Category Archives: self-improvement

TV Trains You To Expect The Worst

I was watching an episode of United States of Tara the other day when I had something of a realisation. In case you don't know the show, here's the back story. Tara is a woman with dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personalities). For the sake of TV, they are 5 (or 6) very distinct & …

16/Jun/2010 – 11:18 | By Si | Posted in life, self-improvement | Comments (13)

The Moments That Define Us

Now, from a title like that, you may be thinking I'm talking about those lifetime events that mark our place in history — ala Bill Gates selling DOS to IBM, or Lawn Chair Larry. No, I'm talking about the moments that define our character, and as a result, ultimately us as human beings. It breaks …

26/Nov/2009 – 00:04 | By Si | Posted in life, self-improvement | Comments (2)

Anger is Stupid

Two interesting things happened to me this week. The first, let's call "Event X", was that someone made me very, very angry. There's no value in getting into the specifics, but I've wracked my brain & been unable to come up with a worse thing that anyone has ever done to me. There probably is, I …

02/Nov/2009 – 14:02 | By Si | Posted in health, self-improvement | Comments (4)

How To Be Confident

Confidence is a funny thing. It comes in two flavours. How confident other people believe you are, & how confident you feel internally. The two are related, but not necessarily linked. E.g., it's quite common that other people see us as more confident than we may actually feel. So how do you go about becoming …

25/Aug/2009 – 05:01 | By Si | Posted in communication, healing, self-improvement | Comments (9)

How To Stop Feeling Bad

Why do we feel bad? It's a good question. An easy answer would be "because bad stuff happens to us", but what for one person would be a disaster, someone else might barely notice. So what's actually going on here? In a nutshell? We beat ourselves up. That little voice in our heads giving us shit. Yep, …

18/Aug/2009 – 03:10 | By Si | Posted in healing, life, self-improvement | Comments (8)

Happiness Is Always A Choice

So let's rock this up a notch. We've already discussed that we are not our thoughts or emotions. We've checked out not verbalising negative thoughts. What's the next logical thing to do? Take it back a step, of course. If we're not our thoughts or emotions, well, who controls them? We do! We're the damn boss, …

29/Apr/2009 – 01:39 | By Si | Posted in healing, self-improvement | Comments (38)

Stop Whining, Start Winning

How often do you complain? No, I don't mean half hour long soliloquies at the barista because your coffee is cold, I mean just everyday complaints. Anytime you verbally express a negative thought, that's a complaint. Why do we do this? Habit, typically. Sometimes boredom, But deeper than that — oftentimes it's a social thing …

17/Apr/2009 – 06:21 | By Si | Posted in communication, life, self-improvement | Comments (13)

Better Communication In One Second

I'm going to start a little geeky, but be patient, I'll keep it super short & it's totally relevant. What's interesting about TCP (heard of TCP/IP? Yeah, it's part of that) is how the initial communication, the 'handshaking' bit goes. Very roughly, it's goes like this: Hello? [SYN] I can hear you! [SYN-ACK] Me too! [ACK] …

31/Mar/2009 – 11:07 | By Si | Posted in life, self-improvement | Comments (6)

You Are Not Your Thoughts, Emotions Or Body

Here's an old, but useful exercise: Pay attention to your thoughts. What are you thinking right now? Ok. Good. Here's another one: What are you feeling right now? What is your primary emotion? Ok, excellent. Bear with me. If you lost your little finger in an accident, would you still be you? Or, put another way, since …

20/Mar/2009 – 04:19 | By Si | Posted in healing, self-improvement | Comments (12)

What The Hell Is Karma?

I was talking to a friend the other day about karma, and I got to wondering — what the hell IS it, exactly? I mean, everyone thinks they what it is, right? You do something bad — in this life or past — and it'll come back & bite you on the arse. Ok, well that's simple. …

17/Oct/2008 – 05:51 | By Si | Posted in life, self-improvement | Comments (2)