So it is December again, another year bidding us a swift goodbye when we are just starting to like the sound of it. Ready or not, like it or not, in the cold of the night (except for you lucky souls on an island or in the southern hemisphere), we switch over to a new [...]
life
Too many mornings, I chose email over mediation, I chose twitter time over introspection time. Too many nights, I collapsed into deep sleep without taking a moment to quiet the mind and reflect on the day. Too many days in 2010, I chose impulsively rather than consciously. The heart longed to make meditation a ritual, [...]
The incredible response to my last post has seriously thrown off my focus and made it nearly impossible to move on. I have written and re-written several drafts of fresh new posts – highlights from travels to Switzerland and Berlin, visits to authentic tea shops and seeing the breath-taking 3000-year old Nefertiti bust – only [...]
In my life, I have wished for a million things, I have dreamt a thousand dreams; I have pursued hundreds of passions and goals and yet, never for a serious minute in all of my fantastic 30 plus years have I wished to have a child. That’s me. I must be strange. I must be [...]
Being in control was my way of asserting power over my life or at least I thought so until I realized the illusion of being in control of your life. You may control your temper, your attitude, or your eating habits but you do not control circumstances and situations at large or the poor strokes [...]
My motivation is insanely out of control lately. If I don’t calm down soon, this excitement is going to kill my productivity and my focus! That’s how motivated I feel lately. How about you? My energy is to the roof. I simply cannot contain it all in. I wake up after a few hours of [...]
The elephants in Bali had no business making me feel so utterly grounded, detaching me from my own world and drawing me so instantaneously into their stark contrast version of reality. How could they do that just standing there, these gentle giants, munching on their food and making unsolicited eye contact? How could they mesmerize [...]
I did not imagine Blogworld Expo would have this profound effect on me. I was entirely too unprepared for it! This gathering made this powerful yet virtual community come alive in ways that surpassed the best of my expectations. I am simply dumbfounded from it all! I put faces to names (and Twitter IDs!), voices [...]
It is the standard definition of success when you set out goals to accomplish – and turn around to do just the same. For Blogworld 2010, I more than achieved all my goals, so fortunate was I to meet the perfect people who pushed me in the directions I meant to go before leaving the [...]
I looked high and low for the perfect Buddha statue to bring home from Bali; I desperately wanted to own one! My husband made an annoying observation as usual, that I am neither a Buddhist nor a Hindu, and the statue, while “very cool”, could not carry for me the intended and true significance it [...]
Dear Monsieur Dumas, It is the year 2010 today, nearly 166 years since you published The Count of Monte Cristo. Your contemporaries recognized it as the accomplishment it is, which is the least we can say for the treasures which have come to us from your period. It makes me immensely happy when a society [...]
As I commit to another fantastic month long health-forming challenge, I question one thing: How long does it really take to form long-term, sustainable, healthy new habits that seamlessly integrate into your life as though they have always been there? What type of commitment? Habits that once formed never part. Habits of a lifetime. Forming [...]
What do you wish you knew when you were younger? A dear blogger friend asked me to write my thoughts about this in a post and at first I thought, thanks but I’ll get to it when I can. Then I started reading the collection of bittersweet thoughts and sentiments from a few brave souls [...]
Content is king (or queen if you will permit me the variation), no questions asked. The personal (in your eyes) and perceived (in the eyes of others) success in the blogging world belongs with those who can clearly articulate their thoughts, connect with the heart and mind of their readers and consistently write authentic content [...]
“Understand that friends come and go, but to a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps between geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.” A brilliant quote from Mary Schmich (later used by Baz Luhrmann in [...]
How is it that some of us so clearly remember memories from the earliest years of life on this earth while the rest of us struggle in vain to find a shred of anything that would awaken those sleeping beauties and bring them to the surface to let us to rejoice in? I have been [...]
Why do clumsy accidents happen to good people? This morning at 5am, I am standing at the expert traveler security line (the TSA‘s fancy privilege for frequent air travelers – and of course I consider myself one but read on for the irony). One wrong move in my haste to get through the security X-rays [...]
The day that I stop improving upon the self is the day that I stop living. My problem has never been the lack of motivation in improving myself. I find myself drawn to self-improvement as bees to flowers or water to shore. No, my problem is bigger. It is the ever-present overwhelming feeling of just [...]
Searching the Ripples of my Mind for Childhood Memories “Do you remember the time in school when…” The place is Razi Elementary School in Iran. The time is in the early 1980s. The question is posed by a long lost childhood friend who found me by sheer accident on an otherwise ordinary Monday and has [...]
Our experiences are not only made up of what we have lived through. Sometimes, experience stems from that which we did not do. I never had the chance to watch Luciano Pavarotti perform live. I regret that bitterly. The immaculate voice of this opera tenor was a gift to this world and who knows when, [...]
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 [...]
