This is the 100th Blog Post on Prolific Living and I decided to celebrate this milestone with reflection and joy. In celebration, I have compiled a list of my 100 Lessons about Life and Blogging in 2009. The theme of this experience which most resonates with me is the constant learning. And learning not limited to all things related to blogging, but all things related to life. Either blogging lessons teach me about life, or I am filled with excitement to write about life lessons on the blog. Intertwined and inseparable, they push me to explore, to grow, to experiment and to forever raise the ante on my goals and aspirations.
All of these lessons are from direct experience that I would not trade, good or not-so-good. Some of them I learned again, this time not to forget. Each of them has taught me to be a better blogger and a better person. If even a single one aspires you to be a better person, my goal is achieved and my work is done here in this post. Here is to blogging, to living fully and to you my dear readers:
The list is in no particular order. The color coding is for your ease of read.
1. Build and develop good life habits every day and all the time.
2. The reward and joy from reading the classics endures.
3. When you hear someone say “I could write a book about it”, you can be sure that they cannot. Writing is not easy.
4. The best blog posts are those written right from the heart and first-hand experience.
5. A few good readers alone can make you feel extremely committed to your blog.
6. Blogspot platform is limiting to your learning and true potential as a blogger, regardless of whether you are a pro blogger or a novice.
7. Some of the best blog articles are from the least known sites, and some of the most popular blogs sometimes write nonsense. So do not let popularity of blogs cloud your judgment of high quality content.
8. Read what you like. Don’t feel pressured to read the popular, the best seller, or the book you thought you like but half-way through you find you can’t stand.
9. The help offered to you may be free but the gratitude should never be forgotten. Always thank those who help you online. Profusely and often.
10. WordPress rocks as the best publishing platform for bloggers.
11. Multi-tasking is distracting, elusive and counter-productive.
12. Thesis Theme is the ultimate best blog theme with brilliantly designed features, aesthetics and power.
13. The Thesis Theme support team makes the price worth every penny. Those guys know everything and respond at the speed of light!
14. Focusing intently on the task at hand always produces results. Sometimes surprisingly sweet and fast results.
15. Using Wikipedia and Dictionary.com helps you learn as you write.
16. Blogging community is made up of some of the best human beings out there. Everyone willing to help. Everyone doing their best to succeed.
17. Breathing alone can be healing – in all things.
20. Borrowing books from friends adds a special appeal to the reading experience.
21. You will astound yourself if you did everything you truly are capable of doing. I paraphrase Einstein, and he tells it as it is.
22. The best thing that can happen to you is finding a true friend.
23. The smartest thing you can do for yourself is hold on to those true friends.
24. Making a dream of a friend come true has shown me the immense value and fulfillment of giving.
25. Listening to 1000 year old Persian poetry can awaken bittersweet emotions, whether you understand the words or not.
26. The older I get, the more I welcome a return to the world of academics.
27. Forgiving yourself for giving into a bad habit again is the first step. The second step is to stop the habit again and do so for good.
28. Making friends with those both older than you and younger than you has a sweet balancing effect on your life.
29. A day without learning, breathing, and time to yourself is a day not fully lived.
30. Yoga does not take time away. It gives you time back.
31. Tango is not forgiving when you have not been practicing.
32. Europe in the winter is good for the soul.
33. Paris renews itself in my eyes each time I return, and it does this by not changing at all.
34. On the road to success, you must celebrate small milestones.
35. Dealing with physical and chronic pain can be very humbling.
36. There is no such thing as reading too many books.
37. There is such a thing as too much TV, and it starts with any TV.
38. There is no such thing as too much yoga, only too little rest before yoga.
39. There is no such thing as too much tango, only drab music and dull partners.
40. There is absolutely no such thing as too much travel, only too much business travel and too little time for travel.
41. Accepting that some friendships have run their course saves you the unnecessary heartache.
42. Juicing and detoxing can teach you so much about your body and the state of your mind.
43. You can control the state of my mind.
44. A strong core and a quiet mind alone let you jump into a handstand and can stun you with your own ability to float into air.
45. Attitude and patience can make all the difference.
46. There is no price you can put on good posture.
47. Awareness and avoidance of poor daily habits can save you months and years of chronic pain later in life.
48. Our beloved electronics can be harmful to our beloved bodies. Exercising balance and smart usability combined with serious self-care is crucial if you plan to live well into your 90s.
49. Honesty between friends is better.
50. Raw honey does wonders for your health.
51. Yoga injuries heal with more yoga practice and care.
52. Early mornings can be the best time for solitude and productivity.
53. If you put your heart and soul into a speech, you will touch the heart of your audience.
54. If you are going to do a lousy job of something, do yourself a favor and refrain from doing at all.
55. The power of kindness is tremendous. You can never be too kind to a friend, a spouse, or a parent.
56. I can finally understand why people re-read a book.
57. Writing on a schedule makes me less creative. Best to forget the schedule because the creativity is of essence.
58. Writing a guest blog post is hard work but one which does not go unnoticed.
59. The best way to keep from being overwhelmed when studying the most successful pros out there is to remember that the steps you take to enhance and refine that blog are not linear, and with persistence and focus, the learning and growth can be exponential.
60. I have learned to never again say that I cannot do that yoga pose. I have been proven wrong too often.
61. It is best to entirely remove the words “I will try”. Yoda was right all along, ”Do or Do not, There is No Try”
62. If you don’t believe you are going to succeed at something, then you most certainly will not. A bad self-fulling prophecy should be avoided like the plague.
63. Declining an offer, an invitation, or a request takes discipline and effort – but first and foremost, you have to be true to yourself.
64. The easiest and least effective way you can make yourself feel better is by making someone else look worse. Refrain from it.
65. The freedom of choice goes unnoticed. Do not forget that you can choose in almost all things you do in life, and if you don’t like what you have, you can change it. Much like the Theme on your blog.
66. It is astounding to watch the effects of great health habits on an aging body. And more astounding still why, knowing this fully well in our information age, we are not constantly building and nurturing those habits.
67. Yoga and tango withdrawals can happen even if you are in paradise.
68. Hawaii remains the ultimate paradise on earth. I look forward to being proven wrong by traveling and exploring the world, but it just won’t happen.
69. The opera can evoke deep emotions in you, if you really let it.
70. You can learn from the things you don’t like, the people you can’t stand, and the moods you can’t help. So at least, learn in the course of this hard process. Learn and grow.
71. If you really believe in your blog’s mission, you would not care that a million others have done a similar thing. Maybe you believe it more. Then it won’t be the same.
72. You cannot measure the full outreach of your blog. You can only bask in the knowledge that somehow, someone is smiling, learning, improving their life because of what you wrote. And that is sometimes enough.
73. You can write a winning humorous speech about a story that runs the span of just over 10 minutes. Delivery, my friends, is everything.
74. You can trust your friends, who love and adore you, to help make your dreams come true. Believe me on this one.
75. When you are solving a problem on your blog, research the answer yourself first. Google is a hot bed of information. Ask educated questions on the forums later.
76. Participation on blog forums has to be a two-way street. Provide answers. Impart information if it helps others. Give and take.
77. Don’t underestimate the joy of helping someone else achieve a goal, solve a problem, or improve at giving their speech. All because of you.
78. Don’t surround yourself with sour, negative, and unhappy people, and don’t ever let them rob you of your life-force energy. Who are they to walk into your life and claim time and attention, both of which you cannot get back at any price?
79. Writing and reading timeless content is a quiet satisfaction no hot topic or trend can beat.
80. I learn so much from my friends. I enjoy so much having many circles of friends. They fill me up with motivation, excitement, and renew my sense of purpose.
81. You have to consciously set aside time to read timeless content every day. A classic. A bit of history. A poem.
82. When seemingly educated people resort to improper and horribly incorrect use of the beautiful English language, do nothing. Absolutely nothing. The education system has failed. It’s over. It’s hopeless and it is most unwise to spend any time and effort offering them lessons. They don’t care and they won’t learn. If you think this lesson harsh, think how I felt when I learned it. If you do not agree with me now, you will later.
83. Running a contest on your blog with a prize is better than giving your product away for free. And you build fans out of thin air in the course of it.
84. If you are going to throw a dinner party for your friends, put not just your best china out, but your heart and soul into the food and entertainment. So memorable are those evenings over dinner. So good for the soul.
85. A real photographer creates beauty with light. Anything under his masterful hands turns from light to beauty.
86. It is essential to prepare well for international trips: Learn the map, the sights, the custom, a few words of the language, and pack light, light, light!
87. There is nothing quite as satisfying as a glass of fresh squeezed green juices after an hour of Kundalini yoga.
88. If you don’t feel good about your body and your self-esteem, no compliment in the world can fill up your cup. The self-worth starts from within. So believe in yourself and your vast potential as a human being.
89. Engaging people in conversations about Windows versus Mac can tread into surprisingly dangerous waters. Handle with as much care as if you were to talk politics, sex or religion.
90. Every single day, do something divine for yourself. Be selfish and treat yourself . It will make loving others so much more natural.
91. Getting along and having a smooth transaction in the process of buying and selling a home with loan officers, closing attorneys, and buyers/sellers involved is impossible. Learn to go with the flow because something will inevitably go wrong.
92. The older I get, the more I miss the language and the custom and the traditions of my childhood, and the more sorrow I feel for the Iran that will never be free.
93. The practice of meditation completes a yoga practice, and can be the hardest element to achieve, much less master.
94. The joy from seeing the presents I have bestowed to my friends used and used again fills me up with enormous joy.
95. You should never underestimate the value of emotional support from your spouse or life partner.
96. It is wise to be open to holistic medicine, prevention, and slow healing process in favor of fast medical approaches of invasive alternatives.
97. A good massage hurts when you are getting it. A fantastic massage hurts different places for a few days after getting it, and it defines sweet torture for the senses.
98. Money can buy happiness.
99. Like it or not, patience is a virtue you either possess or need to develop for survival and success in today’s mad wonderful world.
100. Don’t lose touch with your own heart, mind, soul, body. Nurture each one often, and whatever you do, do not become complacent about life.
Please leave me your beautiful thoughts and tell me your favorite among the list or perhaps share with me your own lesson of 2009 about Life or Blogging.
Photo on this page by Pascal Monmoine
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{ 18 brilliant comments, Care to add another? }
Farnoosh, you’re one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met & I’m so grateful for having the opportunity to meet you & learn from you, to share so many wonderful & sometimes painful moments.. I’ll come back to this post again & again!
Thank you Iryna. If this inspired you, my job is done! Come back anytime and thank you for leaving a comment here.
farnoosh, thank you for your lovely blog…it’s always a joy to read. just one thing though, i was reading the post about rebecca, and i believe it’s spelled “manderley.” maybe there are multiple spellings?
Dear Christina, you are right, I checked and I made the change
! Thank you so much. I am so glad you enjoy the posts!
Farnoosh! Hello! You have such a marvelous blog! I’m jealous! Kidding aside, every year about this time, I open up my blog and invite GUEST-POSTERS to contribute. Would you like to? I would be honoured!
Dave, thanks so much for the compliments and the offer. I am over-committed right now but would like to in the future. All the best!
Wow – what a list! Not only great list for blogging but life in general.
This is something I will be sharing with my readers as well as bookmarking for future reference. Very inspiring.
I particularly like this point:
4. The best blog posts are those written right from the heart and first-hand experience.
There have been numerous times where my best blog posts have come about when I’m not even thinking about blogging, then all of a sudden an idea clicks and I need to run to the laptop or notepad to write my ideas/blog post down.
Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com
Sarge, very happy to you enjoyed the list. I know exactly what you mean by “not even thinking about blogging” – some of the best stuff is written without thinking so hard about them………:)!
Great post, Farnoosh! I’m on my way to my 100th post, too (I think I’ve done between 80 and 90 at this point). I love the way you approached this milestone. You have motivated me to brainstorm about how I’ll celebrate #100 on my daddy blog. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, as always!
I shall await your 100th post with baited breath, Brian – thanks for the comment. Keep the inspiration going strong!
Hello Farnoosh,you are my star,I take courage from your writings.
Have a great day.
kostas
So happy to hear it, Kostas. So happy. Thank you!
This is an amazing resource! And something that I will read over and over again thanks for sharing.
Thank you dear Sophie – it’s old but I pride myself in writing timeless content so I think it is passing the test. Nice to see you here.
Congrats for this milestone. Enjoy reading your posts. The best is yet to come for you.
Thank you – and this was 2 years ago. It’s close to 300 posts now. Do you blog, Qin?
I absolutely loved this post! As a new blogger, I learned SO much from it, but also I just love your writing style. I’ve been clicking around your blog for the last two hours and am just in love with the way you write. Would you ever consider writing a fiction novel- perhaps about Iran??
Hi sweet Lena, you are a doll. No plans to write a novel just yet but perhaps someday. I’ll mention you in the dedication page if ever I do. Stay motivated and come back anytime. So happy you are enjoying the blog….. thank you so much for telling me.
{ 5 brilliant comments, Care to add another? }