Moving to Hawaii at 19 Years Old? is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

I received a note from a teenager thinking about moving to Hawaii. I answered him by email but I wanted to post it here for everyone’s benefit…

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On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 1:15 PM, <formmailer@secureserver.net> wrote:

Type: AimforAwesome-ContactformBasic
Name: xxxxxx
businessname:
email: xxxxxxxx
websites:
location: originally SF, now Minneapolis
Comment: First off I want to say that it\’s REALLY cool you are in Thailand right now, sounds like you\’re having a blast, I imagine!

okay then, my scenario/question is this: I’m 19 years old, and have recently expressed a desire to move to Hawaii. everything about it seems up my alley, the diversity, being a minority (I share that trait with you, I suppose :), and the the weather/seclusion.

my thing is, I am just wanting to ask advice on how to maneuver it in this economy…now I’m not trying to burden you, but everyone else in my life is really unsupported, and I guess I just want to hear one person tell me it can be done, and how.

I’m planning on saving up 6000-6500 for the period to find a job. I have NO problem working in the tourist industry (kind’ve what I want I’d say), although as time goes by, I’ll probably do IT.

so my question is…can I expect 10/hr working in the hospitality industry as a wage? also…am I being realistic wanting to move to Hawaii? and how long do you think it’d take to find employment in the tourist industry while out there in Oahu (or possibly, the big island)?

any answers would be helpful, and I’m grateful for any help I can get. I know food is expensive and so is housing…but then again, I’m from Northern California :)

thanks for your time,

No problem, hope I helped. Basically you just need to plan and GO. Forget people telling you that you can’t do it. You can. I was there at 19 – in the Air Force and if I was actually free of the air force, my god the time I could have had… lol. Just go – and make it work.

Find some friends or – search twitter for “moving to hawaii” and find people that are going. Chat with them about what all they’re doing. Hopefully you find someone you’re own age going, but you know what? You’re pretty unique for a 19 yr old thinking of doing this! Cheers to you, kudos and all that… Just WANT to make it and you will.

Good luck Stephen…

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Response to “What is the Point of Life?” is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

Sometimes I get amazing comments on some of my articles. This was one reader’s response to my original philosophical question, “What is the Point of Life?”

I really enjoyed reading his take on the meaning of life so much so that I asked for and received his permission to reprint it here as a full article in itself. Enjoy!

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Hi Vern,

I read your article on the meaning of life and I too have been desperately searching for that answer myself. For many years I believed that the meaning or purpose of life was to love. But over the years of watching life happen to myself and others, I have come to question that theory. If the theory of love being the meaning or purpose of life were true, then why is it the hardest thing to attain and maintain?

Bibles all across the various religions and beliefs say this is to be true. They also say the reason we were created was to worship our creator. But I find issues with this thought as well. If G-D is the almightiest of the almighties, as he is, then why would he need or want to create beings for the sole purpose of worshiping him? He has angels for that. And no matter how many people populate the earth, he will become no greater or better, because he is already the greatest. And I can not imagine that someone who is the all powerful would need reaffirmation of his greatness.

I have an even harder time believing that building buildings, becoming wealthy, or being the best carpenter would be a purpose to life since all these things are superficial in themselves and are not needed for survival or inner gain with whatever G-D we believe in.

Friendships, loveships, and life itself is all ending and none are forever. So if love were to be the purpose, then why would they end? Why would we not still be in love with our first crush or first spouse? Why would we love our neighbor one week and loathe them the moment they did something ill to us? And for that matter, why would they have done something ill if they in turn had loved us?

This matter itself has come to manifest itself within me like a mold and I find myself desperately needing that answer since all the things I once held dear throughout my life have come to mean little to me. I used to be a Jones and had it all, until one day I realized all I had was “stuff”. Having material things then meant nothing to me. So I searched for love believing maybe it was the answer to this powerful life. But alas, I discovered that each human being has had and lost love which made me think that if love were it, then it would not abandon us so easily.

Then I came to think maybe it was connection within our souls and minds with our G-D. But that too fails when you logically look at the fact that the more you know, the worse you feel abut it all. It is a heavy burden to know too much about any one thing. Since there is no attaining perfection, no matter how much knowledge you gain, you are only reminded that there is so much more you do not know. And that in itself is a burden to carry because it makes you wonder where the end is. Or if there is an end. And if there isn’t, then why bother at all since you will technically never “complete” the task at hand.

So now I come to a simple place, where I think that maybe there is no point. No purpose. No meaning. Maybe G-D was just bored and wanted something to do so he created us. And through our own actions we have built, loved, and even created, ourselves.

Maybe the point is that there is no point. After all, the most evil in the world live longer and have better health because they care for no one or nothing, so they suffer little stress and its ails. While the good of the world are hit by a car while helping a dying dog on the side of the road.

This world contains absolute idiots who want for nothing all their lives, and yet they worked not a day for it all. Then others who work 7 days a week for years, are still in want and doing without any luxuries at all.

Those who never cheat are cheated on.

Those who never steal are stolen from.

And those who decline drugs are attacked on the streets for the hard earned money so someone can buy more drugs.

I don’t think doing good or bad has any real affects on life other than they go to jail if caught. No matter how bad a person is, there are always people who claim they are actually “good” inside and are even loved by these people. Yet someone like Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to good, was over shadowed in death by a famous woman, who although did much good as well, had not done it for any near the length of time that Mother Teresa had. And here we have Michael Jackson who was accused of molestation, still being the most wanted and famous man in the world.

If I did not know better, I might think that the worse of a person you are, the better the life you live.

And that would be a horrible thing if it were to be true.

So I still have no idea what the answer is. Some say we will find out in the end, but those same teachings also say that when that time comes, that we won’t even anymore care to ask.

If the peoples of yesteryear really did see G-D’s hand, foot, and backside, then why does he not come to us now? Why is it that thousands of years have passed with no word from him? Certainly if we were created to worship him, then he would make himself present for us to do so. And if love were the point, then it would not be the hardest thing to come by. So although I am now wondering if there is not even a point to it all, I still can not help but wonder what if there is. And if so, what it is?!

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A Tweeter No More? is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

Here’s a graph from TweetStats.com that shows how I’ve tapered off Twitter use over the past few months. It’s not that I don’t get some value out of it – I do… however, I get a lot more value out of the other 35 things I’m doing I guess.

That could all change…

A couple days ago as I mentioned in IncAnswers.com, Google and Bing came to separate agreements with the Twitter folks and both search engines will be crawling Twitter’s data in realtime and displaying results in the SERP’s.

What that might mean is… I might all the sudden have a very good reason to start ramping up my Twitter use again. You might too.

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Yet Another Perfect Job in Hawaii is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

There really are some perfect jobs available in Hawaii…

Back in 2004 I was talking with a guy on Maui that had set up a little freelance business where he was going out with a snorkeling tour to Molokini and taking some underwater videos of tourists enjoying their adventure. He’d sell the package on the boat and when he got back to shore he’d put it all together in a video DVD / CD for those that bought the video.

He’d focus shooting video on tourists on the boat that initially showed interest. Those were easiest to sell to later. He was pulling in net from $200-400 per day at the time and he was looking to expand to other tour operators and needed more people to do snorkeling videos on those boats. He wanted a cut of something like $50 per day from me if I chose to join him.

I was pretty interested in doing it. I love snorkeling and free-diving. I love video. I don’t like editing much, but I figured I’d get over it. I was seriously considering it and then I got offered a nice position as marketing manager of a local resort.

The jobs are still available on Maui – there is a girl, that I ass-u-me is the same girl out of Ka’anapali that I talked to in 2007 that was replicating what the first guy was doing. The tone of the ad makes me think that. I could be off though. She is more geared toward the business side of things and was going to lend out video cameras I believe last time I corresponded with her.

Anyway – here is the Craigslist ad >

The point of this post is that there are many amazing jobs in Hawaii – perfect jobs for maybe you or someone you know… Jobs that you would flip over. And, if there aren’t any that you can find? Make one. The guy I talked to in 2004 just saw an opportunity and put it together for himself. He was making $50,000 per year by swimming, shooting and editing video, and talking to people on the vacation of their lives. Sound like something you’d be interested in doing?

Do it for yourself. Hawaii is the land of opportunity. You don’t need to join someone’s gig they already have going, create your own. Incorporate yourself as a business… deduct all business expenses… and create your own Hawaii job. Create your own Hawaii business.

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Best ADD – ADHD Treatment: Meditation is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

I was going phrase the title, “Best ADD – ADHD Treatment? Meditation or Medication? ” but I decided, no – meditation IS the ultimate treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There’s no question in my mind about it.

Why am I sure meditation is the best cure for ADHD?

As I mentioned in my previous post about ADHD – Self Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Diagnosis I have had ADHD – ADD since I was a young child, but only knew it in about 1995 during grad school classes in which we tested each other for various, mostly behavioral disorders.

I had no idea that meditation could be any form of  ADD ADHD treatment and offer any relief from my renegade attention and concentration habits.  I didn’t start meditating for that reason at all. I just thought meditation might be a nice way to relax from the stress of college, working full-time and volunteering as a big brother for 15+ hours per week. I ran and biked, and those helped – but I thought meditation would relax my mind even more.

I couldn’t have been more right.

The type of meditation I did was loosely based on Vipassana, or what Theravada Buddhists call “anapanasati”. Basically I sat down, closed my eyes and watched the breath go in and out. Really that’s basically it. There’s more to it of course, but essentially when you distill it down you could say just that, and have a pretty good synopsis of the whole idea of meditation. Sit and watch the breath at a very small point of concentration where it enters and exits the nostrils.

As one does that – the mind gradually slows down. Over time – days, weeks, months of a regular meditation practice the mind slows down and thoughts come less frequently while meditating. Eventually at some point, they stop. They stopped for me for the first time just a couple months into my practice. The concentration I was able to attain lasted minutes at a time – then tens of minutes… then over an hour.

After the thoughts stop… there is a peace of mind that is impossible to explain. There are many profound experiences that happen as the mind is in this state and it’s quite a journey to say the least. It’s amazing and I’ve tried to capture it in words and videos at some of my websites – but of course the words can never explain an entire body-mind experience.

Anyway, as the months went by I noticed something that was amazing to me. I was having spontaneous periods of concentration on what I was doing.

This was a novel experience for me – living with profound ADHD all my life had robbed me of any spontaneity in my concentration ability. If I wasn’t really trying hard I couldn’t concentrate more than a few seconds on any one topic. It’s a weird way to go through life – but I thought it was normal. Until I started having these amazing states of concentration just happen on their own! I wondered – is this what the rest of the world experiences all the time?

Amazing revelation… meditation has a marked effect on ADD ADHD.

I first started meditating about 1998. Since then I’ve had amazing levels of concentration that have enabled me to write a 130,000 word fiction novel, a 100,000+ word biography, numerous ebooks and create over 100 websites. I consider myself cured of ADHD – ADD but there are still times when it is a challenge to complete some tasks because all the sensory input around me is driving me nutty. In cases like that – if I choose to – I can meditate for a minute or 5 or 10 and resolve all the problems quickly. Sometimes I just like to experience the ADHD for a while because it’s what I thought was normal for 30 years of my life…

Here are some reasons why I believe meditation is the best ADD ADHD treatment:

1. It costs nothing.

2. Residual benefits. You’ll gain relaxation… peace of mind… cure or seriously curb your ADD ADHD in non-meditating, waking states .

3. Meditation is a great way to relax and create a buffer between the you that’s stressed out from work and your family who just wants to experience the stress-free you. Meditation is a great habit to get into purely for this reason alone.

4. Medication involves putting something into your body that gives side effects. Meditation involves slowing the mind down to a very slow, or stopped state… which relaxes you and eases stress.

5. Meditation is available anytime. You don’t have to wait for medication to kick in – you just sit and do it. Focusing on the breath a few times to calm yourself and slow thoughts down a bit works very well once you’ve meditated a few months.

6. You can’t overdose on meditation.

7. Eventually – after months or years you reach a state where you no longer need to meditate and your base-level concentration is much higher than it was. You can keep meditating and keep affecting it, basically operating as a normal human being after some time. Medication doesn’t change you long-term, only short-term.

I hope you look into using meditation as an ADD ADHD treatment that can profoundly change the rest of your life. If you want some help on how to get started I’ve created a free meditation ebook for download here.

If you want to learn more information about ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder < go here.

Best of Life!

Vern

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Self Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Diagnosis is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

There are a number of tests for Adult Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis that purport to give you a true diagnosis online after filling out a 25 question (or less) survey. I saw one instrument that had just 6 questions.

I have ADD, and have had it since I was a child. It was a real relief to learn that I had a situation going on in my head and that this is not how everyone’s brain functions. I think most of us with ADD – ADHD are shocked to learn that we have something that deserves a diagnosis.

To me it was my natural state of mind. It was stressing me out all during grade school, high school, college and grad school. It wasn’t until grad school in psychology that I knew what was going on. We gave each other tests for different maladies and I was diagnosed with profound ADD – ADHD. My attention span had always been just seconds long. Before 1997 I’d not experienced a whole 5 minutes of concentration on any one subject. The cure for me? Meditation. I’ll talk about that more in another post.

There are a whole lot of people out there – and some of you reading this too – that have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder and it would be a relief to have it diagnosed today so you can help yourself.

Recently I’ve had a couple people writing me email about how they find out if they have ADD – ADHD. I referred them to some tests I found online that appear to be valid… are they valid instruments though? I don’t recall the names of the ADD tests we used in grad school and I’ve been firmly entrenched in IT for the last 14 years.

I’m not sure if any online assessments of ADD are valid. I know they can’t be used as a diagnosis. I’d not use online tests to diagnose Attention Deficit Disorder, but they’re very helpful as a pre-diagnosis. A step to take if you’re concerned you might have it – so you can seek a real diagnosis from a qualified mental health professional.

If you’re interested in what the American Psychological Association criteria are for diagnosis of adult ADD – ADHD, click here – taken from the DSM-IV Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition.

Though some say living with ADHD – ADD is all negative, that’s not been my experience. Maybe that’s because I just didn’t know any better for the first 30 years of my life and thought I was experiencing life the same way everyone else was. I’ve enjoyed a life with a lot of change as a result of living with child and adult attention deficit disorder.

Would my life have been the same had my parents diagnosed it when I was 8 years old? The bulk of study on ADD diagnosis and ADHD was in the 1990’s, so it’s not likely anyone knew about ADD in 1974.

My life on ADD medication would have definitely been different. It’s a choice you have to make for yourself – live with it, or medicate.

Or, you can go the route I discovered just by chance… meditation. I’ll write something about how meditation has helped me cope with ADD in the next few days. Self attention deficit diagnosis over the internet is not something I’d recommend. If you look at the criteria for assessing ADD link I gave above there are tightly defined criteria for diagnosing adult attention deficit disorder and answering some questions and applying their scoring rules are not enough.

Getting 28 points when 25 is supposedly indicative of having the disorder doesn’t mean much of anything in itself. If you do score high on the online tests book an appointment with a mental health counselor and get a genuine test and full ADD – ADHD behavioral assessment. You owe it to yourself to find out because ADD disorder is highly treatable.

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Awesome Hawaii Website Idea is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

This is my idea being played out by someone that is actually going through with it. Heh-heh. You know we all have ideas about doing things that we never get started on. Back in 2004 I was considering going to all the top locations on Oahu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai to shoot video, photos, and write comprehensive articles about each place. I wanted to have a website full of media from the best Hawaii locations that everyone linked to because there was nothing else like it.

Instead I took a couple of jobs that paid OK and made me an employee with responsibility to someone else! Mistake perhaps, but I learned a lot.

Anyway, fast forward to today. I’m looking at my RSS feed and I see in Craigslist where someone has listed an ad requiring a budding videographer, photographer, writer, editor, ftp pro and more, to document 10 locations on Maui for $400. He/she is paying $40 per location. Here’s a little bit of the ad below, and the rest of it here:

I am looking for an aspiring travel photojournalist to document a defined set of locations on Maui. Because of the nature of the project, you will be loaned the equipment to record photos and videos. This means you don’t need your own equipment.

Each piece will be:

- At least 300 words of proper, correctly spelled English
- Containing 3 or 4 photos
- With approximately 5 to 10 minutes of raw video footage
- With GPS coordinates
- Uploaded to my Web site

To accomplish all of this, I will loan you the camera, and provide you instructions on how to document the location and record GPS.

You will be paid $40 per piece on a work-for-hire basis. This means that I own the exclusive rights to the text, photos, and videos.  The contract for work will cover 10 pieces, for a total of $400. You will be paid by check upon completion of all 10 pieces.

IS there someone on Maui for whom it would make any sense at all to do all of that for each location for just $40 per location? Heck, gasoline might cost $40 to get there.

I’m betting… No. No, it doesn’t make sense for anyone to do this for someone else. But, for yourself – yes!

I’ve not seen someone tackle this idea with gusto yet and it’s high time someone did. Start with the island you’re on and go document the top visited spots to start with. Create a website with a page for each spot. Add video, many photos, reviews of the spot from sites across the web… take comments from people that are there. Make your site a tremendous resource for tourists who only see the same tired photos of a spot in a brochure… bring the best spots to them and make them come alive…

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Unique Jewelry Gifts for Buddhists is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

There are a lot of Buddhists in Hawaii – maybe more so per capita than in any other US State. I’ve mentioned many times on this site that I practiced Vipassana meditation for a number of months and over the years I can say I’ve gained a lot of happiness as a result. There are different lines of Buddhism – and here in Thailand they practice Theravada Buddhism which some say is the closest to what the Buddha originally taught.

Buddhist birthday amulet (Tuesday)

My wife sells Thai Buddhist amulets and other jewelry at her website. She has gold Buddha amulets, Good Luck amulets, protection amulets, and business prosperity amulets. Recently she bought some new types that I’m struggling to get up online but they include:

• Day of the Week Buddhist Birthday Amulets (Buddha in a diff. pose for each day)
• Good Luck Monk Amulets
• Kwan Yin (Goddess of Compassion) Amulets
• Gold Buddha Amulets
• Solid Silver Ajarn Jumnien (Good Luck Monk) Amulets
• Many types of bracelets and Buddhist yant cloths…

If you’re in the market for someone’s birthday gift and you want to give the person something they’ll not find anywhere in America or wherever you are – have a look at the Buddhist Birthday amulets. There is a separate one for each day of the week corresponding to the day when they were born.

There are even free bracelets and yant cloths if you pay the $9 shipping.

With every sale she donates 10% back to the temple where we buy all the Buddhist items we sell. Good karma for us you know!

Best of Life!

Vern

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Is Your Next Job Working on a Pier? In Hawaii… is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

Found this amazing Hawaii job come across Craigslist that was too good to be true. It actually fits my skill-set and from the job description it appears I could do 95% of what they require – but they require a LOT and I’m not even in Hawaii. Heck, I’m not even in the country!

If this job on the windward side of Oahu is you – apply immediately. They’ve gotta pay well because they require someone to literally know it all and do it all. Of course, if you’re working on a pier everyday… well, I think it’s one of the great positions available in Hawaii.

Ultimate Hawaii Job working on a pier in Waimanalo (Oahu, Hawaii)

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Building Your Blog and STUCK? is a post from my: Aim for Awesome blog. Visit AimforAwesome.com for the original post and many other similar articles.

Most of us reach a point while building our blog where we get stuck and start wondering what direction to go.

I’ve been there a couple years back and unfortunately this amazing resource I’ll tell you below about wasn’t available then.

No matter – I bought it recently to see if it might be of value for readers of my blogs.

It is undoubtedly the most amazing plan for building your blog that I’ve seen… and there are a lot of guides out there.

This was written by Darren Rowse, an Aussie that is like the grandfather of blogging – he’s not that old, but, he’s got the experience of an old-timer in the subject.

Darren’s “31 Days to Building a Better Blog” has nearly 200 pages of information – but, it’s broken down into VERY simple steps that guide you – take you along by hand to complete each task and build your blog from the bottom up.

You might think you know it all. You might think there’s nothing to be learned. That was my initial reaction to the book when it came out. I ignored it for a few weeks… over a month. Then I realized – I ALWAYS learn something from others when I read their guides. Darren is the blogging master – surely I’ll learn ’something’ – right?

I learned a LOT. I know you will learn a LOT too while going through the program.

Give it a shot!

Darren’s workbook is available here >

or, click the image below to see a lot more about this amazing resource…
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31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Darren Rowse

[Disclosure - I've purchased this guide myself and reviewed it. I've found it extremely helpful for me - and so I know you'll get a lot of out of it too. I make a commission from the sales of Darren's guide. ]

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