A fantastic way to live

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old


To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 42 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

6. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

7. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

8. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

9. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

10. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

12. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

13. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

14. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

15. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

16. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

17. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

18. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer...

19. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie... Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

20. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

21. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

22. The most important sex organ is the brain.

23. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

24. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

25. Always choose life.

26. Forgive everyone everything.

27. What other people think of you is none of your business.

28. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

30. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

31. Believe in miracles.

32. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

33. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

34. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

35. Your children get only one childhood.

36. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

37. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

38. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

39. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

40. The best is yet to come.

41. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

42. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

The Charlie Schulz Philosophy

> The Charlie Schulz Philosophy
> (This is marvelous!! Scroll thru slowly and read carefully to receive
> and enjoy full effect)
> The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the
> 'Peanuts' comic strip.
> You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read straight
> through and you'll get the point.
> 1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
> 2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
> 3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
> 4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
> 5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and
> actress.
> 6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
> How did you do?
> The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
> These are no second-rate achievers.
> They are the best in their fields.
> But the applause dies.
> Awards tarnish.
> Achievements are forgotten.
> Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
> Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
> 1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
> 2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
> 3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
> 4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and
> special!!
> 5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
> Easier?
> The Lesson:
> The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the
> most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.
> They simply are the ones who care the most!
>

The sports teams in a league of their own

As spending on footballers soars, Stefan Szymanski asks if we could learn a lesson from the US.

He writes in today's Daily Telegraph, "Many fans are in denial, but the reality of professional sport is that money buys success: spend enough and the balance will tip in your favour. Of course, there are no guarantees, but year after year the teams that spend the most on player salaries tend to end up at the top of the league and those that spend the least end up at the bottom. This is not only true for football. The New York Yankees have won baseball's World Series 26 times (the nearest rival has won it only 10 times) and no one doubts that the financial muscle of the Big Apple lies behind this feat.

But there is a limit to the ambition of the Yankees; as an American economist observed 45 years ago, their prayer must be "Oh Lord, make us good, but not that good". Without credible opposition, who wants to watch the Yankees? At times, the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian cricket team must have pondered the same question. Unless your rivals have a reasonable chance of success you risk becoming a freak show followed only by a few diehards.

When Formula One became the Michael Schumacher Show, audience figures declined (except, of course, in Germany). Men's tennis is enjoying a revival not because of Andy Murray but because at last there are credible rivals to Roger Federer (something Pete Sampras lacked). Tiger Woods still draws the crowds to golf, but even if "freak" is not the right word, the exceptional gulf between him and almost anyone who has ever played the game puts his dominance into a special category.

A successful competition must imbue the teams with an unquenchable desire to win while denying them the means to kill off the opposition permanently. Real Madrid's president, Florentino Perez, is so concerned about the unequal contest in La Liga that he is calling for an enhanced, European super league to feed him more worthy opponents. This might work, since there are big enough teams in England, Italy and Germany to give them a game, but what if Real tried to buy its way to the top of a super league?

American leagues have faced up to this problem and introduced measures to stop teams remaining dominants. American football's NFL, the world's most lucrative sports league, boasts that "on any given Sunday, any team in this league can beat any other team". It aims to achieve this by a combination of limiting squad sizes, sharing gate and TV revenues and imposing salary caps. Most famously, it has a draft system that gives the bottom team the right to choose the best new player entering the league in the next season – an incentive to lose rather than to win. But here's the rub: the NFL is a business, a socialist business run by billionaire capitalists who make a fortune since their restraints also hold down salaries. What's more, they don't allow any competition to play at their level: there is no promotion and relegation. They call this "leaguethink". Every team owner is devoted to upholding the interests of the NFL first, their franchise second.

Ironically, it is European football that is the torch bearer of rampant capitalistic individualism, while America espouses sporting socialism. But that is because the Americans are not playing for fun, they are playing for money, and they know the rules of that game better than anyone else."

An interesting analogy, but what perhaps is most interesting are the reader comments here

The human face of the death penalty

In a series of alarmingly frank portraits and accompanying audio interviews, British portraitist Claire Phillips reveals the painful and inflexible sharp end of the U.S. penal system, littered by broken souls who have all known extreme violence.

Tattooed inmates make up only a few of the portraits on show, which also includes those on the sidelines: senators, campaigners, jurors. The recorded interviews often reveal much more than the artworks themselves. Marietta Jaeger-Lane, for example, whose face is both kindly and steely at the same time, stares out from a calming grey ground. Only her voice tells us that her daughter, Susie, was snatched and killed a week later. Later still she became an anti-death row campaigner; once Susie's killer was captured and killed.

Don Cabana stares broodingly from a blood red canvas, an unsympathetic looking warder who has presided over two executions. Only in the audio do we find that he is horrified when an inmate refuses to absolve him; only in the audio does he tell the story of a chemist driven mad by the responsibility of mixing gas for the chamber.

By the end these disarming portraits and utterly contradictory audio together tell of America's complicated relationship with the death sentence and the mixed up, polar lives of those who inhabit the spooky corridors of death row: killers, relatives, lawyers, warders, all.

The Human Face of the Death Penalty is at the.gallery@oxo , Oxo Tower, London, from July 1 to July 5. Video is here.

Market Research: Cinco de Mayo Isn't US Independence Day but its connection with U.S. history might surprise you...

As Cinco de Mayo festivals get canceled across the U.S. because of swine flu, and anti-Mexican sentiment appears to be raising its ugly head, it seemed appropriate to highlight the potentially important impact that the Battle of Puebla (aka Cinco de Mayo) had on U.S. history. In other words, it's not just about Corona and carnitas, you know.

As this article by Rochelle Newman-Carrasco states, "By now if you're still referring to Cinco de Mayo as Mexican Independence Day, you probably aren't reading this blog. You may not be reading anything at all. That said, most of us are aware of a few Cinco de Mayo facts, mostly focused on the Battle of Puebla, in which the Mexican Army, against all odds, was victorious against French intervention."

As she points out, from a marketing standpoint, it is also commonly known that Cinco de Mayo celebrations are mostly a U.S. phenomenon initiated by Latinos in the U.S. and embraced by the U.S. Hispanic advertising community as a promotional opportunity for clients ranging from alcohol to zoos. The holiday is celebrated in some areas of Mexico, but not at the national level.

But an aspect of Cinco de Mayo that isn't often discussed is the role the victory at Puebla had in keeping the U.S. safe from one of two history-changing scenarios: 1) Confederate victory during the Civil War and 2) French intervention in the U.S.

The Battle of Puebla took place in 1862, the same year that Abraham Lincoln was wrestling with a Civil War on U.S. soil. The following historical perspective, taken from North Carolina's Fayetville Observer and confirmed via other sources, puts a new U.S. twist on the legend of Cinco de Mayo.

During this time, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was enjoying success, and had the French defeated México at Puebla, France would have aided the South in the American Civil War in order to free Southern ports of the Union Blockade. The Mexicans had won a great victory that kept Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build the greatest army the world had ever seen.

This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the battle of Puebla. ... Union forces were then rushed to the Texas/Mexican border under General Phil Sheridan, who made sure that the Mexicans got all the weapons and ammunition they needed to expel the French. American soldiers were discharged with their uniforms and rifles if they promised to join the Mexican Army to fight the French.

The American Legion of Honor marched in the Victory Parade in Mexico City. It might be a historical stretch to credit the survival of the United States to those brave 4,000 Mexicans who faced an army twice as large in 1862. But who knows?"

So as Rochelle Newman-Carrasco writes, rather than indulge in Mexico-phobic attitudes and question your Hispanic marketing efforts in reaction to xenophobic pressures, take a moment to reflect on the interconnected nature of the U.S. and Mexico (not to mention the rest of the American continent). Swine flu will come and go, but the fifth of May is here to stay, so unless your heritage is French or Confederate, you might want to make the most of it.

Superbowl Ads You Missed

Miss any of the commercials during the game yesterday? Here's another chance to catch the best and worst!

48 Hours in Pittsburgh

Arriving in Pittsburgh Friday night, we set out to see and do as much as possible with just 48 hours - hold on tight as we take you on some recommendations for a weekend in the Steel City...

Friday Night

Check-in: Renaissance Hotel, Downtown Pittsburgh
Right in the heart of the action on 6th St, the historic Renaissance Hotel is housed in a building dating from 1906, completely refurbished and reopened just a few years a go.

The staff were surprisingly unhelpful and cared little to make us feel welcome. With a big of haggling though we managed to persuade them to move us up from the fourth floor to the top floor - and the room offered some great views of the city and rivers.

Pittsburgh Steeler's Pep Rally @ Heinz Field
With the Steeler's big game the following weekend, we lucked out and arrived in time to experience the hype surrounding the city's Superbowl expectations with an organized Pep Rally at Heinz Field.



The honking and hollering on the roads around the stadium was as if they had already won the Superbowl!


PNC Park
With all the bedlam surrounding the pep rally, we opted to skip the taxi line and walk back over the bridge to the hotel via PNC Park.

Right next door to Heinz Field, this is home to the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball team and definitely worth the walk on the way back to the city.

Primantis
The Sandwich that made Pittsburgh famous...

The Primanti Brother's sandwich is said to have its origins in the city's steel days when blue collar workers needed a hot meal mid-shift that would keep them full all day long. However, the workers had neither the time nor the utensils for such a meal. By combining the sides of fries and coleslaw with the sandwich, a Pittsburgh staple was born.

Of note: Primanti Brothers made the list of "1,000 Places to See Before You Die in the USA and Canada," by Patricia Schultz.

Next, depending on what your in the mood for, Friday night is a great night to experience either a musical or some of Pittsburgh's nightlife.

Menopause the Musical


With a title like Menopause The Musical, we opted for the latter and headed to the South Side and counted over 40 bars driving from one end to the other! We were certainly spoiled for choice on where to drink!

South Side
With an unbelievable amount of bars, a pubcrawl up East Carson Street could be a weekend within itself!




Saturday

Sightseeing Around the City
We decided to check out some of Pittsburgh’s 89 neighborhoods. From the steps in the South Side slopes to Little Italy in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s eclectic neighborhoods are worth exploring.


Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Quite simply, stunning. The Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens have been inviting visitors to explore the beauty and mysteries of plants since 1893. Set amidst one of Pittsburgh's largest greenspace, Schenley Park, Phipps Conservatory stands as a cultural and architectural centerpiece of the city's Oakland neighborhood.



In recent decades, Phipps has evolved into one of the region's most vibrant, thriving cultural attractions, and is a great way to spend a crisp winter morning in the sun.



Cathedral of Learning

A local and national landmark, this is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood. Standing at 535 feet, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral (above) is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere and the third tallest educational building in the world.

Heinz Chapel
The Heinz Memorial Chapel began as a gift. Henry John Heinz, the founder of the H.J. Heinz Company, wanted to honor his mother, Anna Margaretta Heinz, with “a building” at the University. To this day, it still hosts hundreds of concerts, religious services, and weddings.


Fitzgerald Field House Dance-Off
Flicking through a copy of the Pitt News, we discovered a dance marathon taking place for charity and couldn't resist stopping in...



Raising $36,713.09, this was the most successful fundraiser in the history of Pitt's student organizations, obliterating the former record of $15,000. Full story is here


The Church Brew Works
This converted 1902 Catholic church offers a variety of brewed-on-site ales and lagers (the brewing equipment sits front-and-center, on what was once the altar) and a satisfying menu - even the original stained-glass windows are still in place!

A great place to stop for a relaxing pint after seeing the sights and sounds of Pittsburgh!

The Duquesne Incline & Mount Washington
A great place for a romantic dinner to round off the day, this nighttime view from Mount Washington was voted the the No. 2 beauty spot in America by USA Today.



The author wrote, "Standing atop Mount Washington, the steep hill that rises giddily on the city's south side, sightseers enjoy the unforgettable panorama of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flowing together to create the mighty Ohio, that waterway so essential in the nation's settlement. The rivers cup downtown's lustrous Golden Triangle, where landmark skyscrapers thrust upward like rockets. At night, lights twinkle on no fewer than 15 bridges."

Sunday
Our original plan was to head to Shady Side for a massage for madame while I watched the football. We slept in and ordered a complimentary breakfast in bed before driving through on the way to:

Carnegie Museum of Natural History
From the discovery of Diplodocus carnegii to the skull of Samson, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skull known to date, and the brand new, yet to be named, species of oviraptorosaur, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has one of the finest dinosaur collections in the world.



Other exhibits include the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems, the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians, Polar World: Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life, the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt, the Benedum Hall of Geology and the Powdermill Nature Reserve.



Carnegie Museum of Art
The Hall of Architecture, with its collection of over 140 plaster casts of architectural masterpieces from the past survives today as the largest architectural cast collection in the country, rivaled internationally only by collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and in the Musee National des Monuments Français, Paris.



Having persisted through changes of taste and decades of public exhibition, the Hall of Architecture offers an opportunity to appreciate a cultural phenomenon of international scope.



Summary
Pittsburgh's diversity really surprised me and I was pleasantly surprised by just how much the city has to offer. This was a very fulfilling weekend and we didn't even get to the Andy Warhol Museum, the nearby ski resort, or even a Penguins or Pirates game.

Once renowned as the smokey Steel City, Pittsburgh has reinvented itself as cultural and entertainment city. From Heinz Hall to Hindu temples, from The Warhol to the Inclines, from Kennywood to a Steelers game ... Year round there seems like there is always tons to do here and I'd definitely love to come back to do it all again, in addition to the moments we missed.

About This Blog

What is an Enneagram?

The enneagram figure is believed to have originated around 2500 BC. It is a nine-pointed figure inscribed in a circle and it's name derives from two Greek words, ennea (nine) and grammi (line).



The meaning of the symbol itself, together with specific category types organized around the nine points, convey a system of knowledge about nine distinct but interrelated areas of personal growth - or nine ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

My goal is to utilise the Enneagram for mapping and understanding nine areas of personal growth and development; for us to look at ourselves in new and different ways, and for us to ultimately become better people.

These areas are:

Family
Desmond Tutu once wrote, "You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." I will forever be indebted for what my family has sacrificed for me, present and past. And I hope to grow by continuing to appreciate everything they are for me. The Joyce Brothers wrote, "When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses."

Spiritual
Jack Kornfield wrote, "To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties, but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart." The goal of this blog is that very journey of learning that art.

Financial
"We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules," Buzzie Bavasi once said, and Zig Ziglar reinforced this when he said. "Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the "gotta have it" scale." For me money is about balance to which this blog seeks to find, as George Horace Lorimer once said, "It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy."

Self/Personal
Louis L'Amour's quote captures the very essence of this blog, "Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, "This I am today; that I will be tomorrow."

Also, H.F. Hedge wrote, "Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past." In The Prison and the Angel, Henry Van Dyke said, "Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul." Through this blog I hope we can break out of our individual prisons and comfort zones to become the best we can possibly be.

Professional/Work
In Scnes de la vie Parisienne, Honoré de Balzac wrote, "An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence." A view Jackson Browne reinforced, "Find a job you like and you add five days to every week." he said. Our jobs and careers can bring out the best in us.

Charles Kingsley wrote, "Thank God every morning when you get up, that you have something to do that day which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know."

Health
The greatest wealth is health. James West wrote, "Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well;... and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a man." Arguably the most important of all the nine, as (George William Curtis wrote) "Happiness lies, first of all, in health."

Social
My blog Dom Forth Presents... focused heavily on some of the better social aspects of life. We are (afterall) social creatures. Yet, socializing nonstop without personal improvement is an opportunity wasted. "We Are the Sum Total of the Five People We Spend The Most Time With" Jim Rohn once said. Do the goals of your social groups match your own?

Education
This quote by William Haley encapsulates the very essence of my belief in education. "Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. Great stuff!

Finally, the last area is Travel. Jawaharial Nehru once wrote, “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” I hope that through my travels I can become complete, but am fully aware that it is not travel itself that determines the individual. As Henry Miller wrote, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” Too true.

Is it a coincidence that it is these 9 areas that are so important? The number nine is a most remarkable number in many respects. It is held in great reverence by all who study the occult sciences; and in mathematical science it possesses properties and powers which are found in no other number.

In his book, The Enneagram, Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life, Palmer wrote that each Enneagram number, or style, is based on a pattern of where attention goes. By learning about what kinds of things one habitually attends to and puts energy into, one can observe oneself more accurately and develop more self-awareness.

And, that enhancing one’s self awareness with the help of the Enneagram, one can exercise more choice about one’s functioning rather than engaging in patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior in an automatic, habitual, unconscious way.

It is my goal for us to improve all of theses areas by really challenging these 9 specific areas of life. If it can help us look at ourselves in new and different ways, and we become better people then I'll be happy :)