It’s often easy to feel overwhelmed by difficult circumstances. We feel frozen, incapable of taking a step forward. This story proves that it’s possible to overcome that spiritual (and physical) inertia and move forward anyway:

Hershel Walker

I’m going to lecture to you for a moment, so sit down:

If you’re the type who writes off a million physical conditions to “getting older”, be quiet! Stop! When you do that, you send a message to your body and mind that aging equals infirmity. YOU set the aging ball in motion. The reason for most peoples’ aches and pains and weight gain? Guess? Lack of physical activity and eating poorly. NOT simply getting older. So stop with that internal messaging already! Just work on being healthy, flexible and fit.

Check out this guy:

(CNN) — Javier Mendez, a mixed martial arts trainer for 32 years, scoffed when he heard that retired NFL star Herschel Walker, who’s nearing 50, wanted to compete in ultimate fighting.

“Yeah, I didn’t think he could do it,” Mendez said. “I thought it was a joke.”

Walker had been out of football for 12 years. Aging football players tend to get flabby, play golf or relive the spotlight under “Dancing With the Stars.”

But the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Georgia always had an unorthodox streak.

After stints of ballet dancing, Olympic bobsledding, running track and field, gaining a black belt in taekwondo and retiring from a celebrated football career, Renaissance jock Walker has dived into the most physically demanding and controversial sport of his career.

At 48, Walker is training for his second Strikeforce mixed martial arts fight, scheduled for December 4.

“I was in great shape when I was younger,” he said. “This is the toughest thing I’ve ever done. I think that’s the reason I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been in.”

He was chosen to pose naked for ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body” issue, out last week, to show his muscular physique.

“I’m going to do something different, to be a little different than the average person,” he said. “You can’t be in the same cookie cutter.”

Walker has never followed the fitness norms.

He eats once a day, skipping breakfast and lunch. After a long, intense day of training, he eats salad and bread for dinner. He doesn’t care for meat or fuss about getting enough protein. Walker’s a vegetarian.

“It’s a mindset — something I’ve been doing for a long time,” he said. “I don’t worry about protein. I don’t worry about all that. I’m from old school. I grew up in south Georgia. They didn’t worry about cholesterol or protein. They went out and worked and lived a long time, so I don’t put a lot of worries in my mind. I just get it done.”

Sometimes, Walker doesn’t have an appetite and will go through seven hours of wrestling, kickboxing, sparring and practicing jujitsu without having eaten for three or four days.

“It’s just unbelievable,” said Mendez, who trains Walker at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California. “He shouldn’t be able to do what he’s doing. I don’t think it’s possible to eat as little as possible and work out the way he does. There’s no way. He’s an unbelievable athlete.”

Mendez doesn’t try to change it either.

“You can’t fix it, because it’s not broken,” he said. “You can try to understand it — good luck with that.”

And no, Mendez thinks it probably won’t work for most people.

At 5:30 a.m., Walker wakes up to do 750 to 1,500 push-ups and about 2,000 sit-ups.

“I try to show the world at my age, I could do it,” Walker said. “I’m not trying to be arrogant. My parents say you can’t make excuses in life, you’ve got to get it done.”

And he did. In his first Strikeforce fight in January, Walker defeated Greg Nagy, a fighter almost half his age.

Source: CNNNews

(above) King David apparently

Here’s a few random facts to get your mind thinking in random directions! Always good, as a creativity booster:

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

The youngest pope was 11 years old.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

Those San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Hearts - Charlemagne, Clubs - Alexander theGreat, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception.

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace

Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

Source: Random Facts but are they True?

Yes, I realize we don’t all experience Fall in the traditional orange and yellow leaf falling and chilly air way. But collectively we can appreciate the wonder of this time of year, even symbolically.

The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  ~Albert Camus

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.  ~P.D. James

Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.  ~Carol Bishop Hipps

Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.  ~George Eliot

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.  ~Stanley Horowitz

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
~John Donne

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.
~Emily Dickinson

October’s poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter.  ~Nova Bair

falling leaves
hide the path
so quietly
~John Bailey, “Autumn,” a haiku year, 2001, as posted on oldgreypoet.com

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
~George Cooper, “October’s Party”

Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.  ~Samuel Butler

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.  ~Elizabeth Lawrence

Follow your bliss. It’s been said time and time again. This artist didn’t need to hear it, he simply did it. And the payoff has been pretty outstanding!

Willard Wigan never meant for his art to become a business.

In fact, he never really set out to be an artist; the vocation found him as he was hiding from the real world at 5 years old.

Now 53, Mr. Wigan is renowned for his “micro-sculptures,” ultra-miniature works in a rare genre he helped create. He makes the minutest of statuettes, fitting them in a needle’s eye or fixing them atop a pin head. He carves figures into matchsticks and puts lipstick and clothes on dead houseflies. In short, he takes life-size ideas and characters and shrinks them to a “molecular level.”

These uniquely small works, a sampling of which is currently on display at the Atlanta Art Gallery in Buckhead, fetch high-profile buyers at big prices. During an interview in February, Mr. Wigan said he was working on a commissioned sculpture that would bring seven-foot-tall basketball star Shaquille O’Neal down to nano size.

England’s Prince Charles, musician Elton John, boxer Mike Tyson and “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell all own pieces of Mr. Wigan’s work, which range in price from $35,000 to upwards of $100,000. David Lloyd, the former British tennis player, owns 72 pieces, almost half of Mr. Wigan’s total output of about 200.

Though his work has made him a millionaire, Mr. Wigan doesn’t do it for the money.

“If I wasn’t going to get paid for it, I’d still do it,” he said. “It’s like telling someone who plays basketball they won’t get paid. They’ll still do it. You do what you love.”

Source: GlobalAtlanta

I don’t know about you but Monday can be a tricky day for me. I don’t leap back into work mode. Instead, I kind of creep there. Mainly, I feel a little low energy. Luckily a friend sent me this article on ways to boost your energy. Strangely, it doesn’t include coffee!

1. Go outside into the sunlight; light deprivation is one reason that people feel tired. Research suggests that light stimulates brain chemicals that improve mood. For an extra boost, get your sunlight first thing in the morning. And while you’re outside…

2. Go for a brisk walk. One study found that even a ten-minute walk was enough to supply a feeling of energy and decreased tension.

3. Act with energy. We think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, but often we FEEL because of the way we ACT. Trick yourself into feeling energetic by moving more quickly, pacing while you talk on the phone, and putting more energy into your voice.

4. Listen to your favorite upbeat song. Hearing stimulating music gives an instant lift and is one of the quickest, most reliable ways to affect your mood and energy level. I’m always surprised by the effectiveness of this strategy.

5. Talk to an energetic friend. Not only do we gain energy from interacting with other people, we also – in what’s called emotional contagion — “catch” their emotions. Instead of infecting others with your draggy mood, try to lift yourself by catching the energy of a boisterous friend.

6. Tackle an item on your to-do list. Unfinished tasks weigh us down. So if you feel bad about never having had a skin-cancer check, or not having completed an over-due report, or not having faced this month’s bills, force yourself to tackle one thing that’s nagging you. It’s tough, but you will feel a HUGE rush of energy when you cross it off your list.

7. Clean up. I’m not sure why tidying makes such a huge difference, but when I feel like I can’t face the day, I just tidy up my desk, and I perk right up.

8. Eat — if you’re hungry. If you’re actually hungry, eating makes a huge difference to your energy. Both my children become very droopy and crabby when hungry, and I’ve learned the hard way to pay close attention to this; I suffer from it myself. During the workday, my husband will go far too long without eating, so I try to remind him to eat enough, as well. However, it can be tempting to eat a snack to try to get an energy boost even when you’re not hungry. If food isn’t the problem, other strategies to boost your energy may be healthier.

“Exuberance is beauty,” William Blake wrote, and it’s surprising how much sheer energy level can affect the quality of the happiness of a day.

Source: Happiness Project

This summer, my garden has provided me with such pleasure. I’m not a great gardener. Heck, I’m not even a good gardener. But somehow, herbs managed to grow as well as some carrots, tomatoes and…weeds. Lots of weeds. Here’s a young girl who took her gardening a bit more seriously:

Alexandra Reau, of Petersburg, Mich., tended to her rainbow chard.

Lawn mowing and baby-sitting are standard summer jobs for the enterprising teenager. Alexandra Reau, who is 14, combines a little bit of each: last year, she asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so she could farm. Now in its second season, her Garden to Go C.S.A. (community-supported agriculture) grows for 14 members, who pay $100 to $175 for two months of just-picked vegetables and herbs.

While her peers are hanging out at Molly’s Mystic Freeze and working out the moves to that Miley Cyrus video, she’s flicking potato-beetle larvae off of leaves in her V-neck T-shirt and denim capris, a barrette keeping her hair out of her demurely made-up eyes. Who says the face of American farming is a 57-year-old man with a John Deere cap?
Read more at The New York Times

Last night, I watched an episode of The Dog Whisperer, where he discussed the most aggressive dogs. The show’s staff polled thousands of people, who came up with German Shepherds, Rottweillers and of course, pitbulls. Interestingly, Cesar Milan, the show’s host, disputed each one of those claims. He determined the most aggressive being was the human who trained them! Good for you, Cesar! So true.

Here’s a wonderful story about a special German Shepherd (watch the video!):

Buddy, a German shepherd, was with his owner, Ben Heinrichs, when his family’s workshop caught fire. Once he and Buddy were safely outside, Heinrichs turned to the dog and said, “We need to get help.” He didn’t expect Buddy to actually do anything about it, of course. However, help is exactly what the shy dog brought — in the form of an Alaska State Trooper, reports the Anchorage Daily News. The dog’s heroic act was caught on the trooper’s dashboard camera.

Buddy had gone off into the woods, and Heinrich assumed the pooch was hiding. In fact, Buddy had run out to the road, where he caught the attention of Alaska State Trooper Terrence Shanigan, who had been alerted by concerned neighbors when they saw a fireball erupting in the distance. Shanigan was having difficulty finding the fire due to the winding country roads. That’s when Buddy suddenly appeared. On a hunch, Shanigan followed the dog and arrived on the scene just in time. He was able to talk the fire department through the difficult directions, and they put out the flames just before the fire spread to the family’s home.

Buddy is being presented with an award from the Alaska State Troopers today, including a silver plated, engraved dog bowl, reports “Today” via the Associated Press. We’re willing to bet he’s getting more than a few extra cuddles and dog biscuits.

Source: Paw Nation

I’m particularly excited about this series of quotes. The more I study ancient history, the more I realize that we’ve been facing the same issues for a long, LONG time! These quotes most definitely stand the test of time.

Let our old sages guide you today!

“Every man is the architect of his own future” - Sallust (86 -35 BC) Roman Historian

“Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) - Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher

“Men are not troubled by things themselves, but by their thoughts about them”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) - Greek Stoic Philosopher

“He has half the deed done who has mad a beginning”.
Horace (65-8 B.C.) - Roman Poet and Satirist

“First say to yourself what would you be; and then do what you have to do”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“The nature of man is always the same; it is their habits that separate them”.
Confucius (551-479 B.C.) - Chinese Philosopher

“Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them”.
Plato (428-327 BC) - Greek Philosopher and Prose Writer

“They can do all because they think they can”.
Virgil (70-9 BC) - Roman Poet

“Where fear is . . . happiness is not”.
Seneca (4BC - AD65) - Roman Philosopher and Playwright

“Give me where to stand and I will move the earth”.
Archimedes (287-212 BC) - Syracusan Mathematician, Astronomer and Inventor

“Learn what you are and be such”.
Pindar (522-438 BC) - Greek Poet

“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do”.
Aristotle (383-322 BC) - Greek Philosopher

“Our life is what our thoughts are make it”.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”.
Solomon (10th Century BC) - King of Israel & reputed author of Biblical Books

“When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself”.
Plato (428-327 BC) - Greek Philosopher and Prose Writer

“What we are is what we have thought for years”.
Gautama The Buddha (560-480 BC) - Indian Spiritual leader and Founder of Buddhism

“How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself”.
Publilius Syrus - (1st century BC) - Latin Writer of Mimes

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be a time. Let it first blossom then bear fruit, then ripen”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“Practice yourself for heaven’s sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little”.
Plutarch (C. A.D. 46 - C 120) - Greek Biographer and Essayist

Source: TrevorCrookBlog