well despite what some people may think, i’m always trying to better myself as a person. I think we all strive (hopefully) to better ourselves one way or the other. We all have those times when we feel a fire within us to achieve our inner goals and become who we can be …yada yada, like the new year resolutions to stop using swear words, or say yes or no more often, to be more confident etc. now my question is, why does it burn out so quick?

Won’t it be nice to be able to keep that self improvement fire burning. I strongly believe that we are not fully aware of what our brains are capable of. we are smart enough to trick OUR OWN brains into believing something esle, for example temperature variations at key parts of your body will alter the brains temperature regulation. however simple this maybe, its the concept that is extraordinary.

So why exactly can’t we keep our inspirations, new year resolutions, feelin of wanting to get the James Bond swagger after wathing Quantom of Solace? how can we mitigate the decay of inspiration, or better yet any feeling. its like we accept the stigma of saying “that’s just how i am” or sayings like “you cant teach an old dog new tricks”. ya there may be tricks or therapy that already exist to achieve out goals, but why cant this be something from within. i’m not really talkin about passions, cuz those burn forever, i’m talkin about the rest of us who want something but not the passion to achieve it at all costs.

Personally, i think the key thing is retaining the value of  the goal. That is  the difficult part, because as we begin to strive towards the goal and meet obstacles, we begin to question the value of the goal or change. and once that happens, the costs begin to overshadow the benefits which may eventually lead to a waved white flag. It then comes back later when thoughts are triggered of life with the change and u feel inspired once more and the cycle repeats again. i’m sure this isn’t new to anyone. The truth is that no one likes “hardship” and we always look for the easiest route out of it (its our survival instinct) and the route is give up.  Its so easy, because its affectin noone but u, and usu noone else will find out…so easy. but lol we are the one’s losing. So i believe the key now is to learn to associate “hardship”, no matter the form, with something else other than a painful step to a goal.

so what i’m trying to learn is to associate my feelings with things that wont force my brain into a defense tactic, because the only thing u should be fighting are the obstacles not your will…the rest is just style freein’! (makes no sense but sounds good, deal with it)

A friend showed me this site, Wordle,  and  i thought it was a sweet idea put into action. basically the site takes in a an essay, link or just a bunch of words you provide and then counts the occurrence of each word. it then places them pseudo-randomly on the page with the larger words being the most frequently occurring. Add a couple colors and different fonts and VOILA! ART.

It also allows you to remove common english words such as the, this, is …etc as well as any other words you wish. so you are sure to be only capturing key words. At first it may just seem like ok, whats the big deal, it looks pretty.  i decided to copy a bunch of blog posts and surprisingly its a weird way of summarizing things by capturing the key words. despite being a summary tool, it does have its psychological aspect. dont believe me, copy a recent letter from a friend or significant other, use the tool and see which word appears bigger, YOU or I (need i say more). this very simple data may hold a considerable amount of information as well as the main tone of whatever you are lookin at.

to start feeling creative head over to www.wordle.net

for a cool idea try messing around with the lyrics of ur best song…

….guessed the song?

Completely random…but do vegetarians eat animal shaped candy? like there may be nothing wrong with it, its just candy right? but look at it from a hypocritical point of view. one thing that we can all agree on is how we eat gummy bears. you will all agree that at one time during your consumption of these furless gooey creatures, you start off by biting off the head first and then eating the rest of the body whole…isn’t that just barbaric. if you eat meat, there is nothing wrong with that, but if you are a vegetarian, isn’t there a sense of conflict. shouldn’t you feel guilty for acting out you inner cannibal. this sounds silly but there is a subconcious truth here.

secondly WHY are bears a common animal shaped candy?! like look at the package for teddy graham

i was just randomly thinking, about the obsession some people have with animal shaped foods. Why hasn’t the PETA complained about it? ya no animals are being hurt, but in principle, shouldn’t they have a problem with this lol. i really dont care i love meat and bears of all shapes sizes and flavors, but i just felt there was a lil something funny about vegetarians who like em.

That’s gonna be my next question to the next vegetarian i see: “Do you eat animal shaped candy?”

You spend 1/3 of you life sleeping. This thought scares people when you put it like that. the fact is, people like to be ignorant and knowing that a third of their life is “wasted” sleeping can force them into insomnia. well luckily for me i am not one of those people phased by this fact. i love sleeping and 2 thirds of my life awake is more than enough.

~courtsey of cd c:art

like every college student and working class adult, we all dread the feeling of waking up early because of how groggy and depressed we feel. there are NUMEROUS articles on sleep and you would be amazed at the different approaches used to get a good night rest; ranging from wearing socks to sprinkling lavender oil on your pillow, from having a warm shower to repeating a “sleep” mantra. there was a certain trend i saw in the different articles, when it comes to sleeping well. the main gist is to essentially trick the brain into simulating sleeping and waking up “naturally” (in other words falling asleep and waking up as nature intended).

The stuff that really fascinates(frustrates) me about sleep are the inconsistencies. 8 hours todays makes me feel great and 8 hours tomorrow makes me feel like shit. then i stumbled on this post from 3 years ago, Alarm clocks are bad. How to wake up and feel better, by Vincent Cheung. The truth is that the main purpose of sleep is to rest the mind, the body can be rested by just staying still. so the feeling of being “tired” when you wake up is actually psychological. experts have identified 5 stages of sleep and the stage we wake up in affects how we feel. the stages cycle and the best time to wake up is in the first or second stage.

People have tried different methods to exploit this system, such as waking up every 15 or 30 minutes to ensure they are always in the first 2 stage, but the truth is that the length of the stages vary from time to time and from person to person. The brain has cues that signal time for sleep or time to wake and replicating these cues to the best effect could speed up the stages “naturally.” and i think the easiest thing to do would be to introduce the smallest stimulus possible just as you about to wake up. like gentle sounds and light to similate sunrise. this makes sense, because its a lot easier to wake up during summer, because of the earlier days than it is to wake up during winter. The key thing also is to avoid abrupt light or sounds when waking up, because that forces the brain out of sleep versus a gradual transition.

the perfect first experiment to see if this works for you is to follow the blog post i linked from Vincent Cheung. simply using very gentle sounds from like 30 minutes before your actual alarm goes off could trick your brain into a natural awakening, meaning you feel alot better when u actually get up.

Disclaimer: i am not a sleep doctor, i’ve just read alot about sleeping.

here are some useful links:

Wake up refreshed! Mornings don’t have to be hard.

How much sleep do you really need?

All about sleep