The Monk Who sold his Ferrari

I recently started reading this book after a friend gave it to me. Sofar I have found the following points of interest :

• One would not put toxic waste in one’s garden why do one do it to your mind.


• 60% of thoughts in a day are the same thoughts you had yesterday.


• Most of those thoughts in most people are negative.


• Mind management is the essence of life management.


• One must stop viewing events as positive or negative but rather as lessons. Every crisis may be an opportunity.

Secret of Success : Find what you love to do and put all your energy towards it.
Exercise : Heart of the Rose

1. Quiet room or preferably natural surroundings and a rose.


2. Start to stare at the center of the rose. It’s heart.


3. Notice the rose colour, texture and design. Savour its fragrance.


4. Only think of the rose. The mark of an untrained mind is other thoughts trying to break in. Don’t worry improvement will come quickly.


5. Soon your mind will become strong and disciplined.


6. Practice everyday for at least a month. Start of for at least 5 minutes. After a week or two you should be able to do it for 20 minutes.

Also : Opposition Thinking

1. Make use of opposition thinking. The mind can only handle one thought at a time.


2. If a negative thought enters the mind try and replace it with another thought as quickly as possible.


3. If you worry about something touch something around you to remind you that you still need more time to master your thoughts.

Also : Secret of the Lake

1. Use positive envisioning of yourself.


2. If you want to be the greatest father or mother. Envision yourself laughing and playing with your kids, responding to their questions with an open heart. This positive imagery can help in anything you want to achieve in life.


3. Any negative thoughts must be viewed as a poison to the process.


4. This exercise may be practised anytime throughout the day for a few minutes.


5. Remember every second you spend thinking about someone else’s dreams you take time away from you own.

Remember control your mind or it will control you.

A worrisome thought is like an embryo – it’s start small but grows until it has a life of its own.

Giving good causes and conditions

“Giving good causes and conditions is simply helping others in any possible way. If you water the plants in your garden, they flourish beautifully. If you offer grain to birds, they sing wonderfully. If you give encouragement to students or praise teachers, then you provide them with good causes and conditions.”

“It is through building ties and relationships in this way that we are paving the way to our own success, for in giving others benefits, we are also benefiting ourselves.”

Quran

O yeah... almost forgot found something inetersting on Scott Adams blog comments today. It is 3 side by side translations of the Quran. I should really find some time to read this one day.

Check it out here : Quran Link

.NET

Been very busy learning these days. I haven't found time to really play games, but when I do I play either Cthulhu or Oblivion. Having a bit of a struggle with Cthulhu tough. On Oblivion I was suddenly labelled a murderer. It seemed I had hit one of the friendly soldiers in a battle by mistake and killed him. I could have sweared it was the monster but some invisible judge decided it was me. Now everybody is pissed at me except the Dark Brotherhood - go figure. I think I will have to find a mod to set this right.

Anyways currently I am learning C# and .NET 2.0 and enjoying it quite alot. Currently I am learing remoting in C#. The book I am learning from is Proffesional C# 3rd edition from Wrox Press. It is a very good book even though the text discusses .NET 1.1. I will finish this book before moving on to C# 2.0 books and Web services.

At home I am currently learning to make my own animations in Toon Boom Studio 3.0. It seemed easy in the tutorials but now that I am trying my own original things it is a lot more difficult. It doesn't help that my drawing skills are a bit rusty. I think I 'd better start with a stick man or something. Watch this space.

More Cthulhu

After swotting up some C# for an upcoming project, I went home and talked a bit with the kids and my wife. Didn't get any exercise due some rainy weather and gone to plonk myself down for watching some CSI. My wife and I has worked through the first 2 seasons now and I have ordered the 4th season now (3rd one was out of stock).

Before I went to sleep I tried playing Cthulhu again. But I am at a difficult part now near a jailhouse. One misstep and you're done for... At least I found my first weapon - a crowbar. Kicked the asses of at least two of the stupid townfolk before they got me... To my shame had to go look at a walkthrough to understand what I was required to do near the jail cells. I went wrong by just continuing on and finding a sewer. On the other end of the sewer you find a car but you can't use it until you get the other guy out of his jail cell. Oh well ... will try again tonight.

If the weather keeps I will go jogging tonight. I am currently afraid to venture anywhere near a scale currently.

Rough Week

Ok so a rough week followed the weekend. I hardly had time to blog last week. I had to complete coding on my POS system as well as my Lodge system. Went to see clients on integration with the SAP system. Didn't get time much to play Cthulhu unfortunately. But this was not only due to work. I got Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion last week. Oh man what a brilliant game. It really pulled me into its world. I have played its predecessor but this one just blew me away. I am very happy that I got the collector's edition - apparently it is sold out all over the world. It's got an actual coin with made according to the ingame currency called septims. The graphics are very good but it is the intrigueing gameplay that makes this game tick. I am currently playing a dark elf spellsword. I have already put 7 hours into the game but have only finished one quest as part of the main quest. this is due to the many side quests this game has. I ofteen just explore some of the wilderness just for the fun of it.

To top this off I got a 10 day trial on Dungeons and Dragons Online to check out. I enjoy the missions of D&D Online and the graphics are not that bad. But I must say it pales in comparison so far to Oblivion. If I had gotten this sooner then the D&D may have been interesting but currently I rather be playing Oblivion.

Hopefully this week will be less rough although one of our developers left for greener (hopefully) pastures. So I am not sure what to expect. Got Guild Wars Factions Pre-Order pack today a well but luckily I won't be playing it until the 27th of April - whcih is just as well as between games, social commitments and work I am currently not getting anywhere...

I had the joy of seeing my 2 sons learning to ride horses last Friday. It was great seeing them learning to stand and balance on a horse. They probably already ride better than me ...

Rough Weekend

Okay so I didn't get to play much this weekend. My oldest son Pierre had is 7th birthday this Sunday 2nd April. My wife Hannelie had to go to work on Saturday and that left only me to get all the stuff ready for Sunday. When I got up Saturday I immediately went to fix the tap that broke on our bath. Then I found out that it is a very old sortof tap and to fix it I had to buy a new tap set as well as the innards 'cause otherwise the taps wouldn't fit. This took me 2 trips to the plumber to sort out. Then I cleaned my desk as well as my kids which took about an hour. We then rushed of to the shop to get the groceries and salads fo the next days braai. Both my kids tagged along and let me tell you - there is a thousand things a 7 year old and a 4 year old can argue about. From the shop whe went to the video shop to get them some cartoons to watch. Then we went on to the butchery to get meat for the braai. Then next over to the ice cream and sweet shop and last stop was the liquor store (for the adults obviously)... Finally I had everything and went home. We ordered a Gladiator jumping castle which was dropped off and the kids went jumping while I tried to bake a cake. While baking the cake I helped my wife's computer to understand that it should have a new version of her office software installed. Whew ! All in a days work. But it was worth it - we had everything the following day...

The Sunday my son Pierre and his brother Jean was up bright and early to enjoy Pierre's birthday. All the people that came was my Mom, my brother Gerhard and his girlfriend, Pierre's girlfriend (also 7) Leoné and her sister as well as her parents Luellen and Melanie, my sister Nadia and her husband Allen and their son Simon. The people who couldn't make it was Pierre's 2 favorite buddies Greyling and also another Pierre at school. Also 1 of our nearby neigbours couldn't make it with their kid. This didn't stop us having lots of fun... It was a great day and my son built up a bit of money to buy himself a radio controlled car - although he did miss getting some presents immediately. Luckily my Mom brought him some cool stuff. We had a great chat with evrybody and ended the day dead tired. So sorry old computer maybe we will play again tonight.