Well, I am a computer scientist and it is astonishing (to me) that such a brilliant person is completely oblivious to the spiritual realm to life, and the fact that humans are so much more than physical bodies!

There are many other aspects to “intelligence”:

• physical intelligence: being able to execute extremely complicated physical movements by turning off the logical brain and feeling it, its about having spacial awareness, things like acrobatics, gymnastics, dancing and purely the physical aspect of martial arts. I know a lot of really smart people that are completely out of shape, neglecting their physical body. Maintaining your “vessel” in perfect shape and being in complete control of movement is a form of intelligence.
• emotional intelligence: being in control of your thoughts, feelings, emotional reactions and responses. Its about curbing your urge to hurt back when you’re hurt, being able to switch your emotional states (flip a switch and get un-depressed, motivated, happy) … and always connecting with Love, seeking and shining Light. It all comes back to God.
• social intelligence: being able to deeply connect with others … way past small talk, food and weather … straight to the Heart! Its also the ability to pick up on subtle clues from body language, micro-expressions, vocal tonality … and being able to construct another person’s model of reality from it in order to communicate most effectively. Again, we all know highly “intelligent” people that fail in this area miserably.  I also know many people that are brilliant in social situations that can’t do basic math. But at the end of the day, I’d rather spend time with someone who is pleasant to be around than a brilliant asshole.
• logic/reason (traditional intelligence): math, science, technology, the stuff in this movie.
• time-space continuum intelligence: being in control of time/space. Its your ability to organize, create elaborate plans and set them in motion by doing right things at the right time. Its about visualizing all possible outcomes and mitigating undesired ones. Its about  living every moment of your precious life effectively. Its about being fully present, aware, reading the very next letter of this blog post and not thinking about anything else. Be here with me. Focus!
• spiritual intelligence: being in tune with the spiritual realm, sensing God, knowing that we’re all connected to each other, that nothing happens randomly. Its about understanding Life-force, its the Ki/Chi concept in martial arts. Its about having Faith, Hope and Love. Love being the greatest of all, of course.
• …

There are many more other aspects to “intelligence”, none of which can be “backed up” or taught to a machine. The more we progress technologically, the less emphasis we’re placing on developing ourselves physically, emotionally, socially and finally spiritually!

Back to the movie — its not difficult to see that Ray’s drive to invent and to create is singularily fueled by fear of death and grievance for his father. His is hurt and his way with dealing with it is to focus on logic/reason aspect of intelligence.

If it ever gets close to the age of his predictions, I’ll be the leader of resistance to this bullshit in a war he mentions.

If you liked this movie, here is an interesting read from another brilliant person on similar subjects. Its a collection of his personal essays, thoughts on God and role of technology.

Dmitry Kalashnikov Manito Park 2010

Morning

Start your day right with a surge of energy:

• Literally jump out of bed as soon as you wake up … don’t hit snooze button and allow yourself to be lazy :)
• As you finish showering, gradually turn the water to coldest and try to stay there for about 3 minutes.
  Cold shower will clear your mind. It also trains “Fudoshin” (willpower, determination) and has amazing health benefits, such as flushing toxins and improving circulation.

Do a quick workout: push-ups till failure, 100 bicycle crunches, stretch for 20 min, do another 100 crunches.

Eat a full breakfast. If you had a hard workout a day before, eat lots of protein (eggs, meat). Otherwise have fruit, oatmeal, and yogurt but never skip breakfast. This will also help stabilize your energy levels and reduce stress throughout the day.

Eat snack: water, nuts (organic, raw, unsalted, non-roasted) or fruit (fresh, organic, preferably locally grown).

Afternoon

Go for a run before lunch. This will boost your metabolism, and help reduce stress at work. It will also pump oxygen into your brain and your thinking will greatly improve :)

Complex Carbs Lunch: For lunch you want to eat good carbs (complex), and salad (for digestion of it). Unless you’ve had a super hard training session a night before (sore muscles) you should skip on eating meat for lunch, as it is not the most efficient energy source. Good complex carbs examples are brown rice, any whole grain (quinoa, barley, oat, rye). Don’t eat bread (and never ever eat white bread). Drink water.

A little secret: take a 5 minute walk after lunch — the vibration from walking/jogging helps to settle and digest food.

Have a snack: water, freshly squeezed juice, fruit, and nuts.

Evening

Workout: I usually train 2+ hours every day, 6/7 days a week. Most of the time I am just climbing: I gradually warm up, then give 4 attempts at 4 really hard problems (”4×4s”), then work my way down easier climbs. Every training session is completed with 200 crunches, handstands and stretches. On my “off days” (when I am resting from climbing) I am doing one of the following: Gymnastic Rings, Free Weights, Capoeira/Yoga, Running or Rope Skipping.

Dinner: the only time your body really needs protein is after a workout — to repair damaged tissue. Eat a really big, green salad about 30 min before eating protein. This will coat the stomach for protein digesting and boost metabolism. Avoid all grocery store dressings. Instead, add a little virgin olive oil, vinegar (balsamic), or freshly squeezed lemon juice.

• Meat: organic grass fed beef, lamb, chicken, or pork (I don’t really eat pork).
• Fish: All fish is good. Buy non-farm raised fish. Never eat canned fish (or any other canned food, imitation crab).

Night

Get good sleep: get 8+ hours of sleep. Remember that you don’t actually get stronger through resistance training (which tears tissue). You only get stronger when you’re sleeping, when your body is repairing itself. If you had a super hard workout and you’re doing some sort of cross-training (climbing + anything else) you probably need more like 10 hours of sleep. Also, don’t drink alcohol right before bed as it will keep you up and also dehydrate you.

Part 2: Some “Common Sense” Notes

Really basic stuff
Never eat fast food, don’t drink soda, buy chips, or anything deep fried (french fries).

Food is not all “nutrition”
Food also stores KI! Never cook when you’re in a bad mood. Never eat something that was prepared by a person in a bad mood, as it will transfer “minus Ki”. (This is another reason why fast food is bad for you. Most people work there out of necessity, and they’re channeling negative energy into food.)

Plan Ahead
Think ahead and prepare your meals in advance, especially if you have sporadic schedule, random meetings.

Focus on quality

• Local organic grass fed free range beef is literally not the same animal as mass-produced, antibiotics/bst-injected crap beef you can buy at Safeway. Most restaurants also use the lowest quality meet they can buy. You get what you pay for … quality cost time and money.
• Farm raised fish vs wild fish are also very different in nutritional content.
• Organic free range grass fed eggs and regular mass-produced eggs are very different. One has many more times nutritional value (Omega 3, etc).
• Sunday Markets, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Ballard Market and great choices of quality food for Seattle.

Simplest Ingredients
Buy food with simplest ingredients: look at the package contents …the fewer the ingredients, the better. Most stuff at grocery stores is inedible, as it has all kinds of additives and preservatives. For example, if you’re buying cheese, it should really only have 3 ingredients: Milk, Salt, and Rennet.

Everything else is only there to extend its “shelf life” in order to make more money at the cost of your health. Most of the cheese you’ll get at restaurants will almost certainly be of lowest quality.

On Mixing

• Do not mix 2 types of proteins (for example cheese and red meat in a hamburger).
• Do not eat bread, especially white bread, sweets, pastries.

Do not eat anything “processed”
If it’s made by someone else and packaged for shelf life, do not eat it. Things like canned food, smoked lunch meats, packaged tuna. Try to buy raw food that naturally lives and grows in your area and cook it yourself. Think about this: if you were a “cave man”, and there were no stores and food factories, what would you be hunting, gathering, cooking and eating? That’s what you want.

Avoid Big Portions

Don’t eating big portions. Eat smaller portions but more frequently (like every 3 hours):

• Buffer Overflow: your body can only digest around 25 grams of protein per hour.
• Eating a big portion also stretches stomach size (so you’ll feel hungry unless you eat huge portions). Stomach will also shrink if you eat smaller portions. If your stomach is expanded, its really hard to have super strong “body tension” (in climbing) as it messes with your abdominal muscles.
• Personally I eat 7 times a day: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, pre-workout snack, dinner and before bed snack.

Steady Energy
You want to maintain steady energy levels throughout the day (with no spikes):

Not all food gives you the same amount of energy:

• 1 gram of fat == 9 calories
• 1 gram of protein == 4 calories
• 1 gram of carbs == 4 calories
• 1 gram of alcohol == 7 calories

It also takes energy to digest food. Food also breaks down at varying rates. Protein is harder for the body to process, that’s why it makes some people groggy (”food coma”). Carbs is the most efficient form of energy you can get from food. Runners and climbers do “carb loading” (big bowl of pasta a night before the race or competition).

You want to sequence the type of food you eat throughout the day:

• Breakfast: Fruit
• Snack: Nuts
• Lunch: Complex Carbs
• Snack: Nuts
• Dinner: Protein

You only really need protein at night, so when you sleep your body will repair itself with the right building blocks (amino acids).

Not all carbs are created equal
Carbs break down and change blood sugar levels at different rates. You want to eat carbs that do not cause spikes in blood glucose and insulin levels:

• What’s good: apples, oatmeal, brown rice, nuts, and yogurt … basically “low GI” foods. Glucemic Index (GI) measures the effect of carbs on blood sugar levels.
• What’s bad: straight glucose, sugar, white bread, baked potatoes, white rice, pastries, candy, milk chocolate, cheap pasta.

Best way to stay in shape is to never get out of it!
Keep training and pushing past your comfort zone … keep elevating to new levels!

1. “TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
2. “SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
3. “ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
4. “RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
5. “FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
6. “INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
7. “SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
8. “JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
9. “MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
10. “CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
11. “TRANQUILITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
12. “CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
13. “HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

Franklin wrote: “… [it is a ] bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection”.

The desire for significance can be manifested in so many different ways:

• You’re trying to switch lanes in traffic, but another person speeds up (by being in front of you, they forced you to acknowledge their presence).
• It is the fuel behind any career. (Ambition, desire to be great fulfills this need for significance).
• It is also why people become pastors, missionaries and other types of religious workers. (they get this feeling of significance through serving God and people).
• It is also why we bother to document human history! (Historians were typically employed by wealthy people that wanted to be remembered).
• It’s the reason for crime. (By taking something valuable away from you by force, I make you acknowledge my significance in your life).

The desire to feel significant, important, to be connected to others, to be a part of something … is the drive behind reason.

People can channel this desire in a positive or negative way … but they will certainly channel it!

For example, you’re at the DMV.

You get agitated by how long the process is taking. You get to a clerks window and you’re seeing her as insignificant pawn in a government machine, instead of a fellow human being. Surely she feels it though your body language and vocal tonality. After finding that you missed some paper work, she makes you go back to the end of the line to fill it out.

Now imagine you walked up to the same clerk, smiled and asked her about an interesting necklace she is wearing (because you were sincerely interested :) … not manipulative by trying to invoke a particular reaction/outcome). After dealing all day with impatient and rude people, she finds it refreshing. She smiles back and tells you an interesting story behind it. You learn something new. She feels better. Whatever you didn’t fill out in your form, she helps you with.

Two very different approaches. Two very different outcomes. However, in both cases the clerk is telling you (between the lines) that “she is significant to your life”! In the first case she retaliates with whatever little power she has over you because you have hurt her sense of self-worth, her significance. In the second case, she expresses her significance by being helpful because you’ve provided her with an opportunity to do so. Instead of being impatient, you acknowledged her hard work and her involvement in your life without saying much. You said it all (between the lines) by expressing genuine concern. Because you’re sincere, your body language and tone of voice delivered it.

You can’t fake sincerity! Lots of people use charm and flattery to manipulate an event toward a particular result, but a discerning person will always catch on to it. Forget the outcome. Sincerely focus on expressing your genuine love to your neighbor (in how you say things, and what you say). When you’re communicating with people, even if you’re presenting cut and dry scientific facts … speak to the heart first!

Forget about arguing with people at the “mind” level, reasoning with logic and facts. Always go for the heart. If you genuinely make a friend, disagreements will vanish. Often time people continue to argue about something only because they have already stated their positions. Now the pride is involved. If they acknowledge that you’re right it means they are backing down (which hurts their pride/feeling of importance).

Most people are like zombies, they go throughout their day trapped in their world of thoughts, without really paying attention, and connecting with others. Those that can connect heart to heart are very few.

So, as you go about your day, pay attention to how many things are driven by a raw desire for significance…

There are no bad answers … there are only bad questions

The Quality of your questions literally creates your World. It determines the state of all areas of your life: Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, Intellectual, Physical, Relationships, Work, Fun and so on.

We experience the World with our thoughts. Our perception of Reality it skewed by many things. We never see things as they really are. I’ll go so far as to say nothing in the World even comes into existence until you observe it.

Thinking is nothing more than a process of asking a question and coming up with an answer. Questions are interesting because they impose a frame within which you attempt to answer them. Questions are like railroads tracks — they have presuppositions. Questions guide our awareness and thinking process.

It’s important to remember that your current state is the result of some questions you asked before. If you’re not feeling well (emotionally, physically, spiritually … etc) it means you’re asking poor quality questions. Thinking is made of questions and answers. Questions box-in your answers. Answers only give birth to more questions. It’s a recursive process. In the very beginning of your life as far back as you can remember … what were you interested in? What did you want to know?

Asking better questions

You don’t have to answer them within the question framework, a presupposition. Reconsider answering a question. The most intelligent, the happiest, most athletic, most inspired, most giving, most <whatever> people in the world differ from common because of only one thing: they ask higher quality questions because they realize it will guide the answers. By asking higher quality questions you get higher quality answers, higher quality thinking, better decisions and actions, faster emotional, spiritual, intellectual development, increased health and emotional control.

Example: Which question is healthier? Which question will produce the desired outcome? Which question would your Spirit ask?

Before giving answers, see your presuppositions. See the railroad. See where this train is heading. See if you need to get out of it and go in a whole new direction.

Cheers,
-Dmitry

Let me backtrack a bit a give you an overview of what this post is all about. My whole life I’ve been asking myself questions like:

• what is success?
  
• what makes people successful?
• what is my purpose here?
• how can I go after things I desire and at the same time bring good to others?
• what is the very best thing I can do with my life and my time?
• and so forth.

I realized that questions themselves define the frame. By frame I mean your mindstate, the frame of mind through which you look at the word. Just by asking questions you essentially placing your mind in a box, a “framework” within which you’re attempting to answer them. Most important questions are outside of reason and logic. I’ll type this really fast, in one shot, so bare with me if you find typos :).

Ghost in a shell and the flashlight

It is much like walking into a dark room with a flash light. The flashlight has some interesting properties. It has a limited capacity of how much light it can emit (measured in lumens). If you concentrate light, you’ll get a very bright but small surface area. If you keep focusing it, you’ll get a laser beam. If you disperse it you won’t be able to see as clearly but you’ll kind of get an idea of what’s in the room. I think Reality is like that. You literally create it by choosing where to look and how intensely you’re looking in any particular spot.

Reality

No one sees the Creation as it really is. Everything we see is distorted by lenses of memories, emotions, senses and its interpretation. Where you look … is what you choose to see! You create your World by your attention and your language.

“Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

Words

With words God created the Universe. With mere words men can also create, heal, kill and influence the world. With words I create computer software and transmit logic to electromagnetic machinery. The string theory in theoretical physics is based on the idea that everything in Creation is made of vibrating loops (strings) of sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory).

But … as you know, most of human communication is non-verbal: its made of body language (posture, gestures, breathing patterns, eye movements), vocal tonality, speed, pitch and so forth. The actual word content in communication is a very small portion of it.

However, your “inner dialog” and thinking is 100% words (and related symbols/imagery). Words are connected to each other with associations. Some words have a lot of associations and strong connections, some are not. The word “Love” has amazingly strong connections and associations, while
“kiwi” might have very few. This brings me to this point:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Our language has everything to do with our happiness and how we perceive the world. I came to realize (in a very new light) that I should rephrase everything in the positive form because of the way it profoundly directs my attention. The words I use to talk to myself and others pull all kinds of associations and emotions related to them. By speaking and thinking of things that are noble, beautiful, right, true, honest, pure I dramatically affect my perception of the world. And since my perception of the world is my world, I literally change it and how it reacts to me!

Emotions link mind and body. Your thoughts and language also have a profound effect on your body chemistry … and therefore your health.

Balance

To me, the key to staying happy is staying in balance. Mind, Body and Spirit are one. Vital focus areas of Life are one.

Because I am so visual, I prefer mind-mapping to written word to help me “see” and focus. It’s kind of like an outline. The above are (dynamically changing) vital areas of life. If I click on Environment, it expands to the following:

The environment is composed of many “forces” that assert themselves on your decision-making. (I purposely removed some of these forces for this blog J) Some forces are very strong, some are weaker … but how you live is always up to you. No one can force you to think a certain way. Freedom of thought is the freedom you always have!
If I click on Health, I get this:

Body is a temple of Spirit. Mind and body are inseparable. Every day is an opportunity to grow and develop in all of these areas. If I click on physical training, I get something like this:

Nourishment (I do not like the word “diet”):

And so forth…

Each item on this map expands to multitude of sub-screens. The “leafs” (end points of these screens) contain text (in paragraph form). If I was to print it out it would probably be a 50-page book.

At this point I’d like to hear back from you guys, if this stuff is interesting I’ll post more. I might even post the map from which I generated these pictures, the “source code”. Any feedback is appreciated :)

Thanks,

-Dmitry

Agatsu, “Self-Victory”.

Katsuhayabi “Victory right here, right now”.

“If your thoughts are antagonistic toward the cosmos, those thoughts will destroy you and wreck havoc on the environment. I know not how to defeat others I only know how to win over myself!” (Morihei Ueshiba, Creator of Aikido)

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8).

Morihei maintained that the real and most dangerous opponents we face are fear, anger, confusion, doubt, and despair. If we overcome those enemies that attack us from within we can attain a “True Victory”.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31)

 You only live once. Keep yourself in the present. The past is gone, and the future is unknown.

 Do not try to cut off all your passions. Passions give birth to heroic activity. Fulfill your passion and that will bring bliss.

 Do not think of work — any work — as duty. If it is a duty, it will become a burden. How do you turn a burden into a pleasure? Live respectfully, correctly, positively, and boldly.

 When you rise in the morning, greet the day with vigor. During the day, refrain from thinking or saying “I am confused”, “I’m weak”, “I’m sad”, “I need help”. At night before you sleep, release all thoughts of sadness, anger or irritation. Think of pleasant things.

Do not overwork yourself.

Reflect constantly on your state of mind.

Approach others in a positive bright manner.

Always be grateful, honest, kind, and pleasant.

Speak truly and honestly.

Body and mind form a single entity; life follows basic natural laws that should not be violated.

Your attitude towards life determines its outcome.

The best attitude is based on respect, boldness, truthfulness, and purity.

Foster the life force by being healthy, courageous, decisive, resolute, and vigorous.”

-Tempu Nakamura

Microsoft Online Services -- we shipped!

This is a great book on some of the basic principles, such as mind and body coordination, strong will, and power of “positive thinking” (this phrase doesn’t translate well).

Here are some interesting quotes from this book: “The brain is always working while you are alive, you cannot eliminate the waves of the mind. It is impossible not to think anything. The waves of the brain, however, can be calmed down by half infinitely.

When the waves are calmed down infinitely toward zero, it is called concentration. “Think nothing” means concentration or calmness. It is a state of mind like a clear water surface which reflects, clearly and without error, everything and every phenomenon of the world.

In this complicated modern age, it must be valuable to learn how to acquire calmness of the mind which can distinguish right from wrong clearly.” -Koichi Tohei

Any kind of excitement and anticipation make it feel like time is sloooowing down. Think about it. Lets say you’re so excited to do something with your friends on Friday. You have these huge plans. The whole week is going to feel like a month, because you just can’t wait for it to be that day!

I think as people get older, they get less and less excited about Life in general, with an attitude “been there, done that”. Nothing surprises them. Nothing really takes their breath away, or disappoints them. They’ve been through many ups and downs etc. Its all about the same…

Don’t do that! Get excited :)

I think the key to enjoying life is always to be “in the mystery” like its your first day on this planet, to be excited to see what’s around the corner. I think its somewhere right in between of whats called “The beginner’s mind” in Zen, and “becoming a child again” in Matthew 18:1 .

Hope, desire, and passion make Life worth living!

Is there something you always wanted to do but gave up on? Get really inspired and time will fell normal again, just like when you were a little kid.

1. Empty your concerns so you have room to think clearly!

I am starting to think GTD stole all of my ideas :) Anyway, you can’t be productive if your mind is cluttered with to-do lists, pressing events, unsolved problems and projects. There is a really simple solution for this – just write it down, get it out of your head and realize that you’ll come back to it later, on your own terms so for now it won’t bother you. I’ve always thought the mind is similar to computer RAM – it has a limited “operational capacity”. Even though you can increase it, your “effective memory” is the thought space not preoccupied by background processes, or loops such as unresolved concerns and to-do lists. These things interrupt you from focusing. They make you constantly context-switch. A Zen-like approach is much more effective.

Maintain an All-Day “Journal” Event:
I carry a PDA and a paper notepad (in case the former fails). On my PDA (iPhone) I create an all-day (calendar) event called “journal”. Inside it, I make notes of anything important that happened during a day. I like to track it in software, because later I can search it for keywords. I’ve been meticulously journaling my life this way for the past 6 years and it has worked well for me.

Write down your concerns in a Daily Recurring Event
It is very convenient to have a daily recurring event (I renamed mine to “bucket”, credits to GTD). As you go through your day, open this “Bucket” event, and write down any kind of concerns, ideas, to-dos, etc in the notes section. I also carry a voice recorder (so if I am driving I can record things I need to remember and put them into my calendar later (plus its not a bad idea to become aware of what you sound like to people)).

If you do these 2 things you’ll have the ability to (1) search through your Life journal, and (2) copy and paste your items from bucket to other software. Make sure to make monthly backups of your calendar by burning them to a CD.

2. Process your daily “bucket of concerns”

At night, I sit down and go through each item in my daily bucket list. I empty it completely every day. You can only do one of the following things with the items in your bucket:

1. If it’s something small (less than 2 minutes) – do it immediately!
2. Can someone else help you do it? Delegate it and create an event in your calendar to follow up on it later.
3. If it requires you to be in some place and time, schedule it to be done as soon as possible.
4. If it’s some kind of information that will really be useful to remember at a later time, on some specific day … put it in your calendar (and describe it in the notes section of the event).
5. If it’s not feasible at the moment, file it to review later, under “maybe/someday” folder.
6. If it’s a huge task, create a project for it. Break it down to specific “action items” and figure out what is blocking you from moving forward with it!
7. Don’t do it at all.

3. Get inspired: Reflect and Review

1. Refocus on your priorities and values. What do you want to do with your short and fleeting Life? What is important? If you don’t have a good answer for this question, schedule aside a personal time to pray, reflect, meditate etc.
2. How about the next year? What specific goals do you have?
3. How about this week? What specifically are you going to accomplish this week? Take a look at your maybe/someday list. Can you do any of it this week?
4. What specific things you’re not doing right now that would have amazing positive effect on your life only if you would do them every day?
5. Look over your schedule for tomorrow and go to sleep. When you wake up, glance over your schedule after breakfast.

I look at every day as an opportunity to grow in all of Life. If I am not learning and growing, I am as good as dead. This is how I break it down in my mind:

Personal Areas (Inner):

• Spiritual: Prayer, meditation, reflection etc. Keep yourself from being polluted by this world. Run towards the light.
• Emotional: Emotional Intelligence, Power under control (over your emotions, thoughts, desires, speech, etc). Guard your heart. Don’t be reactive.
• Intellectual: Use it or loose it! Progressing and learning something difficult, highly technical. Using your memory so your capacity increases.
• Physical: Training your body (your temple) to be in the best physical shape you can possibly be. Watching your diet. Getting enough sleep. I learned (from Aikido) on a very deep level that mind and body are inseparable. Healthy body is healthy mind, healthy emotions.

People Areas (Outer):

• Family: spending time with family
• Friends: connecting with friends and making new ones.
• Love Life: dating, etc.

To simplify all of these things above and to understand how they all work together, you can just think of them as 3 things:

• Love: Love for Your Family, Friends, Colleagues, Acquaintances, Complete Strangers. (Agapē).
• Health: Your Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual and Physical well-being.
• Wealth: Your ability to make money (for the sole purpose of keeping Love and Health in balance. Think about it!)

Now watch how they’re connected:

Let’s say “Love” gets out of balance: you’re not in good relationships with your girlfriend – well, it will immediately take a toll on Health and Wealth. You might be stressing out, you won’t get enough sleep (Health), and you won’t be productive at your work (Wealth).

Let’s say you’re having financial problems (Wealth) – you’re not going to have any time to spend with your family, friends and loved ones. Your relationships will start to deteriorate (Love). Because of stress, your Health will be affected as well (Health)!

If you’re sick and in pain (Health), you won’t be able to work well (Wealth), or spend quality time with family, friends, etc (Love). You need to take care of your body so it takes care of you later.

All these 3 things are connected very strongly. Keeping them balanced will make you feel great!

Hagakure is a very interesting book I picked up — it has a lot of historical value since it describes life during ancient japan, when the shogun and samurai ruled the country. I’ve been a student of Aikido and other martial arts for some time now, so this is very interesting to me. Some of the stuff in this book is too wild and gruesome to mention but I thought these quotes were great.

“To give a person one’s opinion and correct his faults is an important thing. It is compassionate and comes first in matters of service. But the way of doing this is extremely difficult. To discover the good and bad points of a person is an easy thing, and to give an opinion concerning them is easy, too.

For the most part, people think that they are being kind by saying the things that others find distasteful or difficult to say. But if it is not received well, they think that there is nothing more to be done. This is completely worthless. It is the same as bringing shame to a person by slandering him. It is nothing more than getting it off one’s chest.

To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not. One must become close with him and make sure that he continually trusts one’s word. Approaching subjects that are dear to him, seek the best way to speak and to be well understood.Judge the occasion and determine whether it s better by letter or at the time of leave-taking. Praise his good points and use every device to encourage him, perhaps by talking about one’s own faults without touching on his, but so that they will occur to him. Have him receive this in the way that a man would drink water when his throat is dry, and it will be an opinion that will correct faults.This is extremely difficult.

If a person’s fault is a habit of some years prior, by and large it won’t be remedied. I have had this experience myself. To be intimate with all one’s comrades, correcting each other’s faults, and being of one mind to be of use to the master is the great compassion of a retainer. By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?”

(From Yamamoto Tsunetomo, “Hagakure”, The Book of the Samurai, 1716)