We are doing this challenge to develop more mental fitness but also for a greater cause. In order to support us and help keep us accountable I’d love you to sponsor us to stick to the challenge. Your donation will help build clean water projects in the developing world and transform the lives of one in nine people on the planet who don’t have access to lifes’s most essential need – clean, safe drinking water.

It only takes $30 to bring clean water to one person for life.

Thanks so much for your support!

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I have been collecting one liner jokes for quite some time. These are some of my favorites.

Puns

 “Learn sign language, it’s very handy.”

“To write with a broken pencil is pointless.”

“I used to be a banker but I lost interest.”

“I couldn’t quite remember how to throw a boomerang, but eventually it came back to me.”

The stationary store moved.

Time flies when you’re throwing watches.

What did the light say when it was turned off? I’m delighted.

The toilet at my local police station has been stolen. The cops have nothing to go on

Paper is interesting. I could write a book on paper!

Dry erase boards are remarkable.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

How do oil companies deal with oil spills? ..Slick Lawyers!

“What do you call a guy with a rubber toe? ROBERTO”

Walk into bar jokes

A blind man walks into a bar. And a table. And a chair.

The past, present and the future walk into a bar. It was tense….

Two Irishmen walk past a bar…

Four fonts walk into a bar the barman says ”Oi – get out! We don’t want your type in here”.

A jumper cable walks into a bar, and the bartender says “I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything”

The bartender says…”we don’t serve time travelers in here.” A time traveler walks into a bar.

Joe Moore Jokes

“If you lie to people to get their money, that’s fraud. If you lie to them to get their votes, that’s politics.” ~Joe Moore

“Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what’s wrong with it.” ~Joe Moore

Time may be a great healer, but it’s a poor beautician. – Joe Moore

Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper upbringing, a sound set of values, and witnesses. – Joe Moore

Makeup is used by young girls to make them look older sooner, and by their mothers to make them look younger longer. ~ Joe Moore

Those who complain most about how the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it. – Joe Moore

At some point every teenager wonders how such dull parents produced such a bright child. ~ Joe Moore

If you want to succeed, take the advice you give to others.  ~Joe Moore

We’re inclined to exaggerate almost everything, except our mistakes. – Joe Moore

The trouble with alarm clocks is that they always go off when you’re asleep. ~Joe Moore

A vacation is an experience where money and time race each other until both are exhausted.  ~Joe Moore

At some point every teenager wonders how such dull parents produced such a bright child. – Joe Moore

Come back soon for more jokes. I will keep updating this list.

The last time I sat an exam was over 30 years ago when I completed a Bachelor Degree in Engineering. I dislike exams and have avoided continuing my studies ever since. But I have come to a point in my life where I need upgrade my long neglected and now “old school” skills .  Thankfully, MOOCS such as Coursera and edX have come to my rescue as a way to “test the water” so to speak and commit to Lifelong Learning again.  Money and age are no longer an excuse for me anyone.

I just completed a wonderful MOOC called Learning How To Learn.  I highly recommended this MOOC as it teaches how to study, retain information, and how to pass exams. More importantly it has given me the confidence that I can still learn new things, and pass stressful exams.

Currently I am doing some basic Computer Science MOOCS. Computer Science has changed a lot from 30 years ago!!!  The advantage of MOOCS is you get to do the same introductory courses offered by the some of the most authoritative and famous Universities in the world such as Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.

These are the courses I have started:

• Web Application Architectures (Ruby On Rails) – The University Of New Mexico
• CS450x Introduction to Computer Science – Harvard University
• 6.00.1X Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python – MIT

They are a great stepping stone to going back to University part time.

Are you currently doing any MOOCs, or do you recommend any?

Why do I never seem to complete my goals over the long-term? Is it due to Procrastination, or is it due to Lack Of Commitment?  At first I would suggest it’s due to procrastination, but after careful thought I would have to say that lack of commitment is the main reason, and there is a scientific formula that has shown me why.  It also pinpoints the areas I need to fix.

If you have time please listen to the full Tim Pychyl interview of Dr Heidi Reeder on the  Iprocrastinate podcast titled “commit to win”.  The following are my thoughts and notes from this podcast.

Commitment is feeling psychologically attached to something and intending to stay with it.

What am I attached to?  Should I be attached to it? What do I want to really be attached to?

Despite the Buddhist  view of attachment as a source of our suffering, “healthy attachment” is still necessary for our survival and emotional health. After all, we would starve if we were not attached to the process and product of gathering food.  Commitments (attachments) can be helpful for us and unhelpful for us.

Motivation and willpower may  help us get started and overcome procrastination but we need commitment to complete projects.

Ask yourself the question, “Do I feel real value and see myself as “the person” who exercises daily? (my identity).  Or, do I just  exercise out of guilt?”

Identify is tied in with commitment and attachment.  The reverse is also true, for example if I have been in a dead-end career for decades such that it has become part of my identity I will find it really hard to change careers to something more fulfilling.

We need to re-invest daily into our commitments and there is only room for a few of them in our busy lives, and those few but important commitments need to have real meaning and identity for us.

TIP Try this next time you don’t feel like exercising,  instead of saying “I don’t want to exercise today” trying rephrasing it as “I am not committed to and my health and wellbeing”. This will wake you up to the cost of not committing to your goal daily.

The Formula That Predicts Commitment Level

COMMITMENT = TREASURES – TROUBLES + CONTRIBUTIONS – CHOICES

TREASURES – rewards, benefits. What do I value about this goal?  How does it benefit me?

TROUBLES – what are the costs? The things I don’t like dealing with.

CONTRIBUTIONS – what have I already contributed? How much time and effort have I already invested.

CHOICES – if I see a lot of other choices I am more likely to be less committed. Too many alternatives.

Applying this formula, I can see where I have gone “off the rails” with my goals in the past  –  primarily the CHOICES  subtractions in the equation.

Troubles for me include getting sick as well as my family members getting sick.   Choices for me include trying to “spin too many tops at the same time” with multiple projects and websites instead of focusing on a few projects.  Also the Internet is a minefield of CHOICES and distraction (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter..). Having already contributed too much time to multiple projects has also stopped me from dropping a lot of these “bad commitments.”   Not seeing any payoff (or TREASURES) for all my efforts because of chasing too many CHOICES has also limited my level of commitment.

The solution,

concentrate on a just few projects that are closest to my identity and values.

As can be seen from the scarcity of blog posts I have been slack last few months. It’s time to get the paddles out and electric shock myself back into action.

This is my plan.

Week days

5:00am – wake up

• journal my dreams from the night before
• do lesson from Goals Guy 100 Day Challenge and write an affirmation twitter post based on the lesson
• do 15 minutes of meditation, gradually building up to 30 minutes and eventually an hour
• do 15 minutes of Ultimate Abs from Tapout XT

Lunch

• eat a bean salad, with nuts, fresh salad from our vegetable garden and seasoned with turmeric, pepper, vinegar and olive oil.
• take a nap or go for long walk

6:00pm – at home

• tap out XT
• shower (start taking cold showers to burn more fat)
• dinner – whatever family eats. On fast days I will eat green salad from our garden with vinegar and olive oil
• write blog post for this blog (starting with this one)
• on fast days I like to go to bed earlier
• on non fast days I commit to doing my Coursera and EdX  courses. ( 1 hour)
• get to bed by 9pm (to give me about 8 hours of sleep).
• before going to bed I write one or two things that I am grateful for from the day

Weekends

• spend time with family
• catch up on Coursera and EdX courses
• go for walk in country

Do you also have a personal  Life makeover plan? I would love to hear your plan.

” What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.” ~ HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817– 1862)

We all want to be happy and spend a lot of time and energy to avoid the pain that stems from sadness and suffering.  Go to any book shop and you will see hundreds of books all dedicated to helping us to avoid pain and suffering. There are also thousands of blogs and gurus providing just as many ways to “true happiness”.  But you ever stopped to think about the cost of happiness?

“Creating doesn’t make us unhappy; unhappiness makes us creative.” ~ Eric G. Wilson

Professor Eric G. Wilson in his book “Against Happiness” argues that without sadness there would no creativity, inventiveness, imagination, or philosophic thought.  Without melancholy society would lose it’s soul as people would not have the desire to look beyond their “happy state” to find new meaning in life in new experiences and as yet un-imagined existential states.  Professor Wilson argues that we need to embrace melancholia as a necessary and healthy state of life.

Melancholy In History

There are hundreds of examples of exceptionally creative melancholics throughout time– Abraham Lincoln, Cary Grant, Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill to name a few.

Many writers and artists created their greatest works during times of melancholy and depression.

For example singer Joni Mitchell once said:

“Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it” ~ Joni Mitchell

Recognizing the darker parts of herself was essential to recognizing the good.

“Depression opens the door to beauty of some kind.” ~James Hillman

httpv://youtu.be/8li-3pRrA5Y

The Interdependence of Opposites

Psychologist Carl Jung studied an ancient Taoist work called “The Secret of the Golden Flower” and concluded that two things that often appear to be opposites may actually be “independent manifestations of the same principle.”   For Jung, the underlying principle was the unconscious.

• Ying and Yang
• Darkness and Light
• Female and Male

To Jung melancholy and sadness often lead to greater understanding, and are a necessary catalyst for insight and self-awareness.  There can be no “shaping of identity” without melancholy.

• Doubt breeds knowledge
• Brooding breeds enlightenment
• Fear breeds strength
• Worry breeds action
• Melancholy breeds creativity

Seeing Beauty

“Pain is the muse of beauty.” ~ John Keats

Melancholia allows us to see true beauty. Without it we would not be able to differentiate it from what is merely pretty.

A lot of our aversion to pain and suffering stems from our fear of death. Connecting to our melancholy helps us to recognize that everything is temporary and fleeting. Instead of escaping our fear of death we should confront it and explore it. By dong so we can more appreciate life’s beauty, brilliance and possibility. We become energized to live more fully and creatively.  It brings us back in touch with reality, but with a open mind of questioning, introspection, and invention.

“there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.” ~Alan Watts

The Cost Of Happiness

Americas devotion to happiness has worked.  Almost 85% of U.S. citizens claim to be happy. But at what cost? Global warming, pollution, rain forests are being decimated, animal species are becoming extinct daily, terrorism and poverty still exist.  Are we escaping reality in a quest to everlasting bliss?

 “Happiness has increasingly been thought to be more about getting little infusions of pleasure, about feeling good rather than being good, less about living the well-lived life than about experiencing the well-felt moment.” ~Prof D. M. McMahon

“Not only does excessive happiness sometimes wipe out its benefits for us—it may actually lead to psychological harm.” ~Prof. June Gruber

In conclusion, constant happiness could be argued to be artificial and delusional. To truly experience life we must embrace the dualities of Life’s natural cycles of both darkness and light.

SOURCE:Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy

Mojo is the opposite of “Nojo” or “No Joy”.  It is being positively engaged in life with a feeling of happiness and purpose that radiates from within and outward to infect those around you. Joy and meaning always follow. It’s really the same word as being “in flow state”, or being “in the zone” if you’re an athlete.

If you have “lost your mojo” then don’t worry it is not a natural state. It is something that you can work to develop. Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Retier  promise to show us how in their book “Mojo how to Get It, How to Keep It, How to get It Back If You Lose It.”

What Is “Mojo”?

The book defines “Mojo” as a

“positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.”

• “positive spirit”
  – a demeanor of happiness and meaning
• “toward what we are doing”
  -a feeling of joy in what we are doing
• “now”
  -being fully involved and focused in the present. Not the past or future
• “that starts from the inside”
  -you know it if you have it
• “and radiates to the outside”
  -you emanate joy that others notice.

Mojo is opposite to the life of most people. The life of most of us can be described as apathetic, listless, bored, negative, victimized and resentful.  In contrast, people with Mojo look forward to the beginning of each day optimistically, and take responsibility for their lives. They have a life of meaning and happiness.

Mojo consists of four components, each of which you must fully understand about yourself  in order to build your Mojo.

1. Identity
   – Who are you?  What do you want to be in the future?
2. Achievement
   – What have you achieved? What are your ambitions or personal goals for the future (not what other people what from you)?
3. Reputation
   – Be excellent always in all that you do. You cannot maintain mojo with a bad reputation.
4. Acceptance
   – Learn to tolerate or release what you can’t control – enemies, toxic emotions, past and future

Building Your Mojo

Mojo is not your natural state, but it can be developed. Humans have evolved to be comfortable in whatever situation they find themselves in. A state of inertia is a natural state. We continue to do what we have always been doing even if it makes us unhappy. This prevents growth. Therefore the first step is to make an effort to change and then commit to stick to that commitment to change (grit).

Next, start to constantly analyze all your daily activities and to ask two questions:

1. Meaning – Does this task bring me closer to my long range purpose and meaning?
2. Happiness – Does this task bring me joy and contentment in the short range?

Mojo Scorecard

Another useful tool to determine which tasks enhance your mojo and which don’t is to use the “mojo score card”.  For each task or goal rate each of the following measures on a 1 to 10 scale for a final tally out of 100.

1. Motivation

low score – you are just passing time on this activity

high score – you are enthusiastically involved.

4. Knowledge

low score –  you are unsure on how to do the activity
high score – you know how to do this activity deeply

3. Ability

low score – you don’t have the skills (built over time) to do this activity
high score – you have the skills that this activity demands

4. Confidence

low score – you are not confident in your ability to complete this task
high score – you have no doubt in your ability to complete this task

5. Authenticity

low score – you don’t really like the task
high score – you genuinely like doing this activity

6. Happiness

low score – the activity does not bring you joy
high score – the activity brings you joy

7. Reward

low score – the activity is not worth the effort
high score – the activity is worth it financially or otherwise

8. Meaning

low score – the activity provides no fulfillment
high score – the activity fulfills your goals and ambitions

9. Learning

low score – the activity does not help you grow
high score – the activity helps you grow

10. Gratitude

low score – the activity is boring and tedious
high score – you appreciate and are glad to be doing this task

How did you score on the main task you perform at your work or business?   What was your score out of 100?

There are two parts to mojo; your personal identity (“you”), and your life situation (“it”). To build your Mojo you have to change either yourself or your life situation.  The mojo score cards can be used determine which part you need to change.

My Review:  Despite all the positive reviews on Amazon, the book was disappointing. It is full of basic tips on self development and not backed up with reference to the volumes of research on peak performance and flow. However, the Mojo scorecard is still a useful tool to help determine if your goals or the tasks you plan to perform will get you into flow state or not.

SOURCE:Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Most of us have too much to do and too little time to do it in. At the start of each day it’s easy to feel just plain overwhelmed with the workload ahead of us.

Laura Stuck (“The Productivity Pro“) in her book “What To Do When There’s Too Much To Do” outlines a six-step “Productivity Workflow Formula” designed to help you do less but higher quality work each day.

“There is nothing so useless as doing that which should not be done at all.” ~Peter Druker

More Is Not Better

You can be successful by doing less. Studies have shown that people who work 60-hour weeks are 25% less productive! At the end of your work day today ask yourself, “Was I productive today, or  was I just busy?”  You should never confuse activity with productivity. Remember you’re not a robot. Long hours just lead to physical and mental fatigue which leads to more mistakes, slower work and wasted time.  Instead, do less work but do it better and more focused. Laura says, “The true source of productivity isn’t nonstop output; it’s a refreshed and energized mind.”  To focus your energy more effectively follow her six-step  formula.

Productivity Workflow Formula

1. Determine What to Do

If you have a very long to-do list decide what stays on your list by estimating the value you offer to your company. For example how much you have saved the company each year or how much it would cost if you left. Then evaluate each task based on your personal value.

1. What tasks are most important? – keep tasks that match your boss’s priorities
2. What do you care about? – keep that give you a feeling of completion at the end of the day
3. Keep tasks that further your goals – remove or delegate any tasks that don’t move your forward

2. Schedule Time to Do It.

Make sure you assign realistic deadlines to each task. Complete the bulk of your work at the times of the day you feel most focused and energized.

3. Focus Your Attention

It is estimated that workers waste 28% of their day dealing with interruptions. If you can’t find a quite place to work use headphones and play calming music to drown out any background noise.

Don’t multitask. Laura wans, “Stop multitasking. It just dilutes your attention and fools you into thinking you’re productive, when you’re really just busy.”

4. Process New Information

Limit the information you process each day. Unsubscribe from mailing lists. Use Laura’s “6-D Information System“:

1. Discard – don’t keep paper or emails because you think that you will need them later
2. Delegate – reassign to someone else if it does not help with your goals
3. Do – act on the item now
4. Date – assign realistic due dates to tasks you need to put off
5. Drawer – file important items that don’t require immediate action
6. Deter – stop unwanted calls or interruptions

5. Close The Loop

Always keep on top of your tasks. Focus on your main goals, keep your deadlines, and communicate information clearly to reduce rework.

6. Manage Your Capacity

Your health should always come first and if you don’t take care of yourself you won’t have the energy to work efficiently. Your productivity will go down. Take regular breaks. Never eat at your desk go for a walk outside or eat in the lunch room. Get adequate sleep. Powernap if you can during the day. Eat healthy. Exercise.

If the above six-steps fails to make you productive then Laura makes a good point that may apply to you, “If you don’t already, learn to love what you do – or change careers. You can’t maximize your productivity if you don’t enjoy your work.”

I highly recommend Laura’s book, “What To Do When There’s Too Much To Do” for more tips to help you deal with overwhelm when you have too much to do.

SOURCE:What To Do When There’s Too Much To Do: Reduce Tasks, Increase Results, and Save 90 a Minutes Day