Half Full, NOT Half Empty

What the U.S., and for that matter the world, needs to realize going into the future is that the proverbial glass is half full. For all the complaints about slower-than-expected employment growth and too much indebtedness, we have all accomplished a lot on our way back from the economy's burst bubble due to unrealistic home ownership policies and other problems. Whether you are talking about personal career development, governmental projects, or international development, a pessimistic future outlook is dwarfed by an inventory taken to show what we have accomplished in the past. The strength of democracies and market-oriented businesses is that each manages to do one or two good things every day. When you look backward to see how far you have come, you will generally be amazed. The incremental things we do each day appear small because we like to talk about achievement of goals rather than maintenance of progress. Make a little progress every day, week, month, and year. As you continue making that progress, you will be able to look back and see that goals have, indeed, been achieved. The glass is at least half full.

Communication Stifled by Suspicion

I listened with interest to a telephone interview between National Public Radio and a Syrian woman. They were discussing the status of opposition to the Syrian government and its massive aggressive retaliation. The most interesting point in the interview for me came when the woman was asked about socialization in small gatherings during the course of this situation. Her response made me realize how uncomfortable one becomes when one is not sure of the political and doctrinal standing of the person with whom one is conversing. The conversation continues, but the content is watered down to inconsequential blather. Suspicion breeds lack of true communication and self-censorship. There is no true communication without the exchange of ideas and opinions. When one is afraid to declare one's position on any topic, the suppressive goal of the state or other controlling organization has already been achieved. Those of us who are removed from such a situation and enjoy the ability to speak freely with peers and at least cautiously evaluated strangers should realize how fortunate we are.

The Secret Key to Weight Loss

Everyone knows that the information in the vast library targeting principles of weight reduction boils down to a few kernels: Eat less. Exercise more. Drink plenty of water. Get sufficient sleep. With regard to the eat less portion of this formula, I suggest that insofar as possible, you eat only foods that you don't like but that are good for you. If you are eating foods that you don't like, you automatically won't eat as much of them. If President George H. W. Bush had to eat broccoli all the time, he would be very likely to lose weight. If you are one of those unfortunates who likes all foods, select a nutritious daily menu, and eat it all the time so that you get bored with it. You'll have to become committed to these approaches. The more you continue to eat the same foods over and over again, especially if they are foods you don't like, the less interesting they will appear to you, and you will tend to eat smaller quantities of them. Follow these steps, and replace between-meals snacks with water to keep yourself from wanting to eat all the time. One caution: You won't succeed if you develop a passion for finding ways to prepare the foods you hate so that they taste better to you. The worse they taste, the more weight you will lose.

The Secret Key to Bank Account Savings

If you want to accumulate long term savings in a bank account, follow this strategy. Every time you get paid or receive any miscellaneous income, deposit all of it into your savings or money market account at your bank. Then transfer only what you immediately need into your checking account. This has two benefits: (1) Because you are transferring from an account with an ongoing balance into your checking account, you get immediate access to your checking account balance. (If you had deposited your pay into checking, you would have had to wait for your deposit check to clear.) (2) By funneling your current pay through your savings account and transferring out only what you need, you will tend to leave some behind in savings for the future. There will be weeks when you need to transfer all of it back out, or perhaps even draw down your residual savings, but over time you will find that some money tends to accumulate in your savings account through this routine. It is much more likely to accumulate long term savings for you than depositing your pay into checking and transferring to savings only what is left after your cumulative spending for the period.

Reducing Gasoline Prices

There are three components to the price of gasoline at the pump. The first is the price of oil. This is influenced by market speculators, and especially when oil is in short supply or when world events suggest that it might soon be in short supply, the speculators smell profits and bid up oil prices. The second ingredient is the refining cost/capacity, and barring shutdowns of refineries, this is fairly constant. The third factor is the relationship between supply of gasoline and the demand for it. Of these three ingredients to pricing, consumers can only affect the supply vs. demand relationship. If you want lower gasoline prices, there are two things you can do: (1) Drive fewer miles, and try to use the vehicle that gets the best mileage if you have a choice between two. (2) Don't fill up your tank all the way. As of 2007, there were 254.4 million cars in the United States. If each of those cars were filled to a point six gallons less than full, and half the available cars were "filled" at any given time, the country would require about 762 million fewer gallons of gasoline at any given time. Since gasoline weighs about 6 pounds per U.S. gallon, stopping the pump six gallons below full would mean that you wouldn't have to pay for fuel to carry the extra 36 pounds of gasoline around. On the government and marketplace level, anything that could be done to discourage speculators from bidding up prices unrealistically would help also.

Peace Between Palestinians and Israelis - Maybe?

President Obama in his speech this week said that peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis should be based on pre-1967 borders. Such a stand is completely unacceptable to the Israelis, but it serves a very important purpose as a negotiating ploy. There has been no progress toward peace because there has been little incentive for the Israelis to move in that direction. They know that they will have to give up some valuable and sentimentally priceless things such as some portion of Jerusalem and feelings of having control over the situation. Obama's talking about pre-1967 borders may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back and makes Israel realize that eternal delays may lead to a less satisfactory outcome in the negotiations. (See my book, DECISION TIME! Better Decisions for a Better Life for negotiation techniques and stages http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/60929.)
Perhaps Israel will respond to the threat of a less-desirable border outcome by moving toward earlier resolution of the negotiation stalemate on the condition that current or compromise borders are the end result. President Obama is not a party to the negotiations, but his words automatically influence the negotiation stances of both sides.

Into the Ebook World #1

I've finally started my journey into the ebook world with the publication of Lead Us Not into Temptation, Volume I of the Lord's Prayer Mystery Series as a paperless book. All formats of ebook are available at the links shown below:

Richard Davidson's Smashwords Author Profile: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mysteryimp
Book page to sample or purchase Lead Us Not into Temptation: http://smashwords.com/b/59509

I've also just skimmed this book in both the widely distributed epub and mobi (Kindle) versions, and I found the ebook reading experience reasonably satisfying (although I still feel nothing can match the printed book experience). I will soon have my other books available as ebooks also.