Chooser vs. Picker

One extract from the book I'm reading now. So...are you a chooser or a picker?


"Finally, the very wealth of options before us may turn us from choosers into pickers. A chooser is someone who thinks actively about the possibilities before making a decision. A chooser reflects on what's important to him or her in life, what's important about this particular decision, and what the short- and long-range conse­quences of the decision may be. A chooser makes decisions in a way that reflects awareness of what a given choice means about him or her as a person. Finally, a chooser is thoughtful enough to conclude that perhaps none of the available alternatives are satisfactory, and that if he or she wants the right alternative, he or she may have to create it.

A picker does none of these things. With a world of choices rushing by like a music video, all a picker can do is grab this or that and hope for the best. Obviously, this is not such a big deal when what's being picked is breakfast cereals. But decisions don't always come at us with signs indicating their relative importance promi­nently attached. Unfortunately, the proliferation of choice in our lives robs us of the opportunity to decide for ourselves just how important any given decision is.”

--B.S.

One of Those Moments...

Yesterday I experienced one of those moments when you are thankful for such simple things like having legs and arms, for being able to use them and enjoying their ability to function - such simple things which make you forget A-L-L that you consider serious problems in your daily routine.

I was on my way to Hagen. I was all drowned in my own thoughts not paying much attention to the people in the immediate vicinity of me. I was sitting still, lost in reading, when suddenly the woman beside me started to make some strange - almost gymnastics - moves. But even this couldn't get me out of my occupation. Only a moment later she asked me when our train was due to arrive in Dortmund. I explained to her that this train didn't go to Dortmund at all and that she would have to catch other train. She just sighed, then gave me one of the most friendly and genuine smiles I have ever experienced in my life and I got lost again in my book.

Not for long...

The gymnastics moves went on. They were even more impressive than before. With my peripheral vision I could see a foot just a few centimeters from my face and somewhere down there - a head, almost reaching the floor. I turned my head and looked at the woman. She had no arms. A conductor was passing to check the passenger cards and the woman was taking out hers. She was taking it out of her bag which was lying down on the floor with the help of her feet! At that moment I thought of all the "fancy women" who sometimes cannot even take their identity card out of their purse because their manicure is too long and oh-my-God-it-could-get-damaged!.

Reverence!

The woman showed her passenger card to the conductor and started to pack her stuff to get off at the next station. She packed her bag alone - with the help of her feet! - hung it on her neck and got to drag her trunk to the train door (oh right, did I mention that she had a trunk either?).

She would never read this but I can't help saying it:
You made my day! Thank you!

God bless you!

"Живей, приятелю, живей!"

One of my "guiding-light" poems.
Sorry, again, for not translating it. I just don't feel condign enough to bother this beauty...



Живей, когато имаш всичко,
ала от всичко си лишен
и късаш думите на срички,
за да не паднеш в негов плен.

Живей, когато от тревога
отрониш първата роса
и търсиш утрото в приятел
от детските си небеса.

Живей, когато ти се плаче
или от плач си отвратен
от бели мишки и гризачи,
които ровят в твоя ден.

Живей, когато те разлюбят
светкавици и ветрове
и нежността започне грубо
с метални устни да зове.

Живей, дори да си измамен
от собствената си съдба
и вместо да усетиш рамо -
усещаш нечий нож в гърба.

Живей за всичко! А когато
в живота всичко изгори
вдигни се пак и без остатък
останките му събери.

Живей и всяка адска жега
с капчукова вода полей!
Дори да ти коват ковчега -
живей, приятелю, живей!!!

--Матей Шопкин

The Holistic Approach

I think I’ve mentioned this not once or twice by now: In recent 2-3 years I’ve changed a lot. And when I say “I”, this refers to my physical, spiritual and emotional world. I started to work out and got interested in stuff like human anatomy, workout schemes and fit-being as a whole (I deliberately don’t use the word fitness – just want to stay away from the conventional, commercial meaning of fitness). In some way I developed a new way of thinking – my view of many life aspects, of dealing with problems etc. The thing is, I started to change in many different aspects but still I had the feeling that they are all very strongly connected with each other although I couldn’t explain why or how this happens to be so.

A few months ago I came upon articles of one of the best authors – by the way, a personal trainer as well – I have ever come to read. In many of his articles I bumped into the word holistic. After a few attempts to ignore my lack of knowledge of the word (you know, in school they’ve taught us not to look up every single word in the dictionary but to catch the overall meaning), in the end I nevertheless looked it up. What was my surprise when finding some kind of a definition of the way I felt about the changes I mentioned above! Here what my dictionary said:

holistic:
1. based on the principle that a person or thing is more than just their many small parts added together;
2. (holistic medicine) medical treatment based on the belief that the whole person must be treated, not just the part of their body that has a disease.

There it was!

Since then I have been keeping myself busy with this topic a lot. The paradox is, there are not so many books or medicine textbooks which carry the word „holistic“ in their titles. So my attempts to find literature which concentrates on the holistic concept were all doomed to failure. But after all – that’s ok! Because the holistic approach is everywhere. Whether you read Shakespeare, your physics textbook, a history book or maybe fashion magazine - you can apply the holistic approach to interpret anything that you come across not only in books but in everyday situations as well.

Here is a short overview of the holistic approach concept. It refers to:
· the connection of mind, body and spirit
· taking responsibility of your own level of well-being and welfare
· treating the body/a situation as something more than the sum of its parts
· the interrelationship between all aspects of who we are and the world we live in
· the concentration on the internal and not the external aspect

There’s a lot to be said on the topic. What I would like to point out to in the end is the thing which fascinates me the most: in the beginning I used to understand the holistic approach as something referring only to the single human organism, to its fit-being and welfare. Now I’ve realized that the holistic approach can be “practised” in all different areas – human relationships, life philosophy, education, dress code, training programs, eating habits, attitude to money and so on and so on...

HA-HA! (Holistic Approach Holistic Attitude)
:-)