Category: Self Improvement

I’ve turned 39 today. I like to look back at the past year to see where I’ve come. I didn’t put this together until right now, but I’ve done all 3 of my marathons when I was 38. Road Runner Akron Marathon 09/25/2010 Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon 05/02/2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon 10/11/2009…

Today I’m 39 I distinctly remember turning 30. I vocally declared that the upcoming decade would be, “the decade of work.” That lasted for exactly 1 year. And it was not a particularly pleasant year at that. Today, I declare 39 to be the year of having fun! That has become my primary guiding life…

I’m not in this picture. But this is what the final stretch looks like. You come running into the Akron Aeros baseball stadium to cross the finish line. They cover the ground with some sort of material. It’s soft and squishy. The guy who heads up the marathon (I can’t easily find his name, off…

And here’s an idea I have about doing an addiction speaker series or DVD series. Sage was 225 pounds, a pack-a-day smoker, drank 2 pots of coffee a day, had 12 beers on Wednesdays, 18+ beers on Fridays, and quit it all one night 3 years ago. He didn’t find God. He didn’t check himself…

http://www.amaravati.org/abm/english/documents/4noble2/data/04first.html#mor With this formula of the First Noble Truth, even if we have had a pretty miserable life, what we are looking at is not that suffering which comes from out there, but what we create in our own minds around it. This is an awakening in a person ? an awakening to the Truth…

http://www.amaravati.org/abm/english/documents/4noble2/data/03intro.html First Noble Truth: There is suffering. First Insight of the First Noble Truth: The insight is simply the acknowledgment that there is this suffering without making it personal. All life is suffering (dukkha) That acknowledgment is an important insight; just looking at mental anguish or physical pain and seeing it as dukkha rather than…

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/intro_bud.htm The problem is that the “world out there” is constantly changing, everything is impermanent and it is impossible to make a permanent relationship with anything, at all. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/5minbud.htm Buddhism teaches that the solutions to our problems are within ourselves not outside. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/intro_bud.htm It is only when we completely abandon clinging that we feel any…

This one’s a total drag. When it gets me in it’s grips it really yanks down my quality of life. I just feel rotten. And then it taints everything else in my life. Everything else is not nearly as good. I’ve got to make this priority #1. What are the symptoms: I feel it in…

If you’ve got a couple minutes, check out this overview article on Karma:Beacon Journal | 06/10/2006 | With karma, you get what you give “You get what you give.” That’s a nice thought.

I may not be Christian, Jewish or Islamic, but I know a good tradition when I see it. In spite of that grim reality or more likely because of it, the Gospel’s imperative to “fear not” is good and welcome news. The 40 days of Lent that begin Ash Wednesday are an annual spiritual journey…