I can’t speak for everyone but I think  ”what makes me happy?” could be quite a common question amongst middle aged and beyond people. And it’s fairly easy to understand this given we have media and advertising denoting how we should think and feel. Think about all the luxury vehicle advertisements, with open roads, lush green scenery and the ability go anywhere. What do these advertisements represent? Freedom. Now what about advertisements for make-up and skin cleansers, with model-like women. What do these advertisements represent? Insecurities about one’s image. But do you ever see advertisements on how to look deeply within yourself and find out what makes you happy without some sort of product or service? Of course not, there is no direct monetary gain in long-term happiness and fulfilment, only short-term bursts of artificial happiness, so you keep buying the newest and latest car, the most new “natural” make-up or swanky televisions.

So how does one find happiness and smile with joy every day? It’s certainly not easy and will take time but the rewards are great, more significant than any 55″ flat screen television or luxurious sports car will give you. Kate Kendall has done two graphs depicting the effects of both short-term and long-term happiness:

Short Term Happiness

Long Term Happiness

I think both of these graphs are fantastic examples of why it’s important to focus on happiness in the long-term as opposed to the short-term. If you’re finding your life to be up and down regularly, then maybe a look at your happiness is in order!

If you’re finding that happiness is what you’re seeking, I doubt that there is one magical recipe to finding it but I do know it starts and ends with you. So perhaps start quietly questioning your daily activities and ask, “do I enjoy this?”. If so, really think why as you may be able to find a commonality in other, new activities. If not, I suggest you firstly work out why and then possibly move towards ceasing it. The more activities, gestures and thoughts that increase your happiness will not only make you a better person but appreciate life as it truly is.

For me, I’ve only recently begun walking the path of happiness. Seeking it has been difficult I won’t lie but I know it’s what I need to do in order to be truly at peace with myself.

Keep searching, keep sharing and send love to everywhere because you’ll only be rewarded even more in time.

The Internet is all about connecting. It maybe with people you know and have travelled overseas or with people you’ve never met, whatever the case it helps bring us together. The Internet has evolved rapidly over the past 10 years, especially with the introduction of social media, with websites such as Facebook paving the way for a better experience, allowing us to connect and experience a whole new world – at once. We can chat to someone, see their photos and read their thoughts all in one place, 24 hours a day, 7 days at week. You can connect with anyone, whatever time, however you want!

I’ve been using computers from a young age and experienced the Internet in many flavours but it’s taken me time to adjust to social media, as I prefer interaction on a physical level too. But nevertheless, I’ve jumped back on the bandwagon and want to start pushing more tweets out, various insightful posts and funny pictures. So, if you want to contact me, see who I am or just want to fill the void – check out my profiles;

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

In addition to the above, there are also more variables which contribute to memory, short term or long term for example. Whether it be someone who uses their left or right brain more, they may find remembering events just passed a lot easier than events which occurred a few years back, depending on how it was presented. For example, George A Miller, when working at Bell Laboratories, conducted several experiments with letters using both short term and long term memory. He concluded that depending on how the letters were presented, you could remember them better in shorter or longer term. To point out a simple example, take a look at the following combination of letters:

FBIPHDTWAIBM

Jumbled together with no meaning what so ever, right? To the average person, this would seem correct. However, upon further analysis, breaking down the letters into sets of 3, you are presented with:

FBI PHD TWA IBM

Suddenly, you’re brain clicks and remembers the combination.

Generally, the rule with memory is, the more you do it, the easier you’ll remember it. Hence why learning at day 0 is just as important than learning at day 100 or year 20. Even though you may believe your child or a young baby is not retaining anything you’re doing, by a matter of fact they actually are, and at some point in their life, they will most likely replicate your habit or particular style with their own.

For those who are intrigued by memory and the brain in general, I would recommend reading Wikipedia to begin with and take it from there. Many people over the years have contributed to this amazing article and all the ones following, not to mention all the websites and blogs devoted to the mind and memory itself. You can view the article at the end of this article.

In addition to all the above, to improve your memory or help retain more things, I would recommend eating certain vegetables and fruit, or well adding them to your current diet. These will help not only improve memory but your mental health and well being. As we all know, carrots are great for our eyes, but are there? It’s simply the vitamins that are carried within them which helps our brain and body.

• Cantaloupe
• Blueberries
• Asparagus
• Black Currants
• Kale
• Sweet potatoes
• Watermelon
• Tomatoes
• Red Cabbage
• Cherries
• Radishes
• Strawberries

Sources

Has anyone experienced their eyelid twitching? It may be for a few seconds or it could go on for days, depending on the cause. For the past few days, eyelid twitching is what I’m currently experiencing and as I work on a computer all day long, it has become quite of an annoyance, even though I’m well aware a computer should be the last thing I’m on.

Investigating this eyelid twitch further, I went to Google and discovered eyelid twitching is brought on by one or several things. Examining these causes wasn’t too surprising, in fact I actually guessed 60% of them. The most common causes for eyelid twitching (or eye twitching) are:-

Stress (*)

Fatigue

Lack of sleep (*)

Corneal irritation or injury

Prolonged staring or eye strain(*)

Neurological disorders

Possibly Hereditary

I have marked the causes with a (*) which I believe are causing my eyelid twitch. As you can see, these are probably the most common as we deal with all these factors every day, assuming you’re a workaholic like myself and sit in front of a computer. From here, I can choose to reduce the amount time spent on the computer and more time sleeping or I can continue my current regime and see what comes from it. Most people who are in tune with their own bodies and mind on a healthy state would probably do as I suggested firstly, however since my job entails working on the computer from 9-5, 5 days a week plus on the weekend, unfortunately I will be sticking to the second suggestion – pathetic right?

As I’m respectful for all the information I read and learn from, I just wish to state the above common causes were obtained from the Eye Doctor Guide. A very interesting website regarding the eyes (the pathway to your soul!). You can find more information here: eyedoctorguide.com/eye_problems/eye-twitching.html

I’m not sure if there is a thing called luck due to everything being a variable and variables constantly change (even though I define myself as unlucky) however, both of those things are my perception and in order to grow from negatives, I need to acknowledge what has happened, why its happened and how I can prevent or improve next time.

I walked into the Treasury Casino in Brisbane at 6:30PM with $70 and left an hour later minus that. At one particular point, I was winning in blackjack, up $20, however I played on with the belief I was there to spend that either way. This is quite interesting due to the fact on how your has this perception of you “may” win and that the exciting part, though your mind also thinks on the side, call it your “sensible” side – “If I lose, how will it affect me?” These I believe are vital points in winning and losing.

We should always celebrate winning (especially winning in blackjack!) and losing, rather than degrading ourselves. The more we understand why we lost, the better we can remedy it.

The more we learn from the past, the more we will create from the past which in turn will make us live in the past. If we progressed our minds into the future, somehow allowing ourselves to be immersed into a new dimension, new possibilities, could we create new ideas and methodologies based on nothing ever before? Of course we can. We are the lucky race, the race who have minds which can turn a planet into a habitat to provide for millions of people, create machines to move things and build giant towers but it all comes down to a methodology and if we continue with the same old ways, we will keep going in the same old direction — now that’s in our history!

We need to stop imagining all the time and create new revolutionary solutions that will help us become better and more productive human beings. If we continue to be creative all the time, I doubt we would actually move in any direction.

Now taking into consideration of the above, at the end of the day, it’s only my opinion, whether you choose to take it on board and further yourself in a better way is your choice, your decision…because we are all human beings and we are all opinionated and ultimately, we will do what we want…won’t we?

“We are suggesting that morning people may never reach their true maximum performance because their brain activity is going one way, and their spinal cord activity is going the other” David Collins said. “In evening people, both brain and spinal cord are at maximum in the evening and they get maximum performance at night”.

The study continued to reveal morning people’s brains were most active and excited during the early morning, ’9am’ while nightowls weren’t actually fully awake until the late night, 9pm onwards.

One of the researchers, Olle Lagerquist commented on the finding would spur on further research into whether morning people could potentially swap with nightowls and vice-versa. (Sounds very far fetched to me, especially me being a nightowl and all, however I never doubt the minds capability, just the person’s motivation)

“No one has done that and then tested pathways through the brain and spinal cord the way we have, but it would be a very long, time consuming process.” Lagerquist said.

He commented further, saying it would most likely have implications for shift workers, including how difficult it was for nightowls to do early shifts.

What’s your thoughts on the matter? Do you find yourself stuck in the mind of a early riser but truly perform well at night? I know I do, and it happens generally between 9pm and 12am, they are my most productive hours. Even now I’m writing this it’s 9:45pm and I need to get up early tomorrow — ha!

We can’t of course apply this small amount of research across every human being on the planet, however we can apply the understanding that our world is divided between both day and night and it could be a solid base to work up from in understanding the brain even more.

I’m wanting to do a Credit Card Interest Calculation, to see how much interest I will pay on just under $500. Yes, we can do the math now though I’m very intrigued to see what Westpac works it out to be. I probably should’ve gone with the Westpac Ignite Credit Card, it has a lower interest rate and have 55 days interest free — too bad I’m not a Virgin customer!

Hopefully I can visualise my pain and never fall into this trap again and remember, always do your own Credit Card Interest Calculation and match it with the banks, because they can be wrong too, they just won’t tell you.

Friends are being made, lovers falling apart, houses developing and the stock market crashing. But really, no matter what’s happening, you are still you — nothing has actually changed. Every day I get up knowing I will work towards finding out who I am, getting closer to my true destiny and to find the right path, nothing can stop me, not even me…

Photo by Jude Griebel

Growing up I perceived love was simply mind over matter, seeing people who could switch between one person to the next without feeling pain looked like a skill that you could develop. However, the more I learnt and felt, the more I began to realise that is was far from mind over matter, in fact you couldn’t control it what so ever,  it’s the most strongest force in the universe, a force that will lift you so high but could bring you down just as fast.

The more I thought about it, the more I started to become open to it, allowing it to run through my veins like a new drug to my system, anxiously waiting to experience the effects. I felt my first hit during my high school years, to a beautiful girl. Being young and inexperienced to this new feeling which was constantly being injected through my body, I was careless and made decisions which would ultimately help me later on, but in no way would help me at the present. That was a short term price I paid but you can never tell what decision will be more beneficial as you make decisions based on what you know at the time.

I’m still very young and I believe love can always be found and vice versa, it’s something that is always with you all the time, it’s a matter of various variables like timing, personal development and your mindset at that point in time. I’m a person who values self-worth, respect, dedication, trust and loyalty and with our current world, those traits are becoming more scarce and sometimes can be even harder to find when you’re looking. Being single and focusing on personally developing myself in the past 3 years, I haven’t been seeking a partner though recently I’ve met someone with traits that I’m looking for in a person. We both share commonalities like when we want to have children and how we perceive life and when she shows her smile to me, I long to hold her so tightly, wanting to feel the warmth of her body.

I hear many state that love is so hard to find and once you have it, you should hold onto it and not let it go but as everything in life, abundant thinking is key and love is no different. It’s our beliefs and experiences which determine the next step of your life, i.e. a new relationship. Think it can happen, believe it can happen, make it happen…because you control your life and your life is influential to others.

A person by the name of Fr. Jerome Cummings said; “Love is shown in your deeds, not in your words.” Actions will always speak louder than words and to show true love, you must present it from the depth of your heart and soul, not from your mouth.

Love all but most importantly, love yourself.