Be Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier

Dear Friends,

I got this e-mail from my buddy in Salt Lake City.  Before this email, I have no clue who Randy Pausch was; fortunately I took his suggestion and watched the ABC Prime Time interview. He is a Carnegie Mellon University computer science Professor who created Electronic Art Center in the University which become the gold standard for all electronic art industry.  You can watch the video below to get details on his bio.  FYI, he is 46 years old I think.

After watching the interview, I realized what make Randy truly special is not just his contribution to the computer science field, but most importantly his perspective on life and how he lives his life.  What an incredible person, what an inspiring story, what a power message and what an enlightened teacher!  Indeed, as my buddy Dave said “There are lessons to be learned for all of us!”  I remember a mentor told me once: “When the student is ready, a teacher will show up to guide the way”.  So are you ready to receive this message, to learn from him and apply what you learned from him in your life RIGHT NOW?  While we may never have a chance to hear his lecture live (because he is dying), thanks to internet, we can still learn from him, spread his messages, and past on his loving legacy.  

For those of you who missed the Prime Time Interview,  I went on the internet and found this link:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LastLecture/  I hope ABC will maintain this link for a while.

For those of you who want to see the full version of “Last Lecture” (and that’s me for sure) here is the link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184

PLEASE FIND A QUIET PLACE AND TIME TO WATCH IT AND SHARE IT!  (note: you may need to cut and paste the link onto your browser instead of clicking it directly)

Hint:  If you’ve gone through it and you find yourself said “I already know this, I already know that…”  then you probably “missed” something   Knowing is one thing, getting and living it is another   Knowledge is only an amusement and sometimes be used to brag and stroke our ego, it serves very little.  On the other hand getting it and living it,  wow! that’s powerful!  So, don’t shortchange yourself!

Love,

Alice

From: Dave Kimball

Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:37 PM
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Subject: DON’T MISS THIS!!!

To My Friends:

LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST!!!  Whether I have known you for years, or for just a short time, I am so GRATEFUL for the many friends I have!  THANK YOU!!!  Truly, I feel Blessed!  As many of you know, 9 years ago, My Life changed forever!  Since then, I have had a different view of Life!  I have attempted to live My Life differently!  Recently, I learned of a Gentleman named Randy Pausch!  Nothing represents or embodies my view-The way I would like to live, My Life, more than Randy Pausch!  He gave a lecture titled his “Last Lecture”!  Tonight, Wednesday April 9th, Primetime with Diane Sawyer interviews him at 9:00 pm on ABC.  He has such a BEAUTIFUL SOUL!  There are Lessons to be learned for all of us!  I would like to share this with you!  And, I would strongly encourage you to watch this Special!  Don’t miss it!  TIVO or Record, if you need to!  Thank You for being you!!!  LIFE ROCKS!!!  Thank you, for showing up in My Life, with all your Greatness!

Love and Blessings  ~Dave

Do you often wake up with stiff neck and shoulder, lower back pain, numbed arm and/or legs?  Lately, I have a few such episodes of discomfort.  It prompts me to do some research and revisit my sleeping and sitting postures.  I thought I share my findings with you.

It appears that most of us (at least me) are not using the pillow properly.  I thought the pillow was mainly to support my head; but in reality, it should be supporting my neck!  Also, to ensure my lower back gets proper rest, I am suppose to have a small pillow under my knees.  Wow, I had no idea!  I guess I really have been ignoring and not give proper support in maintaining the natural curvatures on my neck and my lower spine.  I’m really feeling it now.

Below are some links with pictures in it that I found that might give you a better sense of what I am talking about.

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/health/health-info/docs/0300/0359.asp?index=4485

http://www.riverside-online.com/health_reference/Brain-Spine-Stroke/LB00003_D.cfm

http://www.pthands-on.com/posture.html

Well, I am no doctor or anything; this is purely base on my own experience that I like to share with you. So, take it for whatever it is worth and definitely check with your doctor first.

Even though supposedly I lived in the “warmer” side of the country –California, I always dread the winter season because it seems that every season for one reason or another, I bound to get the cold or the flu of the season (last year, I decided to start taking flu shot, but this year they ran out in my area) .  The problem is while most people can seem to get over their cold or flu in a week or so, my symptoms would last at least 3 weeks to over 1 month!  I felt miserable the whole time.

In the past few years, I’ve been told that taking vitamin-C will really help.  So, I started my extra vitamin-C in the winter season; it helps, but on the occasion that I sill get the cold or flu, continue taking vitamin-C seems to have minimum effect in helping me shorten the cold or flu’s duration.

This year, I got a tip from a friend telling me that actually zinc is most needed and it will really help; so I decided to give it a try.  This time, I take both vitamin-C and Zinc.  Surprisingly, yes, I did feel much better and I got over my cold and flu much faster! (Yes, unfortunately, I got both the flu and the cold this year L).   It’s worth pointing out that I didn’t take any over the counter medicine at all; just vitamin c and Zinc!  I got over my last cold in less than a week!  Wow, this has never happen to me before; that why I recommend you to give zinc a shot. By the way, I took the time to read more upon zinc on the internet.  The consensus is that when we have a cold, our zinc level seems to get depleted quicker. Since zinc is really necessary to boost your immune system, taking zinc supplement is definitely recommended.  However, we do have to be careful on not having too much zinc in our body.  So, my strategy is taking 1 tablet a day only while I am sick, but never while I am health.  So far so good…

As I was driving home, it dawns on me all of the sudden the magnitude of what a marriage vow is all about!  I got that marriage vow is really an ultimate expression to the other person promising that they can count on you for the rest of your life.  Yet looking at the reality, listening to my friends’ complaining about the little things that their husband repeatedly promised and didn’t do and my own frustration of dealing with incidents of broken promises but fill with justifications with my boyfriend, I can see how a otherwise great marriage or a great relationship can and do deteriorate overtime right in front of our eyes by these appearing inconsequential and innocent broken promises!  Each broken promises no matter how small it appears done repeatedly, just reinforce the message that “Na, I’m kidding, you can’t really count on me, you shouldn’t count on me and how dare of you counting on me!”.

The worst part is talking to couples years later, they often speaking of falling out of love with such confusion and mystery.  Yet, I see no mystery anymore.  When one person finally decided they can’t  and won’t count on the other person to do what they say they are going to do ever again and start seeking other solutions, over time, the connection is broken and when couples continues to ignores it and not working to restore the integrity behind each words said, the game will be over.

Yes, when a promise is broken in a marriage or your relationship, you often expect the other to “understand”; you get upset with your better half for not being a considerate partner.  Yet, the funny thing is that the same you would not dare to repeatedly breaking your promises at work; the consequence for doing that at work is clear; if you break your promises at work to someone important in the company often enough, you are guarantee to be out of work soon.  However, most people often fail to realize that keeping a marriage or a great relationship is no different than keeping your job!  If you fail to keep your promises and do what you said you will do often enough, you lose your credibility, your trustworthiness the same way;  you may not lose your marriage or your relationship, but you are guarantee to have a rocky marriage or relationship that fill with irritation, distrust, argument and coldness.   So, if your marriage or your relationship is really as important to you as your work, why is it OK for you to not be as diligent with you words in your relationship as you do at your work?  Think about it, Women maybe from Venus and Men maybe from Mars, but the basis for a great relationship is really no rocket science!

Do you ever getting into a situation where no matter how careful you tried saying something or how precise you tried to communicate something, the other person seems to always find the “worse” interpretations of what you said and fight you all the way?  Do you feel frustrated?  Do you feel suppressed? Do you feel hopeless and angry at those moments?  (By the way, this can totally go the other ways too. i.e. someone trying to say something to you and the more they said the angrier and defensive you got…)

Yet, in other instances, your communication with another can be quite sloppy; sometimes you didn’t even need to finish your sentences, the other person will get it anyway?

Well, Robert and I had a couple episodes like the first case last month. It seems like the more we want to “communicate” with each other on this particular topic, the more we get angry with each other.  Knowing that we usually communicate and “get” each other so well in so many areas of our relationship, it baffles me that we can totally lose relatedness with each other on this one topic to the point of wondering why we stay together.  Needless to say, there was some drama in the air surrounding our relationship.

Finally, instead of attempting to throw even more communication at each other or tries to “communicate” yet a “different way”, I decided to give each other a “time out”.

In my “time out” period,  I sat back, playing back in my head what I said to Robert and what he said to me, he’s reactions to what I said and my reactions to what he said; like watching a video recording, I paused, rewind and slowed down frame-by-frame many times.  I asked myself: How exactly did the conversation went so badly? 

Surprisingly, an answer came into my head like a switch: “You are solving the wrong problem!  It’s a trust issue and not a communication issue, girl!  Communicating with each other is not your problem!”

Duh!  Of course, on this particular case, due to my past reactions to what he told me, Robert didn’t trust that I would support him and based on his past actions (or inactions), I didn’t trust that he would do what he said he is going to do!  So how can we really come to an understanding that give both of us comfort and assurances that we need, when we don’t trust each other?  The answer is no way!  Regardless how much we communicate with each other and how refined our communication techniques were, it would have made no difference!

Fortunately, proper awareness of what is the real issue is indeed the first step needed to start restoring our harmony.  From there, instead of jump into yet another communication session on “the topic”, we took the time to acknowledge our fears, our distrust and where we lost each other’s trust.  From there we discuss how we can both improve in gaining each other’s trust.   

Life is good again, I’m grateful to have gone through this experience and get that when something is not working, more communication or better communication may not be the solution.  When communication fails, it is time to step back and check whether or not trusting is the real issue. Without trust, no communication; regardless how fine the technique you use, will ever get through to another person.  So, let’s work on trust first.

p.s. On the topic of trust, I recently found a wonderful book that really helped me get a lot of clarity on this topic.  It is called “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen M. R. Covey (He is the son of Stephen R. Covey, the author of 7 habits of highly effective people).  I highly recommend this book as a resource to start tackling on any trust issues and start opening a constructive dialog on trust with people you run into issue with.

I can no longer imagine a life without Thanksgiving.  It seems like this is the one day that still reminds us to be grateful, to be appreciative of what has been given to us and to encourage the spirit of sharing; no huge religious connotation; just a pure human-to-human love and appreciation.  I love this holiday more than any other holiday I can think of.  This is the holiday that gets my heart pumping looking forward to meeting my relatives and getting a wild feast.  It reminds me to appreciate the life that I got (the whole package the good, bad and ugly), and be grateful that I am surround by people who have a lot of love for me.   I have to admit that it didn’t use to be that way.

When I was in “survival” mode, I could of careless about Thanksgiving.  Every time when I thought of my relatives, it reminded me of what they didn’t do for me and what wrong they have done on me.  Who want to spend holiday with them anyway.   I used to attend family get together out of obligation.  The thought of it was painful!

So, what changed me?  I guess through out my years of personal development, I finally figure out what forgiveness is all about.  THAT was a hard one for me to learn.   I was a stubborn one and not the fastest learner J  yet when there is will there is way, 20 years later and I lost count of how many personal development courses I took later, my light bulb on this finally came on.   I finally let go of my hate.  Whatever the hate and grudge I hold on to, from 2 year old to 10 year old to 40 year old… I let go! I let go for my sake and not for anyone else’s sake; like a ton of bricks that I finally given myself the permission to throw away.   Surprisingly, compassion flew in and forgiveness followed.  All there left is the gratefulness of being alive and new awareness that people are really NOT that bad; just given them the space to be who they are and make peace with myself to give myself space to be who I am.  I didn’t quite expect that at all.  My focus was all about realizing how continue carrying these dead weights in my heart really started to bother me; it didn’t serve any purpose for me other than making me more tired; it hurt me more than anything.  I couldn’t stand having them around anymore!  So, I let go!  What a surprise!

Do you know, if you are making more than $30K a year and have a roof over your head, you are no longer surviving?  Do you know over 90% of world population actually make less than $30K U.S. dollars a year?  Do you know that if given a chance, 90% of world population would be willing to switch their life for yours in a heart beat? So what are you still whining about?

To be honest, I didn’t know the above statistics and I whined and woke up everyday dreading the notion of needing to “fight” for my survival another day just like every one of you, until one day a mentor knocked the statistics into my thick skull and woke me up! (Thank god she did that!)

I realized all these time I have been fighting the wrong issue in my life.   I thought I need to do whatever it takes to survive and stay alive, but in fact I have blew past the survival stage long long time ago.  (OK, using the $30K example, I’ll probably say that I past the survival stage 2 years after I got out of school and started working full time).  I realized the problem isn’t whether I’ll survive or not (I already did, I am capable of surviving; it is a well proven fact; proven over and over again everyday), the problem is really the quality of life that I want issue.

It’s amazing that when I re-quantified the problem that I am spending my whole life solving, it gave me a new perspective, a lot of confidence and endless new possibilities.  Whew, the pressure of whether I’ll “survive” financially or not disappeared.  I am beginning to ask myself different questions.  For example:  “hum, so I’m actually already surviving really well, so what kind of quality of life was I really looking for?”  Yeah, I want to live in a mansion, I want to travel around the world,  I want to wear top brand clothing,….  But wait, is my current living that bad now? (Not really, I’m sure 90% of world population would switch their housing situation with me in a heart beat), can I stand traveling all year long and not sleeping in my own bed? (Not really).  Alright those top brand clothing, a few would be nice but actually it would be quite a burden to have to keep up with them just to keep up with the Jones… I see everything that I thought I MUST have for survival is really optional items; some worth my time and money to go after and some really didn’t.  Most importantly, NOTHING is worth pushing me below poverty line over it because they are ALL optional and they have nothing to do with my survival.  Well, I might not live like Paris Hilton or eating fillet migeon every day, hey but I am actually happy and I have many more options than I ever thought I have.  

The truth is that now I can go after what I really want with even more passion because it is no longer about surviving but to stretch myself to reach for my moon.  How cool is that?!

So how about you?  Are you really still surviving?  Maybe it’s time for you to start re-quantify your problem too! It’s amazing that sometimes this is really all it takes to solve a life issue; nothing more.

Lately, I heard many money drama stories around me.  Not that I don’t have my own money drama, but after hearing other’s stories, I realized I have a different drama than many people I knew.  I think I am the lucky few that have been taught since I am very young to never spend more than what I have especially not for those instant gratifying wants and needs that serve very little long term benefits to my well beings.   

My drama is different; I am still learning how to allow myself to splurge a little.  My challenge is giving myself permission to occasionally buying something really nice for myself; I really just can’t see the value of spending the money for them.  Perhaps, the fear of “running out” before I die also has kept me in check.

However, I’m truly glad for out of all the money drama out there, I got stuck with this one J  I have witness the drama of what the other ways leads to.  It is no fun at all; not to mention the potential devastating effect of ruining the future of a family.  Does the instant gratification of getting that top of line car, fancy jewelries, expensive bottle of wines, latest gadget phone, golf clubs,… really worth the price of you and your family’s peace and happiness?  

It is true that money can’t buy happiness.  But for a fact, it would be impossible to lead a happy and peaceful life when there is constant pressure of debt and running out of money.

I have a friend who told me that her husband love her so much that he would only get the best car, the best jewelries, the best purses for her. Yet, I wonder is it really the most loving thing that he can do for her if the price she end up having to pay is worrying about not able to pay essential family bills as result?  I would say the most loving thing a husband can do for a wife is never to put a wife in a situation of needing to worry about meeting monthly financial essentials(not for the sake of instant gratification wants and needs anyway). 

Of course, this goes for a wife to a husband too.  I don’t care how great a justification and reason for needing that latest hip car, neat gadgets and beautiful jewelries, if you truly love someone and love your family, and then you’d better learn to put their financial well being first before your instant gratifying needs.

Do I mean then that you can never enjoy anything good in life anymore?  No, of course not! This is where I feel financial education is so important yet sorely lacking in our education system.  I can never understand why our educational system would teach our kids credit before teaching them financial responsibility and effective financial management first.

For my own drama, I found T. Harv Eker’s book “The secret of the millionaire mind”   quite helpful in giving me some insight and tools on how to manage my money in such a way that I can be free of my fear of running out and give myself some room to enjoy great things in life yet continue to live within my own means.  The book also provides valuable exercises to help those who can’t seem to kick the “kid in the candy store” syndrome.   I think it is a good starting point for those of you who want to start taking control of your own financial life.

Regardless, the resource on this topic is abundant out there.  The question is: are you truly ready to start taking on the driver’s seat in your own financial health and stop letting the 3-year old in you running your day to day finance?  Again, honestly, think about it, if you have to choose, what’s truly the most loving thing you can do for your love one?  Give them financial stability first or give them whatever that caught your eyes now?  So, stop before you run to the store to get another latest and the greatest…,  ask youself this question first:  Is this purchase really worth jeopardizing yours and your love one’s long term happiness and peace over? For smaller items that just end up in the closet, ask yourself: How much are these small items you bought adding up to? a down payment for a car? Is it really worth buying it now?  Will your kids really still love and cherish the items they are dying for 3 days from now? a week from now?  If answer is no,  don’t buy it!! It’s not worth screwing up yor financial health over it.

In this busy and busting world where survival seems like everyday focus, we seem to forget that kindness do exist in this world and there are people out there who wake up and choose to do something nice for anyone and everyone everyday. 

I have no clue how numb I have become to my surrounding until one day I came home and saw an Asian old man sweeping the front of my drive way; it has lot of fallen leaves on it.  I was confused for a moment, trying to remember whether this was the day that my gardener was suppose to show up but he didn’t look like my gardener (who happens to also be an Asian).  Then I realized this was the same gentleman who I saw was sweeping my neighbor (a Caucasian family) across street’s driveway a couple weeks ago.  Since I have been traveling for business in the past couple months, I remembered I thought to myself last time I saw him thinking “wow, I didn’t know my neighbor had sold their house while I was gone!”  But then I thought, “Why is he sweeping my driveway then?”  

Since my driveway was a mess and I was so grateful that he had swept it clean for me, I decided to walk over and thank him anyway.  As I was approaching him, an unknown fear and hesitation came over me, but I stuck to my gun and yelled out for him as he walked back toward his own house.  I greeted him in English but he doesn’t seem to speak English, he started replied to me in Chinese and Taiwanese.  Fortunately, I knew both, so naturally I responded back to him in both Chinese and Taiwanese.  He was surprised, but happy that I can speak his language.  I thanked him profusely with a bit of embarrassment as to how I had let the leaves go in front of my house.  He told me don’t worry about it, he is actually visiting his son and he is seeking opportunity to exercise.  He saw all those fallen leaves and decided that this is his opportunity to get the exercise he want and gather all the fallen leaves together in time for the scheduled lawn pickup for the street.  

I chatted with this sweet happy gentleman for a while.  I found out that his name is Mr. Lee.  His son has been living across from me for over 10 years; they are from a different town in Taiwan where I was born; he and his wife are here visiting the grandkids; it will be a short visit because he can’t get used to American living…  It’s amazing that I have also been in this neighborhood for over 10 years, but yet I have never knew this family; I have not even talk to anyone in this family until now.  I had no clue how indifferent I have become until this gentleman woke me up.  Without his simple kindness, I probably would have live here another 10 years without even thought of reaching my hands out to my neighbors. 

I was very grateful for the lesson Mr. Lee taught me.  I brought some cookies and stopped by Mr. Lee’s house to formally thank him.  He was not home.  I got to visit with his son for the first time and told him his dad’s kindness.  His son was just as amazed at what his dad did as I was.  We got to stop and connect as neighbor for the first time.

Mr. Lee’s amazing kindness just continues to fill my heart. While he is still around, he seems very determined to keep our street cleaned.  The next morning, I found him not only swept the sidewalk in front of my house, he actually swept the leaves out of my whole front yard!  Then the next week, I found him continued working his way down the street; covering and sweeping even more houses.  Now, not only my house, but my neighbor’s house (an Indian family) and my neighbor’s neighbor’ house (a Caucasian family)…  What a loving sweet old man!!!

Lately I’ve been experience a lot of foot pain, knee pain and even lower back pain.  When I told my friend about it, he told me that he has the same problem; but his feet have gotten better now after his wife (who is a nurse practitioner) brought some insole at REI to put in his shoes.   So, I quickly went to REI and got myself these “magic” insoles that he was talking about.  Just as he said, my feet had gotten a lot better after wearing the shoes with these insoles in them. 

After some research, I found that all of my pain could be a result of long term improper support on my feet to start with.  It turn out the long walking and the poor support caused my arch to collapse (or inflames) and therefore causing my knee extra strains when I walk… 

Anyway, the insoles that he was referring to is Super Feet http://www.superfeet.com/products/ they have all kinds of insoles that help to provide a better support for our feet.  The one I got was the green one.  I’m also trying the blue one for my boots.  They both seem to be very comfortable; I can definitely feel the extra support on my feet.  I can image that my arch is saying “aha, finally I can rest” J  So if you feel pain on your heels and having knee pains too, you might want to try a pair of these insoles before consider paying big $$ for other solutions.