Have you ever considered the miracle that is your mind as opposed to the miracle of your brain?
Physiologically the brain is amazing, but real magic lies in your mind. Not just magic, but incredible power.
As Buddha said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”
Oscar Wilde believed that “A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” I imagine he would be horrified at how many people have turned their thinking over to someone else and just follow blindly along.
Amos Bronson Alcott put …read more

You’ve heard of Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” but the item in the article that grabbed me was a quote from another article by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker article that “quoted scientists and dance experts analyzing how Mr. Millan’s bearing instills confidence. The conclusion: his fluid movement communicates authenticity better than words could.”
Sadly, the authenticity conveyed by the fluid movements of Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of recent “leaders” proves that authenticity isn’t always the best yardstick.
People are much like dogs, although the words used to describe their reactions are different.
We talk about dogs and other …read more

I love the pithy, brilliant one-liners that have come down through history. The old ones usually specify ‘man’ or ‘men’, because in the era they were said women were ignored—but that doesn’t change their validity, value or applicability to both sexes.
I don’t know how old this Japanese saying is, but it certainly is true if you’re in the wrong corporate culture—“The nail that sticks up gets hammered.”
The same bosses who make free with the hammers often love consultants, but the problem with many of them is beautifully summed up by Colin Powell when he said, “Experts often possess more data …read more

I don’t understand the current obsession with other people’s lives, in fact, I find it very weird.
Whether it is a public figure or not, the desire (need?) to know every little detail, what they are doing every minute of their lives, the products they use, their ups and downs to be almost obsessional.
This kind of interest used to be reserved for the intimacy of real friendship or close family relations—and even then there were boundaries—but now anyone is fair game.
Apparently I’m not as out of it as I thought; many people are shutting down their Facebook pages for a variety …read more

Are you aware of the new teaching approach in middle school English classes that gives kids a say in which books they read?
The approach is known as “reading workshop” and “…students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading…”
I sent the article to my niece, who alternates between teaching and being a school librarian. She started as a teacher, was driven out of it by internal politics and unreasonable parents, got a Master of Library Science and spent a few years as school librarian and is now back …read more

It seems to me that more people spend less time thinking then at any previous time in history.
They’re more interested in Michael Jackson’s estate than their state’s budget problems; they choose for whom to vote based on attractiveness and clothes; social media fills all their time with thousands of friends to whom they tweet, but don’t talk…
“Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express thoughts, to conceal thoughts, but more often, to replace thinking.” –Anon
Then there are those who treat thought and action like marriage and kids—they no longer know which comes first or that they should …read more