Aldous HuxleyFebruary 15th, 2008 Gennaro Brooks-Church
Aldous Huxley Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities. I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. Experience is not what happens to a person; it is what a person does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley Tags: Aldous Huxley, change the world, experience, happiness The answers are insideJanuary 22nd, 2008 Gennaro Brooks-Church“Trying to find answers from outside yourself is nonsense. You need to look inward.” I have been to over 34 countries and have come into contact with some very amazing stuff. I have been exposed to powerful esoteric knowledge that explains how we work. I have listened to wise people explain the meaning of life. I have learned wonderful tools for being a better person. But at the end of the day even these great things fall flat. The true power of being alive is inside me. It has no name, no affiliation, no description or similarity. It is completely unique. There is nothing like it outside in the world. Only when I realized this was I truly happy. I searched so much, I tried so hard, I wished so badly that that philosophy, that political view, that belief, that way of acting, that perspective, that opinion, that system, that place, that person, that tool would be the solution to finding happiness. But sooner or later they failed me. They would say I am not trying hard enough, not doing it right, not following the path faithfully, not in the right place, don’t understand enough, but that is all crap. The truth is that I am much smarter than any system, religion or way. I know so much more. For me. Only I know what is right for me. And I need nothing to know that. It is right there inside me. In fact very often the outward structures get in the way of our inward discovery. This is not to say all the external tools are useless. Otherwise we would all be feral children with no outside tools to interact with others. We need the systems, whether they are political, religious or otherwise to have complex societies. But the individual needs nothing of that to be connected with themselves. And that is the only thing that really matters. All else is secondary by a long shot. Otherwise you are an empty vessel void of life. You might as well get a meaningless 9-5 job that pays to keep your body fed and wait for death. So look inside. What do you see? It might be scary at first. But ultimately it is the most liberating thing you could ever do, both for yourself and the whole universe. Tags: Dalai Lama, happiness, self-awareness 40 Tips for A Better Life in 2008January 15th, 2008 Gennaro Brooks-ChurchFrom a chain mail from Shana: These are really very powerful. Implement whatever you can. 1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. 2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if 3. Buy a DVR. Tape your late night shows and get more sleep.. 4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following 5. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy. 6. Play more games and read more books than you did in 2007. 7. Make time to practice meditation, yoga or stretching, and 8. Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the 9. Dream more while you are awake. 10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food 11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild 12. Try to make at least three people smile each day. 13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new 14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, 15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. 16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like 17. Try & pay an honest compliment to someone you wouldn’t 18. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good. 19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. 20. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does. 21. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. 22. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present. 23. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what 24 No one is in charge of your happiness except you. 25 . Frame every so-called disaster with these 26. Forgive everyone for everything. 27. What other people think of you is none of your business. 29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. 30. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your 31. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful. 32. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. 33. The best is yet to come. 34. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. 35. Do the right thing! 36. Call your family often. 37. Each night before you go to bed complete the following 38. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed. 39. Enjoy the ride. Remember this is not Disney World and you 40. Please Forward this to your friends.The Sting on dvd
Tags: better life, happiness, life tips SuccessJanuary 10th, 2008 Gennaro Brooks-ChurchThere is so much pressure in life for success. The pressure is both internal and external. I think it is genetic. We are programed to improve on what is perfect. Sometimes we fail. But often, I hope, we succeed. True happiness is to love ourselves exactly the way we are. Right? That is true happiness for me. When I am exactly perfect exactly in my current state is when I can finally relax and just be. My whole soul gives a big breath of relief. Yet I have to actively try to be ok with who I am. That is not my normal state. I have all these knee jerk, primordial, instincts to compare myself with the world or with some made up fantasy from my own crazy head and conclude that I can become better. And sometimes I do. And sometimes it is a big waste of time that tires me out and I realize the goal was not worth it and I should have stayed home and chilled with the dog who thought I was just fine. Life is ideally a balance but more commonly a tension between perfection as we are and the possibility to improve. Either way you can’t have one without the other. Perfection is completion. Perfection is a goal. But our lives are spent either moving towards the goal, or having accomplished it, moving away from it. You never spend any time exactly on the goal. This means we are eternally reaching our goals, but upon reaching them we skew the balance between perfection and striving and we immediately become imperfect again and are forced to get another perfection to strive for. As we move from goal to goal we seesaw between being focused on improvement and being perfect (the later lasts no time at all, the former lasts a lifetime). The moment you reach perfection and are able to keep it is the moment you become one with God, which according to my belief means you explode into a zillion non-pieces and scatter all over the universe - Not exactly practical if you have a job and children. So….Yes we are genetically programed to improve ourselves. Yes happiness is to be perfectly ok with youself now. So how do you solve this balance between perfection and improvement? Here is one novel solution: Success is being perfectly ok with yourself while you help OTHERS improve. What if we all did this? Sounds like perfection to me. And I’m not talking about donating to hungry kids half way across the globe, which is a nice of course. I think much more important are the people directly connected to you. How can you help them improve? And I don’t mean heroic acts of kindness, which is also nice. I mean helping them get dressed, cleaning up after them, making them laugh, listening to them. You are doing that already, you say? Ha! I tricked you! You see, you are perfect just the way you are. Keep it up.The Third Man dvd Secret To SuccessJanuary 1st, 2008 Gennaro Brooks-ChurchThe secret to success isn’t really a secret. it is more a series of subtle things done together. Here is my take on how to achieve all your goals and desires. It is called “Emotionally Clean Attachment” (Yes I made that up as I wrote it). The theory behind it stems from my study of stuff - Buddhism, get rich seminars, rich people, happy people, healthy people, successful people, etc. The Tenets of Emotionally Clean Attachment are: Overview: 1. All failure is the result of being emotionally attached to the outcome. 2. Most people are failures or successes due to random luck or lack of, inherent character traits, or random events. 3. Few people knowingly follow the tents of Emotionally Clean Attachment. 4. Anyone can follow the tenets with increased success. 5. Shit happens which can reduce or increase the success of following the tenets. Actions: 1. Success results when your emotional wellbeing is not hinged on the outcome of your goals, acts etc. Your emotional wellbeing comes from within and you realize that the ups and downs of the world will never give you true happiness. 2. Stick to the facts. Stay away from emotional interpretation. You remove your emotional attachment from worldly events by focusing on the facts of your goals and life events. “He screwed me” is an emotional interpretation. “He took my car” is a fact. 3. Set goals. Make all goals and actions fact based, not emotion based. “By noon I will have all papers cleaned off my desk” is fact based. “By noon I will be free from clutter in my life” is emotional and unfocused. A focused goal must have a time of completion and exact factual details of what needs to be done to achieve the goal. 4. Stay focused. Emotions will always pull you off track. Depression, happiness, helplessness, these are all emotionally based interpretations of the situation and have very little use in helping you attain success. Whenever you get emotional, hold onto the facts for dear life. Focus on the facts of the goal. This gives you meaning. 5. Realize NOTHING IS PERSONAL. You partner dumped you? Your dog died? You got a raise? Somebody hurt you? These are all important facts but they are not personal. We are all living out our own story. Their story was to interact with you in that way. Learn the lesson and move on. 6. Life is a canvas for you to paint your own story. Paint one that works. Your partner left you? You can paint the story that you were dumped or that you were given the chance to be free. Nobody cares and it matters little what the story is. So make one that works. 7. It is not important what you do but how you do it. So don’t take things seriously. You hate your job? Leave it. Or look at it in a different way. It does not matter. Your job has very little to do with whether you become successful and happy. 8. Since we make our own stories we all have very different viewpoints. Neither is right or wrong. They are just stories. What is important is that we see that the stories are an illusion to help us live. 9. Nothing is a joke and everything is a joke.Cutter’s Way video The Snapper film
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