Lansing – Michigan – USA (by Kenneth Garcia)
💙 Gouraya sunset on 500px by Samir Bzk, Gouraya, Algeria☀ … http://ift.tt/2bMJejW
Some people wait their whole life to start living… don’t be one of them.
If you’re past the big 50 feeling jaded and lifeless. Concerned about the world. Concerned about your world. Your finances, relationships, health or work…
Reading this list should spark at least one change. Kick-start your life with a new challenge and then the reward.
Look for an idea that will set you off along a different path. Plant it like a seed and let it develop into a full grown life change.
1. Never think of yourself as too old. You aren’t.
2. Never stop learning. If you’ve stopped, consider the break as a “time out” and start again. Watch Ted talks. Read about all the fantastic technologies that are being developed at breakneck speeds: 3D printing, mapping the human genome, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data. Plus, all the other things we aren’t even aware of.
3. Write a bucket list of 50 things to do before you die.
4. Plan to visit 50 countries – even a fleeting visit will do.
5. Consider becoming a “roving retiree”.
6. Accept yourself. Accept that your youthful physical perfection is fading replaced by a more perfect complete person.
7. Take up yoga.
8. Move more. Our body wasn’t designed to sit behind a computer screen or slouch around watching TV.
9. Exercise regularly. It has many benefits – healthier body plus a healthy, active brain equals a more fulfilled life … more confidence and self-esteem.
10. Activate your mind. Play mind games. Do a crossword puzzle. Play chess or bridge or scrabble online.
11. Do fun things. Get your children, or grandchildren, or friend’s children to teach you a computer game. Try “Minecraft”, “Lego Marvel Superheros” or “Batman”.
12. Subscribe to a free online course. Anything that takes your fancy. Sites like Coursera, Udemy, Alison Khan Academy offer many free courses covering just about anything you can imagine.
13. Practice mindfulness … Be in the moment.
14. If you hate your job, then leave it. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow but start making a plan … Build an escape plan or Plan B. Be daring. Think an “El Chapo” Guzman break-out-of-jail style!
15. Start a business.
16. Clear away some baggage like so-called “friends”, limiting thoughts, physical stuff, ideas and relationships.
17. Become more spiritual. Practice or follow whatever suits you best.
18. Listen more. You’ve possibly become an “advice monster”. Arrogantly believing “been there done that, so I know what’s best for you”!
19. Don’t believe the news or opinions of other so-called “experts”.
20. Acknowledge that you are responsible for your financial well-being. Not your husband, your wife, your partner and especially not your financial advisor. You never know what the future will bring and you are going to have to live it.
21. Start learning about your finances. Understand what you are told. Understand that the people who are providing you with information have been described by Nassim Taleb as “experts who are not experts”. They suffer from group think and run with the herd … with your money!
22. Take a good hard look at your life. Are you stuck in a rut? Take a short trip out of your comfort zone.
23. Be grateful for all you have.
24. The world is not limited to your neighbourhood. Explore more.
25. Rejuvenate your creativity. It may have hibernated waiting for a spring to bring it alive.
See Also: Top Tips On Training Your Brain To Be Creative
26. Find something you love and pursue it.
27. Ignore the voices of naysayers (and the monkey on your own shoulder) as you consider your newfound freedom.
28. Become an authority on something you love. You don’t have to be a 10,000-hour expert. Just an “expert” who has studied 3 books and knows more than 80% of people. Remember: In a kingdom of blind people, the one-eyed man is King.
29. Acknowledge all the things where you are “better than most people”. Where YOU are already the one eyed man!
30. Accept that you’ve still got a lot of living to do. You are aged 50 In the western world where the average life expectancy is another 35 years for women and 30 years for men. For most people, this will be longer than your working life up to then!
31. The only barriers to your dreams is your thinking, “whether you think you can or think you can’t.”
See Also: 5 Barriers That You Need To Cross To Achieve Success This Year
32. Find a mentor. Find someone you look up to and respect. Find that mentor who will support you. You don’t have to do it all on your own.
33. Ask for help.
34. Don’t live your life for someone else. Not your husband or wife or partner. Not your kids and definitely not your friends. As James Altucher says “choose yourself”.
35. Realize that life is not all about money and possessions.
36. Don’t make excuses for where you are in life. You are there because of the best choices you made.
37. Keep on dreaming big. Life can start at 50.
38. Surround yourself with positive, supportive people. You are the average of the 5 people you spend your time with. They don’t have to be immediate friends, they could be online groups, mentors or coaches. For me, sitting here in the Philippines, I have online friends like Ramit Sethi’s Accelerator Group and Jon Morrow’s Serious Bloggers Only.
39. Never give up. Whatever life has dished up in the past, you don’t have to accept that’s your future.
40. Don’t put it off. There is time. There are choices. There are options. Don’t procrastinate. If you want to do it, you’ll find a reason. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
41. Nothing happens until something moves. Don’t waste too much time inside your head. Only action gets rewarded. Take the first step.
42. You don’t need certificates or credentials. If you want knowledge, study for knowledge and not pieces of paper.
43. Forget about planning for retirement and start planning for life. Traditional retirement is a redundant concept that went out of fashion with defined benefit pension schemes. If you have one of these, beware. Many are insolvent and there will be many more in future.
44. Acknowledge that you have a lot to give. With the many things that you have experienced, you can help a lot of people.
45. You can always get better. You might not compare with the best, but there’s only one of them anyway.
46. Giving is better than receiving. Remember “sow so shall you reap”. Develop a “how can I help you” mentality.
47. There will always be someone stronger, prettier, cleverer, richer, poorer, weaker, uglier than you so just be the best you can be. But never put yourself down. Never believe you are worthless.
48. Never say never. It’ll come back to haunt you.
49. Read 50 Shades of Grey. For anyone whose relationship has turned a bit “grey” and lost its sparkle.
50. Identify your cognitive biases. There are many and we all have them. Recognise them, acknowledge them and combat them. A tiger can’t change his spots. But we’re lucky, we aren’t tigers!
51. Don’t rely on the government to look after you. The government is made up of millions of self-serving bureaucrats who have far bigger problems to solve like their own pensions, their legacy, their own stuff, to be worried about you. Your best guarantee is to be independent. Be fine without them.
52. Develop a “Plan B”. You never know what the future will bring.
53. Do something for 50 people. Small, big, time or money, kind word or deed. Then make it a habit.
54. Acknowledge that you teach people how to treat you.
55. Decisions are not binary. There are many choices – occasionally take a risk.
56. Connect with 5 school friend you haven’t seen or heard of since leaving school. Try Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
Be positive. Be the best you can be. Be humble, be healthy, be grateful. There will be good times and bad, obstacles and opportunities. Be aware, be vigilant.
Make your mark. You owe it to the world.
The post 56 Challenges To Kick-Start Life After Fifty appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
If we look at the exterior of this home, the first things to come to our attention are the lines of its modern style and the materials out of which it is built – black stucco concrete, metal, and glass. But it doesn’t end there. In its interior, the decoration follows the same modern inspiration as the exterior. The living room is spacious and abundantly illuminated, with white walls and..
The post Robert Maschke Architects Design a Little Big House in Cleveland appeared first on HomeDSGN.
You’re reading 5 Reasons Why We Hold on to Anger, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
It takes so much energy to stay mad at someone. Making sure the person who did us wrong knows we’re mad at them by planning on being visibly angry in his or her presence is emotionally taxing. What about if you live with that person? That’s a lot of acting! Sounds pretty tiring, huh? Learning to forgive and move on takes less effort in the long run than holding on to anger does. But why do many of us still hold on to our anger?
Negative experiences are easier to recall than good ones…unless they’re extraordinarily good. Think back to that time when you had an angry confrontation where someone did or said something hurtful to you. Did you get over it quickly? Did it take some time to get over it? Are you still not over it? It isn’t pleasant to think about the times when someone has treated us badly.
I’m not suggesting anyone recall negative experiences to make them upset, but rather to show how easy it is to relive that bad moment and remember how it made us feel. All it takes is something small to trigger us and we’re suddenly right back in that moment.
I know it sounds crazy, but staying angry can make you feel safe. Anger is one of the first emotions we experience from birth. When those angry cries are met with coddling, milk, and fresh diapers, we realize that crying gets us what we want.
As adults, when we get irately angry, we stop thinking clearly and the rational part of our brain shuts down. There is no reasoning with us and no calming us down; just stay out of the way. When we are in that state, we can’t think clearly and we probably don’t want to – especially if someone did or said to us that hurt or disappointed us.
Our anger saves us from having to admit we are hurt. That would make us feel vulnerable, unsafe. Nobody likes being around someone who is always angry, so people avoid us. It prevents the threat of having someone get close enough to us to try finding out why we’re angry. Keeping emotions bottled up makes us feel a lot safer emotionally than sharing them. We get exactly what we want.
Some of us might get aggressive or even violent when we get angry. If we’re that upset, we might lack the words to express our anger in a more positive way. Sadly, this destructive behavior can make someone feel powerful. They were able to take this strong emotion and express it physically by destroying something (or someone). Just think. We actually have the power to destroy something.
It can also make us feel in control. Only we can decide we are not too angry to talk to the person who hurt us. Even if he or she wants to move past it, they can’t get past it unless we do. We can make them feel guilty for hurting us for as long as we want. We have the upper hand in the relationship (if we can still have one after what they did or said).
If we’re to be honest with ourselves, we have to admit that it feels good when people notice us. I don’t mean making us the center of attention; that could be embarrassing if we aren’t feeling the best. When someone shows they have been thinking of us or noticed we haven’t been our normal self, it can make us feel really good. When someone asks, “What’s wrong,” we shrug and say, “Nothing,” knowing they’ll continue asking what’s wrong. This game of emotional cat and mouse gives us the attention we want. At least somebody cares enough not to simply go away when we say nothing is wrong. It shows they care, and we like that.
We are creatures of habit. That means that if something good happens to us, we want it to keep happening. We develop superstitions and routines that we do all the time – sometimes without realizing we do them. All we know is that we’re mad and ignoring the problem definitely is not the right answer, but we may not know where to begin to properly address it.
If being angry with people for a long time has become our pattern and we’re able to manipulate the situation until we get what we want it must be working for us! Why change anything? We might not even want to let go of our anger.
The best way to let go of anger is to first identify where it comes from and then take active steps to resolve it. That also requires some work and a whole lot of honesty.
Here’s to releasing ourselves from our anger!
You’ve read 5 Reasons Why We Hold on to Anger, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Happy Lunar New Year! 2017 is the year of the rooster, and it’s believed that anyone born under this sign will have a good year with plenty of luck and opportunities.
Savannah – Georgia – USA (by Kenneth Garcia)
Are you looking for posture exercises for seniors?
Poor posture can affect moving around, walking and daily activities. In the long run, bad posture can lead to back pain and joint pain in your hips and knees.
Seniors can perform many posture exercises during leisure time with the assistance of a respite caregiver from home care. If your loved one is sitting on a chair watching TV, he or she can do these exercises during the commercials. If they’re on the computer, they can take a break every five minutes for a posture exercise.
We’ve put together an array of exercises to help you target these postures more easily. Keep in mind, these are designed specifically for seniors.
This exercise corrects shoulder posture and aids in breathing.
For the arms up exercise, seniors would have to start with their arms down. Then they would have to raise them to shoulder height. The seniors are then instructed to squeeze their shoulder blades together and then return to a neutral spine with arms down.
This exercise can improve posture for those who find themselves slouching or keeping their chin down. As the name implies, this is an awesome exercise for the spine.
During this exercise, they are advised to inhale and sit up as tall as possible. Then they are allowed to relax and exhale.
Sometimes it is easy to loose good posture while sitting in a chair. Ideally, the vertebrae should be stacked.
This exercise helps old folks maintain a neutral spine while sitting.
For the chin tuck and jut, the elderly have to tuck their chin into chest, then jut it forward. Make sure your loved one is sitting on a chair and has a relaxed spine. During the exercise, the seniors should lift their ribs and breathe normally.
If you think a senior’s shoulders are angling forward due to slouching, this exercise will help put them back in place.
For this exercise, your elder needs to sit up tall, lifting the ribs. Raise only shoulders up slowly and then lower. Make sure to continue breathing normally.
This exercise helps correct the posture of your loved one’s lower back, and it will strengthen pelvis and buttock muscles.
Wall tilts are done with the back against a wall. The elderly need to place a hand behind their back and try to flatten it to create pressure on their hand, and then relax it. If the exercise is too difficult to do standing up, your loved can try it sitting down.
Share these posture exercises for seniors or their loved ones who can make use of them! Good posture helps alleviate pain and discomfort so give these a try.
The post 5 Exercises to Improve Posture and Mobility for Seniors appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
When you think of your home, does it evoke a welcoming, cozy, happy feeling? Our homes are a personal extension of ourselves. When we walk through the door, we should feel joy, contentment and peace. Although most of us want these things for our homes, we don’t always know where to start in creating this atmosphere.
Below are must-know design ideas on how to make a happy home.
Look around your home and take in your surroundings. Does it exude soothing colors and textures that are both welcoming and inviting?
A home with soothing shades and soft textures set the overall mood. Think tranquil blues, greens, greys, whites, and beiges. Choose soft furniture with rounded edges and hardwood floors with soft area rugs. Use soft lighting and candles to produce a calming ambience.
The idea is to create a space that looks and feels softer, calmer and more relaxing.
See Also: 6 Decor Hack to Make Your House look Pretty
Hygge is the Danish concept of creating a cozy atmosphere in your home. It’s a choice and way of life.
Find a gathering space in your home where your family can congregate. Put on your wooly socks and warm sweaters and add a few blankets. Light a fire in the fireplace, invite a few friends or family over and play board games or watch movies together, nestled up and snug. Keep a good stock of board games nearby so it’s easy to grab a few family members and start up a game.
Minimalism doesn’t have to mean stark surfaces and owning very little in terms of belongings. It can simply refer to decluttering the piles on the counters, getting rid of items that aren’t special or of importance, and getting your home organized.
It’s well-documented that clutter causes stress but order creates calm. When piles aren’t building up and everything has a home, clean-up is easy and quick.
When it comes time for gift giving or buying something for your home, consider how the item will fit into your home. Will it create more clutter or will it be an investment in your home and family? No matter what the item is, consider quality over quantity.
Home cooked meals are positive for so many reasons—it saves money, provides a healthier nourishment for your family, and brings the family together at the dinner table. Encourage family participation in meal planning, food prep, and cooking. Whenever a child has had a hand in meal preparation, they are more inclined to want to eat what they’ve cooked. Have your family take time to discuss the day, including positives and negatives and bring in conversation starters/prompts for fun.
See Also: 8 Ways to Make Family Meal Times More Fun
Material items don’t bring us joy, memories and experiences do. Display sentimental items around your home that evoke happy memories and are reminiscent of good times you’ve had.
Think framed photos or artwork, a vase with seashells, a beautiful rock collected from the ocean, a bowl of your great grandmother’s, or something you picked up on your travels abroad. Aim for simple displays and not dust-collecting clutter.
Make home an escape from the world outside. Relaxation and family time is important to decompress and should be included in every family member’s day. Encourage art together, play music, provide plenty of outdoor time, cook meals together, read, play games, watch movies, and make downtime key.
When you walk through the door of your home, put a stop to the craziness of the outside world. Leave the stress at the door mat. Make time for yourself and for your family, make time and room for love.
Don’t forget to say good morning and good night to your loved ones, remember to ask them about their day or to say “good luck” on that test. Give hugs when you leave and come back home. And take breaks to disconnect from electronics, social media and Netflix.
The post 7 Ways To Make Your Home One You’re Excited To Come Back To Each Day appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Sig Nordal 