Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

Is The Grass Always Greener?

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:09:39 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

It's human nature to want what the other guy's got. I know it, you know it, and even God knows it, which is why two of the 10 commandments tell us not to covet things that belong to others. Though, I haven't heard anyone use the word covet in about 2,000 years.

Think about it. If you order the chicken, you wish you ordered the steak, especially if the gal next to you is really enjoying hers. And if you ordered the steak, you'd see someone really loving the chicken, and wish you had that. Whatever you do, don't order the fish.

We're greedy. We're indecisive. We're insecure. And no one likes the feeling that they're missing out on something fun.

If you're tall, you'll wonder what it's like to be short. If you're fat, you'll wonder what it's like to be skinny. It goes on every day, in every life. And it's OK to wonder. It's part of what makes us human.

I know it sounds cheesy and all, but I'm a firm believer in the idea that everyone gets what they deserve, in due time.

Do You Believe In Mystical Experiences?

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:20:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.wondercafe.ca

mysticism (noun ) 2. a doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation or ecstasy ( a partial definition retrieved from: www.dictionary.com today).

Do you believe that mystical experiences happen? Care to share yours?

If you don't believe that they happen to people- what do you think people are describing?

The Evil Behind The Smiles

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:15:18 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "I hope that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will recognize slavery as unfinished business on the foreign policy agenda. The abolitionist cause simply hasn’t been completed as long as 14-year-old girls are being jolted with electric shocks — right now, as you read this — to make them smile before oblivious tourists."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Western men who visit red-light districts in poor countries often find themselves surrounded by coquettish teenage girls laughingly tugging them toward the brothels. The men assume that the girls are there voluntarily, and in some cases they are right.

But anyone inclined to take the girls’ smiles at face value should talk to Sina Vann, who was once one of those smiling girls.

Sina is Vietnamese but was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia, where she was drugged. She said she woke up naked and bloody on a bed with a white man — she doesn’t know his nationality — who had purchased her virginity.

“My first phrase in Khmer,” the Cambodian language, “was, ‘I want to sleep with you,’ ” she said. “My first phrase in English was” — well, it’s unprintable.

As in many brothels, the torture of choice was electric shocks.

Shocks fit well into the brothel business model because they cause agonizing pain and terrify the girls without damaging their looks or undermining their market value.

Duino Elegies

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:00:40 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug
clipper's remarks: Read it all at the source

Clip Source: web.ics.purdue.edu

Why, if it's possible to spend this span
of existence as laurel, a little darker than all
other greens, with little waves on every
leaf-edge (like the smile of a breeze), why, then,
must we be human and, shunning destiny,
long for it?...

Oh, not because happiness,

that over-hasty profit of loss impending, exists.
Not from curiosity, or to practise the heart,
that would also be in the laurel...
but because to be here is much, and the transient Here
seems to need and concern us strangely. Us, the most transient.
Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more.
And we also once, Never again. But this having been
once, although only once, to have been of the earth,
seems irrevocable.

And so we drive ourselves and want to achieve it,
want to hold it in our simple hands,
in the surfeited gaze and in the speechless heart.
want to become it. give it to whom? Rather
keep all forever...but to the other realm,
alas, what can be taken?

Wanna Keep Your New Year's Resolutions...This Time

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:21:20 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Website has advice for achieving those annual goals

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

The most popular New Year’s goals people set, according to Miller and Marlatt (1998) are:

37% - Starting to exercise

13% - Eating better

7% - Reducing the consumption of alcohol, caffeine and other drugs, or quitting smoking

According to the same survey, most people — 75 percent — who make a resolution fail on their first attempt and most people — 67 percent — make more than one resolution.

As the researchers summarized, individuals with high self-efficacy attribute failure to insufficient effort, while individuals with low self-efficacy attribute failure to deficient ability. Higher self-efficacy generally is correlated with a greater likelihood of achieving one’s goals.

The investigators also found that if you are made to believe that self-control is a fixed or limited resource that you can’t change, you will also set fewer goals and will give up on them sooner, regardless of your level of self-efficacy.

To be successful with your own resolutions:

Tags: resolutions