21 Simple Ways to Live an Exceptional Life – Tips for Life | InZenity

Everyone wants to live an exceptional life. The problem arises when it comes time to define what that means to you. If you embrace someone else’s definition of what an exceptional life is, you will end up disappointed sooner or later, because you alone have to determine what you want.

It can be tough to get clear on what you want, and you won’t always be perfectly clear, but the goal isn’t to be clear, the goal is to move forward and explore. If you knew everything, life would get boring fast. There has to be a degree of uncertainty to keep things interesting.

With that said, I thought I’d throw in a few ways on how you can get:

Be Kind

One of the first things you want to do in order to live an exceptional life is to be kind. Being kind is nothing special, yet at the same time it is. It can be smiling at people in your neighborhood, or helping a friend out. Treat people as you would like to be treated.

Learn

Become a lifelong learner. Study personal development material and incorporate the lessons you learn into your own life.

If you do this, you will see your life transform in more ways than you can imagine right now, because even one new tweak each and every week will yield powerful results in a few years.

Exercise

We all have physical bodies, and the better you take care of yours, the better you will feel. When you exercise regularly, not only will you have more energy, but you will also have more clarity and sense of purpose.

I know that you’ve heard this over and over. However, most people still haven’t applied it and taken action. If you are in this group, you have to ask yourself why!

Face Your Fears

Everyone has things that they are afraid of. The truth of the matter is that when you face your fears, they melt away.

What happens is that you realize that your fears are nowhere near as scary as you make them out to be. So face your fears and go after what you truly want, because that is what you deserve.

Release Blocks

Throughout our lives we’ve picked up strategies and ways of doing things that aren’t helpful anymore.

There are easy and elegant ways to release emotional blocks and negativity in your life. I personally recommend NLP and EFT, but you may want to do some research and discover what fits with you.

Set Goals

Setting smart goals can be as simple as writing down what you want to accomplish in three months, one year, five years, and ten years.

Sometimes you won’t reach your goals, but they help you move in the right direction. Set goals, and become clear about what you truly want to achieve and accomplish in life, as well as how you want to feel when you’ve got it all.

Dream Big

Don’t be afraid to dream big. If you’ve always visualized being a world renowned writer, then go for it and see what happens.

It may come to pass, or it may lead you onto another path that may be even more fulfilling than the one you thought you wanted. Life has a way of surprising you from time to time, so plan for it.

Simplify

There’s no need to clutter up your life. When you simplify and get rid of the stuff that you don’t need, you will feel more clear and better about yourself.

You don’t have to spend all your money on “stuff,” because what we truly want is to feel good, and the best experiences in life are free anyway.

Meditate

Meditation literally opens new doors in life and in your mind. At least that is what I have experienced, having meditated for almost a decade.

Meditation is as simple as focusing your attention on one thing. It could be focusing on your breathing when you’re washing the dishes, or just noticing your muscles as you’re outside taking a walk.

Be Yourself

Almost everyone has been taught that being yourself is not enough. But you may also have realized that you cannot not be yourself, because that is what and who you are.

You are on this blue planet of ours for a reason, and the only way you can do what you were meant to do is by being yourself.

Be Honest

I don’t know about you, but honesty and integrity are values that are very high up on my list. If you want others to treat you with honesty, then you have to be honest. That means not telling small lies that might make your life easier. Become aware of the fact that there are no harmless lies.

Focus on Your Strengths

Life is too short to worry about things that you’re not good at, and may not even like. If you like something and aren’t good at it yet, then go ahead and learn more about it.

But you don’t have to improve your weaknesses, because you can just focus on your strengths and become even more exceptional.

Trust Your Heart

In the beginning it can be difficult to trust your heart because your mind tends to get in the way. But, once you start following your heart and realize that it guides you in the right direction, your mind will have enough proof to trust that your heart knows what it’s doing.

Besides, when you start trusting your heart, your life becomes much more interesting, and dare I say: exceptional.

Eliminate Excuses

Life is too short to make excuses and avoid doing what you really want to do.
There is no such thing as security or comfort. Most people that have security and comfort are bored out of their mind. And when you’re bored, it means that you are shutting yourself out from what the world has to offer. So go ahead and face your fears, eliminate your excuses, and go after what you truly desire.

Kill Perfectionism

Perfectionism has killed many dreams; don’t let it kill yours. You’ve probably learned that making mistakes is bad, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It isn’t until you fail and make mistakes that you begin learning what works and what doesn’t. We are all different, so we have to travel our path and discover what we truly want from life.

Explore the Weird

Don’t hold yourself back from exploring the weird parts of life. I know there are things that you enjoy that you are afraid of enjoying fully, because of what others would think of you.

There are people out there in the world just like you. And you aren’t going to feel fulfilled until you embrace the entirety of who you are.

Surround Yourself with Awesome

When you surround yourself with exceptional people, your life will become exceptional. If you have friends that drain you of energy, it’s time to let them go.

It’s time to set boundaries for what you allow into your life, if you want to live a truly awesome and passionate life. It can be done, but the decision always starts with you.

Learn from Negativity

Often the most negative events in our lives end up teaching us valuable lessons that come in handy down the road. When you are experiencing negativity, it may not feel like it is there for a reason, but it is. This is what experience has shown me to be true, but I may be wrong.

You’ll just have to go out there and find out for yourself, won’t you?

Enjoy Life

And above all else, remember to enjoy life and smell the roses. When you walk, remember to breathe deeply and be grateful for what you already have.

You can always want more, but stop and appreciate what you already have, because if you don’t do it now, when will you?

Find Your Passion

Personally, I think finding your passion in life is one of the most crucial things you can do, because it gives you a sense of purpose and it makes you feel fulfilled.

When you find your passion, it will carry you through the tough times and help you create the life of your dreams. But it all starts by asking the question: What makes you come alive?

Follow Your Passion

Once you’ve found your passion, it’s time to start taking massive action in making it a reality. I started doing this just a few years ago, and I’m amazed at how far I’ve come in this short period of time.

You, too, can do this if you truly decide to start right away. It’s easy to put things off and wait for the perfect moment, but if you do that, you will be waiting for the rest of your life.
Do you really want to do that, or would you like to start now?

Written on 6/16/2011 by Henri Junttila. Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where he shares his personal tips on how you can live the life you know you deserve. When you feel ready to take action, get his free course: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less. And if you liked this article, you will enjoy one of his top articles: 77 Great Quotes That Will Change Your Life.

http://www.wakeupcloud.com/

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Related posts:

1. 10 ways to move forward (12.1)
2. the simple life (11.8)
3. See where you're going (11.1)
4. 2007-04-23 God moves in mysterious ways (10.3)
5. Losing Your Life for His Purposes (9.6)

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via inzenity.org

so very true!

meow mix - Video Forward

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meow mix by cyriak - a trippy music video with CATS!

Bug on a Touchscreen - Video Forward

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hilarity ensues as a fly decides to use a computer touchscreen monitor as its landing pad.

Shortest Karate Match EVAR! - Video Forward

via videoforward.com

shortest karate match ever! direct strike to the face - it's over in less than 10 seconds!

Criticism

 

Do you have people in your life who criticize you?  We probably all do.  Some of them are very critical, judging us all the time.  Know that people who criticize a lot are fearful and judgmental of themselves also.  They hate to be criticized and will likely defend themselves with argument.  They criticize because they have low self-esteem and poor communication skills.  And they try to gain power over others by putting others down in order to feel better about themselves.  So remember this the next time you are being criticized and have gone into a fear space yourself.  Stand up for yourself and tell the criticizer that you don't like to be told what they don't like or want and that you would prefer to be asked for what they do want.  Then you can decide if you can give it to them.       

 

Video Of BMX Triple Backflip Makes Roller Coasters Look Lame | ThePostGame

Take any bike rides this holiday weekend?

Jed Mildon did, but he didn't exactly have a basket and a bell. The BMXer made history by completing the first triple back flip on a BMX bike in his native New Zealand. The Guinness Book of World Records was on hand to document the feat. So were video cameras, including one on Mildon's helmet. Take a look (if you dare):

The ramp was 66 feet high and the launch was 11 feet high. Gulp.

You may think this sort of advancement happens all the time. It doesn't. The first double back flip in a contest was by Dave Mirra in 2000 -- though Troy Sircombe was the first to ever pull it off outside of a contest -- which means it may be years before we see a quadruple.

So buckle up and enjoy the ride with Mildon. He's earned it.

via thepostgame.com

congrats! this is some awesome footage!

Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

Help Save The ENDANGERED

Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

From EXTINCTION!

• Information
• FAQs
• Sightings
• Media
• Activities

About The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

Rare photo of the elusive tree octopus

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.

Map of estimated tree octopus maximum range, including spawning waters

Tree octopuses have eyesight comparable to humans. Besides allowing them to see their prey and environment, it helps them in inter-octopus relations. Although they are not social animals like us, they display to one-another their emotions through their ability to change the color of their skin: red indicates anger, white fear, while they normally maintain a mottled brown tone to blend in with the background.

The reproductive cycle of the tree octopus is still linked to its roots in the waters of the Puget Sound from where it is thought to have originated. Every year, in Spring, tree octopuses leave their homes in the Olympic National Forest and migrate towards the shore and, eventually, their spawning grounds in Hood Canal. There, they congregate (the only real social time in their lives,) and find mates. After the male has deposited his sperm, he returns to the forests, leaving the female to find an aquatic lair in which to attach her strands of egg-clusters. The female will guard and care for her eggs until they hatch, refusing even to eat, and usually dying from her selflessness. The young will spend the first month or so floating through Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, and as far as North Puget Sound before eventually moving out of the water and beginning their adult lives.

Why It's Endangered

Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. What few that make it to the Canal are further hampered in their reproduction by the growing problem of pollution from farming and residential run-off. Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory.

Tree Octopus hat from 1923 (Click to enlarge.)

The possibility of Pacific Northwest tree octopus extinction is not an unwarranted fear. Other tree octopus species -- including the Douglas octopus and the red-ringed madrona sucker -- were once abundant throughout the Cascadia region, but have since gone extinct because of threats similar to those faced by paxarbolis, as well as overharvesting by the now-illegal tree octopus trade.

The history of the tree octopus trade is a sad one. Their voracious appetite for bird plumes having exhausted all the worthy species of that family, the fashionistas moved on to cephalopodic accoutrements during the early 20th Century. Tree octopuses became prized by the fashion industry as ornamental decorations for hats, leading greedy trappers to wipe out whole populations to feed the vanity of the fashionable rich. While fortunately this practice has been outlawed, its effects still reverberate today as these millinery deprivations brought tree octopus numbers below the critical point where even minor environmental change could cause disaster.

How You Can Help

Here are a few things that you can do to help save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus:

Posters motivate the citizenry to action! Post them!

• Write your representatives to let them know that you are concerned and that you feel the tree octopus should be included on the Endangered Species List and given special protection.
• Help build awareness of the tree octopus by telling your friends and co-workers.
• Place a tentacle ribbon on your website.
• Participate in tree octopus awareness marches. You can demonstrate their plight during the march by having your friends dress up as tree octopuses while you attack them in a lumberjack costume.
• Pamphlet your neighborhood. Tentacle ribbons make excellent doorknob hangers.
• Join and donate to an organization committed to conservation, such as Greenpeas.
• Boycott companies that use non-tree-octopus-safe wood harvesting practices.
• Sign an online petition! Nothing activates activity like an Internet petition.

Activism:

• 2010-05-01: Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race includes tree-octopus-awareness vehicle.
• 2009-04-01: Demonstration by students from Montrose Elementary in Bexley, Ohio.

Activities:

Spread awareness with our Tree Octopus Activities.

More Tree Octopus Information

• Tree Octopus FAQs — Frequently asked questions, now with answers.
• Tree Octopus Sightings — Includes photos of and behavioral research on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and other tree octopus species.
• Tree Octopus In The Media — appearances of tree octopuses, both real and fictional, in the media and popular culture.

Research On Other Tree Octopus Species:

• Pitch-Chewing Tree Octopuses Of British Columbia — Octopuses in BC have long been reported chewing the pitch of Sitka spruce like gum, and will even go into the trees to forage for it.
• Olive Loving Tree Octopuses Of Antiquity — Octopuses in Greece were known since ancient times to climb olive trees to feast on the tasty fruit.
• More On Old World Tree Octopuses — Ancient writers, such as Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, tell of octopuses that venture onto land, including one that used a tree to commit burglary.
• The Ara-Eaters: Tree Octopuses Of Polynesia — Reports from the 1800s tell of island octopuses that are attracted to the fragrant flowers of the pandanus tree.
• Nicharongorong: Tree Octopuses of Micronesia — Reports of Palauan tree octopuses that give birth in mangrove trees and eat lizards.

Links To A Better Tomorrow

Cephalopods In General:

• The Cephalopod Page — Scientific information about these wonderful mollusks.
• The Octopus News Magazine Online — An online magazine about anything and everything pertaining to octopuses, squids and cephalopods.
• Have a Gibbous Cephalopodmas!

Other Animals Of Interest:

• Save The Mountain Walrus — Another endangered Northwest creature that needs our help. (Original site down, link is to Archive.org mirror. Also, see the Mountain Walrus Foundation for some photos.)
• Save The Manhattan Beach Mottled Roach — Save one roach today, that tomorrow we may save millions!
• Rock Nest Monster — Known only from its rocky nests and porcelain-like eggs, Cryptogorgo petronidus is so endangered that existential environmentalists wonder if it ever existed at all.
• Dwarf Orca — Rare miniture killer whale sometimes seen in Cascadian waters. Now being bred as a family pet!
• Giant Palouse Earthworm — This threatened earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) is native to the Palouse prairies of Washington and Idaho. They can grow up to three feet in length, are pinkish-white, and smell of lilies.
• The Red Crabs of Christmas Island — Once every year, 120 million of these forest crabs migrate en masse from their inland burrows to the sea to spawn. Along the way, over a million are crushed by traffic and many die of dehydration crossing deforested land. The offspring of those that survive then have to contend with super-colonies of yellow crazy ants, introduced to the island by the thoughtless actions of Man.
• The Australian Drop Bear — Thylarctos plummetus is a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the Koala that ambushes prey by dropping on it from the forest canopy.
• Coconut Crab — This hermit crab, Birgus latro, is the world's largest terrestrial arthropod. It lives in the costal forests of Indo-Pacific islands, where it spends the day sleeping in burrows and the nights climbing palm trees looking for coconuts to crack open with it's mighty claws. It's also rumored to steal things from people and lurk on trashcans.
• Mangrove Killifish — This unique fish spends several months out of the year living above water in the trees of mangrove swamps.
• Sabertooth Salmon — The 3 meter (10 foot) long Smilodonichthys rastrosus once prowled the shores and rivers of Cascadia, attacking Cretaceous octopus swimming in the waters. Could escaping this menace have been the impetus for arboreal octopus evolution?
• Fur-Bearing Trout — Also sometimes called Beaver Trout, these species of the Artikdander genus can be found in the chilly streams and rivers throughout the northern regions of North America.
• Yeti Crab — This crustacean (Kiwa hirsuta), found near mysterious Easter Island, protects itself against the frigid waters with a silky covering of blond fur on its arms and legs.
• Mayfly Squid — Fons volatilis is a freshwater squid found in the Everglades that shoots insect prey out of the air with jets of water and is celebrated during the annual Festival of the Freshwater Squid in Sebring, Florida.
• Flying Squid — Squid species in the Ommastrephidae family are known for their ability to glide through the air just above the open ocean, using their fins and stretched arm membranes as wings. Their numbers have been dropping due to over-fishing.
• Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods — A 1911 book by William T. Cox that lists little-known animals, most now extinct, discovered by lumberjacks in the wilds of North America.

Conservation Organizations:

• World Conservation Union — An international organization whose mission is "To influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable."
• The Wildlife Fund — The WWF works to preserve genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity throughout the world.
• UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre — An office of the UN that provides information for policy and action to conserve the living world.
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Pumpkins — How many pumpkins must be sacrificed every year to decorate our houses and keep our bellies filled with pies before we realize the error of our ways? Too many, it seems!

• Information
• FAQs
• Sightings
• Media
• Activities

This site is not associated with any school or educational organization,
other than the Kelvinic University branch of the Wild Haggis Conservation Society.

via zapatopi.net

wtf! a TREE octopus????