Live in "daytight compartments."

Photo by THE B.S. REPORT

We toss and we turn sensing danger around every curve in our life, yet the battles we've lost have yet to manifest. One technique that I use to guide me through my hectic day was revealed to me in the book aptly titled, "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," by Dale Carnegie. Seems that not enough of us live in what Sir William Osler called, "daytight compartments."
A few months before he spoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where the captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and-presto!-there was a clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one another-shut off into watertight compartments.

“Now each one of you,” Dr. Osier said to those Yale students, “is a much more marvelous organisation than the great liner, and bound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with ‘day-tight compartments’ as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past-the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future -the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe-safe for today! …

Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. … Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. … The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. … The future is today. … There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now.
Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. … Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of ‘day-tight compartments’.”

Did Dr. Osier mean to say that we should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow? No. Not at all. But he did go on in that address to say that the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm,on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.”

What about you, are you living in daytight compartments?

Like this article?

Ten easy ways to unstress your life

Ten easy ways to de-stress your life

1. Take a long walk under the full moon.

You would be surprised as to the calming effect the full moon has had on Earths denizens since the beginning of recorded history. A subject of much mystery and folklore, the moon is also known for having a tranquil effect on those that ponder under, and meditate on it. Sit outside on some calm summers night with the sound of crickets filling in the background just once and you'll be hooked. Walk under it after a hard days work and you'll come away feeling relaxed and refreshed.

2. Take a long drive out in the country or mountains.

Another great way to de stress and come up with new ideas for your life. Many answers that we seek to our daily confusion come to us when we least expect them to. Personally I have found that walking under the moonlight or driving the mountains and country roads where I live offers an insight into my life that may have taken months to come full circe.

3. Meditate.As little as 15 minutes a day has produced remarkable results in my life. Not only am I calmer but I can focus and learn much easier.

4. Sex. If I had to explain this then you wouldn't understand.

5. Jog. I rarely missed more than two days at a time since I began jogging in 1977. I am the same weight now as I was in 1988 6'00 @ 200 Lbs. All thanks to exercise. When I get off of work after a particularly stressful day and am exhausted, I always find that once I get on the treadmill the fatigue goes away. There is a difference between physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion.

6. Visit friends. Even monkeys, when isolated for long periods of time exhibit signs of mental retardation. Get off the kindle and get with your friends.

7. Call someone that you haven't spoken to in years. Nostalgia is food for the soul.

!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

8.Listen to classical music. I grew up on Mowtown, and the Rolling Stones but there comes a time when nothing even comes close to classical music for relaxation and stress reduction. I never listen to anything but classical before noon and after 8 pm.

9. Read a good book. Better yet join a book club. Whether reading with the family or alone it doesn't really matter. Nothing smacks of personal growth than reading and I read a new book every month. My favorite subjects are personal finance and self-help.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

10. Set 20 minutes aside a day and do absolutely nothing. This ties perfectly into the meditation period that I recommended earlier. The results are short of spectacular,

Wireless electricity just around the corner?

Eric Giler wants to untangle our wired lives with cable-free electric power. Here, he covers what this sci-fi tech offers, and demos MIT's breakthrough version, WiTricity -- a near-to-market invention that may soon recharge your cell phone, car, pacemaker.

Consumerism vs. minimalism

Photo by MarcelGermain

There is in most of us a fundamental desire to purchase cool stuff It stems from fears and insecurities, I think, but it is exploited by corporations and advertising. Advertising is designed to get us to desire more, to want to buy, and because it works so well, we end up buying way, way more than we need.

Minimalism is the exact counter to this phenomenon, and for some of us, it’s the answer.
Think of tribal societies, unexposed to consumerism or advertising. They don’t have urges to go out and buy cool new clothes or gadgets or cars or shoes. It’s not that they don’t have desires, but it’s not at the same scale as in our society.

Even in the days before advertising, these kinds of desires for more were not as prevalent. It is advertising and consumerism that have created the desires, or at least magnified them to a hugely exaggerated level. It is extremely effective.

Unfortunately, it means we are always wanting to buy more, and always spending more. Which means we must either get into debt, or work more to earn more. Or both. And today, families must have two wage earners — as opposed to only 50-60 years ago, when there was only one wage earner necessary — in part because we are trying to support a more expensive lifestyle (also because we’re being paid less in real dollars). We’re also more in debt than ever before.

We need to stop and ask ourselves — what is it all for? Why are we working so hard in order to buy so much, to have so much, to be burdened and cluttered by so much?
It’s just too much. Minimalists say, "I’m getting off this merry-go-round. I opt out."
The minimalist first looks at needs vs. wants — is this a real need, or is it just a desire created by advertising? And if it’s a want, a desire, she doesn’t buy it.
The minimalist slowly learns to let go of desires. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen, gradually, with a conscious effort.

Here’s how I do it:
Learn to be more conscious of my impulses when I’m ready to buy something.
Learn to pause, and to breathe, to let the physical desire wane.
Force myself to wait, if the purchase isn’t an absolute necessity.
Let myself think about it, and analyze whether it’s something I really need to buy. Often the answer is no.
Slowly improve upon this, over time, as I always make mistakes.
The minimalist lets go of desires, slowly, so that she buys less and spends less, gets into less debt (or none at all), and as a result, needs to earn less and work less.

This is a guest post from Leo Babuta of Zen Habits. Leo is also author of "The power of less," a book focused on reducing living expenses while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

Like this article?

Boost your self-esteem

Photo by webpub

Human life is an ongoing process that involves a constantly changing physical body as well as an enormous number of rapidly changing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.Your life therefore is an evolving experience, a continual flow - You are not a thing; that's why any label is constricting, highly inaccurate, and global. Abstract labels such as "worthless" or "inferior" communicate nothing and mean nothing.But you may still be convinced you are second-rate. What is your evidence? You may reason, "I feel inadequate.Therefore, I must be inadequate.

Otherwise, why would I be filled with such unbearable emotions?" Your error is in emotional reasoning.

Your feelings do not determine your worth, simply your relative state of comfort or discomfort.Rotten, miserable internal states do not prove that you area rotten, worthless person, merely that you think you are; because you are in a temporarily depressed mood, you are thinking illogically and unreasonably about yourself.Would you say that states of mood elevation and happiness prove you are great or especially worthy? Or do they simply mean that you are feeling good? Just as your feelings do not determine your worth, neither do your thoughts or behaviors. Some may be positive, creative,and enhancing; the great majority are neutral. Others may be irrational, self-defeating, and maladaptive. These can be modified if you are willing to exert the effort, but they certainly do not and cannot mean that you are no good.There is no such thing in this universe as a worthless human being.

"Then how can I develop a sense of self-esteem?" you may ask. The answer is-you don't have to! You don't have to do anything especially worthy to create or deserve self esteem;all you have to do is turn off that critical, haranguing,inner voice. Why? Because that critical inner voice is wrong! Your internal self-abuse springs from illogical, distorted thinking. Your sense of worthlessness is not based on truth, it is just the abscess which lies at the core of depressive illness.So remember three crucial steps when you are upset:

I . Zero in on those automatic negative thoughts and write them down. Don't let them buzz around in your head;snare them on paper!

2. Read over the list of ten cognitive distortions. Learn precisely how you are twisting things and blowing them out of proportion.

3. Substitute a more objective thought that puts the lie to the one which made you look down on yourself.As you do this, you'll begin to feel better. You'll be boosting your self-esteem, and your sense of worthlessness(and, of course, your depression) will disappear.

Like this article?
__________________________________________________