Mindconnection eNL, 2011-12-04

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Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

Job openings in the USA are at their highest level since before Lehman Brothers imploded. The U.S. Dept of Labor reports that there were3.35 million positions waiting to be filled in September. That's the highest number since August of 2008. Unfortunately, the USDoL did not report whether those were positions such as filter cleaner at a sewage plant or positions where the employer wants to hire a rocket scientist at 6 bucks an hour. But still, that's a huge number of open jobs.

Here's some very good news. Spread the word: http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_04vzdsr5/uiconf_id/5590821

To keep the good news coming, we need to look at something in particular. The devastation of the US economy is a direct consequence of gangsta government "spending" (stealing) money we do not have and thereby diverting scarce capital away from good uses.

The good news on this front is that the US CONgress hasn't passed any new moronic and devastating (mis)legislation recently (not that there's any other kind they do pass, there isn't). Most likely, it's because they are busy with insider trading and other activities that are illegal for anyone who is not a member of CONgress but that they can get away with because laws don't apply to them.

Even the Stupid Committee didn't do anything disastrous. Of course, that farce was designed to distract our attention away from the maelstrom of malfeasance we call CONgress. If that farce didn't fool you, then more good news--your brain works.

No new crime from CONgress is a rare occurrence worth celebrating! This country is never safe when CONgress is in session.

Let's keep that momentum (no new crime) going. Write to your two misrepresentatives and your senator and ask them to vote against any bill that would increase spending or expand the federal government. We don't need more burden to suffer under, we need less.

You should also write to the people your misrepresentatives and members of CONgress work for. And boycott their products, as much as possible. For example, I don't eat products containing wheat or corn (popcorn being an exception, this isn't the subsidized sweet corn from which high fructose corn poison is made). Big Agra already gets enough of my money via illegal federal subsidies.

What about oil? Exxon has many members of CONgress on its payroll, as do the other oil companies. Of course, I do not boycott oil. But I conserve fuel so that I buy much less oil. I buy about six gallons of gasoline every month. I drive a 5-speed manual transmission Toyota Camry, and run it on synthetic motor oil. I plan my trips and generally avoid driving whenever possible.

What about Big Pharma? By not getting sick via the voluntary self-poisoning that is so popular these days, I don't need to help support that industry via expensive prescription drugs. See back issues of this eNL for health tips.

Yes, we peasants are disenfranchised when it comes to the pseudo-elections for federal offices. The ballots are controlled and nearly all the candidates put on those ballots are career criminals who owe their allegiance to criminal organizations.

But we do have power. We have the power to reduce how much of our consumer dollar we spend with the companies owned by the crime lords who own our election process and our federal govt. It's pretty easy to see which companies and industries these are, so take note. And vote with your pocketbook, because that's the only voting power you actually have.

We can change this corrupt system, one consumer dollar at a time. And make for much good news for future generations. If we get on the ball with this, it might even result in good news for our own generation.

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The better filters make a huge difference in how clean a home is and how healthy its occupants are (even if they lower efficiency).

The regional (or maybe national) mismanager for Walgreens decided the store should not continue to sell these filters. Or any other furnace filters. From a marketing perspective, this is a bad move. People need filters. If they are in the habit of buying filters at your store, they will buy other things as well. How the idea that it's a bad idea to stock a "must buy" item occurred to this moron, I can't explain. Maybe he's been studying NEWT-onian physics and Obamanomics, also--working toward an IQ of zero. He seems to be progressing nicely.

By his illogic, grocers who sell milk or any other item that most people buy are making a huge mistake (yes, there's a reason why milk is in the back of the store). I suppose if he ran a grocery chain, he'd eliminate the produce department due to space limitations.

Ah, but the stupidity gets worse.

On my recent visit, I had to wait at the checkout counter because two employees were playing with the cancer stick display. OK, I realize not everyone calls those products cancer sticks. They also cause male impotence, heart disease, mental impairment (due to clogging of carotid artery combined with carbon monoxide loading), strokes, deterioration of the joints (especially the hips and knees), bad breath, and many other ailments. But since they are best known for killing their victims via cancer, the cancer stick label is the one I prefer.

Anyhow, this situation struck me as monumentally stupid. The store will not sell a product that helps keep its customers healthy and alive, but spends extra effort selling a product that kills its customers. What's the message here? The Walgreen's people don't like their customers? What's next, stabbing us with poison darts as soon as we walk into the store? Imagine if 7-11 sold Slurpees made with Drano. What message does that send to the customers?

All of us pay for the high costs of tobacco product poisoning. There are high costs in terms of medical insurance, medical resources used, work days lost, smoking breaks, extra cleaning required, and customers having to stand there and wait while cancer stick displays get played with at a store that won't sell air filters anymore.

What would happen if a major chain told the death merchants their poisonous products will no longer be provided with any shelf space? Here's the conversation:

"We happen to like our customers. They spend money here. Killing them isn't part of our business plan. So you can peddle your death devices via merchants who consider customers a problem rather than the business reason to exist."

What can we do to help bring that sanity about? What if every Walgreen's, Quick-Trip, and grocery store said no to the insanity of stocking severely lethal products that will painfully maim and/or kill all buyers of same? What if they said, "We are a family-oriented business, and little kids come in here." Many major retailers do NOT sell these customer-killing products. Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and Amazon.com for example, actually want their customers to stay alive.

Can we stop the stupidity? Yes. But we must exercise our own brainpower (exercise makes you stronger), and come up with our own ideas. Each of you readers can do this. Why not set aside time this week to come up with a plan, and then put it into action?

With these products not being sold in places where people commonly go, fewer of us will have to walk in a cloud of brain-diminishing smoke just to enter or exit buildings. Let's see what we can do!

It's amazing that parents are legally required to trust teachers with our children, but then these very same teachers are distrusted by the same authorities when it comes to spending a couple hundred bucks on something to help teach those kids. Logic? Fuggedaboutit.

What's the fear, that teachers will run black market sales of stolen reading aids?

If you're involved in the PTA or in some other way spend time interacting with your local public education system, you might think about how they can save money (your tax dollars) by streamlining and modernizing their processes. The joke below is what prompted me to write this suggestion.

As a new school principal, Mr. Mitchell was checking over his school on the first day.

Passing the stockroom, he was startled to see the door wide open and teachers bustling in and out, carrying off books and supplies in preparation for the arrival of students the next day. The school where he had been a principal the previous year had used a check-out system only slightly less elaborate than that at Fort Knox.

Cautiously, he asked the school's long time custodian, "Do you think it's wise to keep the stock room unlocked and to let the teachers take things without requisitions?"

The custodian looked at him gravely and said, "We trust them with the children, don't we?"

I'm not sure these lists achieve the goal of actually selling. I've asked several people if they ever read any of the trash sent via these lists, and they've all said it goes straight to the wastebasket. That's anecdotal, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What these lists do achieve:

• Annoying potential customers.
• Filling up our snail mail boxes with garbage.
• Adding to the price of goods and services by increasing the overhead due to the money firms waste on this anti-customer practice because they hired some idiot who spends their money on it rather than engaging in something that will actually reach out to customers.
• Causing a lot of trees to die for no good reason.
• Sapping USPS even further, because it delivers this trash at a price that is below cost.

This is nothing more than trash delivery. Since I pay to have trash hauled off (with really strict limits on qty), I don't want to have it delivered to me. Nor do I want to waste my electricity and time shredding trash that has my name and address on it.

If you're tired of shredding all this paper waste that has your name and address on it and is sent without your permission, there is a way to stop a good amount of it from filling up your USPS box. Visit the Direct Marketing Association at www.dma.org and you can find an opt-out form. Did you notice they don't get their own name right? Their members are engaged in direct sales and direct spamming, not marketing.

What about the trash delivery that continues after you've asked the DMA to put you on its "Send me no trash" list? If you are receiving paper trash that you didn't ask to receive, box up some kitchen waste and send it to the address from which you are receiving the unsolicited trash. Enclose a note that you don't enjoy receiving their paper trash and you are sending some of your own trash in response. If you have a cat or dog, you can guess at how to escalate this process if they don't "get it" the first time.

Most people think of forgiveness as something you do for someone else. Very few people see it as a core part of an effective fitness program. And that is one reason why so few people have an effective fitness program.

To understand how forgiveness can be of great benefit to you, it may help to understand what happens without it. Think of a time when someone has wronged you. How did that make you feel? I'm going to go out on a limb here and take a wild guess that it didn't make you happy and energetic. In fact, maybe it even gave you a headache.

At the moment we discover "somebody done us wrong," we typically:

• Are angry.
• Can't focus on much else.
• Feel tense, instead of relaxed.
• Get knots in our stomach, headache, or other physical symptoms.

Age 50.

If the offense is bad enough:

• We may lose our appetite for the next several days (or go the opposite route and binge on junk food).
• Sleep is difficult.
• Small things set us off.
• Desire, drive, and ambition take a nose-dive.
• Negativity replaces optimism.

During this time, a medical analysis would reveal:

• Lowered immune response.
• Extended catabolic (muscle-eating) states.
• Heightened presence of the body's stress chemicals.
• Decreased storage of calcium in the bones (due to excess cortisol).
• Decreased ability to recover from hard physical training.

So the question is, "Why would you want this situation to persist?" There is nothing good about it. And when you stop to think about this situation, what purpose is served by punishing yourself for a (real or perceived) transgression committed by someone else?

If the other person actually hurt you, what motivation can you possibly have for continuing to hurt yourself? There is only one correct answer.

Given this information, why would someone not forgive? Two reasons:

1. A mistaken idea of what forgiveness is.
2. Not knowing how to go about it.

Let's tackle each of those. First, understand that forgiveness does not mean you condone what the other person did. Nor does it mean you are willing to forget it as if nothing happened. Forgiving and forgetting are not the same thing.

Forgiveness means letting go of the emotions surrounding the event. Harboring hatred for someone else is like holding a hot coal in your hand. The longer you hold it, the deeper the burn. Let it go.

How do you go about this process of letting go? There's no "right" way and there's really no "wrong" way. Exactly what you do will vary depending on the situation and who is involved. Rather than apply somebody's formula, let your desire to forgive guide you in what to do.

This means you must decide that you are going to forgive and move on.

If you were wronged, it's not wrong for you to feel angry about what happened. Just decide, though, that you aren't going to hold onto that anger while awaiting the apology that will never come. Or awaiting some other outside action. Forgiveness does not need to be a response to someone else for you to do it.

Two don'ts:

• Don't confuse reality with perception. Often, we assign far more importance to a slight than it actually merits. Or we get it wrong entirely. For example, some friends of mine invited me to a musical event in which the wife was playing an instrument. I'm an early riser, and this event started not long before my normal bedtime. I attended, spoke with them during the half-time intermission, and left just as the intermission ended. To me, I had gone above and beyond the call because my support of them resulted in my staying up late and being sleep-deprived for the next several days. They saw it differently, and took great offense at my leaving when I did. They thought I had snubbed them, when the opposite was true.
   
• Don't look for the "hidden meaning" and thereby delay the healing process. Many people view negative events as serving some deliberate purpose of a higher power or their own life plan. And they look for whatever that meaning is, instead of letting go of the negative emotions. Consequently, the original negative emotions remain and are compounded by frustration or confusion. The answer they seek almost never exists or requires a delusion to come into existence. Sometimes, bad things happen just because another person is a psychopath or has some other moral defect. Or is just ignorant and insensitive. It's not about you, it's not your fault, and it didn't happen to teach you a lesson.

Many people think they need to confront the other person, then get an apology, then extend forgiveness. This is not the correct order. First, you forgive. Then you approach the other person with forgiveness already in your heart. This allows you to, without malice, tell the other person how you felt injured (or were injured). An apology isn't necessary for your well-being. If the other person apologies, that benefits the other person.

If someone else apologizes, don't respond by sloughing off the offense unless it actually was no big deal. If it was no big deal, you can state that and just forget the incident ever happened.

But if it's a recurring offense or a major one, you can:

• Accept the apology without condition.
• Say you will accept the apology with condition.

With condition means you have an "only if" for accepting the apology. An "only if" needs to be related to the offense. It has no relation to forgiveness, though. "John, I forgive you. But I will accept your apology as sincere only if you give me back the $20 you stole from me."

In some cases, it is not possible to repair the damage that has been done. Consider, for example, the murder of Nicole Simpson. Of course, O.J. was unrepentant and never apologized. Admitting his grisly crime would have made the case for prosecution even stronger than the nearly airtight case it already was. But suppose he had apologized. That would not have brought Nicole back to life (or Ron Goldman, either).

In cases where it's not possible to undo what was done or simply shrug it off, forgiveness is difficult and an apology hard to honestly accept. If you find yourself unable to forgive the other person or accept an apology due to the nature of the offense, it is worthwhile to seek professional help.

Not because there is something wrong with you (there isn't), but because if you don't get past this situation you will continue to suffer harm from it.

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.