THE TRADITION OF NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS dates back to 153 BC. C. Janus, a mythical king of ancient Rome, was placed at the head of the calendar.

With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and into the future. Janus became the ancient symbol of resolutions and many Romans sought forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.

The New Year has not always started on January 1 and does not start on that date everywhere today. It begins on that date only for cultures that use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 BC. C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would reflect the seasons more accurately than previous calendars.

The Romans named the first month of the year in honor of Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of gates and entrances. He was always represented with two faces, one on the front of the head and one on the back. Thus, he could look back and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans envisioned Janus looking back to the old year and to the new.

The Romans began the tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year’s Eve by giving each other sacred tree branches for good luck. Later, walnuts or coins imprinted with the god Janus became more common New Year gifts.

In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year’s Day to December 25, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to March 25, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar and the New Year celebration was returned to January 1.

The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. However, some cultures have lunar calendars. A year on a lunar calendar has fewer than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon. The Chinese use a lunar calendar. Your new year begins at the time of the first full moon (over the Far East) after the sun enters Aquarius, sometime between January 19 and February 21.

Although the date of New Year’s Day is not the same in all cultures, it is always a time of celebration and customs to ensure good luck in the coming year.

Old new year

The New Year’s celebration is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 a. C., the Babylonians celebrated the beginning of a new year in what today is March 23, although they themselves did not have a written calendar.

Actually, the end of March is a logical choice for the start of a new year. It is the time of year when spring begins and new crops are planted. January 1, on the other hand, has neither astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary.

The Babylonian New Year celebration lasted eleven days. Each day had its own particular mode of celebration, but it’s safe to say that modern New Year’s Eve festivities pale in comparison.

The Romans continued to observe the New Year on March 25, but their calendar was continually altered by various emperors, so the calendar soon became out of sync with the sun.

To correct the calendar, the Roman Senate, in 153 BC. C., declared January 1 as the beginning of the New Year. But the manipulation continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC. C., established what is known as the Julian Calendar. Again he established January 1 as the New Year. But to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year go on for 445 days.

Global Good Luck Traditions

With the New Year upon us, here’s a look at some of the good luck rituals from around the world. It is believed that they will bring good fortune and prosperity in the coming year.

AUSTRIA – The suckling pig is the symbol of good luck for the new year. It is served on a table decorated with small edible pigs. Dessert often consists of spearmint ice cream in the shape of a four-leaf clover.

ENGLAND – The British put their fortune for next year in the hands of their first guest. They believe that the first visitor of each year should be a man and bring gifts. Traditional gifts are charcoal for the fire, a bread for the table, and a drink for the teacher. For good luck, the guest must enter through the front door and exit through the back. Empty-handed or unwanted guests cannot enter first.

WALES – At the first toll of midnight, the back door opens and then closes to free the old year and block out all his bad luck. Then, at twelve chimes on the clock, the front door opens and the New Year is greeted with all its luck.

HAITI – In Haiti, New Year’s Day is a sign of the year ahead. Haitians wear new clothes and exchange gifts in the hope that it bodes well for the new year.

SICILY – An ancient Sicilian tradition says that good luck will come to those who eat lasagna on New Year’s Day, but alas if you eat macaroni, because any other noodle will bring bad luck!

SPAIN – In Spain, when the clock strikes midnight, Spaniards eat 12 grapes, one with each toll, to bring good luck for the next 12 months.

PERU – The Peruvian New Year custom is a twist on the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes at the end of the year. But in Peru, a number 13 grape must be eaten to ensure good luck.

GREECE – A special New Year’s bread is baked with a coin buried in the dough. The first portion is for the child Jesus, the second portion is for the father of the house, and the third portion is for the house. If the third slice contains the coin, spring will arrive early that year.

JAPAN – The Japanese decorate their houses in homage to the lucky gods. One tradition, kadomatsu, consists of a pine branch symbolizing longevity, a bamboo stem symbolizing prosperity, and a plum blossom displaying nobility.

CHINA – For the Chinese New Year, each front door is adorned with a fresh coat of red paint, red is a symbol of good luck and happiness. Although the whole family prepares a feast for the New Year, all knives are put away for 24 hours to prevent anyone from being cut, which is believed to cut off the family’s good fortune for the coming year.

UNITED STATES – The kiss shared at the stroke of midnight in the United States stems from masked balls that have been common throughout history. As tradition says, the masks symbolize the evil spirits of the old year and the kiss is the purification of the new year.

NORWAY – The Norwegians make rice pudding on New Years and hide a whole almond inside. The guaranteed wealth goes to the person whose ration has the lucky kernel.

Chinese New Year

Except for a very small number of people who can keep track of when the Chinese New Year should be, most Chinese today have to rely on a typical Chinese calendar to count it. Therefore, you cannot talk about the Chinese New Year without mentioning the Chinese calendar at the beginning.

A Chinese calendar consists of the Gregorian and lunar-solar systems, the latter dividing a year into twelve months, each of which, in turn, is equally divided into thirty-nine and a half days. The well-coordinated dual system calendar reflects Chinese ingenuity.

There is also a system that marks the years in a twelve-year cycle, naming each of them with the name of an animal such as Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Wild pig. People born in a particular year are believed to share some of the personalities of that particular animal.

I recently asked Dr. Grant Donovan, one of the early promoters of corporate wellness and health promotion, questions about the early years. Here are more than a dozen questions I asked Dr. Donovan:

1) How is Australia different from the US in trying to establish a welfare movement?

2) If you had stayed in the wellness business, how could you have expanded on the wonderful advanced concepts in the early years (mid 80’s and 90’s) when you led Australian lectures, training sessions, wrote books, gave media interviews and participated in all kinds of promotional efforts?

3) Based on your memories of those not entirely prosperous, golden, or happy years, how would you describe the key terms of the movement or, if you prefer, the very nature of a wellness lifestyle, REAL or as it is? or should it be today?

4) How much energy did you invest in creating a wellness movement in Australia?

5) If you had stayed in the wellness business, how could you have expanded on the wonderful advanced concepts in the early years (mid 80’s and 90’s) when you led Australian lectures, training sessions, wrote books, gave media interviews and participated in all kinds of promotions in the workplace?

6) Based on your memories of those not very prosperous, golden or happy years, how would you describe the key terms of the movement or, if you prefer, the very nature of a wellness lifestyle, REAL or not?

7) Was there any way that the effort would have been successful (by which I mean it “paid off” and was therefore worth continuing)?

8) It seems that corporate and other forms of institutional wellness education have been led by doctors, nurses, health administrators, HRA guys, and maybe some psychologists. Is there a profession that is not represented that should have been?

9) Is it possible that a REAL wellness approach, if produced, will be more successful than the safe and medical approach that continues to this day?

10) What are the best and worst case scenarios for the wellness concept and movement, whatever the name, ten years or so?

11) Do you think that most people have the ability to shape and maintain healthy lifestyles?

12) You attended several National Wellness Conferences in the 1980s and 1990s. What is your opinion of this annual event?

13) Today and since the early 1980s, workplace wellness has focused on disease prevention, risk reduction, promotion of exercise, stress management, nutrition basics, etc. Is that what you were promoting under the banner of wellness?

14) What are the prospects for well-being in the workplace?

15) When asked: “Grant, please tell me: What is it about?”, What do you answer?

16) What advice do you have for those of us who are short on time, who I suppose we are all?

I invited Grant to choose as many or as few of these questions to address as he wanted. Grant pondered, pondered, and pondered. Weeks went by. Reflection reports came in on what was happening, week after week. Finally, about a month after submitting the questions, Grant submitted this comment. In my opinion, your answer addresses every question and a few that didn’t occur to me, and maybe one or two that I was afraid to ask. Enjoy.

Grant Donovan Response

I’ve been going through both sets of questions and decided to ignore them all and give you a short answer. Okay, not so much an answer as a wandering series of self-assembled thoughts.

The 1980s version of wellness in the Australian workplace was transformed into high performance through self-management. Much stickier for bosses. Something they understood and wanted to pay for. Well-being was too esoteric. They wanted big performance improvements, more dollars, and less New Age philosophy. They would pay small fortunes for critical thinking, self-management, teamwork, leadership empowerment, and a variety of other wellness skills, but little to nothing for programs called wellness.

So we kept going, we made a smaller fortune off royal welfare, and we never used the term even once. Everything was in the language. The memes.

Which makes me think that wellness lacks a precise meme. When Halbert Dunn and his good self, respectively, coined and popularized the word, it very quickly mutated to become a generic term attached to everything from holding hands and swinging to avoiding illness to alternative medicine, spiritual enlightenment, and any definition that anyone would like to apply. The genie came out of the bottle very early and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be back anytime soon.

Your personal efforts to reestablish the meme with REAL Wellness are heroic and may be successful, but I have my doubts. Not because your efforts aren’t Herculean, but because REAL Wellness may only be for a special few. For people like you and some friends who have time, money and the desire to venture. My global observation suggests that the rest still need God. Someone to lean on as they enslave themselves to stay alive. Working hard to exist, with no time to contemplate the most important issues. And this is probably a good thing because if everyone stopped to acknowledge the complete nonsense of their lives, no one would show up.

By nonsense, I don’t mean that life is not valuable or worth living because it clearly is for many people. Personally, I find it fun, challenging, and quirky. By nonsense, I mean it is random and nonsensical. Totally irrelevant. From a wellness perspective, meaninglessness is extremely liberating. It allows a freedom of thought and action that cannot be achieved by conforming rigidity of a predetermined purpose. It allows a process of rational and critical thinking that silences emotional narration and elevates scientific logic to a special place, from where we can see the behavioral expression of nonsense very clearly.

Okay, so nonsense is the answer.

Now you know what Grant Donovan thinks about the issues I raised. I asked Grant for some lines to accompany his interview. He replied: “I am following the opposite path of Charlie Sheen, with limited or no exposure to the outside world. Your readers will already know that I am just a good Australian friend, who doesn’t really have much to say.”

Well, I can respect that, but anyway, here’s a short, unauthorized biographical background update on Grant Donovan, Ph.D. A graduate of the University of Western Australia, he is the Managing Partner of Perception Mapping in Perth. , Australia and some other market research companies, including SevenSeventeen and Workplace Global Network. He and I co-authored “Live More of Your Life the Wellness Way” and “Die Healthy” decades ago. We co-featured many times in cities across Australia, the US, Canada, and even Malaysia, but our most memorable performance was a workshop at the National Wellness Conference in Stevens Point, WI. in 1994 he devoted himself to “The Orgasm of Well-being”. It was all a success.

Everyone knows … well, almost everyone who knows that I started judo at age seven and quit when I was 13. My parents decided to move from Miami, North Florida to Pennsylvania and I had to say ” bye”. “What I was hoping for would be a great career in judo.

Well, what does all that mean?

Well first it means there MUST be another way to get good at judo without actually DOING judo.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but an athlete that I personally coach also took a long hiatus from Judo and we work together to build him up to the number one player in the United States in his division.

How?

Well here’s a dirty little secret and I know you won’t believe me, but this is what I found out.

The sport of Judo is as much a “mental game” as it is a physical one. If you want to improve your judo you need to sharpen your mind !!

A professor at the well-known Duke University in the United States discovered that finding simple but effective ways to use your brain can help you process information, faster and better.

Now, what I’m going to tell you right now is crazy. BUT I am 100% honest with you and if you are an athlete, a coach or just want to get better at Judo, here are some things you should do today!

POINT 1

1. Read. That is correct – READ !!

The benefits of reading are enormous. Don’t just read anything. Read, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, read books by Aristotle, Plato, “The Prince” by Machiavelli. Read books on combat, business acquisition strategies, and things of that particular nature.

====================================

JUDO IS A THINKING SPORT.

====================================

It requires strategy and tactics and knowing when to attack and at the right time.

Think about this. How many times has someone accused you of kicking them while practicing judo? Many, true. You want to know why? Because a timely kick is a foot sweep and a poorly timed foot sweep, it’s a kick! Read and sharpen your mind – you will be amazed at how your concentration will increase.

POINT 2

2. Play chess! If you don’t play chess, start playing. Get a book and learn. How often have you heard of a tennis, soccer, wrestling, or mixed martial arts match that looks like a “game of chess”? Heck, you’ve heard the reference many times, haven’t you? So if judo games are like chess games (and they are), why don’t you play chess?!?!?!

Let me share this inside story with you …

During the years 2003 to 2004, I don’t think you could have walked into the cafeteria of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado without seeing at least 3 or 4 chess matches at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Before and after practicing everyone was playing.

Why?

Because Ches game, like Judo, requires YOU to see things 3, 4, 5, 6 and sometimes 7 moves forward. You have to anticipate what is going to happen, you have to do and take CALCULATED risks, you have to do all these things while playing the game. Chess is the best (and might add the safest) way to get some ‘extra’ practice that will dramatically improve your judo. Just think of some of the best judo players and fighters you know. I give you a list:

Lloyd Irvin:

Lloyd was my Brazilian Jiujitsu coach, training partner and my judo student and then he became my judo coach. He has won several National Judo Championships and is a world Jiujitsu champion. And he was selected by the United States Judo Federation as the International Coach of the Year in 2002. When it comes to match strategy, he’s like a genius. He trains Ultimate Fighting Champion Brandon Vera and is known around the world as “The Grappling Trainer”. He gets up every morning and reads or writes to keep his mind sharp and aware of the many businesses he runs.

Jimmy Pedro:

Jimmy Pedro is a four-time Olympian, a 1999 judo world champion, and a two-time Olympic bronze medalist. He also graduated from the Ivy League, Brown University, is the author of a book, and runs and operates his own business.

Robert Berland:

Robert (Bobby) Berland is a 1984 Olympic silver medalist, graduated from San Jose State University and currently owns and operates a successful printing business in Chicago. He was also a coach on the 2004 Olympic team and I had the opportunity to speak to him on several occasions and he is “sharp” as a tactic. And while he is not a judo player, this man is a fighter and a prime example of why you should keep your mind sharp and also why you should take the time to add “listening to classical music” to your list.

****** Main point *******

(and honestly, just my opinion)

Instead of pumping rap, R&B, heavy metal, and rock-n-roll music through your eardrums, try some classical music.

Why?

Well, other styles of music tend to get you operating off an emotional high. Before competing, I never listened to music, I needed to think! I can’t think with the garbage in my head. It’s the equivalent of trying to focus on something and people are talking in the background. You can “focus”, but you have to use some of your mental energy to “block out” background noise.

I’m digressing …

Last but not least, be sure to check out …

Alexander Karelin

And if you don’t know who it is, you’d better find out IMMEDIATELY. From 1987 to 2000, he was UNDEFEED. He has 9 world championships and 3 Olympic gold medals. He is also a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. in Education). He listens to classical music regularly and is also an avid chess player. And at JUDO, our job is not just to advance in judo, but in life.

The lessons we learn in Judo and from Judo should allow us to build quality character, good self-esteem, quality morals, strong ethics, and good citizenship.

I discovered that the most important thing you must have to become a great judo player is the ability to get fit and the willingness to learn.

An open mind and a fit body – those are the things you need – FIRST !!

What are folk style wrestling movements?

There are three types of wrestling. The first type of fighting is the popular style. This is also known as collegiate style wrestling. This is what you see in high schools, high schools, and universities in the United States.

The other two types of wrestling are wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling. These types of wrestling are the Olympic or international wrestling styles. The United States is the only country that practices folk wrestling.

What are folk style wrestling movements?

Folk-style wrestling movements are any wrestling movement that is legal or not illegal, rather within the rules of folk-style wrestling or collegiate wrestling. Many freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling movements are legal and carry over into popular style wrestling.

On my blog I recently posted some videos demonstrating different folk wrestling movements and exercises. If you are interested in learning more fighting skills, I suggest you go to my blog and watch the videos. However, since this is an article and therefore does not use video, I will try to describe or explain what these movements are, how they are done, and when I would use them.

The Granby Roll.

The Granby roll is a classic example of a folk-style wrestling move. This skill is ONLY used in folk style wrestling and not in wrestling or Greco-Roman. This is a move that the wrestler will do from the bottom position.

You perform the Granby Roll creating enough space between you and the top fighter to move your hips outward so that you are now in a T with respect to your opponent. You are rather perpendicular to it. So you want to grab his wrist and roll towards his head. As you put your elbow between your legs and grab the leg closest to you. When you do this you should, if done correctly, have your opponent face up. You should hold him there by placing his arm and leg around your body. The video explains this skill much better than I can in words, but I hope this helps.

Dive and Roll Defense with one leg.

This move is not a high-percentage move, but every once in a while when a kid is really athletic or much better than his opponent, this move works. This is a last resort way to get out when your opponent has shot and raised your leg in the air. Now you are hopping on one foot hoping they won’t knock you down. Then, desperate, you walk away from the other fighter, dive in and roll. As he rolls, his leg is released. Then you turn around and face your opponent. Again, this is difficult to explain if you have never seen the movement. There is a video of the move on my blog.

Head lock.

The head lock is one of the most effective and ineffective movements out there. It’s a great way to score 5 points when you’re losing or to get a much-needed pin. It is important to do it correctly and to know when to hit it, otherwise a fighter can get into trouble. Begin by doing what is called a step back. It is a step that you take to pop your hips under your opponent so that you can then go through him on the lower part of your back and on his back. A great exercise to practice this move is to have a wrestler swing their hips and throw to support the other person. Then the other person opens their hips and throws. You repeat this over and over again.

Other popular style wrestling moves include:

the single leg, double leg, high c, fireman carry, arm bar, cheap tilt, stand up, slip knee, tight waist, cross face, 2 in 1, under the hook.

I hope this is useful.

In a surprise move Thursday, the federal government notified an appeals court that it reserves the right to secretly place GPS tracking devices in private vehicles without first obtaining a court order. Many wonder what the Justice Department is thinking since the long-awaited Supreme Court ruling in January on this issue. In January, the Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously in the case United States v. Jones that the law enforcement practice of attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle without first obtaining a warrant was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourth Amendment. In the Fourth Amendment it protects the “right of people to be safe in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

According to a Justice Department spokesman, “a warrant is not needed for a GPS search, as the Supreme Court did not resolve that issue.” However, the Department expressed restraint in using these practices. The government presented this argument to the Ninth Circuit of Appeals, claiming that the Supreme Court intentionally left its vague language as a loophole.

The media has been covering the warrantless GPS tracking argument, as well as other privacy-related issues for quite some time. If the reader of this article believes that the government’s argument is based solely on the physical GPS tracking devices used by law enforcement agencies, they would be wrong as the significance runs much deeper.

Monitoring of the average citizen

Whether you know it or not, the ability to track your whereabouts is already in place. Even without GPS tracking technology, your cell phone can be tracked by cell triangulation where cell phone towers can roughly pinpoint your location. However, most modern electronic devices, especially smartphones, are equipped with a GPS receiver due to inexpensive modules and popular applications that help Americans locate services, navigate, etc. Cellular triangulation is inaccurate and unreliable, while GPS pinpoints your location within a few feet.

Manufacturers of GPS tracking devices design wired and portable devices as a tool that enhances business productivity, provides peace of mind for parents of teenage drivers and the location of elderly parents, as well as tools for police investigation. The question of the US government’s position should not be whether or not they are protecting the use of devices by law enforcement agencies for investigative purposes. The real question is whether they are setting the stage to separate the existing Supreme Court ruling as specific to police investigations. Therefore, monitoring mobile devices is not part of the existing law. The government will always have the ability to state that it is monitoring the device, not the individual. This is a slippery slope that most likely leads to the Supreme Court in the future.

A massage, an hour with a good book, leaving the office when you promised yourself you would.

Time with your partner, your family, your friends.

Time with your thoughts (if that’s not too scary!)

How often do you take the time to do any of these things? I guess not as much as you would like, and probably not enough.

If you are like many people, this may mean that you end up spending your days running around like a headless chicken, always busy, busy, but not heading in any particular direction.

At the end of the day you fall into bed exhausted and wonder why you can’t sleep, or why you never have the energy to introduce something new into your life.

Sooner or later, something breaks. Either you get sick for a period of weeks or you become completely unmotivated to do something you don’t get paid for. Or both.

“I need to rest,” you say, skipping training sessions, social events, trying new hobbies. Skip life.

Maybe you take some time off.

Invariably, this is not good. With each passing day, you become more self-indulgent and less prone to accomplishing even the smallest task. After about a week at home, it becomes unthinkable to even get dressed in the morning, let alone make the bed / buy groceries / get the mail.

The rot settles.

I once took a few days off from work. An opportunity to recover from the early hours of the morning and work on all my ideas.

By midmorning of the first day, I had become the most unproductive person on the face of the earth. I thought I had the whole day ahead of me, so why do anything now? This attitude helped me a lot until I had to go back to work.

‘I need a break,’ I told myself. ‘I’ll feel better after a few days of doing nothing.’

I was wrong.

If you’ve ever followed this path – a few days off ‘off’, or even the habit of continual ‘resting’ on the weekend or after work, then you’ll agree that you don’t just get lazier with each passing day . , but you also feel very bad about yourself.

Your confidence drops when you tell yourself that you are unable to do anything (mainly because you don’t even try), and you stop believing in your ability to accomplish even the smallest task (because you keep breaking commitments to yourself).

How do you spend your free time right now? Do you have a habit of doing nothing but eating at night? And often you don’t even bother to make a “real” dinner? Of spending each weekend ‘chilling out’ avoiding activity or even social interaction? To feel sorry for yourself for how hard you work? Of considering learning new skills, trying new hobbies, making new friends, but invariably pushing the idea away because you don’t want to get tired?

Maybe you have a great business idea on the shelf, one that you never have time to do because you need your downtime. Maybe you’ve let a close friendship fade because “break time” is more important.

Let me ask you something.

How is your energy? Your motivation. Your confidence in yourself?

And when you have something you absolutely must do, how efficient are you at getting the job done?

Rest is overrated.

Not relaxation. Relaxation is a positive hobby that helps you rejuvenate your body and mind. A massage, time with a friend, a hobby. Even lying on the couch watching mindless television.

The difference is that relaxation is something you actively choose to do to refresh yourself.

What it is not, is to let the hours or days go by while you break all the promises you have made to yourself or postpone each commitment you have made with others.

Not only does this not cool you down, it makes you even more tired. You lose passion, motivation, and interest in life. You become exhausted and listless. Slower.

Bored. For you and for others.

Rest is overrated.

Let’s consider a new plan: finding energy through productivity.

For me, this started with writing. I’ve always loved writing, I’ve always been good at it, and I always felt that eventually it might be something that contributes to a living.

As soon as I made a commitment to myself to start writing all of them, I noticed something amazing. Starting each day with 5 or 10 minutes of “daily” gave me ENERGY.

Suddenly, I was more productive, more enthusiastic for the rest of the day. When I added an article or copywriting in addition to my journal, I felt unstoppable.

Little by little, I created a new pattern. The rest time is equal to the writing time. Even for just a few minutes. I realized that this was a source of energy for me. I found that the more I followed my urge to write, the more energy and motivation carried over to the rest of my life.

In fact, I started to cross things off my list. Organizing my house, my business. My life. I even found time for some new hobbies. He joined a group of public speakers and began playing the piano again. I spend at least one night a week with my parents.

And the amazing thing: I still have time to do nothing. I have become one of those people who get things done. I am busier than ever. However, productively busy, not drowning headless busy.

And how I feel alive, energetic, enthusiastic. Driven.

The rot is gone and will not return.

This week, I challenge you to break the rest pattern. What is something you’ve always wanted to do? Learning a new skill, trying a hobby, catching up with an old friend? Maybe even clean your house in the spring. The next time you have some free time, I want you to commit to doing something before you rest.

Why not make it a habit? Time for you no longer means time to rest. Instead, find your energy and renew your passion for life, before you completely forget how living should feel.

Life is now. Press play.

Copyright Katrina Eden, August 2007.

Achieving fluency and clarity in English takes a lot of time and hard work. Students often need at least a year and sometimes years to achieve proficiency in speaking and listening in English. The problem is that most of them quit out of anger and frustration after realizing that further advancement with the language is out of their reach. While it certainly becomes more difficult to move up the ladder to a more advanced or even near-native level, it is still very doable, but it requires a new approach to language learning and of course a lot of patience, passion and motivation. 3 major factors that most students are sadly running out of.

This article will give you 6 important tips that, if you use them, your English will never stop improving. Let’s start!

Tip No. # 1: Find time to practice a song repeatedly. Pick a song that you like, I mean, that you REALLY like and listen to it over and over again. Don’t passively listen to it though, get the lyrics and pay attention to long, short sounds, and of course word links. Practice each line of each verse separately until you can keep up with the rhythm and speed of the singer. You repeat the process until you can emulate the singer’s performance. Make no concessions! He does not move on to the next song before mastering the first.

Tip No. # 2 – Find the time to watch your favorite show and just watch your favorite actor. For example, if you are a fan of the TV show “Friends”, you can choose “Joey Tribbiani” and constantly watch him. You may be a fan of “Seinfeld” and you can choose “Kramer” and so on.

Joey tribbiani kramer

Listen to the actor’s music, style, and speech and keep listening until you feel like you can imitate him. You can start using very short sentences in the same way as the speaker, and then as you get more confident you can use longer sentences.

Tip No. # 3: Find time to review old materials. You won’t be able to memorize all the vocabulary (especially English idioms and slang) that you learn in the classroom or at home. Your brain will not be able to process this large amount of information without reviewing it on a daily basis. You need at least half an hour every day to review the materials you learned in previous lessons. Don’t think that you will get more fluent just by repeating a bunch of new words every day, it would be much more productive for you to go over the words you learned yesterday, last week, or last month. Frequency is much more important than quantity when learning English.

Tip No. # 4 – If you are studying English abroad, find time to choose a small number of interesting English expressions and plan how to use them throughout the day. Let me give you some shocking news! If you want to improve your fluency in English quickly, you need to LIE! LIE LIE LIE! Don’t lie to hurt people, just lie to use some interesting expressions that you want to remember. You can pretend you’re lost in town and asking for directions and you can keep doing that until you find someone willing to talk some more and then LIE again if necessary to lengthen the conversation. Keep talking until someone tells you to fuck off!

Tip No. # 5: Observe the mouths of native English speakers in life or on television.

Don’t do that all the time, as some people might think you’re a weirdo, but every now and then, if you’re talking to a native speaker or watching your favorite show on television, take the time to focus on the mouth of the speaker and the way they move their muscles like jaw, lips, tongue, etc. And while you’re at it, grab a mirror and look at your mouth. Ask yourself “am I moving my mouth the same way or do I look different?” If so, what is different? And because? You have to analyze and find out how your native language is affecting your English speaking and once you do, address it.

Tip No. 6: Once again, if you are studying English abroad, do not speak your native language. You will not believe how harmful it is for you to speak YOUR mother tongue while learning English. Your brain will never be able to digest or absorb English sounds, intonation and music if you speak English in addition to your native language. I know that it is very difficult to be in the presence of someone from the same country and not speak your mother tongue. I know it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable, but you also need to be strong and resolute avoiding the company of those who are unwilling to speak English, and sometimes you might politely ask this person or group to speak English for practice.

Look, there are no shortcuts to great achievements and I realize that it is not easy to use any of the tips above, but you have to keep an eye out for the prize, right? And what is the prize? Unlimited career opportunities and the ability to sell yourself and whatever else you need to sell to the world. In today’s world, we cannot afford to operate at the national level, we have to go global and that means one thing … mastering the English language.

Have you ever met a Paleo fan? I have. They really are like any fanatic, annoying. The annoying thing about any fan is that no matter how disgusting he is today, next month he will be a fanatic and obnoxious for something different.

If you’ve read our other articles, you’ve probably noticed that I’m primarily talking about a modified Paleo diet. When I say modified, I mean it because I personally don’t follow all the rules set forth by the very scientific Paleo community. If you want, that’s fine with me. Most of us choose Paleo to have a leaner body and feel healthier. It’s been proven that you can do this, even following the Paleo diet about 80% of the time. And let’s face it, if we make unreasonable demands on ourselves, we will never stick to any diet. A good diet has to work to accommodate a fairly normal lifestyle. Don’t they drive a car? I’m happy to report that you can lose weight and feel healthier on the Paleo diet, and you don’t have to be a Paleo fan.

I think the information about the Paleo era is interesting. I think there is a lot of truth about it. However, let’s face it, that was a long time ago and there is a lot of speculation. So the caveman thing is not really important to me. However, the results are very important. I mentioned earlier that there are basically two ways to go on the Paleo diet. You can follow it 100% or you can follow it most of the time. And both work. If you suffer from an autoimmune disorder, make no mistake, you want to follow it 100%. However, if you are just trying to lose body fat and feel better, most of the time Paleo will work just fine for you.

So it’s not really the caveman hype that appeals to me. What appeals to me is that Paleo makes sense and helps many people lose weight and feel healthier. How does Paleo do this? I am quite an allergic person, and I will try to explain this in simple terms. I am neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I have learned a lot about allergy over the years.

It is a fact. Many people’s bodies don’t like grains, dairy, and other proteins. Allergies are the body’s reaction to these things that it doesn’t like. All of these things are strong proteins. The symptoms are the result of the body trying to defend itself from proteins it does not trust. In other words, when you’re exposed to something your body doesn’t like, it’s actually saying that there is this protein that I’m not sure of. It must be a parasite or germ that is trying to harm me, so I will try to kill it. Now that’s probably a pretty fun way to put it, but that’s the allergic answer in a nutshell (no pun intended). So the body tries to kill this thing that it thinks could be a parasite, germ, or other invading entity. Releases tons of chemicals to get rid of it. These include histamine, cortisol, and others. Your defense system means business. So what happens is a state of inflammation in the beginning. Something will ignite. If it’s pollen and your nose, your nasal passages will be inflamed and swollen. At worst, your body is attacking itself. You are hurting yourself in your defense, and this is the basic nature of autoimmune disorders.

Hay fever is a bothersome autoimmune disease, but it’s pretty harmless. If this condition takes another form, you may have diabetes or other serious and life-threatening health conditions. The truth is that most people with food allergies are allergic to the same types of protein. And guess what they are? Mainly cereals and dairy, soybeans and legumes. Yes, that is a common problem for many people with allergies. But even if you don’t have allergies that you know of, these proteins can still trigger responses from your body. Many people continue to eat things that slowly kill them or, at best, make life miserable and expensive. You may have been eating foods since you were a child that are causing inflammation in your body. I know, I speak from experience. But the good news is that once you remove these sources of irritation, the inflammation subsides and you feel better.

But that is not all. The carbohydrates and sugars in grains have been shown many times to make us fat too. So are food preservatives. Preservatives have been linked to major diseases like heart conditions and even cognitive problems like dementia.

So this is the part of Paleo that I love.

You will continue to see news about wheat and other grains and how they are linked to diabetes and other diseases. It is a fact that Paleo is the right diet for most of us and it will bring great results. So caveman or non-caveman, this is a diet that makes sense and produces results. It doesn’t matter if you call it the Paleo or the Caveman diet, what matters is that this is the diet we must follow in order to look good and feel healthy. Paleo by any other name.

May there be peace on earth, and may it begin with me,

May there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.

With God as our Father, we are all brothers,

Let me walk with my brother, in perfect harmony.

May peace begin with me, may this be the moment now

With every step I take, may this be my solemn vow,

Take advantage of every moment and live every moment in peace eternally.

May there be peace on earth, and may it begin with me!

Sooner or later, the human beings on this beautiful blue and green planet will have to decide that peace is a function of one human mind at a time. Whether God is your Father, Allah, Jesus, or Buddha, human minds, one after another and in agreement, must change for the better and cooperate with a deeper knowledge that if religion does not reveal it to you, quantum physics can do it. We are one in the same and we all belong to that same thing. Every atom in your body has spent time in every other life and people on the planet and today you will inhale some of the same time that was done by the world’s leaders and the poorest of the poor a few weeks or years ago.

Each atom that makes up our body was born from the burning of stars and the body that you physically have today is not made of the matter that made it up just seven years ago. Your skin is new every thirty days. Your blood is new every three months. Their organs are new every year and all we do is keep the shape of ourselves so that the new can replace the old. It would be nice if a bad liver disappeared in a year, but the evil form remains and is replaced by evil. If it is good, it is replaced with goodness and health. In a clear and literal way, we are all one and the same on this planet, divided by borders, language and religion, but not in that we are all one and we are the same.

Peace begins in every heart and mind and is not something you demand of others before demanding it of yourself. Everybody … look at me! Are you looking at me? Put down your damn weapons. Look your “enemies” in the face. Look at your children. Look at the wives, partners and relatives. Hear their hopes and dreams and see how they cry like you do when shit hits your fan, maybe delivered by you.

If I were to guess who we really are as humans, I would say that pure consciousness is trapped in a five-sensor carbon wetsuit that gives the real “me” a way to move, live a life, and “see” what it is. reality. . Of course there are so many ways of seeing and so many frequencies that we do not see, hear or experience, so we have to understand that everything we see is not to see. Sometimes I remind myself, when my ego gets in the way, that I am pure conscious awareness having this experience and looking through these eyes to process what is out there, which is not really there when you understand it. All that seems out there is a movie of frequency interpretation after it passes through some or all of our five senses. It is in our head and it seems to be out there. Or as one person said and it can give you a lot to think about, “whatever a tree is, it’s not green.” Green is the color that a frequency of reflected light gives our brain to work with after it is converted into an electrical signal and transmitted through the retina to the brain. Frequencies are like taking movies to the cinema to play and giving consciousness a taste of what is out there. Even though it is playing “here”. Great, huh?

Remember the question about if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I thought it was a joke when I was a kid, but the answer is no, it doesn’t make a sound. It makes waves of frequency as it falls. Sound ONLY occurs AFTER the waves pass through the eardrums of sentient beings and change from waves to electrical signals to what we hear as sound. Everything happens in the head. The world before it reaches our ears is silent. The world before it reaches our eyes is undefined and without color or form. And because what we call touch is actually the resistance that the atoms in our fingers feel to the things they touch, we never touch anything. The sensation of touch is the repulsion of touch by forces. You and I have never “touched” anything in our lives. We have felt their rejection so that they cannot be touched. How to join the two positive ends of a magnet. We feel the force and the “touch”, but they do not touch unless forced and even then they do not touch literally. Perhaps if we really touched, at the atomic level, we would explode in what we touch.

The fact is that, in a real way, we are all ONE and belong to the same ONE thing. This has nothing to do with religion, where you grew up on the planet or the hatred that you and me were taught by others who are not like us. Once humans realize that we are all one and the same with very little difference in melanin levels and a few changes in DNA changes to differences in external form, maybe we can make some progress.

Realizing that we are all one and the same part of one thing could end the tension that we are all experiencing on the planet. Leaders would stop bragging, threatening, and scaring us all if they learned this first. Perhaps it is good to discuss the drip unit first before one side demands this or that from the other, or the other side threatens them with annihilation. If all humans share 99.6% of a chimpanzee’s DNA, then perhaps Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles, Shiites and Sunnis could be a little closer than we think. Perhaps we could not be suspicious in some cases. I suspect the Middle East quagmire is simply a family fed between close cousins ​​anyway. We are all ONE … ONE! Put down the fucking guns, knives, RPGs, bombs and religious memes in conflict and look into your face. We are all ONE and part of ONE. Fool!

We will learn this lesson one way or another. We can “figure it out” through smart leadership, which would mean that most of the planet’s leaders would have to resign and be replaced by teachers, not by those who think they already know everything and can twist everything for personal gain. It means no more “my god can kick your god’s ass”. The entire Old Testament is the story of the jealous God who kicks everyone’s butt into obedience and the New Testament for Christians is the story of the kindest and gentlest Son of the Kick God, who urges humans to put the other cheek. At some point along the line, one of the gods realized that we are all ONE and part of the same ONE thing. The gods evolve in human understanding.

We need peace. Peace between people and peace between nations so that all may prosper. We need compassion and those who do not have the capacity to be that way with others simply need to consider their time of influence. Go find a job and earn millions honestly and then use part of it to really help the other parts of the ONE that are connected to you, whether you know it or not.

You fat religious leaders must come out of your bunkers and put your “knowledge” into play. Don’t walk among your friends offering blessings and preaching to choirs. Walk among your enemies and learn from them. Don’t tell them what you think. Ask them what they think and then share what you think and then remind each other of “we are all one.” Don’t carry a weapon and don’t use bodyguards. Have a little faith in your positive awareness message. If you die, we’ll get someone else who doesn’t piss off the masses so much and can communicate better. Or if you are really worried about it, you can send someone who has not been such a fool in the past and enjoy the ability to teach reconciliation where evidently you could only move the pot for Jesus, YHVH or Allah.

We are all ONE people. Even the atoms of our body that we have shared with stars, dinosaurs, Neanderthals and the Princess of Wales. I’m happy to say that the atoms of the leaders of the Axis of Evil and the Decider have also mixed and shared one, so their “us versus them” mentality is false. They are us and you are them.

Smultsy, I know, but IF there is ever going to be peace on earth, it really has to start with me and you and us and them. Not really that different. It’s all the same part of the same thing in the universe that is giving our limited five-sense consciousness, based on the encapsulated wetsuit, the opportunity to learn about everything and continue to grow towards something that is for everyone and not for. a chosen few. Add a few hundred more ways to see than we have now and remove all the filters we have installed so we don’t see what we don’t want to see and it could be quite an experience.

It’s 3 in the morning. Silence echoes within the empty house. You know you won’t meet tomorrow’s deadline for that project at work, but you don’t care. This all seems so trivial. It’s been like this for a year. A veil has been covering your perception, your goals, and your aspirations. Only this phrase keeps repeating itself within your mind: “Why can’t I forget my ex-wife?” You keep wondering if you could have done something to save this marriage. You cannot understand why you are sinking deeper and deeper into this vicious cycle within your mind, instead of overcoming it. They say that time heals, but it doesn’t seem like it’s happening to you. Time cannot heal, unless you want to.

For men, healing from divorce is as difficult as it is for women, perhaps even more so. The reason for this is that women express their emotions, but for men it is not that easy. They repress their feelings. They fight to fulfill the role that society imposes on them and this is always counterproductive. The pain inside them accumulates and multiplies to the point that it becomes unbearable.

1. Express yourself

This is the most important thing to do during and long after your divorce. The phrase “men do not cry” cannot be far from the truth. Men cry, but they do it alone. Don’t struggle to hold back your tears in the company of a dear friend.

2. Communicate

Talk about it for hours with your friends and family, if you need to.

3. Avoid mutual contacts by all means

Whatever he says will probably be transferred in a distorted version to his ex-wife and vice versa. This creates an endless gossip circle, completely destroying a man’s chances of recovery after divorce.

If contact with mutual friends and relatives is unavoidable, demand that they not talk to you about this matter.

4. Get it out of your system

There will come a day when you are finally sick and tired of crying. Gather all pictures, letters, and any other reminders and keep them in a safe place out of sight. Stop going to places you went together. If you are the one who got the house, move to a new house or even an area.

5. Avoid bounce relationships

Most of the time, these relationships don’t work. They slow down a man’s healing process after divorce and end up hurting more people.

6. Take a solo trip

Take a trip on your own to a remote and peaceful location with warm weather and calm waters for swimming. It will help you to relax, to realize the beauty that still exists around you and it will give you the opportunity for introspection. All the pain you’ve been through will be in vain if you don’t learn from it.