Strategies of mentally strong people

Forbes has offered a list of 13 strategies used by "mentally strong" people. Seems like an excellent list: 1. Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves. 2. Give Away Their Power. 3. Shy Away from Change. 4. Waste Energy on Things They Can’t Control. 5. Worry About Pleasing Others. Know any people pleasers? 6. Fear Taking Calculated Risks. 7. Dwell on the Past. 8. Make the Same Mistakes Over and Over. 9. Resent Other People’s Success. 10. Give Up After Failure. 11. Fear Alone Time. 12. Feel the World Owes Them Anything. 13. Expect Immediate Results. Bonus: Alternet has offered the 14 habits of miserable people:

So if you aspire to make yourself miserable, what are the best, most proven techniques for doing it? Let’s exclude some obvious ways, like doing drugs, committing crimes, gambling, and beating up your spouse or neighbor. Subtler strategies, ones that won’t lead anyone to suspect that you’re acting deliberately, can be highly effective. But you need to pretend that you want to be happy, like everybody else, or people won’t take your misery seriously. The real art is to behave in ways that’ll bring on misery while allowing you to claim that you’re an innocent victim, ideally of the very people from whom you’re forcibly extracting compassion and pity. Here, I cover most areas of life, such as family, work, friends, and romantic partners. These areas will overlap nicely, since you can’t ruin your life without ruining your marriage and maybe your relationships with your children and friends. It’s inevitable that as you make yourself miserable, you’ll be making those around you miserable also, at least until they leave you—which will give you another reason to feel miserable. So it’s important to keep in mind the benefits you’re accruing in your misery. Honing Your Misery Skills Let’s get right to it and take a look at some effective strategies to become miserable. This list is by no means exhaustive, but engaging in four or five of these practices will help refine your talent.
1. Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. 2. Practice sustained boredom. 3. Give yourself a negative identity. 4. Pick fights. 5. Attribute bad intentions. 6. Whatever you do, do it only for personal gain. 7. Avoid gratitude. 8. Always be alert and in a state of anxiety. 9. Blame your parents. 10. Don’t enjoy life’s pleasures. 11. Ruminate. 12. Glorify or vilify the past. 13. Find a romantic partner to reform. 14. Be critical.

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Some say that good things just happen all by themselves . . .

I often think of the two main competing metaphors regarding the economy as this: Do we want a jungle or a garden? Many conservatives and libertarians insist we should just get out of the way and let amazing things happen. That is not my experience.

Kennedy speech w caption 2

I would add that the rigged free market has brought us marvels like the invasion of Iraq, where the American fossil fuel industry and the military industrial complex hijacked the American decision-making process. Corrupted government at its best, and the American media has moved on, as though that illegal war was a success.

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On the need to pretend that children are professional athletes

As I watched these guys in the park today, I was reminded of many of the things they didn't need to get a great workout and to play some serious soccer: uniforms, referees, cheering parents, scoreboard, official schedules and trophies. IMG_5307 Tower Grove Soccer IMG_5312 Tower Grove Soccer IMG_5321 Tower Grove Soccer IMG_5325 Tower Grove Soccer They brought some orange plastic cones to serve as the goals. These players knew that it didn't need to be "perfect" to be worthwhile. And they focused on the process of playing, not the score. There was great camaraderie between all the players on the field. They didn't need any of the things so many parents and children think they NEED to play soccer in America. I draw from experience similar to what I saw today. The guys in my neighborhood would put together pick-up games all the time. Soccer, baseball, football and street hockey. No parents, not referees, no scoreboards. We officiated our own games. If there were a dispute, we worked it out together. We picked the teams to make competitive matches. We knew who played well and not so well, and we divided them evenly. As you can tell, I have some misgivings about how obsessed we have come about the "importance" of having out children play sports the "proper" way, which often includes "select" leagues and 20 mile trips to and from the site of the games.

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Wire Pilots

For me, it's always a challenge shooting in the dark without a flash. I had some good practice tonight at a local concert. Guitarist Dan Rubright, percussionist Ted Rubright and bass player Rick Vice comprise "Wire Pilots," and they put on an excellent show featuring music composed by Dan Rubright. Dan's music (all of it instrumental) is difficult to classify, but it tends to be centered around salient memorable melodies supported by complex chordal and percussive textures. A special guest for one song was violinist Daniel Schmidt, a 10th grade student at Grand Center Arts Academy. The location was the Kranzberg Arts Center Studio in St. Louis. IMG_5300 Wire Pilots - Rubright IMG_5133 Wire Pilots - Rubright IMG_5165 Wire Pilots - Rubright IMG_5184 Wire Pilots - Rubright [More . . . ]

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