"Anger is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard Improved, 1753.(1) Change your taste in food more towards the healthy. Young or old, a proper choice of foods is the foundation of health and feeling good about yourself. Excercise is important too but cannot substitute for healthy eating habits. Most people use food to make their brains happy and so become addicted to the wrong kinds of foods, mostly craving fats and sugars. Learn to cook Chinese and other Asian foods -- family style. Shop in your local Chinese and other Asian grocery stores. Avoid eating out too much.
Another Reason to Drink Tea Instead of Coffee
(2) Do a variety of exercises. At your computer, do keyboard yoga. But just don't sit there. Get up and stretch. Do some real Yoga when you are downloading and uploading files. Never stare at the screen as it decreases your blink rate and dries out your eye balls. Many people have a tendency to watch the fill bars--a very silly thing to do.
(3) When programming, use black or pleasant pastel backgrounds wherever possible. Staring at a white screen really tires out your eyes. Avoid making the reader squint to discern the text from the background. Take a break, try meditation.
Five Easy Ways to Prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (4) Have a balanced life. Seek the "middle way" etc. Think instead of getting angry. If you let yourself lose control, you are programming yourself towards an angry and frustrated life style. Never think about killing someone, or even beating them up. These types of feelings are very self-destructive, as well as destructive to those around you. Also, avoid the trap of knowing THE TRUTH. If you find yourself smiling at people because you think you know something everyone else doesn't, you need to read some different kinds of books. The point of our polymath society is to open up our minds, not to close them with any particular set of ideas.
(5) Stay out of the sun. It will dry you out like a prune, and give you various kinds of skin cancer. Remember, UV blocks do not protect against the rays that can cause melanoma, so they give you a false sense of security. If you have light skin, don't live too close to the equator. Maybe you really don't want to retire to Florida.
(6) Stay away from people who frequent bars and/or use drugs. You may find yourself adopting their lifestyle. It is a bored lifestyle, usually prone to depression, often to despair. If you have such friends, better to e-mail them than go out with them. If you have a problem, try the link below.
Recovery Connection
Quitting Smoking Support
(7) Try to know people for who they are. Don't look at people as objects or vehicles for self-gratification. At the end of the day, it's not how many personal experiences or trophies you can count, but how many people you can really say you know and trust. Look at your friends and yourself objectively. Read (and write) some philosophy from time to time.
(8) Control your own personal environment. It's what you have the most control over. If you don't want to drink, don't stock your refrigerator with beer. If you don't want to get fat, don't buy cakes and cookies to tempt you. Watching TV also tends to make people depressed and to snack.
(9) Sell your TV! With the net, you really don't need it anymore. It is really just a medium to control your attention, manipulate your emotions, and subject you to a steady stream of advertisements. Selling your TV is probably the single most important thing you can do to improve your life and happiness.
(10) Read and study about marriage and child raising before you attempt it. Doing things purely out of emotion can ruin your life. Reading biographies is a good way to get experience without the pain of living through it for yourself. Avoid early marriage. Don't have kids right away, maybe try your hand at raising other people's first to see how you like it. Shorten your exposure by adopting older kids (e.g., from foster care) -- a good way to find out if you will like them. Helps keep down the "surplus population" also. You add to the surplus population whenever you produce without a full commitment to upbringing and care.
(11) Families Should be fun, not torture. Everyone is really happier (the kids particularly) where both parents are not forced to work outside the home. Single parent families are not much fun and is the biggest source of poverty for children, failure in school, and delinquency. If you are poor with kids, think of home based jobs, e.g., medical transcription or data entry. But most home based jobs in the information age require special talents (see link below).
Getting Marketable Skills for Telecommuting
HTML Classes
O'Reilly Web-Based Training
Most education has an element of fraud in it, even that which you obtain from a university. Never fork out money to obtain a job or "home-hased business opportunity. Never spend a small fortune on an education program without independent and impartial review of your situation and whether the training will suit you, as well as what it will likely enable you to do.
Teach the your kids to do practical intellectual work too, not just chores and homework. Remember, tomorrow's skills are complex and require the ability to do complex thinking.
(12) If you come from a broken home, don't think it is a normal way of life, or that you are bound to repeat the same mistakes as your parents. Try to understand the nature of family based insanity. Many families need counseling. If you need help, talk to people who do not themselves have too many emotional problems. This may not be your girl friend or boy friend.
(13) Learn to laugh at yourself, but don't over do it. Keep a positive self-image. Be proud of your potential, even if you consider yourself a failure up till now. Developing a good sense of humor is both a survival skill and a natural result of learning from a broad palette.
(14) The information age values creativity, skill, and virtual as well as interpersonal cooperation. Never stop learning. Make contacts in cyberspace, but watch out for criminals and cheaters. Avoid pornography -- it distorts your personality and how you relate to people, even if you yourself can't tell (using it to attract viewers to your page is pretty lame). Read D.H. Lawrence instead, if you are so inclined. Invest some of your money in the stock market (like an educational IRA) but don't live there. Invest your time in learning and real productive activities.
(15) Caveat emptor. Rely more on contacts you initiate than upon people who contact you. If someone contacts you about investments, telephone service etc. hang up the phone immediately. Never reply to junk mail. If you give money to political parties or professional fund raising organizations you will be pestered forever, so make sure it is something you really know about and believe in.
Self Improvement Links
Keyboard Yoga
Avoid Hard Bicycle Seats, or Adjust the Front Downwards
Newborns More Sensitive to Pain: Treat Them Gently
Patient's Guide
Where the Flu is Striking Now
Bon Apetite
Recipe Copycat Cenral
Lu's Fabulous Food Links
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