My life, always filled with tasks and to-do lists that challenge my time and patience, both while toiling at my day job as well as following my bliss with all of my other passions, is about to get even busier.
Perhaps more fulfilling is a better way to express this. Because, after all, I always practice and sometimes preach the constant need to find fulfillment in ones life—the vital importance of making each day as worthwhile as possible.
That’s why, as I sit here on my back deck, serenaded by my fountain mixing its bubbling melody with the call of the wilderness—birds singing, squirrels scurrying, deer gracefully meandering through the tall grass, dogs barking and echoing through the ridge—I force myself to take a moment. And a breath. Ahhhh…
Sunday morning, one of my favorite moments of my week. Sipping green tea, catching up on my reading, plucking some tunes out of my guitar, far removed from my tasks and to-do list as I can possibly be. Yet their burden—and the wealth of challenges and enjoyment associated with them—still slither through my tranquility, demanding attention, as they are wont to do.
What to do?
One of my favorite Zen sayings is:
“If it’s not paradoxical, it’s not true.”
So while I embrace all this relaxation and serenity, the constant itch of activity still scratches at the back of my psyche. I understand that this is the calm before the storm of work and things-to-do awaiting me, and with that understanding comes the need to wrap myself around this calm to its fullest. While also preparing for the flurry of forecasted fireworks ahead.
Without getting into too much detail, my plate at my day job continues to overflow…with a promise of even more in the days and weeks ahead. I’m ready, planning. Taking it one hour, one day, one week at a time. Focusing on keeping my balance between mind, body, and spirit in check and in shape. On top of that, trying to keep my head above water with the constant challenge of juggling a fulltime career with a part-time website…make that two websites.
Call that the second half of the storm after the calm—in the coming weeks and months I will be revealing the new livelife365 video site, a self-help book, a new song and music video (in the editing room getting polished as I write this), and lots more.
Do I sometimes feel like there is way too much on my plate, that I have bitten off more than I can chew, that I am grabbing a bit too much of life by the…ah…lapels? Yes. The key, though, is to focus on one task at a time, stay in the moment, worry about what you can control and not what you cannot, and prioritize, plan, pray, all the while practicing a plethora of patience…and those are just the “P”s!
Livelife365 is all about doing. Doing something positive every day. Something healthy. Spiritual. Exercising your body, yes, but also your mind. And your spirit. When I created livelife365 I wanted to share with as many people as possible helpful tips and successful programs that I have developed through the years, using videos and blog posts, like this one. Most of the successes that I talk and write about are things that I do every single day. Maybe that’s why this site is called livelife365.
What are some of the things—positive, useful, invigorating, creative, important, worthwhile, fun, healthy, entertaining, fulfilling—things that you do each day?
I created a list, but also, of course, a video:
TEN THINGS I MUST DO EVERY DAY
1. Exercise. Break a sweat. Do something physical, be it just taking a walk or lifting weights and riding my stationary bike. Even if you detest working out you can still get plenty of exercise chasing your kids around the yard, doing housework, washing the car, walking to the mailbox, or rolling around in bed with your significant other.
2. Enjoy the great outdoors. You don’t have to live in the mountains or by a beach to appreciate the natural wonder and beauty of the earth. I have to go outside as often as possible during the day. Summertime is easier, but I still see many folks walk from house to car to work to car to house without stopping to smell the flowers or bask in the splendor. Taking a walk is an excellent way to get your exercise in while also listening to the birds. Plus the sun offers vitamin D, an essential necessity. 3.Meditate. I meditate every morning. My goal is at least thirty minutes of just sitting in a quiet room, eyes relaxed, sometimes closed, most times half-closed, clearing the clutter from my brain, listening to the sounds around me other than the thoughts in my head. It’s easier than you may think, and well worth a few minutes of your day.
4. Drink green tea. I used to be a soda junkie, drank over five cans of Diet Coke a day. Not only is all that caffeine bad for you, but the other junk they put in soda can remove corrosion from a carburetor…imagine what it does to your stomach. When I gave up soda several years ago I started drinking green tea, and have never looked back. Green tea tastes great, is loaded with antioxidant and polyphenols, which help the immune system and protect against cancer and heart disease. Green tea also settles your stomach, not upsets is like with soda, and it can help you lose weight, lower your cholesterol, and even fight tooth decay. Get the idea I dig green tea? You should too. Oh, and by the way, my new music video called “Drink Green Tea Every Day” will be out very soon.
5. Laugh. Sounds simple, sounds easy, sounds, well, rather silly to put on my list, but you’d be amazed how many people don’t laugh enough—especially at themselves. Having a sense of humor goes a long way toward helping heal whatever ails you. And it’s fun! That’s why when I developed this site I included lots of funny stuff to go along with the healthy living and personal development tips, because you gotta laugh.
6. Eat healthy. Easier said than done for way too many people, but enjoying a healthy diet of fresh veggies and fruit, whole grains, beans and legumes, low in bad fats and high in fiber is the fuel that makes me who I am. The best part, besides being good for you and aiding in helping you live a longer, happier, healthier life, is all these healthy foods taste amazing. Don’t let those fast food commercials fool you. A farm fresh tomato on whole wheat is one of the tastiest things you can eat…my mouth is watering already.
7. Pursue my hobbies. I play my guitar every day—sing, write music, just enjoying the sound. That’s one of my hobbies, I have many more: gardening, landscaping, writing, videography, book collecting. We work, we rest, we enjoy time with family and friends, we eat and go to bed. In between you must try to find the time to do something for yourself—hobbies will get you to the place you need to be. 8. Read. Speaking of hobbies. I have had a voracious appetite for books ever since I can remember. I love to read. I read every single day of my life. I usually have several books going at one time—fiction, non-fiction, humorous, historical. I also devour newspapers and magazines…not to mention spending way too many hours of my life at my day job, reading endless tomes there. Reading is my great escape as well as my daily bread.
9. Think positive thoughts. I am a firm believer that no matter how bad things get—and life WILL deal you bad stuff—you have to remain positive. You have that power, something only you can control. Even if I’m having a particularly dreadful day for reasons that only astrologers and weathermen can explain, I still try to find something positive inside the gloom. And more often than not my sour mood turns better, and I shake my head and wonder why I was so down in the first place. Again, life is going to get all of us sometimes, but we have the power to fight back with positivity.
10. Floss. Every day. Besides brushing after every meal, I floss every night before bedtime. We only get one set of choppers so we have to take good care of them. Flossing is actually good for your heart, as well as reaching all those nooks and crannies inside your maw that your toothbrush cannot. Like my oral hygienist likes to say, “You only have to floss the teeth you want to keep.”
I’m sure there are a few more things I do each day that didn’t make my top ten list, but it’s a good list. For me. What about you? We all have certain things that we need to do every day to live the life we want and need—these are some of mine. Hope your list is as healthy and happy and as fulfilling as I feel mine is.
Shaped like an avocado, with hues that rival the papaya, and a taste that is sweet and sometimes sour, kind of like kiwi or a plum .What tropical delicacy am I describing?Why, mango, that’s what.
What is a mango?
·one of the largest produced tropical fruits in the world
·an antioxidant powerhouse
·tasty as a soup, juice, smoothie, dessert, ice cream
·or fresh off the tree
·member of the drupe family, like apricots and nectarines
·grown predominantly in India and other warm weather climates like China, Mexico, Thailand, and Pakistan
·delicious
Ready to try one?First you have to open one up—here’s how:
One of my favorite vacation spots in the world is Maui and while relaxing on the island, I also enjoy visiting the farmer’s market where I get to sample fresh and often exotic fruits and veggies.It was on Maui where I discovered passion fruit, star fruit, papaya, and, the star of today’s post, mango.Besides needing to recharge my batteries and basking in the sun and fun, trying new things, especially healthy, new things, is what it’s all about.Living life 365.
The good news is you don’t have to jet to Maui to taste a mango (though it’s not a bad idea); just head out to your grocery store or natural food place, or, better yet, your hometown farmer’s market, and look around.You’d be surprised what you may discover.
I am a man blessed with many hobbies, from book collecting and reading, to writing music and playing guitar, to traveling with my lovely wife and videography. One of the hobbies I enjoy the most this time of year is working outside, digging in the dirt, and creating something out of nothing...like landscaping!
Last year, I started a landscaping project on the side of my house—I wrote about it, and produced this video:
Hobbies should fill your time and interest, perk your curiosity, and deliver satisfaction to your mind, body, and spirit. They should take you away from the daily grind, inspiring and challenging you to make mistakes while attempting to do things you don’t normally do. The good part—it’s your hobby, your time; if it doesn’t work out, who cares?
But when I start digging up the side yard, taking thrice-weekly sojourns to Lowe's, and invest mega time, money, and sweat equity, the end result should at least be something to be proud of. You be the judge:
I love working up a sweat while I’m working outside, but I have to constantly watch out for dehydration, continuously chugging water, grabbing rest in a shaded area, and being cognizant of the
Next hobby for me is to continue working on getting my video site back up and running, while also creating more videos every week. I am putting the finishing touches on a new music vid about green tea that I feel is my best work yet. Stay tuned…
And if you do happen to stay out in the sun too long and start feeling sick, this video should help:
Anyone trying to visit my video site,livelife365.com, has probably figured out by now that something is up. No, not the site—that, sadly, has been taken down for the time being. I decided I needed to change things up, shop around for a new host and server, and had to put the vid site on ice for a few weeks. The good news: I plan on making it bigger and better, while still loaded with hundreds of self-help videos ranging from diet and nutrition, motivation and inspiration, music and humor.
In the meantime, I appreciate your continued support of this blog over the years. Thanks.
And remember, you can also watch many of my videos at my channel on YouTube. Almost 250,000 people have already viewed them, with hundreds more watching every day.
My latest video is for those of us who are in search of a healthy, delicious, vegetarian, and fast meal. How fast? How does one minute sound? Of course, when you consider some prep work, it may cost you all of five minutes—still, not bad for something that tastes so good. Check out my black bean tacos:
The best part about these tacos are they are loaded with veggie protein, high in healthy fiber, very low in saturated fats and sodium, and simple to make:
organic salsa (make it yourself—I will, in a soon-to-be-produced VEG OUT WITH MIKE)
Two of these tasty tacos will net you around 27gs of protein; 15g fiber; 500mgs of sodium, with only 5gs of sat fat, and that's if you use cheese made from dairy. If you opt for vegan cheese, you will virtually eliminate all sat fats. Total calories: 500, which is amazingly low for such a gut-filling meal.
Again, I thank you for your continued support and patronage and look forward to sharing hundreds of more videos and blog posts in the coming months and years. Be on the lookout for a new music video about the benefits of drinking green tea every day, a couple of books that I have been working on for a while, and lots more.
I like to take that admirable adage a few steps further and say that admitting one’s mistakes, owning up to a shortcoming or just one bad moment is equally, if not more, important than forgiveness.
We all screw up, hence the above quote—we are all human beings so we are expected, at times, to do things poorly, say things in anger, misinterpret an emotion, or just plain boot a grounder at Fenway Park.
Mike’s keys to dealing with being human:
·Cut yourself some slack—if you were a robot then all your problems would be solved with a new microchip or a good reprogramming.
·Cut others even more slack—if we all have to jump in the pool and splash around in the muck, you do too! Forgiveness is a two-way street.
·When in doubt, send flowers—or at least send love. Some people take longer to heal, are more sensitive, need time to get over whatever you did to make them so upset with you.
·Learn from it—what’s the sense of being in the doghouse, groveling your way out, mending that fence you almost destroyed, if you just go back and do it again? Messing up can build more character than succeeding, at times.
·Watch this video:
I’m not saying that you should not always strive to do your best, just don’t take yourself too seriously. Perfectionists are some of the most miserable people on the planet. While, when you think about it, children are some of the happiest. Why do you think that is? Kids are always messing up, making mistakes, doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Yet, most of them, look at these childhood blunders as part of growing up, and learn from them. And youngsters are also some of the most forgiving creatures around, save for puppies.
“If you are not making mistakes, you are not trying, and if you are not trying you are not living.”
Sometimes life gets in the way of some of the things we want to accomplish. There’s nothing you can do about it—it’s life! Except react as best you can. Sadly, sometimes we react in the worst possible way. When that happens make the best of it:
I wasn’t always a vegetarian. Back in the day, I used to be seated right beside some of you, gnawing away on that rib bone, masticating that filet mignon, devouring a double double from my (former) favorite burger place, In-n-Out. I was an animal-eating carnivore most of my life—just like over 90% of the population. Then I had some blood work done and got a glimpse of my cholesterol levels. Yikes!
Here’s the thing: I was never what you would call a BIG meat eater. More often than not, I was just as interested in the vegetable and salad portion of my meal as the animal protein part. And once I’d done further research about the contributing factors of high cholesterol (mine, by the way, was closing in on 300) and unhealthy weight gain—namely: saturated fats—it made perfect sense to gradually cut down on the meats. Years before I became a full-time vegetarian, I often would go days without consuming any animal protein. My palette, as well as some deeper region of my subconscious, was changing, sounding an alarm: Reduce your saturated fats or die!
Okay, Mike, you can stop with the dramatics. But it was a wake-up call, and my unhealthy cholesterol and weight gain (I was up over 200 pounds—far too heavy for my barely 5’ 11’’ frame) forced me to do something else—discover healthier eating options. More to the point: I needed to reduced saturated fats, which meant limit the consumption of animal proteins. The answer:
VEGETABLE PROTEIN!
Here are some of the best sources of vegetable protein that I incorporate into my daily eating routine. Eat as much of this stuff as you can and you will not only get the necessary amount of protein into your diet, but tons of fiber (a good thing!). All without those harmful saturated fats; instead filling up with the good fats: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.
NUTS
I eat nuts every day—mostly almonds, but all nuts have a decent amount of vegetable protein. In addition to almonds, eat walnuts, Brazil nuts, pistachios, even peanuts. They have anywhere from 6-8 grams of protein and 3.0 grams of fiber. I also suggest trying some of the butters. Almond butter is delicious and has 8.0 gms of protein per serving.
BEANS
I love Mexican food, and eat it at least twice a week. I’ve found that you can replace just about any of the meat dishes with healthy black beans (7.0 gms protein/7.0 gms fiber) or refried beans (be sure to check if they are made with lard, in they are, opt out). There are dozens of varieties of beans (see one of my previous blog posts, You Don’t Know Beans…or Do You?); pinto, navy, garbanzo—add them to salads or eat as a side dish. Most have around 6-8 gms of protein and about the same amounts of fiber.
And don’t forget lentils. These tasty tidbits are loaded with vegetable protein—10.0 gms. And 9.0 gms of fiber.
WHOLE GRAINS
I eat a high-protein, whole grain cereal every other day. Kashi makes excellent products. Try their Go Lean. It has 13.0 gms of protein per serving, also 10.0 gms fiber. I mix mine with their Good Friends (5.0 gms protein/12.0 gms fiber) for a vegetarian protein and fiber blast (pun intended!) The days I don’t eat whole grain cereals, I have some toasted whole grain bread (4-6 gms protein; shop around and read labels, some have more protein than others. I recommend Milton's) with almond butter. You can see how the vegetable protein is adding up, huh?
Pastas, especially whole grain pastas, are another great source of vegetable protein. Most have at least 6-8 gms, while some go as high as 12-15 gms. Again, read labels, and you will be pleasantly surprised by all of the healthy vegetable protein options available to you.
I also eat oatmeal (8.0 gms protein/ 6.0 gms fiber) every day. And wild rice will get you around 5.0 gms of vegetable protein per serving.
VEGETABLES
Not all veggies are created equal. Some have more protein than others. Here are the ones you should look for when looking to increase your vegetable protein consumption:
SOY
I eat edamame, or soybeans, (11.0 gms protein/ 6.0 gms fiber) several times a week. I like to mix in another vegetable, usually broccoli (5.0 gms protein/ 4.0 gms fiber), add a little olive oil, salt, pepper. How’s that for veggie protein? Also, soy chips are a wonderful source of protein: 6.0 gms--I like Glenny's and Gen soy. And Dr Soy makes a tasty soy bar (11 gms protein) that I devour most days.
This is by no means a complete list, and a lot of it is personal preference. But, as you can see, the variety of vegetable proteins available to you are endless. And the best part—they are low in saturated fats, high in good fats, loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that contribute to a longer, happier, skinnier, healthier life.
As always, you can watch me talk about all of these healthy topics at my video website, livelife365.com
My StumbleUpon Page
