Jun 15 2009

DaddyTips Show and Tell – Holistic Living Edition

The Love Guru soundtrackWe are nothing if not holistic in our house. Wait, I thought “holistic” was the name of a new Wii game. No?

OK, I’m not all that holistic or spiritual or whatever. But I appreciate those who are. And I do eat organic stuff, and just joined a farm share. So maybe we’re a little more ho-ho than I think.

Anyway, here are some links:

  • Gorgeous, Healthy Recipes & My Favorite Salad: by Valerie Reiss, via BeliefNet’s FreshLiving blog. I’ll need to do a better job of actually collecting recipes once the farm share food starts coming in. I don’t think the family will be content with my bacheloresque method of cooking vegetables, which is (a) steam, (b) add olive oil, (c) eat. Yawn. I could do it because taste isn’t as important to me as convenience. When you cook for other people, though, you need to pay attention to what they care about. And frankly, there’s nothing inherently evil about following a recipe. I need to remember that. Maybe I’ll make a sign or something.
  • How to Be Persuasive (and Not Get Persuaded): also by by Valerie Reiss from BeliefNet’s FreshLiving blog. (She’s a friend.) It’s not “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (although I’ve been told that’s a good book to read, despite the cringe/cliche factor). It has more to do with advertising and the things they (THEY) use to get us (YOU! ME! YOUR CHILDREN!) to buy stuff (CRAP! It’s all CRAP!). Valerie takes a couple of the items to another level, such as this one: “Giving someting away makes it less desirable. (This might be a good one to apply to our relationships–if we over-give, we can be under-valued.)” Indeed. This one, “Admitting you’re wrong makes people trust you more,” might be true for everyone except the President of the United States.
  • Intent.com is a strange site. There’s a lot of “I intend to” do whatever. Usually it’s positive, as in “I intend on making today my best possible day,” rather than, oh I don’t know, “I intend to transport a hooker across state lines despite the fact that I’m married and am Governor of New York.” Then there’s this one: “My Intent is to breathe in and out all day :)” I should hope so! I see these “intend” statements and it makes me think of Yoda. “Do, or do not. There is no try.” (Here’s video if you, for some strange reason, don’t know what I’m talking about.) I mean, who INTENDS to do something bad? Or stupid? Or immoral? I guess the idea is something of a “think positive and good things will happen”/”The Secret” type thing. Whatever gets you through the night is all right, I suppose, but at some point doesn’t it make sense to, like, think in terms of actually DOING something?
  • Deepak Chopra would like us to “Intend the Return of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.” I mean, sure. That would be nice. I’m guessing diplomacy would work better, though.
  • Let’s close out with another Deepak post, this one about what the proper age is to teach children meditation. Best advice in there is this: “It’s important that they don’t feel pressured to meditate because the parents want them to.” Can you imagine? “Dammit Jimmy, I gave you a friggin’ mantra! Now close your eyes and chant! CHANT, DAMN YOU!”

Image: Amazon

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