The weight kept me strong

My brother is a doctor, a resident actually who is training at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago. Well, he lives in a small apartment in downtown Chicago and he does not have a car. For Christmas my parents and I went over to Chicago to spend it with him. My story begins here. One morning, my dad, my brother and I got out to buy some shoes for me. I needed some new shoes, and so since he does not have a car, we have to walk to the shoe store.  Anyway, first we went to one store but I found nothing there I liked so we had to walk to another store. There’s hardly any parking in downtown Chicago. Well, anyway I found the shoes I liked at the Puma store. They were some shiny new sneakers, very good shoes. Anyway, after that we had to walk back to my brother’s place to drop them off at his apartment.  Then my brother, my dad and I decide to go out for lunch. We asked my mom to come, but she said she was tired. So anyway, we walk over to Giordano’s Pizzeria which is famous for Chicago deep dish pizza. We got a seat, ordered our food and we had to wait like forty five  minutes, because if you’ve never had it,  let  me tell you  that Chicago deep dish is some  serious  stuff. You can’t cook that crust in ten minutes. Apparently it takes forty five minutes. Well, that’s what we were told. Anyway, the place was busy and lively and we were having a pretty good time.  Then our pizza came, which is astonishing to look at, by the  way. The slices are so thick, and  it’s  all mozzarella. I bet you could get full on just one slice.  You can’t really pick those slices up.  I had to use a fork and a knife most of the time. I ate one slice, and then I went in for the second one, and let me tell you it was not easy, but I did it.  Slowly but surely, I managed to eat two full slices and I was stuffed to the brim by that time. We got up to  go and we walked outside, and I was feeling  rather tired by that point.  We had spent the whole day out and I wanted to go back home and rest. At that point my brother and dad tell me that now we were going grocery shopping. I was tired and my body was aching.

So we go over to the grocery store and do a full size shopping.  All  the while, I am thinking: how in the world are we going to carry all this stuff back to the apartment. I was feeling tired, and well to be honest with you, my body was aching all over. Well, anyway we did our shopping, paid for our groceries and divided the bags up. My brother and my dad carried two bags each. And I was given one bag to carry. And I thought to myself: how am I going to carry this heavy bag all the way back home. My body’s aching and I have got no energy  left. Well, I didn’t say anything to my brother or my dad because they had their hands full. They were carrying two bags each.

So then we start walking, with me feeling fatigued and completely out of sorts, and still not sure how I would walk all the way back home. But then something really strange happened. Instead of the bag on my hand weighing me down, it kept me strong. This is true. All the way home on that walk I kept repeating to myself: the weight kept me strong. How? You may ask. Well, what happened is that the weight of the bag, took attention away from my body which was aching and concentrated it all on objective, all one goal: carrying that bag. And because it was my responsibility to carry that bag home, I found the strength to meet that responsibility. Not only that, but this strength was powerful enough to overcome the aches and pains I had in my body and it me feel better about myself. Later I had to go home and rest of course.

My challenge to you is for you to find a weight that keeps you strong. Remember it has to have purpose. If it’s dead weight, it’s of no use, no purpose. Let go, and find something that keeps you strong. Good luck and keep going!

(excerpted from my speech Good Luck!)

 

motivational quotes 3/3/17

If you are depressed now, don’t give up. Look at the long view and take comfort in the bright future that lies ahead.

Don’t expect your whole day to be good, but if your whole day is bad, then you have a problem.

You can’t quit! You can’t give up!

 Never underestimate the healing power of humor.

If you could change one thing about yourself, change your attitude!

Happiness is spontaneous and is unexpected;

Happiness cannot be induced.

Happiness cannot be planned for.

Spontaneity is the spirit.

Live spontaneously.

the thinking of observation

Let us imagine this scenario. You are out and about in society, let’s say, at a restaurant or a cafe, in downtown of wherever you live, your city. And your lunch mate, your friend, has gotten up and left the table, and you are left alone…alone with your thoughts…but you are not thinking. There is nothing you are thinking about. You are eating your sandwich, drinking your pop, and looking around the room, the walls, the ceiling, the other people, and out the window. But there are no thoughts in your head. Does this mean you are not thinking? No! You are thinking. You are thinking without language. You are thinking with your face when you observe. You are thinking with your hands, when you move them. You are thinking with your arms, when you move them and with you are thinking with your eyes when you look closely.

Language is not the only means of thinking. Observation-without language-is a form of thinking. To observe is to think. It is to think about what you are looking at. The people and the place, and yourself. Who you are, what you are doing and the way you look. To know the way you look is a form of thinking. Without language. Unintellectual. And so we may be tempted to label it as unintelligent. But it is nevertheless profound…it can be, if you are able to look carefully. To see the full picture of reality. The full restaurant, the full scene out the window, the full aspect of your fellow creatures surrounding you and your full self.

motivational quotes 11/11/16

The happiest moment of the day may not come at the party. It may come on the way there or the way back.

It’s never too late.

Part of me knows I’m growing too old (Kongos)

Elect good leaders

Look beyond yourself

Every idiot is a savant

It doesn’t matter where you live. It matters what you do.

You can’t make people like you, but you can like them -david garcia

Motivational quotes June 1, 2016

Work will keep you out of trouble.

What you do every day is what you are meant to be doing every day. What you dream about doing every day is meant to remain just a dream.

Success is the sum of all of your failures

Happiness is like a bolt of lightning; you never know when or where it is going to strike

Reach out and lift up each other, because by it, you lift up yourself. –John Kasich

Turn a wish into a long term goal and one day, you may achieve it.

Love it or you will lose it

when you use energy you create energy

Have you ever gotten tired of rest? Too much is bad for you and has the opposite effect. Instead of creating energy it drains it. The way to create energy is through activity. Let us examine this fact: The energy needed to run a marathon is produced by running! No body at rest can possibly run a marathon! A body at rest, though in theory full of energy, cannot generate the energy needed to run. Even the best runner, when at rest, does not have enough energy needed to run. Energy is kinetic. At the same time, it is lost in motion. Energy is lost and created at the same time by motion. If you are healthy, you can create more than you lose. If you’re sick, you lose more than you make.

Although this example is athletic, I believe the same idea applies to all activities. My advice: don’t be sedentary, have fun, and make energy.

What is the purpose of vacation?

Who invented vacation? How old is the notion? As old as time itself! I am  sure that people have been going on vacation since the beginning of time. Why? There are some reasons that are more obvious than others. For example to have fun and see new places. But there is another reason to vacation. To break the routine of every day life. Every once in a while we need to do something very different, in order to jostle us out of the hum drum drum of every day life and renew us.

The time has come for me to take a vacation! My last big vacation was in Albania in April 2014. Yes, that vacation totally broke the “hum drum” of every day life. Though it too had its difficulties. This time I am going off to England. For excitement, for adventure, for fun.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could live in vacation? It can’t be done, because it then turns into routine. Then you’d have to vacation somewhere else. I think life needs a balance of work and rest, more work than rest. This is why we work 5 days a week, and rest 2 days a week. We need to work most of the year but vacations are nice and perhaps necessary. In order to come back refreshed.