Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy

Speaking of moving to greener pastures, I’m taking a closer look at the Austin area. Everyone I talk to seems to love it.

High-tech, business-friendly, “green,” great music scene, good food, contemporary, river, lakes, nice people. Or is it basically just like any other city?

Anyone?

I just returned from casting my vote for Ron Paul.

While on my way back to my car, a woman sitting at a card table asked me if I were a registered Democrat. I replied no. She told me to have a nice afternoon. I smiled and thanked her for the well wishes, “especially since I am not a Democrat.” She said that it’s only the Republican men that seem to have a problem with her. They turn their heads away, and prod their wives to keep walking. She’s glad those men aren’t in her party, she told me. I don’t blame her.

I told her that I didn’t want the typical Republican male in office either. I told her I voted for Ron Paul. To my surprise her eyes lit up and she said, “Good for you! I’m glad you voted for Ron Paul!”

“Yeah, Ron Paul is awesome.”

“He is! Good for you!”

I hope she votes for him

Too good not to share.

Back in 2004, traditional conservatives were faced with navigating between a Charybdis and a Scylla by the names of Bush and Kerry. On one side lurked something quite monstrous: a self-described conservative who fiddled as the federal government grew to obscene proportions and who allowed sofa-samurai with names like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Kristol to talk him into an unending occupation of Babylon. On the other side swirled the vortex of John Kerry, George Soros, and Michael Moore, all promising big taxes, big government, and plenty of winks and nods to the cultural Left. Seeking relief, I went for Michael Anthony Peroutka of the Constitution Party. Some called it a wasted vote, and, yes, old Peroutka did not win, but I voted for a party rooted in the values of the Founders.

The 2008 campaign might seem to present a similar dilemma. Even after Giuliani has left the race to pursue a career as a mortician and horror-film villain, the top tier of the GOP offers little in the way of change from the past seven years. Among the Democrats, “Billary” would present the country with a fate worse than Kerry, and I’m about as likely to vote for Barack Obama as I am to join Oprah’s book club.

Rescuing me from despair is Ron Paul. Here is a man who makes me believe that the Grand Old Party of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and William F. Buckley might have a second life. Here is a man from Texas, with strong libertarian and conservative values, who has laid out a foreign policy that would put America first. Unlike the rest of them, if Ron Paul ever stood on the steps of the Capitol and swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, he’d actually mean it.

Read the entire post at Taki’s Top Drawer

I learned from Steven Sashen’s blog that the Oprah show is looking for people who have questions about the Laws of Attraction.

Are you familiar with The Secret, (or the “Laws of Attraction”), but are unsure how to use them in your life? Are you struggling with how to implement The Secret in your life? Which part are you struggling with? Do you set-out with a positive thought but come to roadblock when it comes time to manifest this attraction? Are you wondering how you can make the law of attraction work in your life? Have you heard family or friends talk about how The Secret has worked in their own lives, but you still just don’t “get it”?

Source

If they can admit that this is indeed the case, the show should be flooded with people who are supremely manifrustrated.

I’ve said it many times on my blog and I’ll say it again: The so-called Law of Attraction as taught by the The Secret film and book is nonsense — and attempting to live by this law is harmful. I hope that Oprah will come to see the folly of promoting this garbage.

After a lull of a few months, people are googling again for information about The Secret and the Law of Attraction, and they’re finding my blog. I’ll continue to post about this topic because I believe in doing my part to make this world a better place. If you don’t know how living La Vida LOAca (hey, Connie, add that to our lexicon) is destructive, read this and this and this for starters.

I’ll also continue to point to other blog posts that reflect my views, such as this one from Chief Happiness Officer Alexander Kjerulf (an oldie but goodie).

I am so psychic it’s scary. I almost always know the subject of two of my favorite e-newsletters before I receive them. Yesterday I was taking stock of my health, which has been going downhill for the past couple of months. I told my husband that I had stopped doing the daily little things that make the difference between feeling great and feeling like crap. Getting back on track will be as simple as limiting myself to one cup of coffee in the morning, eating three meals a day plus an afternoon snack, not eating foods that are bad for me, walking for 30 minutes, and taking my supplements. That’s it!

This routine is hard for me to stick to. I tend to live in my head. I hate meal planning and grocery shopping. And when I’m immersed in my work, I don’t take time to eat. When it’s a bit cold outside, I lose interest in walking. Wimp.

So this morning I receive coach Philip Humbert’s e-newsletter, with the lead article “The Every-Day Magic of Small Steps.” Gotta love it!

One of the great tragedies is to spend life nurturing a great dream, a “magnificent obsession” and never see it come true. To die with your dreams still inside you, waiting for another time, another day, or a “big break” is the greatest of failures. We cannot wait!

Literally every thing you see and every tool you use, even the chair you’re sitting on, began as nothing but thought. Someone had an idea for a chair. Henry Ford had an idea that cars could be in every garage. Your computer began as an idea and a series of huge, crude devices in the 1940’s. The computer you are looking at right now began as someone’s idea that they could manufacture and sell computers better, faster and cheaper than anyone else.

Everything starts with an idea. It always has, and always will.

Many people have observed that “ideas are things.” Thoughts and words have the power to move us, to change us, and to become living, breathing, tangible things! In a sense, our world is made up of nothing but thoughts and words!

But there is a gulf between an idea and its fulfillment.

Most “things” are actually still-born and never come to fruition because we fail to span the gulf between potential and reality. That gap can only be bridged with daily action.

How many times have you thought of an invention or process that could be worth a fortune and later found that same (or a similar) product for sale a few months later? We’ve all had that experience. Someone got rich off “your” idea and the difference is that they took specific, concrete, focused ACTION. Their product is in the store, for sale, making them money, and your idea is still…a dream.

Here are some basics, some essentials to make your dreams come true:

1. Keep a list of big things. On your desk, or on your bathroom mirror, keep a list of your most important projects, goals and commitments. Keep it where you see it, and read it, every day. Keep it current. What we think about, gets done.

2. Keep a list of small things. Keep a list of 5-minute tasks, phone calls or notes that you can do any place, any time. When you have a moment, make that call. Every day, send a note or read a few pages. Always know “what’s next” and take action, every single day.

3. Plan your days. Every evening, plan the following day. First thing in the morning, plot your strategy. Leaders have always done this! This is not new! But only about 4% of the population does it. Write down your priorities and choose your daily actions.

4. Take magnificent care of yourself! Healthy, happy, energetic people get the most done. It takes time and energy to achieve greatness. If you “don’t have time,” or are too tired or too distracted, you will not achieve your dreams. Take care of yourself.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” We know that “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,” and we’ve heard the Serenity Prayer that ends, “Give me the courage to change the things I can.”

Most of us will not achieve great things over-night because in general, human beings do not do “big” things. We do little things. We get up, we go to work. We hug our loved ones, we make phone calls. We balance the checkbook, exercise and fix dinner. We do little things! Highly successful people simply do the right little things, at the right time, in the right way, and they do lots of them.

If you would achieve great things, do little things and pile them one on top of another, until you reach the stars. Start today.

Want a small step that could pay HUGE rewards?
Attend the World Class Life Conference, May 15-17th.
You deserve a life lived “on purpose”, a life of peace,
passion, power and prosperity. Great people often
point to a time when everything changed, and this
could be your “turning point.” I hope you’ll join us.
http://philiphumbert.com/wcl.htm