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Can you imagine? Wars arise from a failure to understand one another's humanness. Instead of summit meetings, why not have families meet for a picnic and get to know each other while the children play together? His Holiness the Dalai Lama I would love to see George Bush in a park with Kim Jong Il , Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Pervez Musharraf , Hu Jintao , Nancy Pelosi , etc, etc at some picnic.

So. After we had him a couple of days I recognized two things: why people say a pet is a good prep for a kid why parents are tired all the time. We got Johnders and I found myself constantly worrying about "raising" him right, keeping him healthy, happy and safe. I want my dog that is a good citizen and happy. That's the prep part. The tired is related to that. I was worrying so much that I found myself exhausted. It took me a couple more days to make the connection but I did. The emotional roller coaster is tiring.

I struggle but I know some people who really suffer and these are words they would do well to work to understand. My suffering is usually manidested in procrastination but sometimes depression. I sometimes feel that there are too many important decisions to be made and I can't to it. Other times I feel like there are too many important decisions to be made and I shouldn't be the one to make them. I have some coworkers and family members who have far more severe issues and they blame everybody else for the problems they have. If my mother had done this, if my father had been this, if my boss didn't do this. I so wish some of these people would get the clue that they have something to do with it. Especially when they find themselves in similar situations time and time again. Happiness and suffering come from your own mind, not from outside. Your own mind is the cause of happiness; your own mind is the cause of suffering. To obtain happiness and pacify suffering, you have to ...

I have always envisioned myself as a dog owner but I wanted to do it on my terms. I wanted the dog I wanted when I wanted it and he would be easy to train and well-behaved and so on and so forth. Tara thought if we got a pet it would be a cat. She's not a fan of the dog neediness(is that a word?). We'd talked about getting one and people would tell us getting one is good prep for having a baby, which we are trying to do, but we'd never done anything to really move toward getting a pet. It remained on that "Yeah, one day, probably." list. In August we went to a BBQ at a friend's house and we were greeted by this black & white splotched puppy. It was a very cute, happy, friendly puppy but I didn't think much about him. Then, from across the room, my very unimpulsive , cat-loving wife said "can we keep him?". I was stunned. One, because I would we hadn't planned for it. Two, Tara doesn't say things like that. Three, Tara didn't want ...

I've been kinda busy and haven't posted anything recently. What a great one to restart with. It's sort the same as the Serenity Prayer...work to control the things you can, not worry about the things you can't and learn the difference between the two. We can't control anybody but ourselves and sometimes that seems impossible. Better to conquer yourself than others. When you've trained yourself, living in constant self-control, neither a deva nor gandhabba, nor a Mara banded with Brahmas, could turn that triumph back into defeat. Dhammapada, 8, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

I was walking through the computer room and I saw a mullet wearing, redheaded white guy filling out a profile on blacksingles.com or something like that. Not the kind of guy you'd expect on that site.

I was fortunate enough to see Lucky Dube many years ago at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest. It was a magical afternoon. He was a wonderful gift to the music world. Jah Live! Shock at SA reggae star shooting Technorati Tags: music , reggae , murder , south africa , lucky dube Powered by ScribeFire .

If you haven't noticed, downtown Nashville has added some swanky new bottle/can recycle bins. I don't have a photo but they are quite elegant for a recycle bin. Go Nashville! Recycle Nashville Blog Action Day

I recently posted about the cute, attractive women who come to my desk. Well, what about the other ones? The ones who don't have their stuff together. The teachers who have Diana Gabaldon books in one arm and are asking to check out more than the limit because they "are a teacher". Yeah, there are plenty of those too.

Yeah, sometimes I feel like a dirty old man. There are many very attractive, sometimes flirty, young women who interact with me throughout my work day. I'm not talking disgusting, Lolita-type young, I'm talking way too young for me, which is college-aged & mid-20s. Some are sweet, some are cute, some are sexy and some are a combo of several. Now, there are plenty of women my age and older who fit this desciption but I guess b/c I just dealt with a young one I am thinking about it. She was very sweet and she walked away but turned around and smiled at me (unsolicited, or at least I think so). Anyway, thank God for women. If I had only been more knowledgable in the ways of women when I was younger. Who knows if that would have changed anything. I love my wife more deeply and fully than anyone I've known, other than my mother. I think she is all the things I listed above and more but sometimes I wonder how things would've been different if I had pursued the women I...

Sounds a lot like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", don't you think? Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves. The situation is comparable to our serving food to ourselves and to other people from the same bowl. Everyone ends up eating the same thing--we must examine carefully what we are dishing out. Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, " Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness "