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Loved this. Thanks Joe and his Stranded Starfish blog, and thanks to the authors of the book “The Art Of Possibility”

As the old man walked down a Spanish beach at dawn, he saw ahead of him what he thought to be a dancer. The young man was running across the sand, rhythmically bending down to pick up a stranded starfish and throw it far into the sea.

The old man gazed in wonder as the young soul again and again threw the small starfish from the sand into the water. The old man approached him and asked why he spent so much energy doing what seemed a waste of time. The young man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

“But there are thousands of miles of beach, and miles and miles of starfish. How can your effort make any difference?”

The young man looked down at the small starfish in his hand, and as he threw it to safety in the sea, said, “It makes a difference to this one!”

Anonymous

A good friend of mine, Curtis Ide, is passionate about pizza! Specifically, making great pizza at home. He’s so passionate in fact that he’s written a book about it with all the details, great pictures, and of course, lots of recipes!  He’s just put up a blog web site to talk about it and share info, so check it out!

http://passionateaboutpizzabook.com/

Professor Randy Pausch is dying and he knows it, of liver cancer.  But this inspiring wonderful man decided to inspire his students with his final lecture, telling them what’s really important in life.

You can see his last lecture here: google video or visit his web site at the above link for this and other videos and information.

Complain? You want to complain? It’s tax return time and the forms are SO annoying! The grass has started growing fast and that means I’m going to have to spend a lot more time cutting it than I want to. …

Complaining is expressing grief, pain, or discontent. It’s a complaint if you express how you feel something shouldn’t be the way it is, and usually you don’t offer a solution as to how it could be the way you want it.

We all complain, but does it do any good? No! Not only doesn’t it help, in fact it often just makes us feel worse about things and not just emotionally, but physically. We seem to think it will help ‘get it off our chest’ or maybe subconsciously we justify some perception of superiority by complaining about other things and people, but overall there’s NO benefit to it, to ANYONE, including the complainer.

Will Bowen, a reverend serving at a church in Kansas, talked about this in a sermon on finding prosperity, and this lead to him giving out little purple bracelets to his congregation and he told them to be ‘complaint free’ for 21 days, and if someone with a bracelet complained, to put the bracelet on the other arm to consciously remind them what they’ve done. Well, this has become HUGE. 5 millions bracelets and a book later, it’s still going.

Links:

• The bracelet web site and further information
• FAQ (frequently asked questions about how it got started, where the money goes, etc.)

Answering the question “how do we find happiness?” the Dalai Lama answered something like “stop doing all the things that make you unhappy.”

Complaining less is probably a good start.