The Power of Vision

As a child, you may have dreamed of doing something great one day. That was the beginning of your "vision". Everyone knows that vision means having the ability to see. When you have a vision for your life, you see a future that you want to make real. If your vision is powerful and compelling enough, it can provide the impetus to turn the future you envisaged in reality, because every vision, no matter how fantastic it may seem at first, has a potential to become a reality.

The individual who has not guiding vision is like a ship drifting at sea t no set course. On the other hand, the person with strong vision sees possibilities in their future, which they are determined to realize. The power of vision inspires creativity and resourcefulness and empowers you to reach your full potential.

You can do anything with the rest of your life - what will that be? We are too quick to see things that are beyond our current capabilities as impossible, now and for all time, and so we give up before we've even begun. Yet, if you take a good look around you, you'll probably find someone like you currently doing precisely the thing that you wrote off as unacheivable.

Your life vision needs to be bifocal, taking on both your immediate and your distant future. You must focus not only on your ultimate goal, which in some cases may lie may years ahead, but also on the intermediate objectives along the way, such as the exams you might need to pass each year to graduate from college.

At very practical level, your vision serves to organize your goals and priorities within a clear time frame and sets for you a direction and a destination. It draws on what is important to you - your values, hopes, and dreams. The intermediate goals that you set help you to identify benchmark achievements along the route. In this way, your vision gradually builds, gathering momentum as you move toward your destination, energizing you and motivating you to keep going until you reach your goal.

Think about how your life would look if you identified a master plan and then deployed every available resource and opportunity in order to achieve that purpose. That would be your vision. Such a vision might look something like this: I will be very successful in my career and enjoy it very much; i will live in my ideal home and have everything I need to live comfortably and happily; I will share my life with those I love - my families and friends - and have plenty of time to enjoy leisure activities with them; I will make sure that i get enough exercise, sleep and proper nourishment to maintain my mind, body and spirit in peak shape; I will control my finances so that I can adequately provide for my family's needs; I will make steady progress toward the goals I have set for my life's achievement and legacy.

You can create your vision through a combination of thought and action. Start by identifying the values and principles that guide you in life; next, create objectives to achieve those important things over time; then prioritize to make the best use of your time and be sure that the most important things get accomplished. You will have to manage your time well to be highly successful in your efforts. As you take these steps, your vision will materialize, but it will not be set in stone - you will need to refine it regularly throughout the rest of your life, as you continue to seek balanced living.

Ensoul #3

It is difficult only when you say it is

Approach to Dating

1. Make Eye Contact: Catching a person's eye is the best way to begin. A simple, non-staring look conveys interest, especially if followed by a smile. Eye contact is only good when you want to talk to someone. If you're uncomfortable about someone who is attempting to make eye contact with you, break eye contact and do not follow up anymore
2. Ask Questions: Questions are good conversation starters. Sometimes they're your best avenue to get to know the person.
3. Be Sincere: Sincerity is a genuine desire to know someone If you want someone to be sincerely interested in you, be sincerely interested in that person.
4. Be Friendly: Friendliness is always attractive. This is a quality that invites conversation. Friendliness says, "I want to get to know you." but use a balanced approach to friendliness. Avoid being overly friendly with people you met.
5. Be Humorous: Humor is great icebreaker and can defuse a tense situation. Use it often, but use it wisely.

Start Another Stream

One of the worst things you can do is to permit a continuous trickle of worry across the mind, because like water it will ultimately dig a huge trench. Then every thought you think will be drained into this channel of fear and worry and come up tinctured with anxiety. You will be a person full of fear and worry.

The way to obliterate this is to start another stream. Let a stream of faith run across the mind and go deeper and deeper as you absorb faith thoughts into your consciousness - and after a while, it will undercut the channel of fear and worry which will then fall into the Chanel of faith, and a great river of faith will surge through your mind so that every thought will come up bright and resplendent, optimistic and hopeful, and life will be good, very good. Cultivate a channel of faith to give you deep security which you need.

Balanced Living

The modern world places great emphasis on personal choice. In an average day we all make countless decisions - there's a range of products for every need, a computer command for every circumstance, a sandwich filling for every palate. All this gives us unprecedented opportunities to shape our lives in lots of small ways. However, having to make so m any choices, often with little or no time in which to consider them, can become overwhelming. How do you decide which options will enhance, rather that detract from, the balance of your life?

Technological advances, such as satellite communications and e-mail, now make it easy to contact people anywhere in the world anytime. The internet offers easy access to vast amounts of information that in the past would have taken days,  or weeks, to collate; and computer technologies enable us to do more in less time than ever before. Other modern  conveniences abound - for example, fast foods, cellphones, and air travel. If we can fulfill our responsibilities at home and at work more quickly than before, then theoretically, we should have more time to relax and enjoy ourselves. If only life were that simple.

All these benefits of modernity have negative consequences as well as positive. In the computer age it's easy to fall into the rap of spending more and more time at work trying to become even more productive. Fast foods have contributed to an increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes in developed countries. Ease of travel can result in our being away from family and friends more than is good for us. And being accessible outside working hours to clients or co-workers via our cellphones can cause work concerns to invade our home life.

We are more likely than previous generations to change job regularly and to move to different regions or even different countries. On the one hand, this flexibility gives us a great chance to meet new people and simple a wide variety of cultural and working environments. On the other hand, it may make our lives feel unstable, especially as the growing trend for organizations to hire people on fixed-term contracts means that often our job changes are dictated to us.

In identifying the choices that are right for you, the first thing o need to develop is a clear and compelling vision, so that you always stay focused on your goals and priorities when scrolling through the often bewildering range of options available

Pasta with Parsley & Parmesan

Ingredients:

• 450 g dried penne pasta
• 175 g unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 225 g Parmesan cheese, grated
• salt

Preparation:

• Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water for 10-12 minutes, or until tender but still firm to the bite. Drain and tip into a warmed serving dish
• Add the butter, parsely, and toss well until the butter and cheese have melted. Serve immediately with the remaining Parmesan cheese handed separately.

3 Strikes and You're Out

Want to come across in a negative way? You will if you come up to bat with these dating techniques.

Strike 1: Be arrogant. Let the person know that you're doing him or her a favor by even talking. Keep the conversation centered on yourself.

Strike 2: Be impatient. Keep looking at your watch or looking for someone better looking to come along. Don't waste a lot of time - just get the phone number.

Strike 3: Be insincere. Pretend that you're interested in what the person is saying. Communicate only enough interest to get what you want: that person's phone number or to get asked out.

Ensoul #2

It is not the amount of money you pay for something that makes it valuable. It is valuable only to the extent of how much it has added to your joy of living.

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc can often be very fruity and pungent. Nonetheless, light, lean Sauvignons do exists on the form of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume and other wines from the cool Loire Valley.

Some lighter, crisper style of Sauvignon are made in the coolest New World vineyards, such as Tasmania, Waipara/Canterbury in New Zealand, Casablanca Valley in Chile and Elgin in South Africa. These wines major on tangy citrus fruit rather than the richer, fruitier styles more generally seen in the New World.

Warm Footbath

What could be more relaxing than taking a foot-bath after a long day on your feet-standing at work, treading asphalt while shopping, or after an arduous hike? A foot bath is easy to prepare, less effort than a whole bath, and still revitalizes not only your feet, but distant parts of your body as well. You can sit on the edge of your bath-rub and dangle your feet in the warm water, or you can use a foot basin. Don't forget to end with a very short cold gush to your feet.

You might want to combine a foot-bath with a foot-massage. Because every part of your body corresponds to a part of your foot, your whole body benefits from a foot massage.

This bath wakes up tired feet, warms cold feet, increase circulation throughout your body, calms your nerves, and soothes headaches. Because of a direct 'line' between feet and head, it relieves congestion and may even stop a cold if you take the foot-bath right at the onset. The warm water keeps feet beautiful and softens corns and calluses. Taken before bedtime, a warm foot-bath promotes sleepiness because the worst sleep robbers are cold feet.

Avoiding the Rebound

The only time you should be excited about a rebound relationship is on a basketball court. If the person you're considering dating is less than six months out of a serious relationship, you may be asking for trouble. For one thing, you've got the problem of the persistent ex, who's still trying to reconcile things. For another, you've got the 'comparison syndrome' to deal with. ('Such-and-such used to call me every night right before I went to bed so that his voice was the last thing I heard before i sleep.') Finally, you've got the very real possibility that the person you're dating still has feelings for the ex.

Ensoul #1

You may not literally have guardian angels but you could be one for somebody...

Tomato Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• 8 slices of rustic bread
• 4 garlic cloves, halved
• 8 tomatoes, peeled and diced
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper
• fresh basil leaves, to garnish

Preparation:

• Preheat the grill. Lightly toast the bread on both sides. Rub each piece of toast with half a garlic clove and then return to the grill for a few seconds.

• Divide the diced tomatoes among the toasts. Season to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Serve immediately, garnish with basil leaves, is using.

What to Do While You're Waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right

1. Learn about yourself: Without getting self centered, talk to your friends about what they see in you and what they'd like to see from you. Find out what you can about what makes you tick (and what makes you 'ticked', for the matter)

2. Improve yourself: We are not suggesting that you change to please someone else. We're suggesting that you take a good look at yourself - physically, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually - and identify some areas you would like to work on.

3. Study other people's relationships: Ask your friends and family members what they would do differently if they were single again. Ask them what works in their relationships and what doesn't.

4. Get on with your life:  Instead of moping about your singleness, take advantage of it. Recognize that there are things you can do while you're single that you'll never be able to do when there's significant other in your life. Don't waste your single years just waiting for someone.

RIESLING

The Riesling grape is refreshing in more ways than one. Of course, as anyone who has tried true Riesling will know, it is one of the worlds greatest aperitifs - naturally light and elegant yet racy, with mouth watering citrus and apple fruit and quite a crisp finish. So it's refreshing in the most obvious sense of the word. But Riesling is also refreshing in that it makes a welcome change from all the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc that fills our shop shelves.

It is a quite different style of wine, as will become clear below. But why the need to say 'true' Riesling? That's because this poor grape gets blamed- unfairly - for much of the light, white dross out there. Many have the wrong idea about Riesling; they think it is the variety behind the blandest, least memorable light whites, when cheaper, less well-known grapes are usually responsible. If I handed you a glass of fine Riesling, you'd probably be amazed at how much delicious there is - and how tangy, vivacious and delightfully fresh the wine seems. So, don't confuse Riesling with lesser wines. It's consistently delightful, and remarkably long lived to boot. In fact, for many serious wine buffs, this is the greatest white grape of all.

How Water Helps Your Body Function

Water makes up about 70 percent of the human body and about 20 to 90 percent of animal and plant tissue. Water is so useful because it is a superior solvent, allowing dissolved substances (especially minerals) to be transported throughout the body. In addition, water's magnetic and electrical powers are critically important for cell function.

Without food, we can survive a few weeks - without water, only a few days. Only water can bless us with inside and outside renewal. Not only it does make us feel better, it can also make us look better. The body needs water in every cell to accomplish all its important metabolic and hormonal functions.

T PUSH-UP

Hold a light pair of dumbbells with your palms facing each other and get into the down position of a push-up. Perform a basic push-up. At the top, lift one dumbbell toward the ceiling while rotating your torso in the same direction so you face to the side. (Your body should resemble the letter T.) Return to the starting position and repeat. This time lifting the opposite arm. Do 8 - 10 reps

Source: Men's Health

Good Friend

A good friend will listen to everything you have to say, but will not automatically agree with you. A good friend cares enough about you and is confident enough in your friendship to give you honest opinion. A good friend will tell you when you're out of line, point out when you're being selfish, and confront you when you've been hurtful. Most importantly, though, a good friend will do all of these things in a loving and compassionate way.

Spinach and Cheese Soup

Ingredients:

• 225 g fresh baby spinach leaves, tough stalks removed
• 600 ml milk
• 700 ml vegetable or chicken stock
• 200 g cream cheese flavored with garlic and herbs
• salt and pepper
• croutons

Preparation:

• Put the spinach in a large saucepan and pour in the milk and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 12 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool completely.
• Ladle the cold soup into a food processor, in batches if necessary, and process until smooth. Cut the cheese into chunks and add to the soup. Process again until smooth and creamy.
• Pour the soup into a bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover with clingfilm and leaves to chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. Stir well before ladling into bowls. Add croutons, if using, and serve immediately.

Indoor Fountain and Feng Shui

Water is important for more than drinking and bathing. It also is a powerful metaphor for purity, health, transformation, wisdom, and fertility. Dew and clear spring water stand for clarity and secret wisdom. The ebb and flow of the tides symbolize the ups and downs of our lives. To add tranquility and spirituality to your home, bring flowing water indoors with a bubbling fountain and plants, a Chinese misting spring, or a fish tank (goldfish are low maintenance).

Feng Shui, the Chinese art of arranging and harmonizing your home, sees water as the great communicator; there would be no exchange of nutrients between plants and animals and our bodies without the communicating , transporting water.In Feng shui philosophy, placing driftwood, shells, pebbles, frog statues, blue marbles, mirrors, and other symbols of water in our house helps to soothe the terrifying water spirits - as in thunderstorm, flooding,  monsoon, typhoon, hurricane, tsunami. Whether you believe in the spirits or not not, your home will become more beautiful and serene. In addition to serenity, fountains and other sources of water keep air humidity up, which is important for people, pets, plants, and musical instruments. For the Chinese, flowing water is also a symbol of freely flowing material wealth.

Our Creative Species

We are one of the few conscious species in our universe. When you look out into the universe at night and sees stars, planets, and maybe, if you're really lucky, a comet or shooting star, then you  may sense that somewhere out there another conscious being is looking from its planet to ours asking the same question: "Is there life out there in the universe?" Are there other conscious being like me?" As we look out, we have to be aware of something else that we are rare. Biological life is rare: most planets do not have it. Biological life with the level of consciousness that humankind has achieved is even more rare. When we think of our own planet, we can think our lives insignificant. We feel that we are only one teeming billions, but, int the wilder perspective of the universe that is our planet's home, we are precious, unique, and important. Each of us is something extremely rare: a conscious being wit the ability to create.

The universe is in a constant state of creation. it continually creates a new forms and discards others. As conscious beings, we share in that creative process. While other species can do instinctively, we alone on our planet have the power of choice. We can choose to be instruments of Divine creativity  of the universe; we can connect with the creative energy that fires the cosmos. In choosing to express our creativity, we are helping the evolution of the universe. We are assisting it to express all the ideas and visions that it can manifest. We become part of the creative process of the Divine Mind. Through our senses we translate Divine inspiration, the creative energy of the cosmos, into material forms such as words, music, and images

Mussels with Garlic and Parsley Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 large garlic cloves
• 175 g unsalted butter, softened
• 55 g fresh parsley chopped
• 2 kg live mussels
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

• Place the garlic cloves on a board and flatten with the blade of a knife. Add a large pinch of salt and crush to a paste. Beat the paste in to the butter in a bowl, add the parsley and season with pepper. Shape into a cylinder, wrap in grease proof paper and chill in the refrigerator.

• Scrub the mussels under cold running water, and pull off the beards. Discard any broken shells or open ones that do not shut immediately when tapped sharply with the handle of a knife

• Preheat the grill. Push the tip of a small sharp knife between each mussel shell on the straight side. Run the knife around between the shells, then ease back the top shell. Run the knife around the inside edge of the top shell, pull it back and snap it off.

• Arrange the half shells in a single layer in a flameproof dish. Dot the mussel flesh with butter. Cook under the grill fro 5-9 mins, or until the mussels are lightly browned and the butter has melted. Serve immediately

Go Hunting

An important thing to realize is that it doesn't make any difference how much difficulty there is - there
are always great possibilities in any situations.

Generally, when people are disheartened, they can's see the possibilities. They see only the difficulties
that are involved, not the solution. They magnify the difficulties, to blow them up, to make them bigger
that they actually are.

The thing to do when you are disheartened is that very opposite: go hunting around in your situation for
the bright possibilities that are surely there

Awakening Your Creative Childhood Self

Something to try...

• Do something just fro fun of it - go for a cycle ride, go horse-riding, play round of golf, go dancing at a club, go to a park for a day to hike, go swimming. Choose an activity that is energetic, something that you do not often do, and something you enjoy

• Play games - cards, ball games, Frisbee, tennis, or other games that involve interaction with others. Games stimulate our strategic thinking and take us away from the wold of work.

• Smile and laugh - being alive is an exciting adventure and being a conscious being is an extraordinary miracle.

• Sit down - do nothing every now and then, and just dream.