Affirmations Help You Live Consciously

The most important affirmation you can incorporate into your life is, "I am fully committed to feeling great 100% of the time," followed closely by any affirmation you can come up with having to do with self-confidence. Feeling great 100% of the time is self-confidence, in my opinion, and since self-doubt doesn't feel great at all, it's covered in this one. Say it as often as you think of it throughout your day--especially when you don't feel like feeling great--and it will change your life.

So what's happening when we engage in this simple exercise of affirmation? What's happening is, you're beginning to live your life consciously. Plato said, "The unobserved [i.e. unconscious] life isn't worth living," and as most of us who have suffered through a lot of unnecessary suffering at the hands of unconscious living can easily attest, Plato was right.

Two Approaches to Psychological Problems in Children

When I come across an article like "How Quiet is Too Quiet? When Shyness is Actually a Disorder," I always recall the line from Robert Persig's classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.

This article is exactly what Persig is talking about. In it, a mother, Kim O'Connell, recounts her experience with her son Declan's extended periods of complete silence, which she discovered has a name: Selective Mutism.

So science has added another category, that's what science is all about. It's a process that began with Aristotle. It's called classification. Selective Mutism is unique, requiring unique handling, unique treatment and possibly unique drugs--multiplication of facts, etc., leading from single absolute truths (root causes, if you will) to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The child's behavior, in other words, is meaningless. These are just symptoms of a disease that he's come by at random.

An Excerpt on Ego from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality--and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality--this is also its definition: complete identification with form--physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every "other" as well as with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create? To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight. (p. 22)

You might also like: An Excerpt from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Verizon Leaves Customer's Credit Stained in Writing Off $18,000 Bill

This article was originally published by Technorati on 17 May 2010 as a Simply Spirited feature. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

A couple of weeks ago we reported the predicament of Bob St. Germain, who had been unable to settle a disputed $18,000 cell phone bill from Verizon since receiving it in 2006.

Thanks in no small measure to Technorati coverage, I'm sure, we are happy to report that Mr. St. Germain is resting comfortably, his debt having been magnanimously forgiven by Verizon.

Not quite.

Yes, the $18,000 charge (previously reduced by half) has been removed from Mr. St. Germain's monthly statement, but in one last smashing bit of corporate egoism, the bill was not reduced to a normal amount or completely forgiven--it was written off as uncollectible.

This is what is known in the business as wrenching defeat from the jaws of victory. Another apt cliche might be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

Scientology Demystified-The Ultimate Business Model

This is not a pro-Scientology article.

If you wanted to make a lot of money what would you do? First, come up with a product or service that everyone wants. Second, find a way to be the only company that can market the product or service. Third, find a way that you can legally pay no taxes on the money you make.

Scientology, the creation of L. Ron Hubbard, has figured out how to do all three. And it's a very old business plan he put into action.

The product is enlightenment. Who wouldn't want that? Inner peace, right? Joy? No fear of death? Scientologists call enlightenment "clear."

Corporate Ego Compels Verizon to Charge $18,000 for Data Download

This article was originally published by Technorati on 1 May 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Most of us have been there: shouting into the phone at some poor, underpaid "customer service representative" who was with us shortly. No doubt a great deal of acrimony has been exchanged in the case of Bob and Mary St. Germain over an $18,000 Verizon cell phone bill racked up by their son back in 2006. The account remains in dispute.

To be fair, the St. Germain's have a few good points. First, wireless contracts are indecipherable gibberish. Hard to argue with this one; their purpose is to confuse the customer.

Second, experts say unlimited data plans are marketed by other companies for $30 a month. Another good point. If that's the case, its hard to imagine how $18,000 could be fair a price.

Third, the St. Germains say they were unaware that they had just gone off a promotional plan under which data downloads were free. Verizon reps admit this contention, though Verizon claims the St. Germains were duly warned of the expiration of the promotion when the patriarch of the family renewed his wireless contract with the company a short time before the bill came--nothing like a reverse signing bonus, is there?

Word didn't make it to their son, however, who continued to download songs at a respectable clip.

Make No Progress Today

"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it," is a pretty famous line from the Bible, the book of Psalms to be exact. It was written by a famous wise man, King Solomon, of "split the baby" fame.

The Bible is chockfull of wisdom, without doubt. But I'm much more comfortable these days quoting a line from the Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics) than I am quoting from the Bible (though I know it very well) because so much of what is said about the Bible is sectarian; that is, religion in service to the ego, as Eckhart Tolle puts it in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61).