A couple of years ago, I went through an extremely difficult situation. A misunderstanding was being compounded by past experiences, and a friend of mine was reacting badly—and increasingly so—to every attempt I made to iron things out. I cannot understate the pain of that experience nor the amount of time and energy I poured… Read More The Importance of Learning to Reflect Without Backbiting
I recently wrote about living in a culture encouraging constant discontent. Ensuing conversations with readers were filled with great ideas on how to weed out discontent from our lives. Many were aiming to become content individuals who worked hard to constantly better themselves, their condition, and the well-being of those around them. Most agreed that… Read More What One Can Do To Go from Constant Discontent to Contentment
I often write about the importance of building communities in which inhabitants discuss, understand, and appreciate each other’s beliefs, however different they may be (here, here, and here). The touchier the topic, the clearer the need for an increasing number of people to develop these capacities, lest any attempts at a conversation on said matter… Read More Learning to Live with Diversity: Accepting Modesty in an Era of Everything But
Journaling has been such an important part of my quest to achieve New Year’s resolutions. Because I spend so much time jotting down thoughts, reflections, quotes, learnings, and insights, I choose both pens and journals very carefully. While I have a propensity for Moleskine journals, other journals also make their way into my hands. These… Read More Spring Forth with New Year’s Resolutions, Part II: Inspirational Journals
After a long winter, springtime is finally here! What with the lengthening days and Naw-Rúz, it’s a perfect time to revisit one’s New Year’s resolutions. I don’t know about you guys, but I often need a lot of external help in keeping some of my tougher resolutions and persevering through slumps; one of the tools… Read More Spring Forth with New Year’s Resolutions, Part I: Mantras, Ahoy!
Community and personal development go hand in hand. While we can feel powerless to make a significant contribution to our communities, we thankfully always have the power to make a change in our personal lives. Easier said than done! Personal development can be, to say the least, pretty intense. Thankfully, it does not always require… Read More Grow Baby Grow: Taking Advantage of the Many Benefits of Gardening
Oftentimes, it feels like we’re encouraged to live in a state of constant discontent. We are told that there is always something missing in our lives, something more we can have, something else to aim for, something that we have to do next. In high school, we’re told to think about university; in university, we’re… Read More Constant Discontent: Enjoying the Now Created by Then for When’s Sake
Organizing comes easily to many readers of this blog, but not doing so creatively—that’s a whole other ball game! Thankfully there are some people out there who manage to balance out the two just fine, and are kind enough to share their talent with the rest of us. My post about favorite pens and journals… Read More Organizing Creatively: Some Insta-Spiration
A post recently went up on Sahar’s Blog discussing some of the benefits and pitfalls of journaling. It generated an influx of emails from readers with, amongst others, some great “logistical” tips about journaling; these inspired a post on the most coveted journals and pens. Ensuing conversations contained so many great quirks and habits that… Read More Building Effective Journaling: Some Tried and Tested Habits
Two weeks into 2015 already! New Year resolutions are still a hot topic, and although many readers loved my posts about journaling, some mentioned they were looking for other tools available to them in their quest for self-improvement. I immediately thought of mantras (something I have already blogged about). Not to sound too dramatic here,… Read More Hello, 2015! Mantra-fying your New Year’s Resolutions