Tag: philosophy

On Responsibility

Via Man’s Search for Meaning (formatted quote follows):

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

―Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

The Difference Between Motivation and Dedication

The biggest difference between motivation and dedication is ACTION. Motivation is the initiative to start a task. It includes a person’s reasons and desires for engaging in a particular behavior to achieve a goal. Dedication goes beyond a mere desire. It is a person’s commitment to following through with behaviors and actions that will lead to the accomplishment of that goal. In other words, motivation does not require action because it is purely an inner desire. Dedication, on the other hand, is both an internal wish as well as physical action and hard work.

Source

Sometimes Motivation grows into Dedication. Sometimes not. Regardless:

Kudos to your valued motivations!

They momentarily obliterate the inertia keeping you from where you are to where you want to be by giving you a chance to come up for a breath of fresh air, perspective, inspiration, and plan for action.

Won? Persevere.

Lost? Persevere.

Keep at it.

Vishoka Meditation Calendar File

The Vishoka Meditation The Yoga of Inner Radiance seminar begins tomorrow.

There are 15 events so I put them all into a calendar. Then I exported them into an ICS file.

You should be able to import it into Google, Outlook, Mac Mail, and iCloud Mail. It will probably save you some time from typing them all into your calendar manually yourself.

Here is the file:

Vishoka Meditation.calendar

(Happiness) A Steadfast Will To Fail Can Always Be Counted On To Ensure Insurmountable Obstacles

A steadfast will to fail can always be counted on to ensure insurmountable obstacles.

So no matter how much despair your feel, even with the most meager feeling inside you saying “Hey, I can do this” know that you have just made the impossible—possible!

And if you can not then know that if at first you don’t succeed then redefine success.

(Happiness) Recovering From Conversations that Have Gone Totally Wrong

My friend has a free lecture tonight. It is about dealing conversations that go totally wrong. For example, you start out having a nice conversation over the 4th of July weekend and next thing you know the topic of favorite football teams come up. Things just went from casual to serious. Then since the conversation is already going so well somebody changes it to public policies regarding controversial topics. Things just went from serious to critical. Ouch, that isn’t what anybody intended, but it is easy to recover from this.

My friend has a free lecture tonight about how to turn these really intense and downright angry conversations back to where they began: two passionate people who want to share what they value and feel with people who they respect and care for. Check out how—it is possible for all of us immediately.

Old Fashioned Himalayan Style Chai Recipe

Chai—One Pot Method (makes two cups)

My favorite one-pot method recipe:

  • Ingredients
    • 1 cup of cow milk
    • 1 cup of water
    • ½ inch fresh ginger root
      • More or less to taste
      • More concerned with juice then mass, that is where the flavor is)
    • 1 pinch powdered saffron
      • More or less to taste
    • 6 whole pods of cardamom
      • Green
      • More or less to taste
    • 2 tablespoons sugar
      • More or less to taste
    • 1 tablespoon black tea
      • Black tea as the benefit of caffeine to which you don’t develop a tolerance. It works the same every time.
      • I like Wagh Bakri
    • 3 grinder turns of black pepper
      • Usually only during winter
      • More or less to taste
  • Tools
    • Pot big enough to hold the ingredients
    • Vessel big enough to hold the the number of cups of water and milk that you are using
    • Ginger Grater: extracts the ginger juice quickly and extracts every drop of juice
    • Mortar & Pestle: for the cardamom
      • only hold the cup over the pot instead of the grinder when you dump in the seeds otherwise the steam will get inside the grinder and make it unhappy
    • Tea Spoon: to peel the ginger
      • Or paring knife if you are a ninja
  • Steps
    • Place pot on counter-top. Add pepper, black tea, saffron, and cardamom.
    • Add water to vessel. Peel and grate ginger. Grab ginger fiber and place in pot. Use water to rinse grater into pot. Add all of remaining water to pot.
    • Bring pot to a boil. Fill vessel with milk.
    • When water reaches a boil, pour in milk.
    • Allow chai to come to a boil, then quickly remove from the heat. Stare at pot the entire time otherwise it will boil over. Maitain focus without distraction here. Do this two more times.
    • Strain through a fine strainer so as to filter out tea and herbs.
    • Either add sugar to individual servings so everyone can sweeten to their taste or add it to pot.
    • Serve. The chai party begins.