“Technology is a wonderful thing and a bitch at the same time,” said my dad. You may be too young to remember a VCR or the “blinking 12 problem.” A VCR was this revolutionary device that let you watch movies from the comfort of your own home – which carved a chink in the movie theatre market and created a new industry – the movie rental business. You may have heard of Blockbuster…they were huge, emphasis on the were!

My dad suffered from the “blinking 12” and we often joked about this on my visits. My dad was an engineer and challenged himself to stay technically current. He was one of the first I knew who owned a computer. I cannot tell you how many times we went through the “cd dot dot backslash…” routine – for those around before Windows.

Looking back at this many years later, with me now in a somewhat similar situation, I can now see that the jokes had a little personal pain attached for dad. The sometimes-overwhelming reality of change AND the decision to keep up or just let the VCR blink. Which takes us to our CHALLENGE.

CHALLENGE: What is the “blinking 12” in your life? What “thing” do you want to accomplish and what is holding you back? What are the steps you can take to overcome the fear and inertia and get started?

Are you familiar with Maslow’s Hierchary of Needs, introduced by Abraham Maslow, in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation?  Maslow’s hierchy has 5 levels in a pyramid, with the first level meeting the Physical Requirements of food, water, sleep, warmth.  Physical is followed by Safety, Love and Belonging, Esteem, and ultimately, Self-actualization. 

 In The 5 Levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs on verywellmind.com , Kendra Cherry says, Maslow “…suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs…    …Maslow believed that people have an inborn desire to be self-actualized, that is, to be all they can be. In order to achieve these ultimate goals, however, a number of more basic needs must be met such as the need for food, safety, love, and self-esteem.” 

My question for you – do you think the movement up the Maslow pyramid is one-directional (UP) or bi-directional (UP and DOWN)?

Dictionary.com defines Peace of Mind as a mental state of calmness or tranquility, a freedom from worry or anxiety. In 40 Ways to Achieve Peace of Mind and Inner Calm on Likehack.org, they list listening to music, deep breathing, going for a walk, enjoying nature, and such. All good ideas no doubt.

For me, experiencing Peace of Mind comes when the chaos of life is under control. I have read countless self-help books on the subject but the one that was most helpful in getting some control was David Allen’s Getting Things Done. My key takeaways were:

- Just Do It – if something can be done in “2 minutes”, do it now

- Have a To-Do list for “things” to be done in the future

- Have a Calendar to capture “things” that are due at a certain time

Simple ideas but, for me, life changing. Capturing these items in 2 spots – either a to-do list OR calendar, freed me from a patchwork of Post-it notes or worse, being haunted by worry at 3 in the morning on the “thing” I forgot to do!

Your question – What is your system for staying organized and helping YOU achieve peace of mind?

Optics is a branch of physics that studies the behavior and properties of light, especially when a light wave comes in contact with an object. Will the light reflect, bend around the object (diffract) or go through the object (refract)?

Reflection is obvious when looking in a mirror or when squinting into the sunlight reflecting off a glass building. How about when you see a rainbow on a soap bubble or a when you can see an image reflected on a house window?

One of the most breathtaking examples of light diffraction in nature is crepuscular rays or God rays. Studioguys.com explains, “the light rays from the sun try to reach the ground but are blocked by the clouds, the light waves get diffracted and deviated. This deflection of light, due to the presence of a barrier in its normal pathway, is nothing but diffraction.”

Let’s focus on REFRACTION for a bit, ok?

There is a reason Physics gets a bad rap – here is an example from Wikipedia on the definition of HEAT:

In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, by mechanisms other than thermodynamic work or transfer of matter…

The quantity of energy transferred as heat in a process is the amount of transferred energy excluding any thermodynamic work that was done and any energy contained in matter transferred. For the precise definition of heat, it is necessary that it occur by a path that does not include transfer of matter…

Ugh! Are you still with me? Fortunately, there are great physic communicators that can make physics come alive. I recently read Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli, in which one of the lessons addressed HEAT. Carlo distilled this complex topic to a very understandable level, with some life changing analogies (at least for me!).

Carlos said that Ludwig Boltzmann, in around 1900, conveyed that HEAT is atoms moving quickly while COLD is atoms moving slowly and that HEAT is transferred from hot objects to cold objects by CHANCE. Wow! At the time this was regarded as absurd and on September 5, 1906 Ludwig Boltzmann hanged himself – BEFORE his concepts were validated! So – what are some of the life lessons?

“At the end of World War II, huge swaths of Europe and Asia had been reduced to ruins. Borders were redrawn and homecomings, expulsions, and burials were under way…. In less than a decade, the war between the Axis and the Allied powers had resulted in 80 million deaths… Allied occupations and United Nations decisions led to many long-lasting problems for the future… The growing tensions between Western powers and the Soviet Eastern Bloc developed into the Cold War, and the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons raised the very real specter of an unimaginable World War III…” stated The Atlantic in their article World War II: After the War.

Today’s Word Challenge - Choose a word where changing the last two letters makes the exact opposite of the first word.

Don’t worry – there is NO right or wrong! If you want to go a little deeper in the challenge – pick a word that addresses your current physical, mental or spiritual state and change the word to what you want your current state to BE. GO FOR IT! I will wait.

My word is PASSIVE – where if you change the VE with ON you get PASSION. Why you may ask did I come up with this combination? Well it continues to express my current emotional state. I want to have energy, action, intensity – or PASSION. Instead, I feel the exact opposite – PASSIVE.

What would be your definition of CLEAVE?

Oxford defines cleave as a verb: split or sever (something) especially along a natural line or grain.

Merriam-webster defines cleave as an intransitive verb: to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly.

The English language never fails to amaze me in its complexity. Per www.grammarly.com, cleave is classified as a contronym, often referred to as a Janus word or auto-antonym, is a word that evokes contradictory or reverse meanings depending on context. Mentalfloss.com in its article, 14 Words are their own opposites, lists 14 contronyms: sanction, oversight, left, dust, seed, stone, trim, cleave, resign, fast, off, weather, screen, help. Interesting but we will leave these for another time.

You have likely heard the story of the Zen master and the overflowing teacup. In the story, an important man comes to the Zen master requesting the master to “open my mind to enlightenment.” The Zen master suggests discussing this over a cup of tea and proceeds to pour the tea to overflowing, to the point of spilling onto the table and onto the man’s robe. The Zen master stops pouring and hits the man with the ol’ “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”

The question: How full is YOUR tea cup?

The Seven Natural Wonders organization was founded in 2008 to protect and promote the natural wonders of the world. Can you name the 7 natural wonders? If you said Aurora Borealis, Harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Grand Canyon, Great Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, Victoria Falls, and Paricutin Mexico you would be correct! An on-line poll was conducted to determine what would be the 8th Natural Wonder – what would you choose? The popular choice was…drum-roll please…Niagara Falls.

QUESTION: Is Niagara Falls a Natural Wonder of the World or a Fantastic Facade?

“Be Water” is a phrase that martial arts superstar Bruce Lee was famous for saying.  In reviewing https://brucelee.com/podcast-blog/2017/6/28/53-meaning-of-life, several life changing ideas were revealed for me.  Such as:

 “The meaning of life is that is to be lived.”  The blog says that “life is meant to be engaged with, present in, taking action toward…”    water is…” always moving, always changing, always flowing, and you want to be right in the flow of it.” 

CHALLENGE:  When you hear “Be Water” – what are your thoughts?   What images go though your mind?   Are there any initial life implications that cross your mind?

I am writing this POST in early January and my New Year resolutions are already getting a little fuzzy and need a re-commitment! How about you? A Forbes.com article from Dec. 31, 2018 says “This Year, Don’t Set New Year’s Resolutions. “ “Studies have shown that less than 25% of people actually stay committed to their resolutions after just 30 days, and only 8% accomplish them. Don’t be part of the statistic. This year, set goals instead of resolutions.”

CHALLENGE: What are YOUR goals for this year, this month? Write them down in a SMART-Y format. What is your strategy to buck the “8% accomplish them” odds and accomplish YOUR goals?