Good advice that I once heard. Drink water. Not pop or sugary drinks. Even alcohol will add to your calorie intake.
So be mindful of the wet you put in your mouth. Because the more of that, the less of the great food you can eat and still stay your slim and fit self.
This can be a prescription for disaster in life. While feeling good is wonderful, the constant pursuit of that feeling can lead to poor choices, pain, misery and regret.
Often there is a choice between something that feels good and something less enjoyable. For example, watching your favourite tv show rather than doing an hour of homework. Or perhaps you’d rather pay for a holiday rather than research and invest your funds into a sensible venture.
Making the feel good choice once in a while will usually work out fine. However, developing a habit of avoiding harder work in pursuit of feeling good can leave your life in tatters after several years.
Your life can slide into a series of pointless undertakings, unfortunate failures and directionless drifting with no joy of accomplishment or giving. You may find you are lacking in life’s key elements such as health, relationships, finances and happiness.
You are in control of this. Pursue more than just feeling good and with a 20 year time horizon. Your future self will thank you.
Many times you may see a chore, especially a repetitive one, and think, why bother. It can be easy to dismiss things. Yet, these can be important for structure in your day, health and cleanliness, benefit to others or even to give you purpose.
It can be easy to dismiss things like admin, cleaning or tidying. But they mount up and compound. Then you can get into even bigger trouble.
Learn to be tidier. It’s a skill you can gradually develop and is useful throughout your life.
Bother to do things. It builds discipline, self-esteem, confidence and even pride. Your life will be richer for it.
Adjust your mindset, even a wee bit.
Why use more? Essentialism meets minimalism.
Be a little kinder today. Make the effort. Several times.
That’s the best answer.
There is enough tragedy, drama, hurt and pain in the world. So keep things as light as you can, while being aware of the challenges others are facing.
Until we want to go for a drive, fly somewhere on vacation, or eat out so we don’t eat leftovers at home.
It’s a tough mental exercise if you’re being honest with yourself. This is mainly because we, as individuals, can all play a bigger part in having an impact on the environment.
There is a natural tendency to blame others and insist they, or government, do things to make it all better. However, for the most part, the government will only ask us to do what we can do ourselves.
For example, we all could have used woven carrier bags for years now. That would have eliminated the manufacture, use and disposal of billions of plastic carrier bags. But not many did that. So the government, in the familial position of parent, made a law and imposed a cost on carrier bags to reduce their use.
Now, do that with driving cars (for work, pleasure, getting kids to school or activities), plastic packaged food items, and plane journeys – for business or pleasure. Stop doing any of these things. Could you? Would you? Will you? From today? You know it would be better on the environment, yet you do not change your ways.
And no, we can’t use an electric vehicle as a defence. Why? Because the impact of making these new cars is still there and what do you think they do to make the electricity.
So one mustn’t be too hard on people that don’t talk the talk, when nearly everyone doesn’t walk the walk.
Memory is an an incredible tool and human function. Think about how amazing it is.
It allows you to start each day knowing how to eat and speak using your full vocabulary. It is also useful in knowing where you parked your car, knowing how to drive and where you are going.
When you think about it for a minute or two, you will realise how absolutely critical memory is in our everyday life.
Another time you will recognise its incredible value is when you lose it or someone you know does. It is then that you will appreciate its magnificent magic.
Forgetting where your keys are is just a glimpse into this. So is not recalling someone’s name. It can be frustrating, time consuming and a little disheartening.
So keep using your memory to the fullest amount every day. Practice and train your brain as often as you can.
Memory is an incredible tool. We will miss it if and when it is gone. We just might not remember why.
