This just came by on the radio and I felt compelled to share it with you:

————————————————–
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience… I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind;
you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing!
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either –
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
Dance… even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander,
you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40,
it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

…But trust me on the sunscreen…
————————————————

Taken from the following song: Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

I’ve heard it quite some times in the past but never truely paid attention to the message it held. I’m glad I did today!

As you may or may not be aware of, I started a new job at the beginning of February. It’s great to meet new people, face new challenges and have some more money to spend on nice things. Apart from that, one of the things that also comes with working in a large organization is email. And as it turns out, lots… and lots of email.

The Tom sawyer effect
I’m not sure you are familiar with the term but I do assume you’ve heard of Tom Sawyer before. The Tom Sawer principle originates from a scene where Tom is ordered to paint a fence white. Tom wasn’t particularly fond of doing work of any kind so he found a way to get out of it. He started projecting the idea onto passing people that painting that fence was actually a lot of fun. Yet, when they asked them if they could have a go at it, he promptly refused. Eventually people started paying him for the privilege of painting the fence.
Yes, Tom turned something that was boring work to him into something others would actually pay to be able to do. He essentially managed to turn a task into a privilege, work into play.

The Tom Sawyer principle can also be seen in many other situations in life but also in reverse. For example, extremely wealthy people that like to drive a horse and carriage for fun in their spare time. However, as soon as someone would offer them money to take them somewhere it completely took all the fun out of it and turned it into work. As soon as their fun turned into work, they lost all interest. (There is some fascinating research done on this, from kids to adults that is worth checking out)

Back to Email:
Do you remember when you first got to use email? I thought it was amazing! Even though I didn’t have that many people to send emails to in the beginning, simply because it wasn’t widely adopted, just the thought of communicating this fast across enormous distances felt awesome to me! The more people started using it, the higher its value of email became, as is with any network. Email was fun to use! Now queue the office…
In offices, email has started taking over people’s schedule. It’s often no longer a tool but an objective: “Get through all your email today”. There are now tons of freelance consultants making money on teaching people how to cope with this seemingly endless flow of incoming emails clogging up their day and annihilating their productivity.
Luckily I’m aware of this problem and intend not to become a victim of it.

But sadly, I am starting to become a victim of the Tom Sawyer effect. Email, once fun to use, is turning into work. I get dozens of emails to read. Ever since the CC-box was invented, so was the “FYI” (for your information) email. Since it’s so easy to send messages, documents etc around your colleagues automatically assume you can (and want to) read everything they send you.

Alarm bells ringing
Last week I found myself experiencing my inbox as a burden for the first and almost freaked out! Just one paragraph earlier I stated that I wasn’t going become a victim of letting my day be dictated by my inbox. From that moment on I took it upon myself to just clean my inbox as fast as I could, preferably using the “delete” button. (If you’re looking for a great time-saver, that key could become one of your best friends, I assure you.)
I’m glad I almost freaked out because it gave me a timely wakeup call. Stop sending useless emails, stop CC’ing people to make them think they are either important or to “prove” you are actually working during office hours. If you recognize yourself doing one of these things, you’re contributing to the flood of email. Just,… stop it!

Wrapping up
Realise when you’ve let yourself be tempted into turning something that used to be fun into work (or worse). Then take action to take back control of the situation. Take simple steps, start today! In the case of email, it’s simple: Just send less of it, to less people and only when it actually serves a purpose.

Do you remember the last time a piece of music gave you goosebumps? Was it a great soundtrack while watching a movie or some lyrics that sounded almost as they had been written just for you? Countless styles of music have emerged these days, something you might say. But one thing that all of them share is that they seem to be able to touch the people that listen to them on a far deeper -almost primal- level. You may be brought to tears, feel like you are in love, get inspired, get fired up to make a change or even compelled to destroy the next thing that gets in your way. Somehow music is able to tap into our being on a much deeper level then words can.

Getting in a state of mind

So now that I just told you something you already knew, let’s start working with it. What does a specific genre of music put you up to? Would you wake up better to a smooth jazz record or some hardrock tunes? I guess most of you would prefer waking up to some slower, softer sounds. But how about tearing down a wall in your house or a tree in your garden?
I’m not sure if you have been following the 2010 olympics or not, but one thing I noticed (especially with this post growing in my mind) was how those athletes were preparing for their events. Pretty much all of them were wearing headphones and using visualization to get into the state of mind that would allow them to perform record-breaking feats of strength and agility. They were trying to condition themselves so that they would surpass themselves in the hope of that being enough to surpass their competitors.

What are you preparing for?

Are you feeling slow when you actually want to go fast? Or are you nervously twitching when you actually wish you could slow down? Do you want to construct or destroy things?
Go find a piece of music that matches your desired state of mind and put it on, on your stereo or your mp3 player. I remember Steve Pavlina talking about “if you want to become something, you have to radiate the energy of the thing you want to become”. This is closely related to a Zen saying I heard from Wan Qi Kim some years back: “Ever thing is what it is because it has the energy to be that thing”. Music is a tool that can help you to start radiating that desired energy faster and thus becoming the thing you desire to be.

Feel what works

There’s no one genre that works for something. Maybe a reggae record wants you to chill out and smoke some pot or maybe it makes you want to cause havoc with a sledgehammer. It’s completely unimportant what piece of music it is, as long as it gets you in the state of mind you want to be in.

On a personal note;
I love to listen to John Mayer records when I want to slow down and relax for a quiet dinner. But highly contrasting I can enjoy the super-fast, energetic tunes from a Power Metal album to get my ass moving when I’m feeling slow. I enjoy some classic Japanese pan-flute tunes to quiet my mind for my meditations. I’ve given classical music a try for studying purposes but it never really did it for me. I enjoy late summer nights in my hammock with some reggae music and get shivers listening to heroic adventure movie soundtracks. Owh, and if I flip on an Enya record I’m sleeping like a baby in less than 15 minutes, lol

I hope these short examples show you that there’s no right and no wrong way to go. No matter how diverse your “tastes” in music may be, what’s important is that it works for YOU.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time you’re craving for a P.G. Snack