|
Happy New Year Everyone!
As a way to celebrate, for
the entire month of January 2008, you can now get two ebooks for the price of
one!
Buy One Ebook And Get
The Second Ebook For Free!
After your purchase of your
ebook, email me at mar @ electronicbookshere.com or call 913-269-3177
and let me know which second ebook you wish to receive for free!
Upon hearing from you with
your free ebook request, you will be emailed your second ebook for FREE!
Your ebook purchase (CD or
ebook version) has a full, 90-day, money-back guarantee.
Even if you return this ebook, you can keep your second ebook for free!
Free ebooks are electronic versions only.
Ebooks purchased after
January 31, 2008 are not eligible for a free, second ebook.
Rules to this promotion may change at any time.
Should you have any further
questions, please email or call and I will gladly answer any of your
questions.
Thank you and have a great
start to the New Year!
Yours truly,
Marina Rundell
______________________________
New Year, New Day
As you read articles
about the New Year that may relate to the topic of losing weight, like a
comedian’s stand-up act that we don’t seem to mind hearing over and
over again, for the one millionth time that a topic can be presented, here
is one million and one:
How else can one lose
weight? By focusing on losing weight beyond the physical.
Like asking the spirit to let go of some things.
By knowing for sure where you stand on certain things.
It’s another way of lightening the load.
How can one lose weight
in this way? By a new state
of being. A different level
of knowing oneself.
For example, how do you
view work?
From Elizabeth
Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love, (as I saw on Oprah’s show)
from pages 60 and 61, she shares her observations of the Italian view of
work:
“Luca has visited
America a few times, though, and likes it.
He finds New York City fascinating but thinks that people work too
hard there, though he admits they seem to enjoy it.
Whereas Romans work hard and resent it massively.”
“Generally speaking,
though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.
Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a
pleasure-seeking one. Americans
spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to
theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet
enjoyment. Americans work
harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today.
But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it.
Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many
Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in
their own homes. Of course,
we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend
the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box
and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working,
yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).
Americans don’t really know how to do nothing.
This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype—the
overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.”
“I once asked Luca
Spaghetti if Italians on vacation have that same problem.
He laughed so hard he almost drove his motorbike into a
fountain.”
“‘Oh, no’! he
said. “‘We are the
masters of il bel far niente.’”
“This is a sweet
expression. Il bel far niente means ‘the beauty of doing
nothing.’ Now
listen—Italians have traditionally always been hard workers, especially
those long-suffering laborers known as bracciantiI (so called
because they had nothing but the brute strength of their arms—braccie—to
help them survive in this world). But
even against that backdrop of hard work, il bel far niente has
always been a cherished Italian ideal.
The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final
accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated.
The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the
higher your life’s achievement. You
don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There’s another wonderful Italian expression:
l’arte d’arrangiarsi—the art of making something out
of nothing. The art of
turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends
into a festival. Anyone with
a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.”
The quotes above gave
me a glimpse into how I would like to view work. What if everyone greeted each other with the question, “Hello.
Are you doing nothing today?”
“Nothing” meaning “Are you taking time to master ‘the
beauty of doing nothing?’” or of seeking your “talent for happiness?” Even
if only for one minute a day?
As the New Year is
here, you, too, may be searching for a new state of being, a new level of
knowing oneself, all the while you are losing weight, feeling lighter.
___________________________________
More great quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert's
book, Eat, Pray, Love:
"I think about
religion, most of it is same-same...I have good idea, for if you meet some
person from different religion and he want to make argument about
God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about
God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I
agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is
my idea for people to have peace about religion.'" - Ketut Liyer,
Balinese medicine man.
Also, as Gilbert
depicts Ketut Liyer, one can infer that she has respect for this
man. He shares with her that he had first to be convinced of
becoming a healer since his aspirations were originally to become a
painter.
She had taken Ketut's
very old and falling-apart medicine journals that had been given to him
from his father, grandfather, and great grandfather, that included
hundreds of palm reading diagrams to a copier to make photocopies and bind
them.
Ketut told her he will
say as he sees things, even if bad, on his palm readings. This is
one of the reasons she takes Felipe, her boyfriend at the time (now her
husband), to meet Ketut, for a palm reading.
What happened?
"I also brought
Felipe to meet Ketut, my medicine man, and Ketut read his palm and
pronounced my friend, no fewer than seven times (while fixing me with a
penetrating stare), to be 'a good man, a very good man, a very, very good
man. Not a bad man, Liss--a good man.'"
Of course, this wasn't
the only reason Gilbert stayed with Felipe.
Now if only we all
could have a great healer, a medicine man down at the mall, as good and as
respected as Ketut, so you could get your girlfriend or boyfriend (or
husbands and wives) to get a palm reading. At least we all know of
one in Bali.
This would make Ketut
very happy, as he always reminds Gilbert the following: "If you
have Western friends come to visit Bali, bring them to me for
palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb."
You can get Elizabeth
Gilbert’s book here.
A beautiful book on her journey to Eat, Pray, Love, on the
need to know oneself and God.
___________________________________
In appreciation to the fans
who support or visit this site because of the celebrities featured here,
click on the links for celebrity news:
Viggo Mortensen news at
Viggo-Works: http://www.viggo-works.com/index.php?page=243
Russell Crowe News at
Murphsplace: http://www.murphsplace.com/crowe/main.html
____________________________________
Go see a movie! There
are a lot to choose from! http://movies.aol.com/
Also, I wrote a novel about Minnie
Vautrin, who could have left Nanking, before the war arrived at the
city, but because she loved China so much, she stayed, hoping to do what
she can to help out. There is a documentary on Nanking: http://movies.aol.com/movie/nanking/27490/main
|
