Amateur Love Music

Creating Happiness

Whatever we want in life, a partner, more money, good health, a fulfilling career, or enlightenment, it all comes down to the same thing: behind all the wishes, behind all the desires, and beyond every symbol, we want to feel happy. After all, if we feel completely happy, what more do we need? And if we don’t feel happy, there is not a relationship or career that can satisfy us.

All men and women want to find happiness, but you don’t find happiness anymore than an artist finds a beautiful statue; he or she sculpts it from a shapeless stone. A musician doesn’t find an intricate melody; he or she composes it from the eight note scale.

Happiness is not an acquisition, it’s a skill. We don’t experience happiness because of something that we’re getting, like a raise or money. We experience happiness because of how we’re living. For example, having a tennis racket doesn’t make you a good tennis player, learning how to play tennis does. Having material things doesn’t make you happy; living each moment of the day to the fullest does. Happiness is living in the present moment. You experience happiness when you know exactly where you are in your life at a given moment, and experience that moment to the fullest.

Getting the things you want in life won’t make you happy unless you know how to enjoy every moment. For example, if you don’t know how to enjoy five hundred dollars, you will not enjoy five thousand dollars when you get it, or even five hundred thousand dollars. If you can’t enjoy taking a walk in your neighborhood, and you travel to Hawaii, Paris, or Rome, you won’t be any happier there either. Now I’m not saying having money or taking more trips doesn’t make your life easier or more fun. It does. But those things don’t make you deeply happy because they can’t. Only enjoying life’s real moments can.

If we look closely at our lives, most of us don’t feel very happy much of the time because we focus our attention on precisely the things that make us feel bad, our problems, and the issues we have in our personal and business lives. Most of us find happiness elusive because we aren’t exactly sure what it looks like. Like a rainbow, it appears before us at times, but it’s always temporary.

Working toward material success, expanded awareness, and love helps to make our lives exciting and meaningful. Yet, the urge to find happiness may be our deepest human drive. Despite our achievement and successes, many of us have a sense that something is still missing in our life. And it is this feeling that causes us to continue to search for happiness.

Wanting to grow, expand, explore, and improve are natural human drives. But many of us think that when we find what we’re looking for, it will make us happy. Only to find that it doesn’t. And when we keep trying to find happiness it only serves to reinforce our dilemma of never being able to find it. The more we search for happiness, the more it reflects our resistance or avoidance of life right now. The past is behind us and the future has yet to come, what we have is now. We all have the choice to be happy now or never.

Most of our stress and suffering in life comes from our mind’s resistance to what is. Happiness isn’t about getting what we want as much as wanting what we get. If our lives meet our basic needs for clothing, food, and shelter, then any unhappiness you feel comes from your mind’s resistance. If you take this same resistant mind with you into the future, this unhappiness will remain with you no matter how delightful your external circumstances are.

I don’t mean to imply that the discipline of creating happiness is easy. It’s not. And any process of learning involves mistakes and failures; but it gets easier over time.

Happy people create happiness. It’s the most contagious energy on earth. But, you can’t pretend to be happy or engage in denial or repression. If you do, you’ll only be fooling yourself. When you create happiness, you fully acknowledge and honor whatever emotions are passing through. You watch them like clouds passing by, but you focus your attention on the sunshine above the clouds. By doing this, you are intentionally creating a space of unconditional happiness. And this is much different from just saying “I’m happy” or bravely pretending to be happy. It’s the only happiness that is not dependent on outside circumstances.

If I could give you a formula for happiness, it would be: Become fully conscious of what you’re doing, perceiving, or experiencing in a given moment. Once you’re conscious of it, allow yourself to break through that illusion of separation and connect with the person, thing, or feeling. Then surrender totally into that connection and experience. Now you should be in tune with and actually experiencing the moment. Our lives are made up of a succession of moments that occur all the time. It’s up to us to enjoy them.

For example, let’s say you’re walking up a mountain that overlooks the ocean. You stop for moment and look out at the beautiful vista, feeling the fresh air, and for a second you feel at one with everything, you have this kind of high feeling. That’s a real moment of happiness in your life.

You deserve to have all the happiness that life has to offer. Make the most out of each moment in your life and enjoy it. Don’t wait for happiness to come to you. Create it yourself with each moment. You can become the magician by creating happy experiences whenever and wherever you want.

Copyright(c)2004 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates,Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe’s work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

Villa Giuliana in Lecce

The Guesthouse Villa Giuliana is situated in an area that offers the colour and beauty of the italian countryside, at only 4 km from the baroque city centre of Lecce.
You will be able to relax in the shade of palm trees, sunbathe, immerse yourself in an acre of garden and olive groves, discover the surrounding countryside trying one of the many routes we have locally.
If you want to venture out, you could take a trip to the nearest beaches at S. Isidoro or Porto Cesareo which are only 20 minutes (17/20 km) away by car.
The drive will give you the opportunity to discover the region in a very different way.

We are in a central and strategic position between Lecce and the Ionian sea.
From Villa Giuliana you will be able to drive around and enjoy a different place or beach every day.
All our 6 new rooms, double and triple have indipendent entrance and ensuite bathroom, are air conditioned and have private car park facilities. Linen and towels are also provided.

You can now reach Villa Giuliana flying to Brindisi, only 40 minutes away from us (fast and easy drive through the motorway).
You will need a car to get around and this is not a problem. You can rent a car at HEETZ website and pick it up on arrival at the Airport.

We are at about

500 mt from the:
Ecotekne University of Lecce ISUFI center, CNR laboratory ;

1 mile from the NATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY LABORATORY

How to get to Villa Giuliana

By Car:

1. From the Brindisi-Lecce motorway a couple of miles before you get to Lecce, take the exit marked TANGENZIALE OVEST which will get you on to the Lecce ring road.

2. Continue travelling along this road DO NOT TURN OFF.
After the tunnel take the exit number 14 marked MONTERONI- ARNESANO and drive ahead.

3. At the cross road take a left following the ARNESANO-PORTO CESAREO direction and continue travelling directly ahead for about 1 km, DO NOT TURN OFF.

4. when you arrive at the petrol station marked AGIP take a right turn into via Carretti.
We are 100m along on the left at number 6

Planning a trip to Italy? The top 3 destinations in Italy are Rome, Venice and Florence; for example, in order to make it easy to find an hotel in Rome, you can have a look at our advanced search. Simple as 1-2-3, the same method can be applied to find an Hotel in Florence, or to compare price for different accommodations in Venice, from bed and breakfast to Hotels.

Break An Egg For Creativity

In 1420, the dignitaries of Florence held a competition.

They offered the enormous prize of 200 gold florins to the architect whose genius could span the unfinished dome of the Florence Cathedral.

This was a great challenge. Even the original builders of the cathedral in 1296 left writings hoping that God would offer a solution because they did not have one.

Filippo Brunelleschi was the answer to their prayers.

He proposed the radical idea of a dome supported by a brick vaulting system that balanced the opposing forces, but without the customary central supports.

The experts called him mad.

Brunelleschi sought to demonstrate his design with a challenge.

He could stand an egg upright on a flat surface. Could they?

All were unsuccessful.

Finally, Brunelleschi cracked the bottom of the egg and set it down.

It must have been a mess, but it stood upright and demonstrated his idea.

The experts protested, but Brunelleschi remarked that they could have done the same if they had understood his design.

Of course, they did not. They didn’t understand creativity either.

They were too mentally confined by their concept of the possible. Figuratively and literally, the thought of solving the problem by breaking the egg never occurred to them.

One imagines their frustration trying to balance the round egg on the marble tabletop and their groans when Brunelleschi demonstrated the sloppy, but clever solution.

We all have eggs we never think of breaking.

These are the fixed states of mind that we accept without question as “the way things are.” These states represent the boundaries of our thinking and, therefore, our life experience.

Refuse to be confined by the eggs others never think of breaking.

Geniuses break eggs.

Break your share.

That’s why they make paper towels.

Copyright 2004 by Tony Papajohn. Tony writes and speaks on success. Subscribe to his free SuccessMotivator e-zine at http://www.successmotivator.com.

That Little Bit Of Extra

The “little bit extra” is a very powerful concept to put into practice today in every aspect of your life. The difference between being ordinary and being extraordinary is that little bit EXTRA. The little bit extra is what separates average performers from CHAMPIONS!

In a sales process, the little bit extra is that one extra follow-up call, that extra sincere thank-you or the extra little bit of energy that you put into the presentation of your business. This will separate you from your competition. You can either go through the motions of your business or you can give that little bit extra in order to cement yourself in the mind of your potential customer. We all can relate to purchasing a product/service from someone who just gave you a little bit extra attention than their competitor did and THAT is the reason we bought from THEM!

When I personally coach someone, one of my key strategies is to move them to become champions in their field. One of the easiest ways is to show them the value of what a little extra eye contact with their prospects or customers brings. You need to look your prospect or customer directly in their eyes when you are presenting your business! This drives into them your confidence and conviction about what you and your product/service have to offer them. When I coach people, I tell them that the eye contact strategy alone will take them two steps ahead of their competition.

Remember, people will feed off your confidence from the look in your eyes. As you progress in your journey towards fulfilling your WHY, you need to constantly give that little extra! The true sign of a champion-to-be is just when it seems impossible for him/her to give that extra push; they dig deep down and give that little bit extra to fulfill their WHY! When I speak to groups, I train them to have the mindset of always giving a little bit more than their competitor. Over the long run, it will pay off big! A small improvement over a long period of time will produce outstanding results.

Now that you know the benefit of giving that little bit of extra effort, you need to ask yourself a question…”What can I do today and every day with a little more effort to move me to the champion level in my field?” You need to realize someone will be the champion in your chosen endeavor. Let me ask you a question, “Why not you?”

See you at the top!

Find your WHY and Fly!

As a young child, John Di Lemme was clinically diagnosed as a
stutterer and told that he would never speak fluently. Today, John
has achieved great success as an international motivational speaker,
accomplished author and multi-million dollar entrepreneur. John shocks
millions globally by exposing the truth about how to achieve
monumental life success despite the labels that society has placed
on you. Through his award winning live seminars, power-packed
training programs, live tele-classes, and weekly ezine, John Di
Lemme has made success a reality for thousands worldwide.
visit http://www.FindYourWhy.com and discover how you can
finally create monumental success in your life today and achieve
all your goals, dreams and desires.

A Christmas Wish

My sister is a woman now beginning her thirties. She has had few friends and her boyfriends have never been good for her. Now she has finally found a man who adores her.

They had an affair nine years back, when he was twice her age and still married. My sister ended the affair, and he separated from his wife. When my sister contacted him this spring, he finalized the divorce and they became a couple. His marriage, which was arranged by his church, was never happy.

His parents and his children are upset he divorced. His children don’t want to meet his new girlfriend, and he hasn’t dared to tell his parents about her. The other issue is children. She wants; he doesn’t. I tell my sister they both know each other’s stand on this and neither has the right to impose on the other, but neither of them wants to leave.

My whole family visited them on my sister’s last birthday. It felt so nice to see them together and to see my sister get love and warmth at last. But to know at some point they will have a crash landing feels awful. She has a man who loves her, but he is entangled in a constricting family and church. Besides, there is a conflict of dreams between them.

What should I say to my sister? We try to get an equal relationship, but we are in such different circumstances. I am married with two children, a professional with friends and all things that she wants. I cannot possibly tell her, after seeing their cozy home and how they care for each other, that this is another no-go.

Who am I to know? Maybe he will come around, or maybe she will think he is more important than fulfilling her dream of children. Maybe I should just keep my “superior knowledge” to myself.

Noel

Noel, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is one of our favorite stories, but this tale is so familiar most of us forget the moral. Even in our old age it is not too late to change. Even in our old age it is not too late to live the life which is our birthright. But we must want to change and then follow through.

In Dickens’ tale Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his old business partner Jacob Marley. Marley warns Scrooge where the patterns of his life are taking him, and even though Marley wants Scrooge to change, he is powerless to make him change. Scrooge must go through a journey of discovery before he is ready.

You would like to play Jacob Marley for your sister, but even Marley couldn’t change Scrooge. Three spirits had to show Scrooge his past, his present, and if he did not change, his dismal future. Until Scrooge made this journey he was not ready.

That is the wisdom of the story. We must examine the past for its lessons, search the present for its patterns, and project where those patterns will lead us in the future. If those patterns lead to sadness, they must be altered to lead us to fulfillment. As Scrooge says, “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”

Whether our life is a sad life, an abused life, or simply a flat life, we can use this simple story as a guide to breaking the patterns which lead to bad ends. You may possess the life you wish for your sister, but you do not have the power to give it to her. She will not change until she is ready. Keep your superior knowledge to yourself. If you wish to do something, give your sister a copy of “A Christmas Carol” and make a silent wish for her happiness.

Direct Answers – Column for the week of December 22, 2003

About The Author

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

Life On The Receiving End Of Coaching

What is it like to be on the receiving end of mentoring to improve your performance in pocket billiards and at the same time, participate in life changing coaching?

You are the reason for all of the things you are going through. Once you accept that, you are then ready to make the changes that will take you to the next level and far beyond.

Many billiards players find themselves blocked from moving to the next level. They seem to stay in the same place year after year. Do you find yourself at one of these stagnation points?
I recently took part in the Monk 101 Four Points To Power program and found it was

Professionally personalized programs for success

Structure to keep me focused, on track, clear, accountable and successful

Support to sharpen skills, clarity and awareness

Direction on material and technology to support top quality growth

Opportunity to hone critical thinking skills, analyze situations and co-create strategies to effectively deal with them on the table and off.

It did not require face-to-face meetings, it did not rely upon judgment of my performance before beginning the program and it did not require an exorbitant investment of time and money.
Working with The Monk I learned many things about myself and was able to make some positive changes. I now find I can:

Accept Criticism–If given with respect, offered in private, critique could change your game.

Submit To Correction–You know you did wrong and you are sorry, but until you are shown how to correct the problem, it is subject repetition.

Learn By Following–Learning can be defined as the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skills. But you only gain understanding when you follow someone’s example.

Get Yourself Free–Learn to deal with the bad habits you keep dragging around. Be accountable to your master.

Gain Consistency–Make Your game more reliable and uniform in a variety of circumstances and varying degrees of distraction.

Increase Confidence–Learn the Four Strokes of Pool, how to shoot them and how to use them to win.
Win More Games–When you can get your attitude in line with your skills, you will find more often then not you will be in the winners’ circle.

Gain Recognition–“From our perceptions we turn in our performance. If with faulty perceptions we act, we think, and we perform, calamity comes upon us. If from right perceptions we act, we think, we perform, success is ours.”

Improve Your Life–The Enlightenment Stage is the goal of true champions. Those who reach this level are truly free from the ruling forces of the senses and can live life to the fullest. You won’t know the true meaning of your life until you connect to that which gave you meaning.

Truly, if you can become one with the nine precepts outlined above, we can change our world. The Monk 101 Four Points to Power program is your chance to change the mind set that holds you back in this great game. Our perceptions build our mindset. From our mindset we act, think and perform.

The true value of this program goes far beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge; you can do that with a book. The Monk 101 Four Points To Power is designed to help you reach the stage of true enlightenment, and real understanding.

Even in pocket billiards, you can’t sink a shot with knowledge, you’ll never gain good position if your shot is based on what you know — understanding gives you great power, both on the table and off.

Why a Self Help Book May Not Help You

For a self help book to work, we have to read right it through to the end. While this may seem like a no-brainer, many people never finish reading books that they buy. In fact many people never read a book after they finish high school.

The next step after reading, is to re-read the important parts and then start doing the exercises – probably every day!

Self help books can give us great information but we actually have to put that information to good use… (sigh)

Ah well! If we don’t have time for a book, how about a tape or CD while we’re driving in the car?

Now that sounds like a good idea It’s called *time management*. We can do two things at once! We can listen between the news bulletins, while watching out for the speed cameras or when driving the kids to school (Mum do we have to listen to that again?)

Or we can prance round all day chanting affirmations, telling ourselves we are prosperous and abundant and how our business is improving . Trouble is we don’t really believe it do we?

Or how about sticking little notes on all the mirrors in our house proclaiming how we are losing weight and getting better and better every day, the kind we have to rush around removing when visitors call….

I’m not saying these things don’t work, they can and sometimes they do. There’s some great motivational books, tapes and CDs out there and they’re helping people all the time. The problem is the majority of us are simply not getting the required results.

So we still haven’t dropped a dress size or made our first million. Our businesses are still stumbling along and the only thing that’s growing is our overdraft (not to mention our waistline)

So what’s the answer? Are we condemned to a life of mediocrity? Do we have to give up on our dreams?

The answer is accountability. We have to be accountable. (No I’m not talking about the tax office) To ourselves! To our futures!

It’s easy to go out and buy a book, a little harder to actually read it. Phew! We then sit back hoping that this time we’ve found the answer, this time we’ll see it through. This time we’re actually going to make it work!

The only way to make your life work is to take action. Start that business, buy that investment property, stick to that healthy eating plan!

Of course do your homework first, make sure your decisions are viable. You don’t have to take uncalculated risks. But don’t get stuck in “analysis paralysis”! Procrastination can sometimes be our worst enemy.

After all if you don’t try you will never succeed and that may be the greatest risk of all.

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” ~ Albert Ellis

Wendy Owen is a client of Jayce McMeeken, the founder of Absolute Coaching International and author of the inspirational book “Believe You Are RICH!”. Want the life of an entrepreneur? Visit Jayce at http://www.absolutecoaching.com
Having read most self help books I had the knowlege but not the means to put it into action. Coaching has helped me establish a successful internet business and has filled me with confidence.

The terrific and enlightening BBC Worldwide.

How we want to personally travel to the required destination might well take a key, influence on more persons & the planet. All that these days appears to personally be or is attempting to go green & this is a great suggestion. Actioning this and making an effort to travel to holiday spots vast distances will not be the most uncomplicated thing to personally do in the world but non the less it is very achievable . By cutting right back the main thing which is flying by plane you will be assisting to improve on cutting down your own carbon footprints & this is the most helpful way to do it. Combat climate change with Train Holidays.

All that does make one small difficulty, obviously it is not conceivable to personally get to everywhere in the whole world by train, automobile or walking often you need to fly & by cutting down this, you have to focus at the absalute effects you will have on locales & habitats that rely on going to places of interest profits for survival. To then again make this attainable there is a trouble free way to do it. Try to personally keep your flying by plane to short distances. Arrive to as near as you perhaps can by train etc and then simply fly the rest. This is not regularly the ideal situation but it will help diminish your footprint this is brilliant news. Each particular hour you possibly stay on a plane has a carbon footprint of further than two weeks.

Trains can be found to be broadly understood of as the entire greener & most environmentally favourable method to on breaks throughout anywhere in the entire world. These days it is likely and possible to personally have breaks by train & still have a magnificent holiday & be very comfortable, European Rail travel to destinations has become very accepted now a days, there are also many choices about where a bouts you can travel to places too and it’s not that high-priced You possibly may well find your family travelling to Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain & Switzerland.

If you and others are looking for ideas and propositions to find a place you can take terrific weekend breaks by trains then look no further than BBC worldwide, they couch for outstanding areas to get and also give you possibly lots of data on it too and what to do there.

How Sunbelt Counterspy Works

With spyware running rampant on PCs across the planet, a good spyware defense system is required. Well worth a look is Sunbelt’s CounterSpy.

Originally owned by Giant Software then acquired by Microsoft, the old CounterSpy has mutated into Microsoft’s spyware program. Sunbelt, on their part, developed what has become the new CounterSpy into something quite different. However, terms of the agreement are good news for Sunbelt – as well as their own researchers, they have the benefit of using Microsoft’s research too.

CounterSpy comes in two versions, plain and Enterprise. Both editions of are highly effective and functional spyware eliminators – PC World recently gave CounterSpy a “Best Buy” award for detecting the most spyware out of products tested. So, what does it do?

• Active Protection monitors in real-time for spyware. Alerts to the presence of suspicious files and allows choice of whether to delete or quarantine

• AutoUpdater keeps spyware definitions up to date. Can be programmed to update at set times

• ThreatNet is the CounterSpy user network, reporting the latest spyware discovered. If CounterSpy recognizes potential spyware, details can be anonymously sent to CounterSpy researchers to get a fix out quickly

• Includes an Internet history cleaner to remove all traces of surfing history

• Secure file eraser completely wipes out any file that needs destroying beyond recovery

CounterSpy sports a pleasant, simple to use interface, on first look rather like a browser. Bold buttons indicating the different settings are laid out along the top of the window, with clear, easy to digest information below.

It also boasts PC Explorer for viewing and modifying settings that are usually difficult to amend, such as the Browser Helper Objects installed in Internet Explorer, what Windows startup processes are installed and what programs might be affecting the Internet connection.

PC Checkup will scan the computer’s security settings and suggests where security might be improved. Active Protection is fully customizable in determining what kind of threat it should look for, for example, the ActiveX monitor could be switched on or off.

Spyware scan results are presented in list form with an option to quarantine, remove or keep each item found. Selecting an item provides a detailed description of what it is to aid the decision – provided that the information has been added to the CounterSpy database.

Bizarrely, CounterSpy supports more versions of Windows than the Microsoft product, being compatible from Windows 98 SE (not Windows 98) and ME onwards. Minimum specifications are:

• IBM Compatible 300MHZ PC

• 64MB of RAM

• 24MB hard disk space

• Windows 98SE/ME/2000/SP2+/NT4 SP 6a/ and Windows XP

• 2x CDROM for CD option

• Internet Explorer 5.0

• The Admin console of Enterprise edition requires .NET Framework 1.1, Windows 2003 Server/Windows XP Professional/Windows 2000 Server SP3/Windows 2000 Professional SP2

A free download of CounterSpy is available for evaluation purposes. It comes with a twelve month upgrade subscription upon purchase and further annual subscriptions are available after expiry. The full versions of the program are downloadable (at approximately 14MB in size), or, in the US, can be ordered on CD.

Ben Sikes recommends reading the full product review of Sunbelt CounterSpy at Identity Theft Spy.

The Question: Learn HTML, Or Use A WYSIWYG Editor

When I first started designing web pages back in 1997, it was necessary for me to learn the HTML markup language. At that particular time, there were some what you see is what you get editors, but almost everyone that design web pages used raw HTML and understood how it worked. Now, seven or eight years later, we find that be market is flooded with editors such as Dreamweaver that allow anybody to design web pages as easily as they can create a Microsoft Word document.

Whenever I take someone under my wing, and start teach them about Internet marketing, and designing web pages, the first thing that I tell them is that they should learn the basics of HTML. While I recommend that they use Dreamweaver for most of their web page designs, it’s always helpful to be able to go into the code view and understand what they are looking at. It also helps whenever viewing the source code of other people’s web pages, to see how they did one thing or another with their code. This would be nearly impossible if you did not understand at least the basics of HTML.

Another benefit of knowing HTML is that you can go in and clean up your code. After you design a page in a program like Dreamweaver. A lot of times, there is weird formatting that goes on behind the scenes in it what you see is what you get editor. It makes it difficult, sometimes even for those of us that know HTML to go into the document, and know where we are at inside the code. However, if you understand HTML, it’s easier to go in, make your code neater and more manageable, and then save it in that format so that it’s easier to go in and edit in the code view in the future.

While there’s no doubt that using programs such as Dreamweaver can make beautiful web pages that function fully without even going into messing with the HTML at all, I still think that it’s a good practice to understand the basics of the HTML markup language and to make sure that you use it on a regular basis so that you keep this skill. Not only does it help you when you’re in a code pinch, but he keeps you from being what I like to call a lazy web designer.

Steve is the owner of many websites including those on domane names, broadbandspeedtest and website templetes