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illfoandillfie · 4 years ago

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Can I get a general career reading? With the art nouveau deck and the archetype oracle please.

of course darl!

tarot: ace of cups, page of cups, justice, queen of cups,3 of swords, the fool, the tower, the hanged man, the world

okay!! we have some interesting cards here! something that drew my attention immediately was the first and last cards. we open with an ace which is the start of the minor arcana and all of the aces are related to new starts or new opportunities. And then we end on the world which is the last card of the major arcana and symbolises completion and fulfilment. so this seems to be a self-contained cycle you’re entering.

I’d also like to just acknowledge how many cups cards there are here. The cups as a suit is related to emotions and the heart so this may be a highly emotional time or you may find yourself being driven by your emotions rather than logic or reason. There’s also a lot of major arcana cards which isn’t necessarily good or bad but it’s worth noting because the major arcana are generally related to Big life events or milestones whereas the minor arcana are more sort of every day things. so this seems like it’ll be a significant period for you. but lets have a closer look at it all.

So like i said, the aces are related to new opportunities and the suit of cups is tied to emotions and the heart. So the ace of cups is related to new things or new situations that are cause for strong emotions. A lot of the time it’s connected to romance but in this career reading it’s probably more likely some sort of new opportunity, particularly related to creativity. There’s a lot of potential here, all you have to do is reach out and take the cup. But it’s not all happiness. The ace is being clarified by the three of swords which is a card of heartbreak and suffering, It can be through delays or absences, unrest or confusion. Any sort of disruption or incompatibility. This could indicate something going wrong at work. A worst case scenario could be being fired/retrenched but it could also be related to people you work with or just a tough work environment that you struggle with. Something here isn’t looking good though. The ace of cups can relate to intuition or spirituality as well so it might be that you’ve had a gut feeling something is coming or you might have noticed changes happening around the work place and if that’s the case I would definitely listen to your gut and prepare yourself for bad news. But there is definitely a silver lining here. The 3 of swords isnt the main card, the ace of cups is and that says to me that while something will go wrong it will open you up to finding something new which is a better fit for you. It might even be that the bad thing happens to someone else and consequently you take over their roll or something like that. But if you’ve been thinking about starting up some sort of creative endeavour, like an etsy store or writing a novel, this is the time to push forward with it.

Then we have the page of cups and the fool. There are two court cards who appear in this reading so one may be someone you’ll associate or work with but it’s entirely possible that both of them represent you. The page is imaginative and sensitive. He’s a bit of a dreamer and often has his head in the clouds. This definitely fits in if you’ve been considering a new side hustle or if you’ve been thinking about making a change in your career path. the fool as a similar sort of energy but he’s less dreamy and more of a free spirit. he isnt worried about where he’s putting his feet, far more concerned with what he’s experiencing in each moment. He’s innocent, sometimes naive, but also courageous and more concerned with having fun. In relation to career and finances he’s definitely a symbol to take the leap - whether it’s selling art or putting your hand up for a promotion or leaving a job and finding a new one. The fool says go for it, especially if it’s something you’ve been dreaming about doing. There’s a very fresh and energized feeling in these cards and it seems you’ll soon be presented with an opportunity to follow through with your dreams.

next is three major arcana. Justice is about doing things in the right way without cutting corners. The fool might be impulsive but justice is reminding you to do things right the first time so you don’t make a huge mistake that ruins all your plans. The tower is interesting in this position. I won’t sugar coat it, usually the tower is about a drastic, dramatic change. The kind of thing that shatters your world, sends everything crashing down around you. Together with Justice it could be a sign that some sort of truth is going to come out that turns things upside down for you. If you’ve been stealing office supplies or embezzling money (hopefully not) it is going to come out. On the flip side it could be about someone else’s lies being found out. If you’ve been involved with any workplace disputes recently the justice card is a sign that things will go in your favour as long as you’ve been honest and fair. And this could relate to that big change that’s going to open the new opportunity of the ace of cups.

But I don’t feel like that’s exactly it. If the tower had shown up next to the 3 of swords i would say yeah that’s it. But with it being sandwich between justice and the hanged man i feel like it’s something else. So let’s look at that hanged man. It’s a card related to sacrifice, release, and changing perspective. In relation to career it could symbolise feeling stuck or uncertain about where you’re headed. So together these three cards could be advice for you or a warning of sorts. They’re saying that the big change and taking that leap of faith the fool asks you to take, won’t be easy. There will be times when you feel like you made a mistake, like you’re in over your head and you’ve gotten yourself into a tower situation that is so much worse than whatever the 3 of swords you left behind was. You will think about throwing in the towel. you will think about giving up. But don’t listen to those voices. Justice is on your side and the scales will rebalance for you. It might take some readjustments, it might take rebuilding parts of your plan, it might take a fresh perspective. But you will be vindicated in your choice to try something new and things will clear up.

Finally we have the queen of cups and the world. The queen of cups is a bit of an upgrade to the page from earlier. Of course, the queen may be someone you’ll turn to for advice or help. But I think she could also be you, closer to reaching your goal and the end of the cycle. The queen of cups is compassionate. She is calm and comforting. She symbolises devotion, pleasure, success. Where the page dreams and imagines, the queen creates and acts. She’s also a reminder that whatever you do as a job should help you feel emotionally fulfilled and not just financially. Especially since she’s being clarified by the world which is related to fulfilment as well as harmony and completion. The world comes at the end of a journey. It represents assured success and is associated with getting that job you want as well as graduations and celebrations. It’s a sign that if you take this opportunity that will present itself soon you can turn it into something you love and which can offer finance stability. The World is also about the start of a new cycle though. As one thing draws to an end, or one goal is reached, you see there is still further to climb and more to accomplish.

I drew you 4 of the archetype cards as well as a few numerology and elemental cards.

So the archetypes first. Thanks for requesting this deck by the way! I don’t often use it so it was nice to bring it out again! The thought behind these cards is that everyone’s personalities and psyche is made up of a number of different archetypes, some more evident than others. And these archetypes may change as you grow and also depending on the situation you’re in - you might act one way at work and another with your friends. I think traditionally these cards would be used to describe people but I’m hoping they can give us some insight on traits you can use in relation to your career as well as general sort of knowledge about the situation presented in the tarot cards. Each archetype as a light side and a shadow side which reflect both positive and negative aspects.

The first archetype is the Alchemist. Light - transformation of base motives and goals into golden wisdom. Shadow: Misuse of power and knowledge that come through spiritual practice. - to me this really fits with the tarot cards. The main message of the tarot was to seriously consider whatever dreams or fantasies you’ve been thinking about in relation to your career to to go after them and i think thats what the light attribute is really getting at here. You have the power within yourself to turn you little goal into something big and beautiful.

Prince. light - romantic charm and potential for power. shadow - using power for self-aggrandizement. This is interesting considering the number of cups cards we had and how often they’re linked to romances. The prince may be someone you come across, maybe someone involved in whatever the 3 of swords situation is. However, the prince is also seen as a ruler in training and if you’re appearing as the page of cups to start and gradually becoming the queen, then it’s also quite possibly related to your journey.

Trickster. light - transcending convention, stuffiness, and predictable behaviour. shadow - manipulating others through duplicity. This card could be linked with the fool perhaps, unpredictable and kind of wild. It also reminds me a bit of that justice card, especially if you’re taking it from an angle of “someone did something wrong and they’re being caught out”.

Child: Magical. So, according to the guidebook there are 4 archetypes that everyone will have one of but each of them have multiple versions. The child is one of those and here we’ve drawn the magical version. light - seeing the potential for sacred beauty in all things. The belief that everything is possible. shadow - pessimism, depression, and disbelief in miracles. believing that energy and action are not required for growth. this definitely feels like its related to the ace of cups and the 3 of swords, believing that something wonderful can come from something painful. It may also relate to the page who spends his time dreaming rather than acting, like the shadow attriubte.

From the numerology deck we got personal growth, effort, and pride. personal growth indicates a time of significant growth and improvement and that is absolutely reflected in the tarot cards above. theres a lot of potential here and a lof of cards that suggest this will be a turning point for you. Effort is a sign that things coming will require some hard work from you, extra effort to overcome obsticles and challenges. but when the going gets tough the tough get going and you are definitely tough enough to handle it. And Pride to me represents that you will be proud of what you can accomplish through this hard work.

Finally, the element cards: magnetism (attraction) and rock (endurance). there are magnetic forces that are pulling you towards this change and this opportunity. this could tie in with the intuitive message of the ace of cups, if you’ve been able to sense things shifting. rock is another card that points to things being difficult at times and it’s saying you have what it takes to get through them and to find success and happiness.

#woof #this was a bit of a long one.#i dont think i can get through the last couple of readings tonight #since i have work tomorrow #but i will answer them asap #i might try and get them written up over lunch tomorrow even if i cant get onto tumblr to post them until after i get home #i'll defs try to have them up by this time tomorrow though!#i'd say i'd post them on wednesday when i normally have a scheduled day off #but this week i'm covering for someone and actually working weds and thurs #but dw! they are coming!#card readings

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slumberinglabyrinth · 4 years ago

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a while back i did a review of the prison chapter in por and it was totally overblown and whatever but i kinda wanna do that again for (what remains of) radiant dawn so i guess i will

I'll be doing them in batches since this got long. In this post: 3-5 through 3-9

3-5: it's been two years and i forget why we have to defend this castle

this was a pretty alright map. the reinforcements were annoying but that's because I generally don't actually turtle all that much on defend chapters and as a result I was Right There whenever and wherever they showed up. I tried to grab the energy drop off the boss but the dude ran away from Heather the moment I created an opening and I didn’t want to reset so :^/

I moved provoke off of shinon and onto Brom for this and its... probably way too strong? like it wasn't a 100% draw rate but there were several turns in a row where he was the only person being attacked which is. insane. and also super fun lmao. I think it's a shame that the hostility mechanics in fe aren't as well documented; on some level it ruins the magic, but in cases like this where you're actively influencing it i think it'd be useful to know to what degree you're actually influencing it

disarm + steal is also a really neat/fun idea that would be a great way to counteract how i apparently will never have any money for weapons while playing as the greilgallia party crew 😔 (not to be confused with the greilgallia polycule, which disbanded around twenty years earlier) but I can also never get disarm to proc and half the things that i was able to get unequipped were too heavy for Heather to actually steal 😔

all around a decent map to ease myself back into playing rd with. I certainly could have played better, but defend maps tend to be easier and I appreciated that here

3-6: dawn brigade returns and promptly sinks into a swamp

god this map sucked. it's really hard to pick where to start with it but while i get that lore dictates that they need to only be fighting laguz right here it was probably the wrong gameplay decision with everything else that was going on. I think maybe making tigers have ~4 less str across the board would have been a nice start since I kinda needed to either never get hit by them at all or to kill them first.

several chapters later I’m also realizing maybe i should have like. started to use bexp lol

fighting laguz is also really weird in terms of like... because they have boosted stats while transformed so you can either kill them while they're untransformed (which is fairly easy but since they don't attack, you have to kill them during player phase which means one per turn per unit), deal chip damage (or none at all) to burn down their gauge so you can actually kill them, or try to power through their boosted stats and hope you don’t die in the process.

Because I hadn't used bexp and almost all my units were super weak, I mostly had to rely on the eff against beasts knife that you can buy in the bargain shop this chapter and also volug, who had enough def (even with halfshift) to not die in one round. Honorable mentions go to noland (a fitting name for this map), jill (with canto!), and zihark, who were able to help pick off untransformed laguz, and to micaiah, who could deal magic damage and actually damage transformed laguz.

this was also the first dawn brigade map! i know lots of people people dont like their maps after act 1 and while i was trying to go into this one with an open mind... yeah, they totally got shafted by this map design. it's not really their fault but this map sucked hard. I know that they generally did one of each class variant (fire mage, wind mage, etc.) and not have duplicates but I think that the dawn brigade would have benefited from another mage of some kind if only so you could have someone who could deal with all these goddamned cats

also bk shows up but since he's not a bonus unit i didn't want to feed him kills so i didnt really use him. maybe that was a mistake. also why couldn't he like. warp someone that wasn't the furthest away from the action.

3-7: hey so we heard you liked the previous map

Zihark is there? fuck this i'm reverting to a previous save and unrecruiting him

3-6: i forgot to mention that this map was a swamp map and also had darkness

I know I've mentioned that the similar map in fe6 (desert+fog) was actually kinda alright but this one isnt that at all. Playing through it a second time helped because i knew where enemies were spawning, but it was still more annoying than fun.

Swamps commit the cardinal sin of forcing everyone that can't fly (in this case: everyone but jill) to suffer massive terrain penalties. Deserts at least let mages move a little bit further (which admittedly wouldn't help much here since it's only micaiah and laura), but here everyone friend and foe alike (except Jill) moves slowly and it makes gameplay just grind to a halt which is never, ever fun level design.

Also Fiona just. could not move beyond the starting island. she couldn't even wade a little bit into the swamp like i did with ed and leo to attack at range and get laguz to untransform. they let you deploy everyone but it genuinely felt like i wasn't handed the tools to succeed at this map. always a great goal to have when designing a game

I don't know how to improve this map. unrecruiting zihark (by flying him up to the northeast with jill and having him talk to mordy/lethe) wasn't particularly difficult (battle saves make it easy enough to scout out where they were, and it's not like i'd ever feel bad about 'cheating' on this map) but... would a greater field of view actually help? would making it not a swamp actually help? would giving you more allied units that'll throw themselves in the face of danger with no regard for their own lives actually help?

I don't know.

3-7: but for real this time

Back to ikequest!

this map is... literally the same map as the previous one, but with a different map objective. and larger. and backwards. and not at night.

it's still a swamp.

Luckily, it's a survive map, and the vast majority of the enemy force does not have the time to actually reach you if you hide up in the corner.

Which is exactly what i did.

Here's the list of the optional units (ike and ranulf are mandatory, which sucks because i don't like using twinks cat laguz and ike's plot promotion feels miles away) I deployed and why I deployed them

Haar: to fly out and recruit Jill

Gatrie: to be carried by Haar and specifically to bait the single thunder mage in Haar's way (and help Haar clean out that area so Jill can be safely recruited). I gave him corrosion two maps ago and it actually fully disarmed a guy on this map! 🎊

Brom: stand near where the swamp ends and draw the handful of enemies that actually make it all the way there away from ike and ranulf and ulki and jaffar (who are auto-recruits in this chapter).

This map is. so incredibly easy to both beat and complete the (meaningful) optional objectives on. I missed a conversation between Ike and Micaiah (which requires you to travel all the way across the map that i just finished saying takes forever to traverse and do it in 12 turns), but as long as you unrecruit Zihark on the previous map (he's.... right in the middle of the main force so good luck if you don't) you can probably do this map first try with no deaths even if you haven't trained haargatriebrom At All

I think that kinda underscores a problem that intsys had with rd which was... it feels like they didn't really have a lot of time to fine-tune stuff? like you're going from the hardest (or at least most unpleasant) map to the easiest one this side of the tutorial and it just. doesn't feel good? like there's going to be some inherent difficulty in balancing a difficulty curve when you're shifting from party to party but. this was bad. really bad.

Also a side observation but it does actually say who units can talk to in battle prep which is pretty useful thing to have! you need to shift the stat spreadsheet allllll the way over, but it's there!

i promptly forgot about it by the time 3-10 came around and was like "hey i should just. have ike run up to elincia, see if they'll talk, and then reset" though lol

3-8: Less-than-Lethal Lava Land

A fairly standard lava cave map. My only real comment here is that it was kinda nice how they made the spots where you'd take damage fairly obvious while still making them appear as natural parts of the terrain. I think it was the durandal map in 7 but its "if you're on these at the end of the turn you'll take damage" tiles looked super out of place while the armads map on the other hand wasn't super self-evident and i'm glad they improved

3-9: still cant use lucia >:(

Another party shift (this time to Elincia), and there was some good use of ledges in this chapter!

Most of your units couldn't use them but it created alternate paths for the ones that could (Calill and Devdan). Previous maps tended to use them more as holes in your defenses than needed to be plugged, but it created ways to progress (and ways for reinforcements to catch up) that are usually reserved for flying units, except now you're interacting with the map instead of ignoring it completely.

I think I've yet to meet someone who genuinely likes ledges as a map element, though I think this map really drives home that the sole (inherent) problem with them is the accuracy modifications (which, as this map also demonstrates when the stairs near the end become a chokepoint, are actually present with all elevation changes). While the +2 damage dealt while on the high ground is reasonable, +50 and especially -50 to hitrate are insane and completely unnecessary modifiers. They should be half that if you even choose to retain both.

Anyway.

the absolute lack of a (player-controlled) healer in Elincia's party was also........ interesting. Annoying, but interesting. Why must allied clerics choose death?1

#fe10 #its a lot easier to articulate myself when the context of what im saying is so readily apparent

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ccsthemovie2 · 4 years ago

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Character: Nakuru/Ruby Moon?

LONG POST AHEAD!!! clear card referenced/a page of the early cc manga shown but again i tried to keep it spoiler-light!

Why I like them:

sometimes ur 13 and see a cute girl in a manga and go AHHH HEART EEEEYES and thats just that. also i rly just love characters who are kinda annoying on purpose, and noticing that it seems she was left out of the loop of the end goal the whole time (thinking itd be good for eriol if yue died, and questioning why he bothers creating life or death situations if he’s not ever going thru w them...) combined with that I AM HERE!! I AM HERE!!!! energy sort of gives it depth, you know? and on her and spinel’s parts, knowing you were created to replace the person before you must be roughhhh!!!

Why I don’t:

this isnt her fault at all but i wish the manga left it at, if NEED be, *one* comment from spinel abt her ~girl clothes~, we rly dont need more than one (if we even needed that, but i feel like saying ‘ok take it again’ in terms of introducing a trans character has the potential to go worse not better). also i think clear card has no idea what to do with her, or i guess exposed that the story didn’t always know quite what to do with her. she was always evil and silly but the silly was built ON the evil like a foundation? so now that its gone she sort of flounders i think. i wish we got to have more of a rounded view of her. but its ok i can do it myself in my brain. she’s a very “potential not utilized” character sometimes. also she’s like super down with murder so i guess that’s not great lmao. i hope in clear card sometime shes like why dont we just kill kaito? with a gun? and everyones like WHAT and shes like what.....it’d solve our problem....

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

tbh nothing jumps out for me hugely but the scene in the hallway outside touya saving yuekito’s life.... she’s like “ugh, it’ll be trouble for eriol” and spinel is like “oh? i dont think so” like. poor ruby is left out of so much :(( n then gets all smug to sakura and friends later like of COURSE he couldn’t tell you his plans, DUH, it wouldnt have WORKED if he told. are you trying to convince yourself too? :’(( OH OHHH WAIT I ALREADY TYPED THAT BUT. this page, early in clear card. like the QUESTIONS it raises

-what’s the relationship between sakura and ruby like?

-does ruby feel sympathy towards someone else left out of the loop in their own life?

-clow and eriol have always been heavy-handed with controlling their sun+moon people, eriol even takes it upon himself to be in charge of transforming spinel and ruby in and out of power saving mode - why is it mizuki doing this instead of eriol just putting her to sleep? what is the relationship between her and ruby?

-what does ruby want to DO when she gets there? did she have a plan on her own?

Favorite season/movie:

sakura card arc

Favorite line:

the one that comes to mind right now is when she tells yukito like IF YOU DONT WANT HIM... IM TAKING HIM ;P bc he is hearing “if you dont ask out your crush i will” but she is saying “HEY ARE YOU GONNA EAT THAT?”

Favorite outfit:

i am kinda touched by eriol making her a yukata..... handmade clothes are important to ccs and cute clothes are important to ruby!

OTP:

hmmm i dont think i have anyone tbh? open to ideas

Brotp:

hear me out but i think with her interest in movie direction she should chat more with tomoyo. also spinel of course!! i think her and spinel are being played against each other for drama (in a similar way to kero and yue), that their dynamic of Smart One and Silly One have been sort of externally given to them, but once they catch on to that they can overcome it and grow close. this is where i also put my complicated web of headcanon that while kero and yue never thought of themselves as related to clow (and vice versa), ruby in particular thinks of eriol as her father (and spinel as her brother). this is not something eriol intended, he’d much much rather be seen as a Mentor than a Relative (its about having a little distance even in your enmeshment, yknow!) but ruby sort of went for it and he was like...okay thats kind of nice i guess? it’s good to stop at each plate at the buffet of types of connection!

Head Canon:

emancipates herself from her magic connection with eriol eventually, possibly with mizuki’s help, and lives by drawing on the power of others around her as needed. goes to college somewhere far away and comes back with a degree in filmmaking. also shes really popular on tiktok or whatever equivalent app.

Unpopular opinion:

ok so in clear card WHY DOES SHE JUST NOT SLURP UP SAKURAS ///EXCESS/// MAGIC HERSELF .... like id say yue could do it but ppl could argue back oh it’d still be in sakura’s account just in a different pocket. okay so ruby’s on a whole different magic bank account and she is FIRST INTRODUCED as person who chomps down on magic ppl all the time. just be sakura’s vacuum cleaner so she stays at her post-90s-manga perfect power level it’s not that hard. give her daily high fives or whatever.

A wish:

MY (45m and/or ???m, its complicated) MAGICAL BEINGS HAVE UNIONIZED????? jokes aside i want to see her awkwardly apologize to yukito and touya for trying to kill them. sorry, sorry, it wont ever happen again. unless eriol asks me to kill you, in which case all bets are off. why are you frowning im just being honest.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen:

i have a deep fear that what if ruby/yue happens at the end of clear card and no no no no no

5 words to best describe them:

nobodys that annoying without reason

My nickname for them:

ruby even when shes nakuru bc. its shorter to type hgfchfjh

#ask

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luhvelight · 4 years ago

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Hi... Perfect timing, I really would like to know pack 3. My initial is N.A and I'm a sag rising, with leo sun, moon, venus and jupiter. 💕

Hello NA!

What do I need to let go of?

-Reversed Seven of Cups

The Seven of Cups suggests that you may have been feeling overwhelmed lately due to lots of choices or even opportunities randomly popping up in your life. The card could also mean you just have a lot going on in your life and a lot of responsibilities or you could feel burdened. You may have a lot of potential suitors in your love life or lots of career opportunities. You could also be that kind of person that is extremely generous with their time and has a hard time saying “no” to others. Whatever the situation maybe, you may feel like the Universe is out to get you and is making it difficult for you to have time to yourself. The Seven of Cups suggests that you may need to let go of some things in your life, in order to make time for yourself. It is important you indulge in self care so that you dont become burnt out or so stressed that you completely shut down. If you dont give yourself time to relax, then you wont be able to carry out your duties in the best possible way. It is also important that you quiet your mind so that you can reflect on which opportunity would be the best choice for you. Your attentiveness to detail is vital so that you dont end up choosing the option that will only lead to more heart break and struggle.

What can I do to overcome my fears?

-Reversed Temperance

The Reversed Temperance is another card that suggests the current state of your life maybe extremely stressful and is overwhelming you. In order to overcome your anxieties, the Reversed Temperance suggests you confront them. Just like I discussed in the previous paragraph, the Temperance card is encouraging you to practice self reflection. You are being called to evaluate your priorities and truly see which priorities actually align with what you know is your life’s purpose or goal. Temperance is also suggesting that the more you ignore these self-evaluation, the more stress and frantic you will become. It is like trying to turn the volume down, except the volume just gets higher and higher. The Universe hopes you acknowledge these stressors so that they wont blow up in your face, thus increasing the overall stress that maybe happening in your life. The appearance of the Temperance card is a good sign that you will or are undergoing a transformation of some sort that will result in you being more clear about your goals and which ones are not only worth pursing, but which goals are realistic and align with your values.

How do I find balance with my emotions?

-Upright Ten of Pentacles

The Ten of Pentacles is a card that represents security and stability within regards to our home life or whomever you consider to be your family. The card could be encouraging you to confide in others, if you are struggling and need help or just advice. The card could also mean that a lot of your stress or responsibility could have something to do with your family as well. If that is the case, then it is important for you let your family know, that as much as you love them, you have to take time for yourself in order for you to have energy to do what you do for them. However, if this isnt the case, just know that in order to find balance with your emotions, you must remind yourself that you have others to lean on for emotional or moral support. The Ten of Pentacles is a card that is very harmonious, so it is a positive indicator that you will find and achieve this emotional balance soon. It is important that you dont stay cooped up and let other people in to remind you how valuable and loved you are.

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nakamuranight · 5 years ago

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Pickle Juice, Boobs and Levi

It was the middle of May and that idiot eren still can’t transform. The guy needs to bite his thumbs, ha, it seems like there is no way he can appear less immature, from sucking ass in training camp to sucking thumbs. Levi as cold as ever and Hange as crazy as ever, everyone needed a break. It didn’t seem like it was actually gonna happen, but here they are,the preparations for the trip completed and only after 2 Levi vetoes and one mutiny in the VOTING COUNCIL of the survey corps. It seemed he was persuaded only after everyone agreed to bring their ODM gear along with them and a couple of training dummies they could use. THE LEVI SQUAD is finally out for a trip into the wild.

The forest was loud and obnoxious without meaning to,a huge swirl of action amidst the greenery latent to the ones that do not watch closely. The signs of crown shyness are obvious as the gaps between the tree leaves weaved like rivers and streams beautifully through the canopy. The sounds of the forest, the chirp of the crickets, the leaves rustling in the wind and the sounds of a large group of sweaty teens carrying a load of mechanical weapons as they grunted past along a levi-footprint-marked forest path.

“Are we there yet??”

The harmony of the forest had the misfortune to be broken by the most annoying drawl that could possible grace its leafy doorsteps, that of Eren jaeger and his self-centered Cheesy line spouting.

Levi had relented to come on the trip but not to put up with the kid.

“Don’t let the forest trick you.You are still heading to a world of pain and sweat, as you train your ass off, or bite your thumbs or whatever it is you do, for the whole week. I wouldn't be too excited if i were you, titan doppler.

They set up camp in a clearing marked on one edge by a stream and on the other three by the shady confines of the forest. It was the first day of the trip a.k.a training megacourse and everyone was already done with it. Forced awake to the sounds of Sasha, as she is tickled by Levi using his sword sheath, after having to hear her moan ~potato~ in her sleep the whole night was not a good experience. On top of that, her addiction to pickles was getting to the point of ridiculous. She has a whole stash of them with her and her pickle halitosis is insufferable and even made levi’s snake eye more along the lines of “disgust” as ever.(Sasha is my fav character, if all of this isnt making it clear).

As part of the first workout, everyone was divided into pairs: eren and mikasa, hange and sasha, levi and armin(realized i didn't introduce all the characters yet). Each pair had to hide a titan dummy in parts of the forest tied with their team flag. Survey corp green for Levi's team, hentai nose bleed red for Sasha's team and onyx black for Mikasa’s team. It's simple enough, each team had a defender and an attacker and the goal was to kill the titans of the other teams.

Levi’s zipping past the trees unafraid of depleting his fuel as he made every movement as graceful and efficient as possible, considering he is moving at breakneck speed and carrying blades.

He stops, clings to a tree bark with his sharpened blades, to scout the surroundings. He sighted a gleam of light, just for the briefest of seconds right in between a pair of oaks. He rushed forwards, circling around as he tried to get a better view.

It was the reflection off of Hange's specs that had made the light Levi saw. She seemed to be crouched down on the forest floor looking at something, observing more like as she was rapidly talking to herself in that creepy ritual-like voice she developed after not looking at people as beings with emotions but as things made up of blood and organs, made for her exploration and curiosity. Levi heard some strings of what she was saying out of context

“....beautiful, how those talons curve up like that….TENTACLES?!,how did these things...evolve”

Levi figured something scuttling across the ground must've caught her attention. This was too easy, or maybe it was because levi is just too fucken OP and his bowl presley short hair gorgeousness makes everything seem easy. He silently, not that it was required with all the noise Hangewas making.

“LOOK at that tiny lil sucker, ...impregnate them like that huh...might wanna try...cool tail man”

Levi shakes his head and walks up to the titan dummy. It was just too easy till now, he pulls back his blades and lays two deep gashes on its nape. Levi jerks, it sounded wrong. He looks back at the cut, just to get a big amount of some sticky substance sprayed on his face. His senses were on fire and his first thought was that it’s kerosene or something flammable, but then his eyes started burning and his thoughts went to it being some potent acid, he had seen the work of acid many times as it dissolves organic matter like a hot knife on butter. He stood still for a while ashe imagined a familiar taste erupting on his tongue and he got a picture of sasha going *haaaaa* in the morning as she fixed herself in the mirror. He was going crazy. He started running around, trying to wipe it off his face.

By then, he was making enough noise to even break Hange out of her bubble. She seemed to be running towards him, she first glanced at the flag still tied around the dummy and then to levi. She knew he wouldn't just cut it without taking the trophy, and figured from his erratic actions( he was rolling across on the floor now) that something was wrong. Amidst the confusion Levi’s ODM gear started whirring and he flew straight at hange. He couldn't see anything and had no way of knowing.Hange braced herself for impact, Levi was coming towards her too fast. He crashed into her with a loud thump.

It was dark for a while, Levi sprawled across his face pressed against something. It felt a bit squishy, did his face melt off?! He gave it a test jab and grope. He jolted upright when he heard a response moan and realization swept through him and set his face on fire with embarrassment . Now looking at Hange laying on the floor, he couldn't believe he had just been groping her boobs. He had never joined the guys in cheering “oppai” when they drank, he never found boobs interesting. He thought darkly, even for Hange they are just slabs of flesh,really really soft and bouncy flesh he added. He wondered if he was just imagining it, but he felt an inclination towards them now. Their soft lushness, nothing but phantom memories on his skin now still held his mind in its vice.

Hange was out cold but she seemed to be fine, she will be fine but a few bruises in the morning.

Then it struck him, that odd taste that still lingered on his tongue. He sped off into the forest, furious at having not realized sooner. Now he was to exact punishment. He reeked of pickle juice.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Might make a spin off hot spring/bath scene like all manga artists when they run out of content but still need to fan serve. Why do u think Ii appropriately mentioned a river there

Next up: The pickle war. Levi and sasha battle in a contest of numerous pickle related games.

Its my first time writing anything at all so i would love some criticism.

#attack on titan #aot fanfiction #fanfic #animanga #shingeki no kyojin #writing #pickles

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irmacornelia · 5 years ago

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30 Days of WITCHversary - 14-18

This week was hectic so Im dumping the last few days all at once.

Ahhh the shit-talking ones, I adore WITCH, but boy do I have some salt.

14- Something that irked you

I have to say the biggest thing is the fact that there simply wasn’t enough dragons, especially past the 2nd arc. Their power origin is dragons(until the late-series retcon nonsense), the motif is ‘you are something more than human now’, and then???? nothing? They forsook the ‘you are not fairies, you are not witches, you are something more ancient, strange, and lovely’ stuff and went sparkle fairy. Oof ouch the retcons.

Dragons all over the four dragons issue, dragons on the restaurant, Nerissa’s panel here? dragon.

This isnt something that the comic is guilty of only either, the show is guilty of it too, and they had no excuse, the comic was already out pretty far, and they wanted a show that appealed to boys, so why didn’t they go all in???

There were dragons on Taranee’s laptop when they talked about quintessence, there were dragons in the origins episode, there was dragons in the Phobos fight, in the one where Nerissa tries to take Earths Heart the first time, and there was the mention in the last episode, but did we see anymore dragons? Especially as their Zenith forms which I’ve complained about before was the PERFECT opportunity to tie in the motif? No.

There should have been way more dragon flavor.

Some dragon-shaped auras, the zenith deus ex transformation should have been dragons, Id have even taken totally western dragons, just,,, pls. More dragons emblazoned on coats and people referring to them as dragons. Maybe have part of Phobo’s goal be becoming a dragon. IDK just toss more in there!

And why did they strip the dragons out in the later arcs? My answer is Marketing. Things needed to be pink and sparkly or they are seen as encroaching on different demographis, and not sellable, as CEOs love the minmaxing. Dragons aren’t considered cute, for some reason, and so they had to go. That cash cow was primed to be power-milked until it died. And well. It did.

Im not saying that the shift in priorities from juicy dragon-flavored undertone creeping horror of being uninformed newly minted child soldiers against their will to sparkily faerie idols who do magic sometimes and smooch a lot of boys totally killed it but... Well...

You know.

You can tell im salty about this, and have been salty about this for over a decade, can’t you.

15- Something that needs a quick fix

In the beginning issues, some of the wording implies the only worlds are Meridian, which is just basically hell, Kandrakar, which is basically heaven, and Earth, and no other worlds. Which is all well and dandy, except.... 2 arcs later that stops being the case.

Change that, because it goes off the rails from that view so fast its not even funny. The simplistic, ‘Meridian evil lizards, Kandrakar good glowing green immortal gods or whatever’ can stay, I guess, because its part of the deconstruction of the ‘evil’ world and ‘good’ world, with Earth as the purgatory thing that media does but just. Right from the start say ‘multiverse’ ‘many worlds’ ‘many dimensions’ one or any of those. It would be just the tiniest, but most wonderful continuity fix.

Just a couple word changes, no panels need to be changed at all.

Something that needs an overhaul

The retcons and plotholes in general. Ive spat quite a bit of salt about the retcons and plotholes already but. WITCH has an undeniable plothole and retcon problem. I love WITCH more than anything, but oh man. It has that one glaring, unfixable flaw.

There are regular adaption plotholes in the cartoon (Biggest one- Why did Yan Lin not give them lessons on how to fight, negotiate, what powers they have and can grow to have, the species that live on Earth and Meridian, a primer into the history of Kandrakar and the other worlds when she was ALIVE to give them?? They didn’t have them and didn’t know anything in the comic, because she DIED and Kandrakar wasn’t gonna go shit for WITCH! They were ALONE!) but oh no, im talking about the comic more than anything.

Everything contradicts itself just. So Much.

It would be fine if it were an american-style comic where each run is its own canon, but its trying to be serial and im dying squirtle.

Decide whether their wings are stylized feathers or butterfly wings or what (in ONE chapter book they changed the canon 3 times!!).

Decide whether dragons are their powers or not, how their powers even work, what time of year and how old they are judging from the canonical minimum of days that have passed, how serious their job of defending the universe is. Pick a set of truths and stick with them!!!! Twists are ok and you can change the focus and tone over time but you cant just. Kick out established truths and replace them with shit that makes previous nonsense invalid. The overhaul needs to chose their truths BEFORE they start and then stick with it the whole way through!

And their truths they say and then never talk about why they came about need to be de-plotholed. Kandrakar has a noninterference policy? Why? What the fuck does that mean and how come they can send the guardians then? Kandrakar commands the dragons, yeah? Ok, why do they leave them alone all first arc. Matt was part of Kandrakar? Yeah, why didnt he train them into the dirt and not tell them anything whatsoever? Why did he base his relationship with Will on a den of lies that totally shit on his character before that arc????

What it needs to get this overhaul is just a total reboot that takes all these truths and plots, and makes them one cohesive thing.

Only problem. I dont want this fandom getting The V0ltr0n Treatment. I couldnt bear it, to have it get really popular and be filled with people who think its ok to threaten VAs and suicide bait and viciously bully people for daring to have redemption arcs in their fics. I don’t want this place to become a place of fear, I dont want to have the cozy atmosphere be transformed into a hectic high-traffic disk horse zone, even if it gets us an official Perfect WITCH Cartoon.

So no matter how much I want WITCH to have this flawless unfucking of the plotholes... I think I’ll be content with it the way it is.

17 - Something that needs to be revisited

CHYKN

P… ple ase,,, give me flashback arc.

Previous guardians can give us padding arcs until the writers figure out how to plot the main stuff, previous guardians can give us worldbuilding, previous guardians can give us backstory for characters we have met, and can give us villains that feel connected to the current plot.

How neat would it be if we had an issue following Kadma and halinor setting up their magic Illuminati?

How neat would it be if we had Luba and Yan Lin working together while Yan Lin was still active?

How neat would it be if we got a more in-depth Nerissa origins story, complete with what she plans to do after she stamps all over Kandrakar for the inhumane 40+ years of solitary confinement?

How wonderful, storywise, it would be to have villains and allies who knew past guardians, howevermany cycles back, to see and hear of guardians before, and how they failed, but this time, WITCH wont?

Day 18 - Something that needs more love from the fandom

Hi Yes Have You Heard The Good News Of The Four Dragons And Xin Jing?

Dragons,,,,, good. Please let us make more dragon content.

I am a biased dragon who wants more dragon things, yes. I am aware.

But oh, I cant be one of like 3 people writing dragon AUs. I mean, considering the fandom size, thats like a whole 3% but You Know.

‘What fan content do you want to see more of?’ Dragons. Always dragons no matter the fandom or appropriateness of giant flying lizards.

Everything is improved with dragons.

#30daysofwitchversary #w.i.t.c.h.#this goes in the tag because there is meat #star.txt #you could just call my blog 'dragon propaganda' because thats just what this post is

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fmtpextended · 6 years ago

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WDC Series: Villains with Positive Character Arcs

Ah, villains. Quite possibly my favorite characters of all time. They’re swift talkers, fast thinkers, and they earn the best internet memes. Everyone knows who they are. But what really makes these characters special for me is they tend to be complex, holding a depth that protagonists and other supporting characters sometimes lack. (Don’t throw things at me yet—I did say sometimes.)

Truth be told, stellar characters need complexity no matter whose side they’re on. Authenticity, depth, a clear goal, an irrefutable lie, and obstacles make for exquisite layers that form a powerful, relatable, and realistic character.

What Is a Character Arc and Why Are They Important?

A character arc can best be described as the change in a character from the start of a story to the end of it. If a character gains redeemable traits throughout, their arc is considered positive, or one of growth. If there’s no change (which, when done right, will still result in changes from surrounding characters), the arc is considered flat. When good characters go bad, taking on negative traits, that change is considered a falling arc.

One book I love recommending is K.M. Weiland’s Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development. In it, she goes into depth about each type of arc and how things like goals, lies, truths, and obstacles are set up in a story. For those of you who don’t want to spring for the book, her website does a great job of providing details about arcs as well: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/write-character-arcs/

Another resource I’d like to share is the Writers Helping Writers site, which has a fantastic article about why writing characters with depth is so important and how that translates to a better book for readers: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2019/01/the-key-components-of-a-compelling-character-according-to-psychology/

As you’ll see in the article, the key is making the characters relatable—not necessarily likeable.

How Positive Character Arcs Can Create Compelling Villains

For those of you who are familiar with my fiction books, you know I love writing unlikeable characters. Their stubborn personas draw me like a moth to a flame, and for whatever reason, creating them has become my little niche, so I proudly wear that badge.

It’s challenging finding new ways to reach readers through darker characters though. One approach I use is taking a complex villain and having them change sides. I do the same with my protagonists. For one, it makes them more relatable. For two, just as in real life, good and evil isn’t always clear-cut. Things get a little muddied in the middle, causing character to cross lines they wouldn’t normally cross. Sometimes really good people make bad decisions, because we’re complex creatures and have the freedom to make choices. My favorite characters are ones who tread in the gray space, because you never know where they stand until it’s too late.

I’ve found when characters hit rock bottom and are in a rut, especially mentally, one of two things will happen: They’ll either pull themselves out and change for the better, or they’ll go down the path of self-destruction. In my current work in progress, The Lost Souls, I have two characters who face such a dilemma. One is faced with extreme loss, and it forces her to take action, ultimately changing her for the better. The other has faced life-altering traumas as well, but he spirals out of control into a deeper pit of anger, revenge, and self-destruction.

When it comes to character development, characters can change as much as people can (which now has me humming “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry), and sometimes those changes result in positive character arcs—think Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol or Hans Solo from Star Wars. Whether you’re dealing with a protagonist or an antagonist, combining complex traits with a transformative arc can yield captivating results, especially when those characters are less than likeable.

#writing dynamic characters #character development #blog series #writing advice

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guac-da-human5 · 3 years ago

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Thinking about a movie thing where this girl finds a girlfriend that’s like kind of immortal and they’re happy for a few centuries (immortal girlfriend passes on a bit of magic to her). But then something happens, and immortal gf has to leave/sacrifice herself to save girl and so she resides forever in this like otherworld.

Girl is left immortal until she finds another lover, but she’s so desperate to find immortal gf she doesn’t give up for centuries. Eventually she does give up and lives miserably in an apartment with a new life as an, i dont know, realtor. But she bumps into this guy one day and they become friends and she finds herself falling in love but she’s scared because of the guilt she carries from immortal gf.

She partially confides in the guy, and to her surprise, he feels the same. His mother passed away a few years ago and he had never been able to scrub off the guilt of it. He then very carefully sprinkles in the idea of magic to travel to this world so he can meet his mother again, and the girl is like, “wow that sounds great” thinking about immortal gf and her baggage so she’s a bit aloof throughout all this.

After like a few months pass, they still aren’t really dating, their relationship is pretty ambiguous because they’re both still dealing with their shit. The guy takes it upon himself to travel to this otherworld a friend told him about to see his mother again so they can finally move on in their relationship, because the guy thinks it is his fault they are static as of right now.

So he travels to the otherworld (he lets the girl know and she’s like okay, she either thinks he’s going to take drugs??? Or he’s actually going to do magic and she wishes him luck with maybe a charm).

Bam he’s in the otherworld, he meets his guide and friend for the rest of the way and is warned about the big scary monster/deity that resides here to protect everything. Guy is freaked out a little because he thought it was just going to be an easy get-in-see-mamá-then-get-out kind of thing. They go on an adventure of course (yall can add details to this mess if you want) and they reach some kind of climax where they run into the big scary gender-ambiguous deity.

They go “oh shit” but yay character development the guy bravens up and is like “i know you’re like a god so please dont hurt us we all know you’re a bug softie uwu” but it doesnt work out the first few minutes and they play hide and go seek for a bit before he drops his charm. By now his character goal has gone wonked a bit so he actually is a bit resolved already, he doesnt really need to see his mother. He yeets over to save the charm the girl gave him even thought gnf deity is right there ready to s n a t c h him. The deity snatches him anyway lol and inspect him. I dont know, she has some kind of purpose she needs to serve like taking souls or whatever but something else less cliché.

The deity then sees his charm and instantly recognizes it. Deity snatches the charm and drops the guy (from like 10 feet high big oofa). The charm turns out to be a fragment of the deity’s necklace?? thing that is really long and big so it covers their entire chest (binder??). Deity goes through a whole ass thing, which for us watchers we see a big flashback of someone’s life—sURPRISE SURPRISE IT’S THE GIRL’S LIFE.

The deity is the long lost immortal gf and before she had to live in the otherworld forever, she gave a charm to the girl so if they ever meet again (which she thought would most likely be in the otherworld) the immortal gf could see the girl’s life and see whoever the girl loved after her. The deity ceases its monsterly behavior and transforms into a being recognizable to the guy (because he’s human and they’re another species duh). They (yeah their pronouns are they/them now) talk a bit about the girl and kind of cries a bit thinking about her. They turn to the guy and they ask if he is her lover now. The guy is a little hesitant, but shyly says yes. The deity thanks him for taking care of the girl and returns the charm to him. They say to capture more memories so when they come to the otherworld, they can all look over it happily. The guy is a little freaked out because he didnt know that the gf the girl was talking about was an immortal god but agrees to the idea anyways (he takes it pretty well lol).

He does finally meet his mother and they talk and have their moment of “it’s not your fault, mijo, i died because people are stupid. It was years ago, please move on. Te quiero con todo mi corazón.” (Major feels, his character is now completely finished). But all that’s left is now the girl.

The guy says bye to his friend, mamá, and the immortal gf, and goes back to his world. He gets back to wherever he first went into the portal from, maybe one of his bros’ home. He says later and runs back home, but stops right in front of his door (idk if i said this before but even though their relationship is uncertain they did move with each other, idk what the reason might be whatever you think makes sense). He wants to just stop and take everything in, before entering his home. The girl isnt home yet so there’s a bit of pause in the movie so the audience can have this cooling down.

It’s late, the environment is dimmed, not dark enough for the lights to be on yet. The girl finally comes back home and she’s like, “oh hey you’re home! Welcome back, how was it?” but she says all this very gently and warmly it just makes you feel so fuzzy. She sits where he sits on the floor (idk country they are in but in my mind they’re sitting because i grew up in an asian household). They talk about the guy’s adventure and how he saw his mamá and all that. But then he pauses and very carefully tries to tell the girl about her immortal gf.

Here’s a line that really got to me when I was first thinking about this whole thing:

“I also saw her.” His head is down but his eyes look up to the girl, carefully studying her reaction. Her face falls flat and she stares past him, to the point of zoning out.

“She remembers you. And she still loves you.”

She hears this and tears instantly form in her eyes. He rushes around the table and lets her collapse in his arms as she starts sobbing, using his rounded body to give her as much comfort as he can in this moment. They hold each other tight as he begins to cry too. He doesn’t know why, maybe he really is a big empath. But he remembers the words of his mamá and understands. He whispers them to her.

“Thank you,” she chokes out.

AND THAT IS IT. THAT’S IT. THE CREDITS ROLL AND THERE’S PHOTOS OF THE TWO AND THE LIFE THEY LIVE.

THEY HAVE DOGS. THEY HAVE KITTIES. THEY GET A BIRD BECAUSE WHY NOT. NO KIDS THO NO MORE OF THAT TROPE.

And then after credits, it shows the otherworld, and immortal gf becomes friends with that friend the guy meets when he first came into the otherworld. Their boss or whatever (again idk how this world works) is like, “yo there’s two people that want to see you or whatever.” And immortal gf smiles.

And that’s it. Thanks for reading this -3-

#im so sorry this is so long jdkskhd #but i needed to get this out #i would write a fic but im not really into writing for the time being #have a nice day i love you whoever is reading this 💖

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therealestatesparkblog · 6 years ago

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6 Habits From Mark Wahlberg's Schedule That Can Make You a Success

[embedded content] Its hard to find someone more successful at his career than Mark Wahlberg. Yes, Marky Mark. You might know him from tiny little films like Transformers or The Departed or The Italian Job or Boogie Nights. Or maybe you know him from his role as executive producer on shows like Entourage, Boardwalk Empire, or Ballers. Or maybe youve eaten at his burger joint, Wahlburgers. But most likely, you still listen to his early band, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. It seems like no matter what Mark puts his mind to he accomplishes. How does he do it? Well, I think his daily schedule has something to do with it. In a recent episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Mark reveals his typical daily schedule. And as the host of the show, James Corden, finds out, its not a walk in a park. My name is Brandon Turner, blog writer and podcast host from BiggerPockets.com and author of the upcoming 90 Days Of Intention Journal, and today I want to dive into six unique aspects of Marks schedule to see if we can become just. Little more successful because of it. OK, lets get to it. 1. Mark wakes up really, really early. As the video above shows, by waking up early, Mark is able to knock out one of his most important things of the day (which for an actor like Mark is working out) before his family even rouses. So I think its smart to ask yourself: If you woke up an hour or two earlier in the day, what vital task could you get accomplished? 2. Mark spends a moment in silent gratitude. Marks very first activity of the day isnt work, exercise, or even launching into an action. Its prayer time. In other words, Mark takes time each morning to be silent and be grateful. Gratitude has been shown in numerous studies to make people more successful, have a more positive outlook, and even exercise more regularlywhich brings us to number three. 3. Mark work outs early. As Mark says to James in The Late Late Show clip, The workouts going to suckbut youre going to go attack the rest of the day. Mark isnt making this up. By getting a workout in early, you may consume fewer calories and burn more fat throughout the day, Its also said to help you sleep better at night, and it can give you more mental energy while reducing depression and anxiety. In other words, by working out early, youre going to attack the rest of the day. Thanks, Mark. 4. Mark commits to the process. Look, Mark Wahlberg didnt naturally get his physique by accident. He works for it every dayand youre not going to find success by accident either. One thing Mark clearly understands is this simple principle: Results are the result of the process needed to get you there. In other words, whatever you want to achieve in lifefrom business success to weight loss to becoming a better spouseis preceded by some kind of process. Mark doesnt need to stress about getting in shape because he focuses on the process instead. So, what process can you begin consistency and persistently following that will lead to the results you want to see? 5. Mark schedules family time. I know this might sound odd from the onsetdo you really need to schedule time with your loved ones? Well, if they are important to you, why give them whatever is left? By being intentional about the time you spend with your family and friends, youll ensure that time is actually given. Props to you mark for making that a priority in your life. 6. Mark goes to bed early. Finally, Mark goes to bed early enough to make sure he can start the day the same way tomorrow. Getting enough sleep is vital to anyones pursuit of success. Research shows that reduced sleep can lead to higher levels of negative thinking, cause inflammation, and even make you look uglier. One study even showed that people who averaged less than seven hours of sleep a night were about three times more likely to develop the common cold. And one final note on Marks schedule: He has one. In other words, he doesnt leave it all to chance. He schedules the things that are important to him into his daily schedule. And you should do the same! Be intentional about your goals and plan them accordingly. You might even consider using a journal like The 90 Days of Intention Journal from BiggerPockets to do so. And maybe you, too, can as successful in your career as Marky Mark is in his.

Know of any cool (or weird) habits of your favorite celebrities? Comment below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/mark-wahlbergs-schedule

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themoneybuff-blog · 7 years ago

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How to be happy and lead a meaningful life

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Overcoming fear is one part of living life without regret. You do that by being open to new people and new experiences, and by acting even when youre afraid. Another aspect of a rewarding life is learning to find happiness in your daily existence and building upon that happiness to construct a meaningful life. Today, in the second part of this limited series on mastering your life, I want to share what Ive learned about how to be happy. More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote, All knowledge and every pursuit aims atthe highest of all good achievable by action. And what is that good? Both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well with being happy. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. To some extent, a good life requires good fortune. Happenstance can undermine the well-being of even the most virtuous person. But Aristotle held that ultimately happiness isnt a product of chance. You can allow misfortune to crush you, or you can choose to bear the blows of fate with nobility and greatness of soul. Although fate may play a role in your affairs, Aristotle believed that in the end, happiness depends upon yourself. Modern psychologists agree. The How of Happiness In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky shares the results of years of research into what makes people happy. Shes concerned with chronic happiness (as opposed to temporary happiness), with people who maintain an elevated sense of well-being over time. Based on her work, Lyubomirsky believes: About half of human happiness is biological. Each of us seems to have a happiness set point which accounts for roughly 50% of our level of contentment. Because this set point is genetic, its tough to change.Another 10% of happiness is circumstantial based on external factors. These include traits like age, race, nationality, and gender, as well as things like marital status, occupational status, job security, and income. Your financial situation is part of this 10% but only a part which means it accounts for a tiny fraction of your total happiness.The final 40% of happiness comes from intentional activity the things you choose to do. A huge chunk of contentment is based on your actions and attitude. You can increase your level of well-being through exercise, gratitude, and meaningful work. Because circumstances play such a small role in your well-being and because many of your circumstances are unchangeable it makes more sense to boost your bliss through intentional activity, by controlling the things you can control while ignoring the things you cant. You cant wait for someone or something to make you happy. Happiness isnt something that just happens; happiness is a byproduct of the the things you think and say and do. Just as you ought to become a money boss to take charge of your financial life, you ought to become a happiness boss to take charge of your emotional life. Believe it or not, you can control your emotional responses. It just takes a bit of knowledge and practice. The Psychology of Optimal Experience For fifty years, psychologist Mihly Cskszentmihlyi (pronounced me-high cheek-sent-me-high-ee) has studied human happiness and creativity. Much of his work has focused on flow, which is his term for optimal experience. Heres how he describes flow: We have all experienced times when instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we [feel] in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment. Our peak experiences dont come during passive moments. Sure, we enjoy reading a book or watching Big Bang Theory or playing a videogame, but these arent the best moments of our lives. Instead, the best moments usually occur when a persons body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile. People are happiest when they forget their surroundings to focus on doing their best at something that challenges and interests them. In short, happiness is produced by total engagement in the pursuit of excellence. We can experience flow during activities as basic as riding a bike or as complex as building a bridge. Sometimes flow is achieved through physical activity. Athletes refer to this state as being in the zone. People achieve this state of bliss while climbing mountains, sailing boats, or swimming oceans. But even mundane activities like cleaning the kitchen or doing taxes can produce flow, if theyre done well. Peak experience also comes from mental pursuits. Many computer programmers become so engrossed in their work that time streams past like water. I experience flow while writing. Today, for instance, Ive been deeply engrossed in editing this article. As Im working, my mind is so active and so engaged that it almost feels euphoric. Im happy. I cant imagine wanting to be anywhere other than in front of my computer, writing about money. I am in a state of flow. For more on flow, spend a few moments to watch Cskszentmihlyis TED talk on how flow is the secret to happiness: [embedded content] To learn more, pick up a copy of his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. The Elements of Enjoyment

Ive found flow while hiking in the Andes. Ive experienced it while writing. Ive achieved it while making boxes in a factory, while preparing a speech, and while mowing the lawn (for real!). Though each of these activities was very different, they shared some commonalities that helped me get in the zone. This made me wonder: Can happiness be somehow be cultivated? Turns out, it can. During Mihly Cskszentmihlyis research into optimal experience, he discovered its possible for a person to gain control over the quality of their daily experience, to build enjoyment into even routine and mundane activities. His studies of diverse populations around the world have shown that our best moments contain at least one and often all of the following characteristics (some of which overlap): A challenging activity that requires skill. Flow occurs at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenge is just balanced with the persons capacity to act. To experience flow, you have to be doing something difficult but not too difficult.The merging of action and awareness. Because challenging tasks require full attention, people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic.Clear goals and feedback. The vast majority of peak experiences occur during goal-directed actions bounded by rules, such as playing chess, programming a computer, or climbing a mountain. (Or, in my case, mowing the lawn.)Concentration on the task at hand. To achieve optimal experience, you cant be distracted. You have to be absorbed in what youre doing. As you focus, order comes to your consciousness, which leads to contentment and joy. Fear and worry fade. You are fully present in the now. (This idea is the premise behind Eckhart Tolles massively popular The Power of Now.)A sense of control. During the flow experience, you feel in control or that you could be in control. More precisely, you arent worried that you might lose control, a state so typical of much of modern life. To achieve flow, you must believe that youre able to influence the outcome of whatever it is youre doing.The loss of consciousness. During a peak experience, you lose sense of who you are. You become one with your environment, a part of a greater whole. Youre no longer aware of yourself as an individual.The transformation of time. When youre in the zone, the passage of time is altered. In some ways, it slows minutes seem like hours. In other ways, it quickens hours seem like minutes. You lose track of the clock. This freedom from the tyranny of time [adds] to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement. That first point merits a closer look. To achieve flow, you have to find a balance between your abilities and the challenge of the task at hand. If what youre doing is too difficult for your current skill level, youll become anxious. If the task is easy and youre good at it, itll be a relaxing pastime. Heres a graphical representation of the flow model:

According to Cskszentmihlyi, The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself. You might need to complete the task youre working on for other reasons, but youd do it even if it werent required. Youre doing it not for some future benefit, but because the task itself is so rewarding. But heres the thing: Flow doesnt just happen. These optimal experiences can be encouraged and fostered. You can become happier by changing where you focus your attention. Garbage In, Garbage Out The objects and events around us exist in an objective world. They are what they are. Yet each of us experiences these objects and events in a different way. What happens outside must pass through the filter of your subjective mind before it enters your consciousness. You control what enters your consciousness (and, thus, what enters your awareness and memory). You and I go to the movies. We watch the same film in the same theater at the same time. You enjoy it. Youre wrapped up in the story and moved by the performances. I leave the theater unhappy. The kid in front of us coughed the whole time, I complain as we walk to the car. The seats were uncomfortable and the volume too loud. Plus, I dont like Nicholas Cage. We shared the same experience and yet we didnt. Consciousness corresponds to a subjectively experienced reality, Cskszentmihlyi writes in Flow. A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what actually happens outside, just by changing the contents of his consciousness. We choose what we experience, and we choose how we interpret those experiences. This idea can be challenging to people who possess an external locus of control, those who believe that their decisions and life are controlled by chance or fate or greater environmental factors. Cskszentmihlyi says that in order to achieve flow and happiness, we must actively create the conditions that lead to it. That means we must learn to direct our focus: [Happiness] is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control their inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any one of us can come to being happy. The shape and content of your life depends on how you use your attention. People who master what happens in their heads tend to be happier than those who dont or wont. While we are thinking about a problem we cannot truly experience either happiness or sadness, writes Cskszentmihlyi. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and quality of life. The bottom line? Garbage in, garbage out. If you allow yourself to think negative thoughts, your experience will be negative. If you want a positive experience, you have to accentuate the positive in all that you see and do. We can make flow moments more common and become happier people by structuring our focus and attention to bring long-term improvements to the quality of our daily life. There are two primary ways to do this: Change external conditions.Change how you experience external conditions. Each strategy is sound. But one is generally easier than the other. Which path you choose depends upon the situation. Changing Your World Sometimes the best way to boost your happiness is by changing the world around you. Imagine, for instance, that youre sitting at home reading a book. Youre comfortable except for one thing: Youre warm. Very warm. An external condition is causing you discomfort. You could change the way youre experiencing this condition (by removing all of you clothes, say), but in this case it probably makes more sense to change the condition itself by lowering the thermostat. Or maybe youre sitting in a restaurant writing a letter. Things are fine except that the place is too noisy, which is distracting. Your best bet is to change locations, to change your environment. The trouble, of course, is that you have little control over the world around you. My girlfriend was born and raised in northern California. To her, thats the ideal climate. Shes lived in Portland for five years now, and she loves much about the city and the region. But she hates the climate. This is an external factor thats beyond her control. As hard as she tries, she cant make it rain less in Portland! (Francis Bacon once said, Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.) When you reduce the size of your immediate environment stepping from outdoors to indoors, for instance you make it easier to control external conditions. You cant reduce the outside air temperature, but you can cool a room or a building. Even then, exerting influence over your environment requires a great deal of effort and energy. Usually, the most effective way to boost your happiness isnt by changing external conditions, but by changing how you experience external conditions. Changing Yourself

Now imagine youre reading in the park. Its cold. The sun is out, but the air is chilly. You could head indoors, but youre enjoying the lovely day. The solution is to change how youre experiencing the world around you. Put on your jacket and some gloves. You havent altered your environment, but youve changed how youre experiencing it. Or maybe youre backpacking through Europe, staying in hostels and cheap hotels. Sometimes its tough to sleep because the walls are thin and theres nothing covering the windows. Light and noise threaten to keep you awake all night. Again, the best solution is to change the way you experience the external conditions. If you wear an eye mask and earplugs, you can rest comfortably despite the chaos around you. Most people recognize that they have limited power over their physical world, but many cling to the belief that they can change the behavior of the people around them. In reality, changing others can be nearly as difficult. Writing in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World a book well discuss at length in part three of this series Harry Browne calls the idea that you can (or should) control what others do the Identity Trap. He writes: [You cant] assume that someone will do what youve decided is right. Youve decided it from your unique knowledge and interpretations; he acts from his knowledge and his interpretations. Youre in the Identity Trap when you assume an individual will react to something as you would react or as youve seen someone else react. If youre unhappy with somebody, there are two options. You can attempt to change the other person, or you can change how you interact with that person. Youre almost always better off changing yourself altering your expectations, accepting new premises than you are attempting to change the other person. Heres Harry Browne again: You could make everyone else be, act, and think in ways of your choosing if you were God. But you arent. So its far more useful to recognize and accept each person as he is and then deal with him accordingly. You cant control the natures of other people, but you can control how youll deal with them. And you can also control the extent and manner in which youll be involved with them. The paradox is that you have tremendous control over your life, but you give up that control when you try to control others. For the only way you can control others is to recognize their natures and do what is necessary to evoke the desired reactions from those natures. Thus your actions are controlled by the requirements involved when you attempt to control someone else. People suffer a great deal of unhappiness because they assume that everyone wants the same things or that they should want the same things. But each person is different, with her own knowledge, experience, preferences, and attitudes. You can improve your quality of life by either changing your environment or by changing how you interact with your environment. Both strategies have their place, but one is generally much easier and more effective than the other. In most cases, its difficult or impossible to change the world around you. Attempting to do so simply leads to frustration and unhappiness. But its almost always possible to change how you perceive the world around you. In fact, its this ability that contributes most to day-to-day contentment. Permission and Control As children, were conditioned to ask permission whenever we want to do something. You need permission from your parents to leave the dinner table or to go outside and play. You need permission from your teacher to use the bathroom. Even as adults, we feel compelled to request permission. You need permission from your boss to leave work early. You need permission from your spouse to grab drinks with your friends instead of weeding the garden. You need permission from the city to build a shed in the backyard. As a result, most of us have developed an external locus of control. That is, we subconsciously believe we need permission to do anything. In personality psychology, the term locus of control describes how people view the world around them, and where they place responsibility for the things that happen in their lives. Though this might sound complicated, the concept is actually rather simple. If you have an internal locus of control, you believe that the quality of your life is largely determined by your own choices and actions. You believe that you are responsible for who you are and what you are.If you have an external locus of control, you believe that the quality of your life is largely determined by forces beyond your control, by your environment or luck or fate. You believe that others are responsible for who you are and what you are. Most people respond to the system of rewards and punishments that has evolved in the culture that surrounds them. If your culture prizes material gain, wealth becomes important to you. If it emphasizes familial relationships, family becomes important to you. But when you live like this when you make decisions based on your social environment the only happiness you can obtain is fleeting. As a result, many people suffer some degree of angst, of anxiety or dread. Is that all there is? we wonder, when we pause to reflect upon our lives. Isnt there something more? There is something more. Lasting happiness can be achieved, but not by being a puppet whose strings are pulled by situation and society. To achieve long-term happiness (and meaning), you have to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of your external circumstances. You have to create a system of internal rewards that are under your own power. If youre unhappy, nobody else can make things better for you. You must make things better for yourself. Focus on the things you can control, and use that control to fix the other things that are broken. In this way, youll gradually gain confidence and greater control of your future well-being. You live in a world of your own design. You have the power to choose. You create your own certainty. Life as you want to live, and do so without regret. Give yourself permission to do so. Caveat: Its okay to seek happiness by changing jobs or moving to San Diego. Its not okay to steal your neighbors television or to drive on the wrong side of the road. Remember the Golden Rule. Enjoy your life without diminishing the ability of others to enjoy theirs. Becoming Proactive Julian B. Rotter developed the locus of control concept in 1954 as part of his social-learning theory of personality. Stephen R. Covey popularized the idea in 1989 with his best-selling The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Like Mihly Cskszentmihlyi, Covey believes that we filter our experiences before they reach our consciousness. Between stimulus and response, he writes, man has the freedom to choose. Our self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will give us the power to select how well respond to each situation in life. Covey says there are two types of people: proactive and reactive. Proactive people recognize that theyre responsible for how they respond to outside stimuli. In Rotters terms, they have an internal locus of control. They dont blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their state. They believe their existence is largely a product of personal choice derived from personal values.Reactive people believe their condition is a product of their physical and social environments. They have an external locus of control. Their moods are based on the moods of others, or upon the things that happen to them. They allow the outside world to control their internal existence. To illustrate the difference between proactive and reactive people, Covey discusses how we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns: our health, our family, our jobs, our friends; world affairs, the plight of the poor, the threat of terrorism, the state of the environment. All of these fall into what Covey calls our Circle of Concern. Within our Circle of Concern, theres a subset of things over which we have actual, direct control: how much we exercise, what time we go to bed, whether we get to work on time; what we eat, where we live, with whom we socialize. These things fall into what Covey calls our Circle of Influence, which sits inside our Circle of Concern.

According to Covey, proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They spend their time and energy on things they can change. This has two effects. First, proactive people actually do affect change in their lives; and as they do so, their Circle of Influence expands. On the other hand, reactive people tend to focus on their Circle of Concern. They spend their time and energy on things theyre unable to influence (or can influence only with great difficulty). They try to change other people, to correct social injustices, to shift thought patterns of states or nations. Their efforts are largely frustrating and futile. Whats more, as they focus on their Circle of Concern, their Circle of Influence begins to shrink from neglect. Any time you shift your attention from your Circle of Influence to your Circle of Concern, you allow outside forces to control you. You place your happiness and well-being in the hands of others. If you dont act for yourself, youre doomed to be acted upon. But what about about luck? Arent there times when we really are at the mercy of the world around us? Of course. But our responses are always our own. Eleanor Roosevelt said, No one can hurt you without your consent. Covey agrees: Its not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character. Shit happens. Shit happens to everyone. Ultimately, who we are and what we become is determined not by the shit that happens to us, but how we respond to that shit. Remember Reinhold Niebuhrs famous serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Most people are reactive. Its likely that youre reactive too at least to some degree. Dont fret. Im reactive also. But with time and effort, Ive managed to shift from an external locus of control to one thats primarily internal. You can too. Focus on the things you can control. Use that control to remove constraints and complications from your life. Strengthen and stretch your Circle of Influence. This is the only path to changing your Circle of Concern. You have no control over the hand youre dealt, but you can choose how to play the cards. Exercise: Heres a simple idea from Seven Habits. For thirty days, commit to working only on your Circle of Influence. How? Keep your commitments, to yourself and others. Dont judge or criticize other people, but turn your attention inward. Dont argue. Dont make excuses. When you make a mistake, accept responsibility and fix it. Dont blame or accuse. When you catch yourself thinking I have to or If only, stop yourself and choose to reframe the thought in a more positive light. As far as possible, accept responsibility for your circumstances, actions, and feelings. The Search for Meaning Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camps during World War II. The extreme suffering and harsh conditions caused many inmates to lose their will, to welcome death. To be sure, prisoners often had no control over whether or not they died. But Frankl observed, A man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. When treated like an animal, Frankl said, a person can choose to be an animal or she can choose to be brave, dignified, and unselfish. According to Frankl, the way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entailsadd a deeper meaning to his life. In the classic Mans Search for Meaning, Frankl states his thesis thus: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. Frankls experience served as a crucible for his theory of personality development, which he called logotherapy. Before him, Alfred Adler had argued that people possessed a Nietzschean will to power (more here), and Sigmund Freud had argued that were all motivated by a will to pleasure (more here). Frankl, on the other hand, believed that humans are born with a will to meaning, a fundamental need to discover their purpose in this world. The three basic tenets of logotherapy are: The search for meaning is the primary motivation in each of our lives. This meaning is unique and specific to each individual. (Frankls philosophy is one reason I ask Get Rich Slowly readers to do is create a personal mission statement.)Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones. What matters most isnt the meaning of life in general, but the meaning of each persons life in each moment.Humans are self-determining. That is, we dont just exist, but choose what our existence will be. We have freedom to find meaning in what we do and what we experience or at least in how we respond to each situation. Frankls argument that youre always free to choose your attitude is echoed in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyis statement that how we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experience. It also echoes Johnstones Impro: People with dull lives often think their lives are dull by chance. In reality everyone choose more or less the kind of events that happen to them.

Accepting responsibility for your own fate and attitudes can be uncomfortable and intimidating. Theres a kind of solace when you can attribute your situation to the winds of fate, the whims of the gods, or the inner workings of the universe. But recognizing that youre a free agent can be liberating too. When you take matters into your own hands, you shed your fears, create your own certainty, and discover that youre freer than you ever imagined possible. If you struggle to know what youre life is about, youre not alone. I get email all the time from folks who are stumped about what it is they want to accomplish. They know they dont like how things are going, but theyre not clear on just what they should do to make things better. To finish this discussion of meaning and happiness, Im going to share three exercises designed to help you find direction. (If youve read my stuff at Get Rich Slowly before, youll probably recognize one of these. Thats okay. If you still need help finding your purpose, you should work through it once more.) First up, lets talk about how to prioritize how you currently spend your time. Your Big Rocks You lead a busy life. There never seems to be enough time to do the things you really want to do, the things that make you happy. Youre too preoccupied with work, errands, and other demands placed upon you by the outside world. In Work Less, Live More, Bob Clyatt argues that you can make time for the important stuff. The secret, he says, is to prioritize, and he offers an analogy. (Ive learned recently that this idea might have originated with Stephen R. Covey in his book First Things First.) Heres how it works: Imagine you have a jar. You want to fill this jar with some rocks and some sand. Whats the best way to do it? One way is to add the sand to the jar first and then add the rocks. If you did this, however, youd quickly find that its impossible to make everything fit. With a layer of sand at the bottom of the jar, theres no room for the rocks.On the other hand, if you begin by putting the rocks in the jar, when you pour in the sand it will sift downward to fill in the gaps and the cracks between the rocks. Everything fits. Heres a video that demonstrates this idea in action: [embedded content] This same principle applies to your personal life. You can achieve well-being by prioritizing the Big Rocks in your life. This may sound elementary, and you may be tempted to ignore this advice. Dont. This one idea revolutionized my life. It made me happier and more productive. By focusing solely on the things that were most important to me by making room for the Big Rocks I was able to reclaim my life and time. A few years ago, after first reading about this idea, I sat down and drafted a list of the things that were most important to me. I decided that my Big Rocks were fitness, friends, writing, Spanish, and travel. If these werent in my jar, I wasnt happy. So, I made sure to squeeze these in before anything else. Once these rocks were in place, once these things were on my calendar, then Id fill the remaining space with the sand television, email, errands, and so on. Because of this simple exercise, I got lots more done and had a better time doing it. Who Are You? and What Do You Want? In order to get things done, to be productive, to achieve greater meaning and happiness in your life, you need to make sure youre spending more time on the big rocks and less time on the sand of everyday life (such as errands and email). But how can you determine which things are important? George Kinder is a Certified Financial Planner. Unlike many CFPs, Kinder isnt just about the nuts and bolts of money. He moves beyond the numbers in an attempt to address the goals and values of his clients. Without life planning, he says, financial planning is like using a blunt instrument on the organism we call the human being. Near the beginning of his work with each client, Kinder challenges her to answer three questions. These questions are designed to lead the client deeper and deeper into her desires until they reveal her goals and values, the things that bring her meaning and purpose. Kinder shared these questions in his book, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity. Your next task is to set aside half an hour to answer Kinders questions as honestly as possible: Imagine youre financially secure. You have enough money to take care of your needs, both now and in the future. How would you live your life? Would you change anything? Let yourself go and describe your dreams. What would you do if money were no object?Now imagine that you visit your doctor. She reveals you only have five to ten years left to live. Youll never feel sick, but youll have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the time you have remaining? Will you change your life? How will you change it? (Note that this question does not assume unlimited wealth.)Finally, imagine your doctor shocks you with the news that you only have 24 hours to live. Nothing can be done. At this time tomorrow, youll be dead. What feelings arise as you confront your mortality? What did you miss? Who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do? Answering the first question is easy (and fun). There are many things wed do if money were no object. But as the questions progress, theres a sort of funnel. They become more difficult to answer, and there are fewer possible responses. Life planning is all about answering that final question. Note: If youd prefer, you can download a free PDF with a similar exercise that I used in the Money Boss crash course: Your Personal Mission Statement. Someday, Ill update that for Get Rich Slowly. According to Kinder, the third question usually generates responses that follow five general themes: Family and relationships. Ninety percent of responses to the final question contain this topic.Authenticity or spirituality. Many responses involve leading a more meaningful life.Creativity. Surprisingly, a large number of respondents express a desire to do something creative: to write a science-fiction novel or to play guitar like Eric Clapton.Giving back. Further down the list are themes about giving back to the community, about leaving a meaningful positive impact.A sense of place. A fifth common theme (though nowhere near as prominent as the top three) is a desire to have some connection with place: a desire to be in nature, to live someplace different, or to help the environment. Kinder says that some people the facts and figures people look at the life-planning process and ask, What does this have to do with money? It has everything to do with money. When you understand what you want to do with your life, you can make financial choices that reflect your values. All of these questions and the entire life-planning process are meant to cause the participant to ask herself, Who am I as a person, stripped from what I do as a job every day? Is it possible to derive meaning and satisfaction with this stripped away? Inevitably, the answer is yes. Your Lifeline Heres a third and final exercise, which I picked from my friend Jim Collins. Youre going to create a graphical representation of your life past and future. Before we start, grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Ready? Great! Heres how this works. Step one. With the paper in landscape mode (wider than it is tall), place one dot on the center of the left side. Place a second dot on the center of the right side. Draw a line to connect the two dots. Your page should look something like this:

Step two. For the next step, youll need to do some guesswork. Based on what you know of your health and your family history, estimate how long youll live. I know theres no way to be sure you could be hit by a truck tomorrow, or maybe next week scientists will find the secret to living 1000 years! but do what you can to best guess the date of your death. (If you need help, try one of the many on-line longevity calculators, such as the one at livingto100.com.) Once youve calculated your projected date of death, write it below the right-most dot. Example: As my long-time readers know, the men in my family dont live long. In fact, they often die on or around their fiftieth birthdays. Also, for strange reasons known only to the universe (or god), many of my family die on or around Independence Day. Thus, I often say that I expect to die on 04 July 2019, when Im fifty. This may sound morbid, but I like to think of it as hedging my bets. I hope to live longer, but Im fully prepared to have a short life.

Step three. Below the left-most date, note your date of birth. On your paper, youve created a visual representation of your lifeline.

Step four. The next step requires a bit of math. Youre going to add a third point to your lifeline, a point that represents today. Today will fall on a different point on the line for each person. To find the proper place for you, divide your current age by your expected lifespan. For instance, Im 45 and expect to live until Im 50. For me, the point representing today is located about 10% from the right side of the line. If youre 20 and expect to live until youre 80, your today point would be about one-quarter of the way in from the left. And so on.

Step five. Finally, choose a handful of major events from your life and place them on the lifeline in (approximately) the appropriate location. You might choose to list your first day of school, your wedding date, or the birthdates of your children. Add three to five major events to your lifeline. Example: On my lifeline, Ive included these key events: Writing The Meanest Inchworm in third grade, which was the first clue that Id one day become a writer. Getting married. Writing my first blog. Selling Get Rich Slowly. Re-purchasing Get Rich Slowly.

Your lifeline is now complete. On the piece of paper before you, you have a representation of your life, both past and future. But before were finished, theres one final step Id like you to take. Using an eraser, a marker, or another piece of paper, mask everything on your lifeline that comes before today. Blot it out. Hide it. Make it go away.

All of the time before today is past and does not matter. What matters is the future: today and everything after. For folks like me, our projected futures contain just a small amount of time. Knowing that, I cannot wait to do the things that I want to do. If your projected future is short, you shouldnt wait either. Dont dwell on the past. You cant change it. Focus instead on making the best quality tomorrow you possibly can. On the other hand, if your projected future is long (say youre 20 and expect to live another 60 or 80 years), cultivate patience. Take time. Make smart choices. Do what you can to set yourself up for future success. And dont get down on yourself just because youve made a few mistakes in the past. The past is the past. Look how much tomorrow lies before you! For another take on this exercise, take a look at the life calendar from Tim Urban at Wait But Why. The Path to Purpose We covered a lot of material in this article. Lets review what weve learned.

You can improve the quality of your daily life by learning to focus your attention and choosing to filter your experiences through a lens of positivity. But while it might be simple to find happiness in a single day, it can be much more difficult to link a series of days into a meaningful whole. Still, just as we must be active agents in creating our own happiness, we must also take an active role to create meaning in our lives. Creating meaning involves bringing order to the contents of the mind by integrating ones actions into a unified flow experience, writes Mihly Cskszentmihlyi. To give meaning to life, to achieve this unified flow experience, you need a purpose an overall goal around which your lesser goals are clustered. The path to purpose is different for each of us. Exercises like those Ive shared here the big rocks, the three questions, and the lifeline can help you identify your personal purpose, but often this process requires many years of experience and soul-searching. Dont feel bad if you havent found your purpose. And be aware that it takes more than cultivating purpose to make meaning out of life. To make meaning, you must also forge resolve. You must take your goals seriously. If youre not willing to accept the consequences of the goals you set, or to put in the effort required to achieve them, those goals become meaningless. Curiously, it can often be easier to find meaning and purpose by limiting your options. The more choices we have, the more difficult it is to maintain our resolve. Commitment to a goal and to the rules it entails is much easier when the choices are few and clear, notes Cskszentmihlyi. When we can imagine only few opportunities and few possibilities, it is relatively easy to achieve harmony. Desires are simple, choices are clear. There is little room for conflict and no need to compromise. Because life is complex (and becoming more so every day), its vital to keep your psychic energy focused on the things that matter most. Exercising personal restraint and preferring simplicity can help you stay glued to your purpose, on your goals both big and small. Restraint and simplicity reduce the possibility of distraction. But restraint and simplicity arent enough. When life gets busy and you feel overwhelmed, you must do more than just simplify your environment. At these times, action and intensity become your allies. Harmony is restored to conscious indirectly not by facing up to contradictions and trying to resolve conflicting goals and desires, but by pursuing chosen goals with such intensity that all competition is preempted, writes Cskszentmihlyi. Action helps create inner order. Action cures fear; apparently, it also imparts purpose. The final piece to the making of meaning is self-knowledge, the process by which you sort through conflicting choices. Based on your personal history, preferences, and passions, you must filter the available options to select the goals that truly reflect who you are and what you mean to the world. Example: At any given moment, I have many options available to me. Do I want to write another book? Do I want to speak at a conference in India? Do I want to continue to write about money? Do I want to study Spanish? Do I want to travel more? Less? And so on. Most of these options are good (by which I mean theyre positive, both for me and for the world). Who I am and what my life means is a product of the opportunities I choose to pursue. Ultimately, its up to each of us to discover our lifes purpose though a combination of simplification, action, and self-reflection, by being true to who we are and what we believe, and be setting goals we find worthy of pursuing for their own sake. Shares 104 https://www.getrichslowly.org/how-to-be-happy/

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itesfashion · 7 years ago

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ladiesfashion25 · 7 years ago

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