Both these items are outstanding.

1. Healing our World: In an Age of Aggression by Dr. Mary J. Ruwart may be the most important book written in the last quarter century. If you struggle to stay positive in a world which seems to breed endless war, poverty, and violence, read Dr. Ruwart’s free book and you will see the world in a new light. You’ll see how aggression creates the very things it promises to destroy. You’ll see how change can only begin with you. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle has recently grabbed the imagination of millions and Dr. Ruwart’s book complements many of Mr. Tolle’s ideas. But Healing our World is more important because it explains how and why we will transform our world. It is a song of hope. It is a fantastic resource for both personal and social transformation. Oprah, if you read this blog, please have Dr. Mary Ruwart on your show. You won’t be disappointed.

2. This is captivating. Watch Clay Shirky explain how to find the time to transform ourselves and our world. This is one of those videos that slaps you in the face and says quit being a passive spectator and get out there and contribute.

FYI about this blog: I haven’t posted in 20 days and I apologize for not posting more often. However, time and commitments required other priorities. This blog will continue on, and when I do post, I hope you will find the content among the best on the web. My goal isn’t quantity but quality. Thanks for your patience.

I wrote a guest post for Craig Harper titled, Why is it so Hard to Change? Hop over to his site and read it. I put a lot of time and research into this so I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s one of the better Personal Development posts I’ve written.

I want to thank Craig for the opportunity to reach his audience. Craig has one of greatest audiences on the internet. They are engaged, intelligent, and (most of all) motivated.

I haven’t had much time to write this week…  so stay tuned… I appreciate your patience.

The War on Ego - By Steve Pavlina. Speaking of egos, before I write anything about this post, I want to say that I haven’t linked to Steve Pavlina in over year. It isn’t because I don’t like his stuff. I love his stuff. I noticed that he rarely links to any of the bloggers in his niche so I decided not to link to him. Maybe he’ll read this. Anyway, his post about ego is right on. Your ego is an essential part of your personality. Don’t attempt to abandon your ego or you’ll drive yourself mad. Just refrain from being an egomaniac.

Personal Development as a result of Ignoring the Rules - Aaron Potts nails the truth with this post. I try to tell this to people every day of my life. I want to grab them and shake them and say, quit following like a lemming, dammit! I’ve done some really stupid things in life… One of those things was ignoring the rules. I won’t even tell you the jams I’ve been in breaking the rules. But I don’t regret one minute of it, because it made who I am today. And that is why I have tolerance for kids who make mistakes and I believe society has gone way overboard with zero-tolerance laws. I’ve also done some really smart things in my life… one of those things was ignoring all the rules. It teaches you about calculated risk. It teaches you that there are new ways… even better ways of doing things.

5 Reasons to Go Through Life Lazy, Drunken, and Stupid - The Best April Fools post of 2008. But do you know why it is funny? There’s an element of truth in it, isn’t there? I know people who have chosen this path in life, and they claim to like it. When I smoked cigarettes I used to say, “If I quit now, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and die a miserable death all while going through nicotine withdrawal.” And you know what? There was some truth to it. But you have to ask yourself, “Are you likely to die tomorrow?” You could justify anything with that logic.

16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School By Henrik at The Positivity Blog. This one of the best “What they should teach in school” posts written. Henrik put a lot of thought and effort into this. I’d like to add one more thing I wish they taught in school… To Delegate. But unfortunately, if you delegate your schoolwork it’s called cheating. In real life it is called good management.

The Incredible Power of Contentment - Leo Babuata’s Zen Habits is arguably the best positive thinking/self-improvement blog on the net. This post showcases his talent and insight. I chuckled as I read the part Leo edited about happiness being a personal choice. There are always people telling us about other people who find it impossible to be happy or content. Okay, Okay, enough, we aren’t talking about them, we are talking about you. So quit making excuses and choose to be happy already!

Steven Aitchison wrote a fantastic series about making true friends. This is great advice, because many of us discover as we grow older that the people we thought were our friends are not true friends at all and our relationships evaporate because there was nothing of substance. Steven gives us an intelligent four part series on building quality friendships. Read the series here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

20 Tips to Survive When You’ve Overloaded Your Schedule - By Scott Young. I love Scott’s stuff and this one is golden advice when you are over committed. However, like I posted in the comments, in my experience it is best not to go overboard scheduling your life. I know this is heresy in some personal development circles, but time management is a crock. GTD is much better. Better yet… delegate, like Tim Ferriss, outsource the grind and live your passion.. IMHO in order to enjoy your life and be creative, you need unstructured free time to be spontaneous.

Some say writers should avoid sarcasm… One commenter recently told Marc Andressen that he was becoming too sarcastic and should read Ben Franklin and learn to be more persuasive. So Marc took his advice and read a bit of Mr. Franklin and his response was classic. There is a lot to learn from Marc’s post. Remember folks… the rules were made to be broken!

A Simple Way to Improve Your Life Everyday - Donald Latumahia writes an insightful post about the four facets of prosperity, material, spiritual, physical, and social. We need balance and endless improvement in all four areas to be truly prosperous. I use a similar method as his already, but I plan to add a few facets of his plan to mine.

This is short, but it is as important as anything I’ve written.

You want to be happy, right? This took me almost 30 years to learn.

In my 20s I complained about life, even after major accomplishments, and Christine asked, “Is anything ever going to make you happy? Why can’t you just be happy with what you’ve accomplished?”

I replied, “No. I can’t afford to be happy, because this isn’t good enough. I can do better.”

She shook her head and walked away leaving me indignant and confused. I couldn’t afford to be happy, because happiness is dangerous. Happiness leads to complacency and laziness.

I was sure I was right, but I was wrong.

Like many aggressive goal oriented people, I was confused about the meaning of the word happiness.

I confused satisfaction with happiness. They aren’t the same thing, no matter what your dictionary tells you.

You can be happy and insatiable.

Somehow, when we were kids, we began to believe we needed our desires satiated to be happy, but we don’t, and this mind set cheats us out of many happy moments. This confusion leads to obesity and a swarm of other addictions. We believe we must eat until we are happy, so we eat too much, because we confuse happiness with satisfaction and most of us will never be satisfied. It is natural to be insatiable, because it drives us upward and onward. We are insatiable creatures. Our demand for more fuels the great creation we are experiencing. In our confusion we chase happiness through the satisfaction of our desires, but the moment of satisfaction is fleeting, and thus, so is our happiness.

So the desire to be more, to have more, and to create more is natural and should be insatiable. Since satisfaction is the death of desire, it is also the death of creativity. So be happy and grateful now, but forget about satisfaction, it isn’t even desirable.

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I have some exciting news. I’ve launched a provocative and controversial new blog.

If you have enjoyed some of my more political posts, my new site is for you. The new site is for those of you who love to question the government, who love personal liberty, and love to discuss political topics and political philosophy. I appreciate all intelligent debate from all perspectives.

My new blog - The Free Savage - is about political and social freedom.

The Free Savage is written in the spirit of John the Savage from from Adolus Huxley’s novel Brave New World. (For more information read the snippet at the bottom of this post about John the Savage from huxley.net.)

Then read, This isn’t personal. This is about ideas or the About Page. To get an idea what kind of material I will be posting, read Baseball Bats and the Nanny State which has already had several thousand visitors. I’d love to have you join the conversation.

In the future I will publish my political posts at The Free Savage, so if you hate political discussion, steve-olson.com will be less political than before. However, I will promote The Free Savage here at steve-olson.com from time to time.

At The Free Savage, I will link to the best liberty oriented content on the web, so if you have something worthy let me know via the contact page.

I welcome any help promoting or launching this new website, any reviews, stumbles, or other promotions. And as always, I appreciate any and all links.

Please subscribe to The Free Savage feed.

Thank you for all your support.

******

JOHN THE SAVAGE
The illicit son of the Director and Linda. He was born and reared on the Savage Reservation (”Malpais”) after Linda was unwittingly left behind by her errant lover. John the Savage is an outsider both on the Reservation - where the ignorant natives still practise marriage, natural birth, family life and religion - and the ostensibly civilised Brave New World: a totalitarian welfare-state based on principles of stability and happiness, albeit happiness of a shallow and insipid nature. The Savage has read nothing but The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. He quotes them extensively and, for the most part, aptly, though his allusion to “Brave New World” [Miranda’s words in The Tempest] takes on a darker and bitterly ironic resonance as the novel unfolds. John the Savage is intensely moral. He is also somewhat naïve. In defiance of BNW’s social norms, he falls romantically in love with Lenina, but spurns her premature sexual advances. After his mother Linda’s death, the Savage becomes ever more disillusioned with utopian society. Its technological wonders and soulless consumerism are no substitute for individual freedom, human dignity and personal integrity. He debates passionately and eruditely with World Controller Mustapha Mond on the competing merits of primitivism versus the World State. After his spontaneous bid to stir revolt among the lower castes has failed, the Savage retreats to an old abandoned lighthouse, whips himself in remorse for his sins, and gloomily cultivates his garden. But he is hounded by reporters and hordes of intrusive brave new worlders. Guilt-ridden, the Savage finally hangs himself after - we are given to infer - he has taken the soma he so despises and succumbed to an orgiastic debauch.

A guest post by David Windmiller

Role play. Pretend you are Neo. Would you take the red pill, or the blue? Personally, I’m taking whichever one will lead me to fulfillment; a happiness of knowing what is… “real”. The one which leads me to all the sensible, responsible, proper, and aristocratic pleasures in life, such as, for example my favorite, stoning adulterers.

We say we want the truth, but is it what we really want? Well, Sometimes… but why then do we delude ourselves?

My friend Julia is a sensitive, caring, curious young woman. Julia confided in me the other day upon hearing that the love of her life, the one she would have given her hand to, was lying to her. He was lying to her and cheating on her. Julia told me what she knew and had heard. I, being my own direct, bold, but also suave self, confirmed her deepest fears, pitched my two cents that she should dump him in the gutter. Despite the insurmountable amount of flack she had on this man’s guilt, it took a considerable amount of psychological sledge hammering by me to help her get out of her cycle of depression and rationalization from her (now) ex lover’s behavior. She knew she was being played for months, even years but still refused to face the facts.

Why do many of us allow ourselves to fall so immensely into our illusions? How are you living — in which ways are you deluding and depriving yourself and ultimately your happiness?

Discovering truthfully what reality is for me and fighting for what I want it to be is continuing to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But, I wouldn’t change a thing… I would rather die fighting on my feet than live on my knees. Give me the dose of what is… “real.”

David Windmiller is a student at Purdue University, majoring in Chemistry, Psychology, minoring in Biology, Philosophy and preparing to enter medical school in 2009. David enjoys critical thinking, meditating, and writing about why we as people push our lives in certain directions and how our life quality can be enriched.

You can read David’s blog at http://www.davidwindmiller.com/.

Every adult in western society should read this article by Motivational Speaker Craig Harper.

He wrote about his experience listening to Bobby Cappuccio speak. Bobby began his life facing extreme obstacles. Obstacles few of us could comprehend.

Stop Whining

After giving us a summary of Bobby’s amazing story, Craig wrote:

To be honest, I am growing less and less tolerant of negative people who constantly whine, bitch, moan and complain about their tough lives. People who live in some of the wealthiest countries on earth, who have never known the hardship that more than half of the world’s population are subjected to every day of their life. People who constantly rationalise, justify and blame but never actually do anything constructive to change their reality. People who major in minors. I regularly get slammed for my hard-core approach to personal development but in truth, I don’t care if people share my philosophy or not.

I’m not interested in popularity, I’m interested in results, respect and life-long change. I don’t care about what people want to hear, I care about what works. We have become a fat and lazy society in every way, not just physically. We don’t like the truth, we don’t like being challenged and we don’t like being uncomfortable. What too many people don’t realise is that it’s the challenges and the discomfort that cause us to grow if, and when, we step up to the plate. As I’ve said before, pain is our greatest teacher if we choose to learn.

Craig Speaks The Truth

Some would say Craig’s words speak intolerance. I say they speak true compassion.

This is exactly why I find most politicians so offensive. For example, a politician will say he is going to fight obesity. How? A politician can’t end your weight problem, only you can. Accept it. There’s no one to blame. Only you can fix it. These nanny state politicians are nothing but enablers. They tell you what you want to hear. They indirectly tell you that you have no control over yourself. But you do have control over yourself. In fact, you are the only thing you do control.

Lyman Reed posted a Jim Rohn quote which ties in to this theme:

I used to say, “If you will take care of me, I will take care of you.” Now I say, “I will take care of me for you if you will take care of you for me”.

Take Care of Yourself

What does it mean to take care of yourself for others? It means you can’t take care of others, because you can’t control others. I can encourage you to eat healthy food, but if you choose to eat poison, there is nothing I can do for you. See? Your life is your choice. I can give you money, advice, time, love… but it will do you no good unless you willingly accept it and put it to work. There is no shortage of people ready and willing to help others. There is a shortage of people willing to accept help and take responsibility for their actions. No one can change your life, because the choice is yours and yours alone. It doesn’t matter if you want to lose weight, get fit, learn a new trade, change your thinking, manage your anger, fight your addictions, earn more money, or have better relationships. The information and help is available everywhere. It is ubiquitous in our society. But you must decide to take positive action.

It doesn’t matter what you did last year, last month, or yesterday. All that matters is what you do next.

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You don’t know how good you have it.

That’s what my mother used to say when I’d whine or complain. I used to hate it when she said that because I didn’t know what it meant. My only perspective on life, was my perspective. That’s the only perspective any of us have. We can try to take another perspective, but it is imaginary. We can only assume we know how other people see the world.

I have no idea what it was like to live in the Jim Crow south. I’ve never had my brothers slaughtered in a foreign war. I’ve never worked for 17 cents an hour. I’ve never known a summer without air conditioning. I’ve never been trapped in an abusive relationship. I’ve never been unable to make money.

I used to resent her words…

But I know she meant well. So I will pass it on to my children…

And I will modify it a bit…

I will tell them…

Be grateful. Your happiness depends upon it.

This is my first attempt at video. Let me know what you think.

Gary Gygax died today. I don’t know if that means much to this audience.  But when I read it I felt a deep sense of loss and felt the need to honor the man who’s creations meant so much to me for so many years.

Gary,

I wish I could speak at your funeral.

You brought joy to a lot of misfits.

Just wanted to let you know…

My five year old knows what hit points are.

Thanks for all the memories Gary!

We’ll miss you.

:-(