If you’re looking for me, I’m on PandaWhale.
I’m stashing many things there.
And if you’re wondering why there are so many broken links on this WordPress, it is because I imported my Posterous here and when Twitter shut down Posterous it broke a lot of my old links and images. Thanks Twitter.
Peter: “There seems to be an absence of an ornothological piece… A headline regarding mass awareness of a certain avian variety…”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Posterous.
Especially now that Twitter owns Posterous.
I hope that Twitter keeps Posterous up and running, because I love writing and reading on Posterous, as do many others.
Furthermore, keeping Posterous running will help Twitter to increase their understanding of the Interest Graph.
Some interests run longer than 140 characters, and Posterous is the perfect service for longer tweets. The Interest Graph is so money.
And, keeping Posterous running will give Twitter a great service it can learn from as it iterates through the Creative Process to continually improve.
A post-Twitter Posterous could be wonderful.
Twitter, PLEASE keep Posterous running.
And don’t leave it up to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock.
Go out of your comfort zone.
Let Posterous live where the magic happens.
1. THE GREAT LAW
As you sow, so shall you reap.
This is also known as the Law of Cause and Effect.
- Whatever we put out in the Universe, is what comes back to us.
If what we want is Happiness, Peace, Friendship, Love…
Then we should BE Happy, Peaceful, Friendly, Loving.
2. THE LAW OF CREATION
Life doesn’t just HAPPEN. It requires our participation.
Whatever surrounds us gives us clues to our inner state.
- BE yourself and DO yourself… what you want to have in your Life.
3. THE LAW OF HUMILITY
What you refuse to accept, will continue for you.
If what we see is an enemy, or someone with a character trait that we find to be negative…
- Then we ourselves are not focused on a Higher Level of Existence.
4. THE LAW OF GROWTH
Wherever you go, there you are.
For us to GROW in Spirit it is we who must change and not the people, places, or things around us.
The only given in our lives is OURSELVES, and that is the only factor we have control over.
- When we change who and what we are within our heart, our life changes too.
5. THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY
Whenever there is something wrong, there is something wrong in me.
We mirror what surrounds us, and what surrounds us mirrors us.
- We must take responsibility for what is in our life.
6. THE LAW OF CONNECTION
Even if something we do seems inconsequential, it is very important that it gets done,
Each step leads to the next step and so forth and so on.
Someone must do the initial work to get a job done.
Neither the first step nor the last are of greater significance.
They were both needed to accomplish the task.
- Past, Present, Future: They are all connected…
7. THE LAW OF FOCUS
- When our focus is on Spiritual Values it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger.
8. THE LAW OF GIVING AND HOSPITALITY
If you believe something to be true, then sometime in your life you will be called upon to demonstrate that truth.
- Here is where we put what we SAY that we have learned into PRACTICE.
9. THE LAW OF HERE AND NOW
Looking back to examine what was, prevents us from being totally in the HERE AND NOW.
- Old thoughts, old patterns of behavior, old dreams… Prevent us from having new ones.
10. THE LAW OF CHANGE
11. THE LAW OF PATIENCE AND REWARD
All Rewards require initial toil.
Rewards of lasting value require patient and persistent toil.
- True Joy follows doing what we’re supposed to be doing and waiting for the Reward to come in its own time.
12. THE LAW OF SIGNIFICANCE AND INSPIRATION
You get back from something whatever you’ve put into it.
The Value of something is a direct result of the energy and intent that is put into it.
Every personal contribution is also a contribution to the Whole.
Lackluster Contributions have no impact on the Whole, or work to diminish it.
- Loving Contributions Lift Up and Inspire the Whole.
Sources:
Robert X. Cringely’s first tip for would-be entrepreneurs is:
“Avoid stupid and unlucky people.“
I’m taking his advice because starting a company is hard.
I want to be lucky, like the kitten that adopted me last week.
For decades my father has told me that
“It’s better to be lucky than to be good.“
I don’t just want to be good; I want to be excellent.
My dad says that to be excellent I should surround myself with people who have good luck. He tells me that people with good luck are contagious — as are people with bad luck!
My dad regularly affirms:
“Avoid the unlucky, the unethical, and the unhappy.“
To find people who are ethical, I have a strategy. My startup co-founder has a sixth sense when it comes to sniffing out ethics; Detective Troutgirl is always on the case.
As for happiness, lessons are repeated until they are learned. There is no way to happiness because happiness is the way; consequently, people reveal true colors in conversation. But what about luck?
I want to find people who are as attracted to luck as cats are attracted to heat.
To create luck, I conjure up some scientistic sleuthing.
If 80% of success is showing up, then
80-90% of luck is an excellent attitude.
Those numbers are corroborated scientistically by business shark Daymond John and psychologist Richard Wiseman:
Daymond John boldly declared on Shark Tank,
“Life is like business. It’s 20% what happens to you, and 80% how you respond.“
Richard Wiseman concurs,
“Only about 10% of life is purely random.
The remaining 90% is defined by the way we think.
Our attitudes produce our luck.“
I read those sentiments over and over, and think to myself: Still, there’s that remaining 10-20% that is pure luck, and that’s the part we need EVEN if we work hard and make wise choices and are as patient as a crouching kitten.
So… How can we MAKE more luck?
In 2010 I chuckled that with a luck factory, I’d make a fortune.
Since then, I’ve become aware that there are traits that we can practice to increase our ability to make our own luck.
On 106miles.net I summarized Bakadesuyo’s article How can you become more lucky? by noting that lucky people practice four traits: openness, intuition, optimism, and resilience.
Practice every day, as much as possible:
1. Openness to new experiences. Network. Meet new people. Re-engage with people you know.
2. Intuition. Listen to yourself. Meditate to clear your mind regularly.
3. Optimism. The mind is a feedback loop that creates self-fulfilling prophecies, so be positive.
4. Resilience. “Success is moving from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” (Winston Churchill)
To that I add, don’t try to avoid pain:
Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you. You just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
(mis-attributed to Bob Marley; actual author unknown)
Be open. Be intuitive. Be optimistic. Be resilient. Good luck!
In the meantime, I’m looking forward to Get Lucky: The Book.
I’m going to make it a habit to spend time with people who are lucky, and we’ll see what happens when I practice lucky traits.
I will stay interconnected and get enough sleep.
Yes, sleep…
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Refer to me as @ifindkarma and I’ll be happy. You can also find this work as a chapter in Eric Ries’s and Hunter Walk’s wonderful Uncensored book for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Photo credits: All four pictures in this post were taken by me using Instagram on iPhone 4s, and are hosted on Flickr. These pictures feature the cats I humbly serve: Beavis, the 18-year-old silver Tabby; Coco, the 18-month-old Tuxedo kitty; and (unnamed), the 9-month-old lucky black cat who adopted me last week at the Humane Society of Silicon Valley. Not pictured is Lola, the 9-year-old Oklahoma runaway feline who is camera-shy.
2012 is Year of the Dragon. The Water Dragon.
George F. Will: All right, hands on buzzers. [ he hits several buttons on the machine, which spits out a quiz card that George reads ] “The precarious balance between infield and outfield suggests a perfect symmetry. For $50, identify the effect of that symmetry.”
[ the contestants stare cluelessly, as the buzzer sounds ]
George F. Will: Sorry. The answer is: “The exhilarating tension between being and becoming.” Being and becoming. Next question…
In the spirit of Thirty and Thirty-Five comes the following awesome, beautiful, and creative web of thoughts that occupy my brain.
Anything that happens, happens.
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
~ Douglas Adams.Most people do not comprehend,
[no matter how] they encounter such things,
nor do they understand what they learn;
they believe only themselves.
~ Heraclitus.Every thought is a seed.
If you plant crab apple, don’t count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
~ Bill Meyer.
All the lessons of history in four sentences:
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small.
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.
When it is dark enough, you can see stars.
In the spirit of Thirty and Thirty-Five comes Forty-Two — the following awesome, beautiful, and creative web of thoughts that occupy my brain.
I’m not patient enough to write poetry or prose, so I’ll just count down after Futurama.
Don’t you worry about life, the universe, and everything; let me worry about blank…
42. We believe in the interconnectedness of all things.
41. Everything is about inclusion.
39. Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
38. As human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
37. Let it go. This too shall pass.
36. SIMPLIFY.
35. Lessons are repeated until they are learned.
34. The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
32. People are very bad at predicting what will make us happy.
31. There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.
30. We are feedback loops. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
29. Love is when you open your heart to pain.
28. To get over grief, be there for someone else’s grief.
27. Kittie heaven is mousie hell.
25. The ride does not require an explanation. Just occupants.
24. It’s not going to stop till you wise up.
22. Reflection creates identity.
20. We can change the world with a pen and paper.
18. We’ll see.
17. Life is… delicious ambiguity.
16. Beware drift. Do what you love!
15. True happiness comes from within.
14. Get yourself a giant panda! (Super kawaii!)
13. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
12. That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
11. It goes to 11. (Be sure to read through to Andy Weir’s story, “The Egg”!)
10. Life is like business. It’s 20 percent what happens to you, and 80 percent how you respond.
9. 80 percent of success is showing up.
8. Our attitudes produce our luck.
6. Be grateful for every breath.
5. Be who you are, as hard as you can.
4. Be here now.
2. There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.
1. Only kindness matters in the end.
********* …enlightenment… *********
Once upon a time, in a temple nestled in the misty end of south hill, lived a pair of monks. One old and one young.
‘What are the differences between Heaven and Hell?’ the young monk asked the learned master one day.
‘There are no material differences,’ replied the old monk peacefully.
‘None at all?’ asked the confused young monk.
‘Yes. Both Heaven and Hell look the same. They all have a dining hall with a big hot pot in the center in which some delicious noodles are boiled, giving off an appetizing scent,’ said our old priest. ‘The size of the pan and the number of people sitting around the pot are the same in these two places.’
‘But oddly, each diner is given a pair of meter-long chopsticks and must use them to eat the noodles. And to eat the noodles, one must hold the chopsticks properly at their ends, no cheating is allowed,’ the zen master went on to describe to our young monk.
‘In the case of Hell, people are always starved because no matter how hard they try, they fail to get the noodles into their mouths,’ said the old priest.
‘But isn’t it the same happens to the people in Heaven?’ the junior questioned.
‘No. They can eat because they each feed the person sitting opposite them at the table. You see, that is the difference between Heaven and Hell,’ explained the old monk.
The moral of this story is simple: A turn in mind is all the difference between Heaven and Hell lies (???????????????????????????).
Be kind to people and people will be kind to you.
The choice is yours, don’t be late.
The Internets say that Bob Marley said that everyone’s gonna hurt you but some people are worth it anyway.
No matter how much I search, I cannot find the context under which he said it or even if he said it…
ifindkarma. elegance is refusal. 