Hi. SnapDragon here. It’s been awhile. And who knows why, really. I mean, I do have a toddler. I tend to the house and home. I technically work full-time, although it’s more like a part-time, online gig at the moment. (No complaints. But it still takes up minutes of my day.) And by the time I have an hour to myself–with a cat or two … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On Thought-Jelly.
“Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain.” Sharon Salzberg Hello, friends. … Continue reading Missed Connections
Every one of us wants a good life, right? I don’t think there is anyone in this world that says: “F*ck good life! I want to live as miserable as possible!” The thing is that a good life is formed of multiple areas, which has different levels of importance, depending of what you want (career, family, friends, health and so on). What strokes me the … Continue reading Losing Focus: An important problem nowadays?
Provided by AP from Clear Air Turbulence Why is it always said, he cried like a little girl? We never say, she cried like a little boy, do we? For that matter, we never say she cried like a little girl either. Of course I’m forgetting that’s because it’s acceptable for girls to cry! Silly me. It’s just boys who don’t cry! Except that’s not … Continue reading Why Crying Like A Little Girl Is The Manliest Thing You Can Do
Provided by Bobbie Herron from Aloft with Inspiration A few weeks ago I posted a piece called “Final Chapter…” At the time I had every reason to believe that I would need to discontinue my blog, sketching, teaching art, reading for pleasure…all the activities that had given meaning to my life thusfar, all because of a sudden spike in progressive blindness. I reached out to … Continue reading Why giving up doesn’t work
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho I have forever had this idea of myself that I don’t finish what I start. I have had this belief that I get really excited about things at the start of something but then I just sort of fizzle out. I carry this self defeating belief with … Continue reading Achieving Impossible Goals
“I’d far rather be happy than right any day” – Douglas Adams We get addicted to the stories we are spinning. It feels good in our minds to “figure it all out” or “be in the know.” Somehow we believe that if we know what is happening we will be safer from it. I can definitely see the allure of that type of thinking. There … Continue reading Being Right is a Powerful Narcotic
My Dear Friend, You’re in a tough place now, I know. You see no purpose or joy in life right now, I understand. There is a dark cloud following you everywhere and you see nothing but pain and… nothing, you’re right. You wish everything should stop with all costs, and no wonder. Everything seems pointless and you have a strong belief your future will be … Continue reading Letter for Depressed Moments
“Wash out this tired notion that the best is yet to come.” – Dave Matthews I had to remind myself this week that motivation comes from within. It certainly does not come from the expensive, fancy bike I ordered and have been waiting for the past 7 weeks. It was supposed to be delivered next week. I cancelled the order. I got to thinking, and … Continue reading Motivation Comes From Within
Provided by Evan from Mind Power Grow I’ll admit it. This is something that I did for a long time and let me tell you – it’s a bad habit. When I was younger, I was very non-confrontational. I was the type of kid who thought that everything could be resolved without conflict. I learned that if you just said sorry and moved on with … Continue reading Don’t Be Sorry. Apologize and Grow Stronger
I don’t know about you, but when I’m driving I sometimes feel that my personality somehow changes and I’m transforming into the worst version of myself. A while back, when I noticed that, I tried to notice how other drivers behave. It turns out that most of them spit poison everywhere at the smallest mistake other drivers do. It’s like when we’re driving we forget … Continue reading Why driving brings out the worst of us?
Provided by Marushka from Skeleton At The Feast There are many good arguments on behalf of contentment. I am in fact completely in favor of contentment, so if you find yourself at peace with your life please don’t read any further – because today I make the case for a creature called Dissatisfaction. What is this beast? I often catch it prowling around my thoughts. It … Continue reading Dissatisfaction: A User’s Guide
Yesterday I ate a piece of chocolate. Just a single square, wrapped in a golden foil. It had been chilled in the fridge. I like sweets this way. The cold and creamy sweetness danced on my taste buds. I savored it. For it was just another fleeting moment in time. . . . SnapDragon is an educator, writer, painter, and fan of life’s simple pleasures. … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On The Moment.
Provided by Sarah Cole from PURC The Principle Of Sustainability: There are numerous definitions of sustainability. Like, the ‘entropy principle’ of sustainability states that life on Earth should not use more energy each day than is supplied by the Sun every single day. Herman Daly proposed these three principles of sustainability: non-renewable resources should not be depleted at rates higher than the development rate of … Continue reading How Is Sustainability An Ethical Decision?
Today my mind wanted to wonder about the limitation a human being has. Of course, this is not about our physical limitations, but more about our mental limitations, which seem to guide our behavior. With this in mind, we might say that our behavior is limited by our mind, right? If you think that some things are put there by others (e.g. parents, society, laws … Continue reading Our own self-drawn box
Provided by Anthony Garner from https://zenothestoic.com/ I believe on any number of counts, including personal experience, that we have the power to choose to be happy but that the road is not altogether straightforward. Our philosopher friends would tell us that happiness is a “quale” – one of a number of different “qualia” which we humans can experience. Qualia are subjective conscious experiences and other examples include … Continue reading On Choosing Happiness
I know, I know! The first impulse is to throw rotten eggs in this title because we both know it’s not true (at least, most of the time). So the question now is: when doing nothing is the hardest thing to do? I think this is related to having control over the situation because that’s when fear and desperation have a say. When it seems … Continue reading Doing Nothing: The Hardest Thing To Do?
If you don’t live somewhere alone, isolated from others, then you see people and you notice them and their behavior. The question is: how often do you judge them based on their behavior and how often do you seek and try to understand the reason behind that behavior? One of my biggest beliefs is that noticing one’s behavior is not enough for drawing a conclusion, … Continue reading Reason vs Behavior: Which one is more important?
Even though I haven’t written anything about movies as I did last year, I remained a huge movies fan. Last night I watched The Two Popes, a recent movie directed by Fernando Meirelles, where I heard the quote “Small pleasures are important”. This made me think about how important they really are and why we should pay (some) attention to small pleasures. But what a … Continue reading “Small pleasures are important”
This is a deep topic and I hope I’m as close to ready as I can for approaching it, so let’s jump into it. In the past three years I got very interested in self-development and I noticed a pattern across all motivational speakers: they all talk about finding your passion and following your destiny. But what if that’s not possible? What if there isn’t … Continue reading Destiny: A Myth?
