Politics

Beware the politician. This is a creature which has convinced itself it knows what you need or what you deserve. In the meantime, the politician is really striving for what it needs and what it deserves. It moves and feeds constantly, like a shark. I use the pronoun 'it', because the politician's personality, as displayed, is a myth, a role, a tactic.

If you practice daily, you will understand the superficiality of campaigns and elections. You will be more able to see the hypocrisy and the manipulation, as well as the core message, of the politician. Seek the core message which comes closest to compassion, mindfulness, non-violence and fairness for all. Disregard the rest and continue your own daily struggle for human evolution.

Structure

Many people rely on their work to provide their lives with a regularity of structured time. Up at 7, at work by nine, break at 10:30, lunch at 1, and so on. In this situation, the basic skeleton of a practice is already there. For instance, from 7 to 8, you could stretch, exercise or meditate, shower, and have breakfast. At the other end of the work day, you could build another structure of time which would compliment your morning regime of proper diet, exercise and meditation/reading.

The key to utilizing and maintaining a positive structure in your life is regularity. How you protect and nurture your positive structured activities is a measure of how you feel about yourself. People who live in chaos reap more chaos. Eventually they burn out. Their lives are hills and valleys of crisis and elation.

With aging, the foundations laid earlier in life must support an increased burden of physical challenges, emotional losses, and periodic disease. This is inevitable. Therefore, building a solid foundation, a structure, while you are vital and strong, will serve you well in later life.

Practice is difficult, but having no practice is more difficult in the long run.

Diet

January is a month of resolutions, gym memberships and weight-loss diets for many people whose lives are plagued by a tidal conformity.

Diet is the most important and first step of establishing a personal practice toward living a compassionate and mindful lifestyle, the key to happiness. You are what you eat. Your diet determines what makes up your body, how it works, how you feel and how you experience the Universe outside of your body.

Bad diet, bad life. Very simple.

Diet includes alcohol, drugs of all kinds, herbs, minerals, vitamins, etc.. It even includes the water you drink and the air you breathe.

It does not require an advanced education to assess your diet, read information about nutrition, and set up a plan for yourself as a beginning of a daily practice for the rest of your life. Waiting until you find the perfect plan from someone else is simply an excuse to not practice. I have a diet page which speaks to weight loss and general healthy nutrition. Feel free to look it over.

If you are too fat, too thin, tired, depressed, lonely, feeling unattractive, etc., you might want to establish a daily practice starting with better nutrition. It will be the best step you can take to improve your life.