutions,” and may God save us from anything called a “mission statement.” No, we’ll stay away from such things, and instead fix our metaphorical sights on what we will choose to bring into being in 2007. Here is my list.

1. Thousands of people (ah, that would be you) will subscribe (costs you nothing!) to my blogs and visit them at least once daily.
2. These thousands will find great tips, inspiration and insight, not to mention amusement, in my blogs.
3. My children will continue to grow and develop into wonderful human beings.
4. My spouse and I will grow to love each other even more than we do now.
5. We (you and I) will grow and prosper together.

I leave you with this wish for the year to come…

May your hand be outstretched to all you meet.
And may all men say 'Brother' when they speak of you.
May the land be fertile beneath your feet.
May your days be gentle as the sun-kissed dew.

(Please feel free to share your list, if you have one, by commenting on this post.)

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Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to All!

Christmas morning and I'm up before the kids, which is unheard of, but I'm a dedicated blogger, and I wanted to wish my readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. May your day be a wonderful mix of family, turkey and of course, a few gifts. My small gift to you this Christmas morning will be modest, but it's the thought that counts, yes? PC World has a nice article today called "The Web's Most Useful Sites." Check it out here. And please, have a fabulous Christmas. (P.S.: If you get a new computer for Christmas and have questions, feel free to drop me an email. I may be able to help, even though I'll be jealous.)

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New Poll Question: Death Penalty, For or Against?

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Follow Your Bliss

"Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else." ~ Joseph Campbell

Were we to put it a lot less eloquently, we could say "Do what you love." But let's not. Let us stay with "Follow your bliss." What does it mean? What did it mean to Joseph Campbell, the phrase's creator? To find out, let's consider another quote:

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come."

First, let's agree on what the concept does not mean. It does not mean that we should be self-centered. It does not mean that we should be focused on transitory pleasures. It does not mean that we should abandon all sense of responsibility and do whatever feels good. These pursuits, as anyone who has tried them can confirm, do not amount to anything close to "bliss." Agreed? I think we can leave that sort of nonsense behind and further agree that it does mean to pursue the life we were meant to live. Ah, but then we encounter the sticky matter of providence and fate, both of which imply some sort of cosmic intent on our behalf. Let's steer a course away from that sort of thing and agree that "meant to live" suggests the life that we are best suited for, the round hole that we can fit our roundness into, the one that, when we find it, we say, "Ah, now I'm doing what I was meant to do!"

Now, let's move from the purely conceptual to the personal, which may shed a bit more light. What does it mean for me? At the time of this writing I am 47. (For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that following your bliss, or rather, seeking your bliss, begins at or near high school graduation.) At that point, because I had within me a sense that things electronic would hold my interest, I chose to chase electrical engineering as a major when I began my college life at the University of Florida. Sadly, my character and habits were not up to snuff for so challenging a degree. I easily achieved a 3.5 GPA in my first quarter, since I had already mastered all the material thrown at me in these first-level courses back in high school. My second quarter, however, was a disaster. The courses were much more difficult to hurdle and, rather than buckle down and put in the time required, I partied and trusted in my knack for getting good grades with little to no effort. This time, my knack tripped on the first hurdle fell on its face.

Around this time, as it happened, a very clear fork in the road appeared before me, in the form of religion. I was approached by some other students and invited to a Bible study. Within a few months, I had joined their church, and shortly thereafter chose to become a minister when I grew up. Why? I would never have admitted this then, but I was drawn to the rock star image and adulation of the church members. To be a leader in this church was to be among the elite. The fawning and rapturous praise were right up my craven alley. I didn't mind feeling like one of the elite. I didn't mind it one little bit. So I changed my major to Physics Education, which would prepare me to be a high school physics teacher, which I had no intention of becoming; this was a means, in essence, by which I could sail through college while putting lots of time into becoming a leader in the church. (In this particular denomination there was no formal training required…all the better!)

Over the objections of my parents, who were justifiably concerned about my radical shift in trajectory, I became a campus minister in Miami, then a missionary in Jamaica, then a preacher in several U.S. cities. I did that for 14 years. The truth is, I didn't enjoy it. That path was not my bliss. But I had chosen it, and there didn't seem to be any other forks in the road. Just that one, tedious street. Over the years, my health depreciated to the point where I couldn't do ministry anymore, and I was put out to pasture in various administrative positions for the next 9 years, within the same denomination. I still was not following my bliss, but a steady paycheck kept me firmly in harness.

So, how did I escape? I wish I could tell you that I made a courageous decision to follow my bliss and got the hell out of there. No, it didn't happen that way. Instead, the church, my employer, suffered some severe financial setbacks and had to let me go. An involuntary separation, but it did set me free, and for that I am grateful. (To whom, I do not know.) In any case, however feckless was my escape, escape I did, like a caged rat who suddenly sees that the cage door has been left open by a lazy lab tech. I was in a position, through no boldness on my part, to finally seek, and perhaps find, my bliss. Have I found it? I think I have, and, if Mr. Campbell is correct, doors will open and I will be doing what I love, serving others, and making a living at the same time. Bliss!

What's your bliss? Please share your own story by commenting.

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Don't Want to Buy Microsoft Office? No Problem!

Here's a great tip if you don't want to shell out a bucket-load of money for Microsoft Office (or any other costly office suite). You don't need to buy any of them. You can download and install OpenOffice, which can open MS Office files and do just about anything you need it to. OpenOffice has six applications that replace Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. It also includes Draw, which "lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations," and Math, which "lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor." OpenOffice is powerful and easy to use. You can get it here.


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The Mind-Brain Question

What is the mind-brain question? This phrase is not official, it's just how I think of the question of whether the mind, or the personality, who someone is, is entirely a function of the physical brain, or partly a function of a non-physical soul. Is there a part of me that exists separately from my body, that can continue to exist after my body dies? Many people believe that there is a non-material component, commonly called a soul or spirit, that makes up the personality and can exist without a material body.

In considering this question, when I look at what the body of evidence tells me, I would tend to say that there is no aspect of the mind/personality that is not entirely a function of the brain. That is, when the brain dies, the mind dies with it. Not a comforting notion for many of us, perhaps. Yet this is what the evidence suggests to me. What do I mean by "evidence"? In defense of the existence of the soul, we have a great deal of anecdotal reporting, whether of the "near-death-experience" and other "out-of-body-travel" variety on the one hand or ghostly sightings on the other. Frankly, anecdotal evidence exists to buttress all manner of fantastical creatures, from Bigfoot to the Chupracabra. As evidence is does not stand up. On the other side, there is a great deal of scientific evidence, repeatable evidence. There is, for example, the evidence of the effects of damage to the brain, where every conceivable aspect of who a person is, is verifiably dependent on the proper functioning of the brain.

Consider the tragic case of Alzheimer's disease. I have been witness to two grandparents dying of this disease, but not before the disease, bit by bit, erased their essences, everything that made them who they were. (I recommend this interactive tour of the brain that demonstrates and explains the effects of Alzheimer's on the brain.) Consider also the bizarre cases of brain damage that result in a man being convinced that the woman who claims to be his mother (and really is his mother) is an impostor; another man comes to believe he is on the verge of understanding the meaing of everything, from a grain of sand to his car; and a woman who, when asked to draw a picture of a flower, draws beautifully only the right half, not even being aware that she has left out the other half. (I believe this was a PBS documentary; I wish I had a recording of it!)

All of these things tell me that the human personality is completely brain-dependent. I welcome thoughtful discussion on this subject, especially if you disagree with me.

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Tips for Finding a Good Mortgage

One of my many hats is that of a Realtor, so I know a bit about mortgages. Even though the market has slowed considerably, we are in a buyers' market, when inventory is high and nice homes have been sitting unsold for months. So if you are considering your first home purchase, here are a few tips.

1. Secure your financing before you start seriously looking. It is better to look within your price range than to fall in love with homes that are out of your reach. In addition to this, sellers will know that you are a serious buyer if you already have your financing lined up. This fact will give you even more power in negotiations.

2. Figure out how much you can realisitically pull together as a down payment, and how much you will have available for your closing costs (although you may be able to have the seller pay your closing costs for you).

3. Do a little reasearch on current mortgage rates so you have an idea what a broker should be able to find you. Visit Bloomberg to get current information.

4. Research your credit report. If there are problems, set about trying to rectify them. (Don't buy into the scams that tell you they will clean up your report for you.) You can get a free report from the 3 consumer credit reporting companies once a year. Visit AnnualCreditReport.com to get yours. You can get a better rate with a better score, so it may be wise to take a few months to clear up any issues. Otherwise, it's helpful to know your score when shopping for mortgages.

5. Find a broker you can trust (recommended by a friend perhaps). Many brokers will give you a beautiful good-faith estimate that will be very different from your actual closing numbers. When you get a good-faith estimate, go get another one from a different broker so you can compare them. If you are using a Realtor you trust, they may have a mortgage broker they trust.

6. Play with the numbers yourself to see what your payments would be at different rates. Keep in mind that taxes and insurance will have to be added in. Your Realtor or mortgage broker should be able to give you an estimate of these amounts. Visit Frog Rate to play with the numbers.

7. Download my monthly real estate newsletter here.

If you've found this article helpful, please consider making a donation. The Price of Rice! could use your support. Thanks!

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Self-Actualization: Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) is best known for his "Hierarchy of Human Needs," which demonstrated 5 levels of human need, the lowest being the animal, instinctive needs, which are the most powerful, leading upward to the more human needs, which are weaker, yet more sublime. According to Maslow, a self-actualized individual is one who attends to the highest needs (see graphic). It is an interesting exercise to examine the pyramid and seek to find the level on which you are most focused.

In Maslow's model, there are 8 ways someone may self-actualize:

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.

2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.

3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.

4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.

5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.

6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.

7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.

8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses--and then finding the courage to give them up.

If you've found this article helpful, please consider making a donation. The Price of Rice! could use your support. Thanks!

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It's been just about a month since I started blogging in a serious way, serious being code for "I want to make a living doing this." I know there are several million other bloggers trying to do the same thing, and I know that the odds are against me. But that's the thing, see? It's not about the odds, because I'm not trying to win the lottery. I'm trying to earn a living doing what I love (computers I love, and writing I love). I believe that if I work very hard at it, and if I stick with it, eventually I will build a loyal audience of folks who get something out of what I post. My goal is to begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel within 18 months.

I've been learning a lot, and I've been adapting as I learn. To be sure, this post isn't intended to pass on anything in terms of expertise, because I haven't yet accomplished my goals. However, in spite of the understandable doubt of some, I will succeed. No question. So I'm not sharing any advice, but I hope you stick with me so you can be a part of my achievement. We're in this together. We'll have fun along the way.

If you've found this article helpful, please consider making a donation. The Price of Rice! could use your support. Thanks!

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This Ball Can Make You Feel Small

This tiny ball (about one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter), demonstrates that the universe will keep expanding forever. How so? It's really quite simple. The ball, according to Astronomy Picture of the Day,

"...moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as the Casimir Effect, named for its discoverer, who, 50 years ago, was trying to understand why fluids like mayonnaise move so slowly. Today, evidence is accumulating that most of the energy density in the universe is in an unknown form dubbed dark energy. The form and genesis of dark energy is almost completely unknown, but postulated as related to vacuum fluctuations similar to the Casimir Effect but generated somehow by space itself. This vast and mysterious dark energy appears to gravitationally repel all matter and hence will likely cause the universe to expand forever. Understanding vacuum fluctuations is on the forefront of research not only to better understand our universe but also for stopping micro-mechanical machine parts from sticking together."

We've known for a few years that the universe would continue to expand, rather than reach a point of maximum expansion and then retract into a Big Crunch. Scientists discovered a force that counteracted the effects of gravity, which would have tended to pull the universe's mass back together. This expansive force they call "dark energy" because it is not well understood. As the paragraph above explains, the so-called emptiness of space is, in reality, filled with vacuum energy (another name for dark energy), with subatomic particles, called virtual particles, appearing and disappearing at random.

What does this mean for you and me? We certainly won't be around long enough to see a night sky utterly devoid of stars or galaxies (which will be a feature of the universe when matter has accelerated apart so that no light from a star can reach any other star or planet). Besides, the sun will burn the Earth to a smoking cinder long before that, anyway. (The ultimate global warming.) No, what this means for me, and perhaps for you also, is that I and my concerns are very, very insignificant in the overall scheme of things. It helps me to keep things in perspective.

How does it affect you? Comment on your thoughts if you've a mind to.

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Raising Children to Adulthood: Preparing for the Rapids

I read a little book a while ago, so long ago that I don’t remember anything about it except one analogy. The author compared raising children through adolescence to putting them into a river right at the start of some rapids (in a canoe or some other small personal watercraft—I told you I don’t remember much about it), and waiting for them to come through those rapids into the calmer waters downstream. The author said that you did your best to prepare them for the rapids (which represent the adolescent years), and that life during those years would be tumultuous, but the kids would come out safe at the other end. I’ve seen this happen. I’ve been there during the years of preparation, the years of tumult, and a few years, so far, of wonderful adulthood. In an earlier article I wrote about building character in your kids. This time I’m going to add to and extend the idea a bit. The question I want to answer is, How can I prepare them for the rapids of adolescence?

1. Instill Fundamental Principles. That’s an interesting word, instill. It’s written on a bottle of ear drops in our medicine cabinet. Instill 2 drops into each ear. It means to impart gradually; enter drop by drop; teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions. The public school system has their curricula. They have a plan to instill certain ideas and abilities into our children. Do you have a plan to instill the fundamental principles of life? What are your fundamental principles? What are the paths that guide your life and daily decisions? I encourage you to sort that out early on as a parent. You might take some time to talk with your spouse or partner and put down on paper what you come up with. In management, a well-known technique for gaining a deeper understanding of a subject or process is to ask the question, “Why?” five times. According to the theory, it takes five times to get to the heart of the matter at hand. Try doing that in order to find your own principles. Then, you’ll be able to answer the “Why” questions of your kids without having to resort to “because I told you to, that’s why!”

2. Take Anger Out of the Equation. A parent who has figured out his or her fundamental principles will have within them a degree of self-assurance that brings calm assertiveness. (Many of you will be reminded of Cesar Milan’s useful mantra concerning being the pack leader.) Someone who possesses this undergirding of principled thinking, while being open-minded and always ready to learn, will be less prone to anger and frustration, two emotions that are counter-productive in raising children. Remember this: The time for instilling principles is not ideally in moments of crisis and argument. It is always most effective to teach in an atmosphere of receptiveness and calm. Find times to talk, before the crisis erupts. They are usually smarter than you give them credit for, so take the time to explain things. When you treat them, not as equals, but as smart, reasonable human beings, they tend to appreciate it.

3. Help them Find their Gifts. Some parents have decided what their child’s gifts will be before they are born. Unless you are a geneticist from the future, you can’t possibly know, and attempting to force preconceived gifts upon a child can be a cruelty. Rather than force it, try to find it. And until you and your child find it, enjoy the search. And when you find it, enjoy it with them. Just about every parent has heard their child yell out, “Look at me, Mom!” Our children desperately need our admiration. They need us to delight in them and the things that are special about them. A child who has these gifts that only a parent can give them will have the strength to stay upright and afloat through the rapids. Do you ever watch them when they’re not aware that you’re around? Or when they’re interacting with others? Does your heart swell when you see them forming into precious human beings, unlike all others? They can feel that joy coming from you, and it means the world to them, whether they’ll own up to it or not.

These are just some of the ways we can prepare our children for the rapids of adolescence. I hope that these few words will be helpful and will stir up within you additional thoughts and ideas. Please share them by commenting on this article.

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How to Avoid Losing Hours of Computer Work (and your serenity)

I know it’s happened to virtually everyone who uses a computer. For a seeming eternity, you’ve been slogging your way through the viscous muck of your own sluggish mind, with your head down and your back bowed, scrounging desperately for a just few viable ideas, bit by bit accumulating the required number of words and paragraphs to keep your job for another day. Can you picture it? Finally, you’ve come to within a whisker of glorious completion. Then the unthinkable becomes a thought: Did the power just go off? Or, Why won’t my pointer move? Whether your computer has become a frozen hunk of uselessness or your power company’s managers decided to have a few laughs at their customers’ expense, you’ve just seen hours of toilsome effort sink beneath the waves, never ever to return. Not even the likes of Robert Ballard could raise your lost work from the inky depths of oblivion. All you can do is SCREAM!!!! And commit atrocities upon your traitorous computer. And start over, from the beginning.



This woeful tale, thankfully, doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it can be a bit upsetting, not to put too fine a point on it. Even more thankfully, it’s possible to avoid this enormous inconvenience from being visited upon you at all, ever. There are essentially two ways to prevent the unfortunate loss of a large, juicy chunk of your time.

Save Your Work & Do it Often!

First, save your work, and do it every few minutes. Not using the time-consuming point-and-click method. Do it using the effortless and swift Ctrl+S technique. With the left hand, use your pinkie to hold down the Ctrl key, then tap the S key with your middle ring finger. Or use any combination of fingers you find most comfortable, in case you have an extra pinkie or some other kind of weird-shaped hand. You can use this technique without taking your flying fingers away from the keyboard. Do it till it happens without you have to even think about it. Do it as soon as you put the working title at the top of the page (assuming it’s a word-processing document and that that’s the very first thing you do). Give your document, or spreadsheet, or presentation, or what-all a name, and sink your teeth into it, saving, saving, saving away. I guarantee that this habit will save your goose-grease some day.

Purchase and Set Up a UPS

Second, throw down a few bucks for an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). Available in any office supply or computer store, these devices will keep your computer and monitor alive during a loss of electricity for long enough to save your work and shut down your machine. (Note: A UPS is not the same thing as a surge protector.) If it’s just a momentary outage, you can just keep working away with nary a care in the world, while just on the other side of the street your less-savvy neighbor can be heard SCREAMING!!!! And committing atrocities. And starting over, from the beginning.

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Defending the Abused

This will be a relatively short post today, since it's my daughter's 17th birthday and there's much to do in preparation. (BTW, neither title nor topic of this post has anything to do with her birthday, only its brevity.)

I just read a post on another blog (Violent Acres) that got me thinking about how passive we can be when we witness one human being abusing another. I'm aware that it's way too easy to draw false conclusions when we don't know the circumstances between two people. However, as in the cases described by the author, we are often in a position to witness the entire relationship and interaction. Now, many people who receive abuse give as good as they get, or are strong enough and confident enough not to be hurt. But what about the times when someone is being hurt? When there is a significant disparity of power between the people involved? In this age of being shot dead over the smallest of slights, we are justifiably concerned about the possibility that we might be agitating a lunatic. But isn't it time we shake off some of our apathy and/or fear? Just enough perhaps to give a bit of comfort to someone who's just received the undeserved lashing of some jerk's tongue? Something to think about.

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Battle of the Christmas Cards

(Thanks Mom, for the idea behind this article! I owe you one. Actually, I owe you quite a few.)

As each Christmas season comes around, our hearts beat just a tiny bit faster and our minds are filled with images of sugar plums, and…the battle of the Christmas cards. (I must confess that I, personally, have never actually sent anyone a Christmas card. Well, I have put stamps on some and placed them gently in the mailbox, but the fact is, my wife does all the rest of it each year.) What is the battle of the Christmas cards? From what I've been told, it involves the choices one must make, often excruciatingly difficult, concerning who should get one and who should not. In the spirit of my blog, I will attempt to assist all of you who must face this mêlée every year, year after year after year. Let us begin with a brief history of the Christmas card.

According to Wikipedia, Christmas cards began their illustrious existence with the commissioning by Sir Henry Cole of London in 1843 of a batch of 1,000 cards, each of which was sold for a shilling (pictured above). The same article explains that "official" Christmas cards were pioneered by Queen Victoria in the 1840s. Sadly, the arrival of technology has had an unhelpful effect by making other forms of keeping in touch much simpler to use. In the U.S., the average household took delivery of 20 cards in 2004, down from 29 in 1987. So heartbreaking for Hallmark and company.

Depending on their stamina, and perhaps sense of decorum, people send Christmas cards to relatives, close friends, distant acquaintances, and people they're not sure they can identify but who sent them a card a year previously. This practice can easily result in the need to address and personalize scores of cards and envelopes, which can take many hours to complete. And so the issue becomes, where do they draw the line? How can they reduce the list to a manageable number of cards? The battle begins.

A significant part of the challenge, it seems to my disinterested mind, must be having a bit of knowledge as to how meaningful the receipt of a card from you actually is to each person on your list. Let's face up to the truth…someone who couldn't care less whether they receive a cards from you or not, and who will very probably throw your card away the minute they get it from the mailbox into their home, cannot be said to be very deserving of your heroic efforts to send it. On the other hand, knowing that Aunt Millie will not only note the absence of a card from you, but will cut you out of her last will and testament entirely, well, that calls for a very nice card, don't you think? And then there's the gloomy requirement to cull from your list those who are dearly departed since last year. Not a pleasant task, but necessary in order to maintain a lean and mean directory.

Finally, I leave you with 8 Christmas card etiquette tips from Drs. Dave and Dee:

1. If uncertain if the recipient celebrates Christmas, Hanukkah, or another religious faith or tradition, then send a neutral card with a greeting of "Happy Holidays", "Season's Greetings", "Warm Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season", or "Peace on Earth".

2. Write the recipient's name inside the card.

3. Write a short note wishing them well, a simple sentence is better than nothing.

4. Even if your name is preprinted in the card, sign your first name after your short message.

5. Including a photo of the family is always delightful.

6. Send cards out in time for the recipient to receive before Christmas.

7. Only send holiday newsletters to close friends and family who would be interested in the details.

8. Remember to include your return address on the envelope.

9. Send a card to everyone who sends you one. 10. E-mail greeting cards are not a substitute for an actual holiday card.

Now, once more unto the breach, dear friends!

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A little break from the serious stuff.

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How to Write More Effectively

One has only to look at popular culture to understand that the written word is taking a battering. Schools are failing to teach kids to read and write effectively, not because the teachers are bad (my wife is a teacher, so I am biased), but because of the glamorization of stupidity and the failure of many parents to do their part. Take a closer look, if you need some convincing, at some of the writing coming out of major newspapers. If you really want to be frightened, read any discussion forum on the Internet. Take a gander at Lindsey Lohan's open letter describing her reaction to the death of director Robert Altman (samples: "Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourselves' (12st book) -everytime (sic) there's a triumph in the world a million souls hafta (sic) be trampled on.-altman Its true. But treasure each triumph as they come." And "Life comes once, doesn't 'keep coming back' and we all take such advantage of what we have." And "I learned so much from Altman and he was the closest thing to my father and grandfather that I really do believe I've had in several years." And finally, her closing words, "Be Adequite."(sic)).Then peruse the sad excuse-making efforts of her publicist (sample: "She quickly put something together on her Blackberry. It was written very quickly, and it was from the heart."). How sweet. But this introduction is not meant to be a "Fall of the American Empire" tirade. It is intended, instead, to point out the need for us to take writing seriously. Lohan's little malformed missive is an example of how ineffective writing can be when the writer becomes the brunt of ridicule. Poor writing will not always face open mockery, but it will fail to earn the respect of the thoughtful reader, and thus constrained, probably fail to convince anyone of anything.

Effective writing is writing that has the power to convince. It is, in many circumstances, a more potent method of communication than is oral, sometimes to the chagrin of an author who makes a permanent record of his regrettable remarks. There should be no argument about the fact that a facility with the written word is an extremely valuable asset for anyone to have at his or her disposal. This article is therefore written for those who want to improve and expand on their writing skills, for whatever reason and in whatever context. There are differences, to be sure, between academic, business, fiction, and informal writing. I have written hundreds, if not thousands, of sermons over the course of my former vocation as a pastor. I write for weblogs, some formal and substantive, others more irreverent and pithy. I also write formal academic papers in my graduate work. However, while the appropriate styles of writing vary in each of these dissimilar contexts, there are some principles that apply across all of them. It is this set of principles that I will pass on in this article.

Logical Flow: Quite often, someone who is trying to explain a difficult concept to you will use the phrase: "Do you follow me?" Or "Do you know what I mean?" They are unsure whether or not their thoughts are travelling successfully from their brain to yours through spoken language. When you're writing, you don't have that the means to seek that comfort. You can't check to make sure the reader has the smallest suspicion about what you want to say. So you are left to the only alternative: Make it as clear as you possibly can. And clarity is created through logical flow. Logical flow happens when one thought follows directly from another. There's no muddled maze to navigate. The road my be windy and transport you from hither to yon, but if you stay on it, you'll get to where the author intends to take you.

I absolutely despise novels that switch characters and locations and plot lines every few pages. Just when I'm deeply interested in what's going on, I turn the page to the next chapter, and I find that I've been rudely beamed without notice to an entirely different planet! Or so it seems. I just don't have the patience for it. The same thing happens when you skip from one undeveloped thought to the next, with nothing joining them in between. Readers become frustrated and go elsewhere for their edification.

You can sometimes have logical flow from the get go, which is nice when you can manage it, but more often it demands quite a bit of strenuous effort, some rearranging of ideas and some bridging of gaps. The best way to achieve it is usually via an outline. If you need help with the keys to good outlining, there are very good resources available to you on the Internet. An outline is like a skeleton. It holds the flesh together in a sensible way. Whichever analogy you prefer, logical flow, rather than stream of consciousness, is the way to get your thoughts accurately to the reader. (Unless you have a very logical stream of consciousness.)

Avoid Clichés: Clichés are indicative of laziness. You can read them and hear them with alarming frequency every time you flip on the TV. The news media are replete with lemmings. A phrase is coined (thank you phrase coiners! At least you are not lazy!), and soon it becomes the absolute only way something is ever described from then on. Think about some of these words and phrases: "Gunboat diplomacy." "Drug kingpin." "Lost in translation." "Slippery slope." "At the end of the day." "Battle with cancer." "Every parent's worst nightmare." "Execution-style." "Gangland killing." "Mixed reviews." The list of these loathsome and insufferable chestnuts could fill the hole in the ozone layer.

If you've heard it before, uncountable times; if it's the very first thing that pops into your imagination; it may be a cliché. Find another way to say it that has originality. Your readers will appreciate it. And if you find what may be called a cliché in this article, simply assume I put it there on purpose to make my point more clearly.

Fewer Words are Better than Too Many: I almost said "less is more," but that would have been lazy. Writing can almost always be improved by trimming unneeded words. Think of your writing as a sculpture. Someone once described creating sculpture as the process of imagining the finished piece, and then chipping away the material covering it. Surplus words are like excess stone that blurs the beauty and clarity of your vision. Chip away until your vision is revealed. Look for redundancies, as in: "He thought to himself" (who else is he going to think to?), "close proximity," "biography of her life," "end result." Don't use five words when one will do the job, as in: "In view of the fact that…" rather than "since." In the words of William Strunk Jr., from Elements of Style, "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." I think you get the picture. Get in the habit of sniffing out these odious interlopers.

Check Your Spelling & Grammar: Check it again. Ask someone else to check it. Certainly use a spellchecker, but remember that spellcheckers won't catch the wrong word spelled correctly. If you're unsure about a word, find out the correct spelling. If you're not sure it's the right word, look up the definition. Learn to spot grammatical errors like dangling participles and split infinitives, without being so rigorous as to be absurd. Try to "hear" your writing. Read it aloud. We can sometimes discover mistakes by ear more effectively than by sight.

Practice: People don't typically get good at something unless they do it a lot. (By the way, a frequent complaint of mine is the increasingly common joining of "a lot" into a single word. Yes, the dictionary has it that way, but only as a concession to the ill-read.) I recall one of the first experiences of employment I enjoyed as a teen. It was as a sub sandwich maker. I remember how difficult it was to cut the meats, cheeses and vegetables with that spinning slicer, and the dexterity required to cut the bread just so and fill it properly. But after a week or so, my hands seemed to know exactly how to do all these things without any mental effort whatsoever. I became very good at it. But only after doing it a lot. My advice: Find opportunities to write. Write and write and write. I'm not suggesting you let writing take over your life, unless you are or aspire to be a writer.

So, five essential concepts that will help you to write effectively. Now I must check my spelling and grammar. I sincerely hope that you benefit from spending this time with me. (Suggested further reading-see below):

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Random Kindnesses

Perhaps you've seen that commercial recently. The one where one guy does something nice for someone else, then that person, deeply affected, does something for a woman, then she does something nice for the next person and, before you know it, there is peace on earth and everyone is buying whatever product the commercial was meant to sell, which I can't remember. I liked it the first couple of times I saw it, but after that it just seemed a bit saccharine. I hope this article doesn't suffer from a similar burden.

How do you rate your Christmas seasons? Whatever our faith or lack of faith, for most of us in the West, we expect to be happy during the holiday season. At least we are expected to be happy, or merry. People say goodbye with a "Happy holidays," or if they're brave and not so PC, "Merry Christmas" or Happy Chanukah." They're telling me that I'm supposed to be happy! The pressure to have a happy holiday is no small load to carry. As a child, the happiness of my Christmas was gauged by, you know it, the toys I received and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the toys my friends received (the better for them, the worse for me. That was not a rejoice-with-those-who-rejoice situation). As an adult, it's not about the gifts. Then what is it about? Friends and family for many of us. But even when we have lots of them around, sometimes it seems that our holiday still leaves us feeling like we failed the challenge to be happy, we didn't make it. In fact, maybe we sometimes feel a bit underwhelmed by it all. What's a guy or girl to do? What do you have to do around here to have a merry Christmas, for crying out loud?

Here's a suggestion, presaged by my title and first paragraph: Random Kindnesses. Now, the very fact that they are called "random" means that they cannot be planned. This is not writing a check to the Red Cross or taking stuff to Goodwill or working at a soup kitchen (although those are all excellent things to do, and if you plan to do some of them, beautiful). I'm talking about unplanned, expected things, things that surprise even you. I can't explain it, but these kinds of acts thrill me and bring me such a degree of jollity that I have to share it with you. But how can you surprise yourself?

First, raise your consciousness, settle your mind on the idea. This season, I'm going to look for ways to help people out, keep my eyes peeled and my ears to the ground, so to speak. Could be for a stranger, could be for someone very close to me. Doesn't matter. What matters is the randomness and the kindness.

Then, as you go through the day, with that on your mind, ideas will pop into your head. I once went to a function in the city where my oldest son was attending university. His best friend and my nephew was there. Suddenly I thought, I'll bet he (my nephew) could use a little extra cash to get him home, maybe get a nice dinner, whatever. So I palmed him a little gift of cash. I felt good and I think it meant something to him, too. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

So, as the old song says, just try a little kindness, a few random kindnesses. And have a happy holiday, or else!

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