Wednesday, January 30, 2013

5 Lives to Live

This year I am engaged in a modified version of Chris Brogan's three book diet (which, incidentally, he has already given up on), in that I have selected three self-help books that I am reading repeatedly and doing my best to apply practically. Read more about how Walter Mason will re-reading self-help books all  through 2013.

One of the books I have chosen to engage with intensively all year is Barbara Sher's classic Wishcraft, a book I have never previously read all the way through.




One of the practical exercises in this book is Five Lives. In it, Sher asks us to imagine we have five simultaneous lives, and to record what we would actually be in each one. Here's what I wrote:

1. A writer
2. An academic
3. A New Thought minister
4. A Buddhist monk
5. A film maker


Walter Mason as academic


The purpose of this exercise? Sher writes: "In each of your "lives" is something you love very, very dearly and need to get into your one life - and you can."

You must have five things you'd like to be if you had five separate lives? Would you like to share them in the comments?

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

This day could be your last

I am reading a really exceptional book at the moment, called 20,000 Days and Counting.



It's a work of Christian self-help, and is constructed in quite a post-modern way, but it's a terrific read, and really quite incredibly inspiring.
I discovered in it a quote from Emerson that I hadn't encountered before, and I thought I'd share it with you:

Ralph Waldo Emerson



"One of the illusions [of life] is that the present hour is not the critical , decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Monday Blogcrawl

I have been absolutely immersed in a self-help book in recent days, y ou won't be surprised to hear. And what is the book? Dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp's simply brilliant The Creative Habit. You really must read it. And in the meantime, here is some more self-helpey stuff from the net this past week:


Do we want the answer or the solution?