Topic: Daily OM

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Sharing with Your Neighbors
Constructive Connections

Take time to connect with people in your neighborhood to help build a vital community. Co-create, share, plan and spend time together.


Many of our relationships can be fleeting or do not deepen past a superficial level, yet these connections, as trivial as they can seem, often have the potential to grow into something much more essential. When we crave community, we should focus our attention on these casual acquaintances. To forge a bond with neighbors, we need to work together with them so that we have a context from which to begin a more mature relationship. Sharing tasks that are part of living can be a wonderful way to become a part of a larger community, make new friends, and lighten the workloads of everyone involved.

Creating a network of neighbors who agree to pool certain resources and share daily duties can be as easy as taking the initiative. If you are willing to take the first step by reaching out to the individuals and families who share your building or your street, you will likely find that others are receptive to the notion. Starting small, with just a few people, can help you orchestrate a smoothly running system. Together, you will need to decide what chores you want to do communally and what resources can be shared. Ideas for community sharing are child care, errands, housework, keeping a joint garden, cooking for the group, and carpooling. For instance, if you cook large meals for four neighbors once a week, you take off four nights after that. As you grow to trust one another, you can begin adding new members to your evolving network or introducing new tasks to your shared roster of duties.

Actions speak louder than words, so working closely with neighbors to ensure the well-being of the group can be a wonderful way to build a sense of community in your locale. Not everyone you approach will be open to the idea of becoming a part of a network of sharing. As you connect with those who do appreciate the merits of such a system, you will discover that others are just as eager as you are to create interpersonal connections that are defined by substance.

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Honoring Passing Spaces
Saying Good-bye to a Home

Saying good-bye to a home or space is an important part of moving forward. It gives us a sense of completion.


When we move from one residence to another, we often get so caught up in the forward thrust of where we are going that we forget to properly say good-bye to the home we are leaving behind. Yet saying good-bye is an important part of moving forward. It gives us a sense of completion so that we are able to fully inhabit our new space, having left nothing of ourselves behind in the old one. In this way, we honor the space that has held and nurtured us. At the same time, we cleanse it and empty it of our energy so that the new residents can make the space theirs.

Plan a walk through your home that begins and ends at the front door. Ideally, you will be alone or accompanied only by a person who shared the space with you. Prepare yourself mentally to be as present as you can during this process. As you enter the house, you might say, “I have come to thank you for being my home and to say good-bye.” You might touch the walls with your hands as you move through the house, or you might burn sage as an offering, as well as an energy cleanser. Spend some time in each room expressing your gratitude and gathering or releasing any lingering energy from the room. As you do this, you are freeing your home to embrace its new occupants. Remember to visit your outside spaces as well. Plants are especially sensitive to the energy around them and will appreciate your consideration.

As you make your way back to the front door, know that you have completed your final journey through your home and that you have honored and blessed it with this ritual of farewell. As you close and lock the door behind you, say one last good-bye. Now you can walk freely into your future and fully inhabit the new spaces that will keep you safe and warm.

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Cosmic Support
The Universe's Plan for You
The path that speeds us toward our dreams can be a challenging and complex one, so it’s easy to get bogged down in confusion and insecurities. We often hesitate at the start of that path, questioning our purpose or our capabilities. Yet we should be moving forward joyously, eager to discover what destiny has in store for us. The universe has plans for us that eclipse anything we have dreamed of thus far. Though we must work diligently to fulfill our potential and to accomplish our individual missions, the universe is aware of both the quests we chose before birth and the goals we have formulated in adulthood. If we accept that it us watching over us and believe that it will facilitate our eventual success, the universe will provide us with the assistance and opportunities that enable us to make significant progress on our journeys of ambition.

Nothing happens without a purpose. Whether we attract success or repel it depends on our willingness to stay open to a wide range of possibilities and to embrace concepts like synchronicity. The universe is always ready to care for our needs, but we must not write off its loving attention as mere circumstance or chance. Likewise, we must endeavor to ensure that our egos do not become a barrier that prevents us from recognizing that even perceived mistakes and strife can be profound lessons that smooth the progress of personal evolution. When we understand that we only need to enthusiastically try our best to realize our objectives, the universe will take care of the details, propelling us forward in its unstoppable current. We may not always immediately understand the significance of certain experiences, but our trust will help us choose wisely at each crossroads.

The universe wants to see you accomplish your goals. No matter how long you’ve dallied or hesitated, it will always be there to put its plan for you in motion at the first sign of your faith. You can make the most of this aid by acquiescing to it rather than fighting it—nurture your dreams but do not attempt to micromanage every detail along the way. The universe will provide you with guidance and, if you heed that guidance, you will find your formerly stressful quest for success will become a journey of great joy.

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Ritual Moon
Two Sides of the Same Moon

Acknowledging the flow of the moon’s cycles we become more comfortable with the changing nature of our earthly lives.


The moon waxes and wanes in the night sky, always following the same cyclical pattern, lighting the darkness with its luminous glow. It has been this way as long as the earth has been here. The same moon grew from dark to full and back again, catching the eyes of our grandparents, our great grandparents, and those at the beginning of humanity. The moon guided our ancestors in the planting, sowing, and reaping of their crops, and we can be inspired to observe and honor these same cycles today with simple rituals that help connect us to the natural ebb and flow of life energy.

Dark moons and new moons represent polar moments of beginning and realization in the arc of the moon’s phases. When the moon is dark, we might take time to meditate on emptiness, the fertile ground in which seeds take root. A simple ritual for acknowledging this potent phase of the moon would be to write down new plans and ideas that present themselves and keep them in a moon journal. Looking back over a year of dark moons, you may be amazed to see which seeds have blossomed. Full moons symbolize completion and fulfillment, the realization of the seed, and they are times of celebration. They are a great time to gather friends and family to partake in a communal feast acknowledging the apex of another monthly cycle. Your full moon journal might track the full moons of an entire year with a recounting of the gathering—the menu, the guest list, and any other observations you feel inspired to make.

Honoring the dark and full moons with these simple rituals brings our year into a new kind of focus. As we acknowledge the flow of the moon’s cycles, we become more comfortable with the changing nature of our earthly lives, making our peace with each phase, and with the shifting from emptiness to fullness and back again. We strengthen our connection to the universe in which we live and find peace in both emptiness and fullness, each of which are natural and necessary—two sides of the same moon.

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Loving the Light
Color Therapy

Color therapy allows us to harness the power of individual color frequencies to heal our bodies and allow harmony.


The wondrous displays of color that define the world around us are manifestations of light and, as such, each possesses a unique frequency. The attraction we feel to certain colors is not a matter of pure chance�we experience the beneficial affects of color even while blindfolded. We are naturally drawn to those colors that lift our mood, expand consciousness, and restore health. Color therapy, also known as chromo therapy, allows us to harness the power of individual color frequencies to heal the body, positively influence our emotions, and achieve a renewed sense of inner harmony through sympathetic resonance. Colors do not directly affect the composition of our physical, mental, or aura, but they noninvasively alter the vibrational characteristics of diverse elements of the self so that each resonates at its proper healthy frequency.

It is easy to overlook the colors that saturate our personal and professional environments. Yet these, whether in the form of the paint on our walls or the clothing we wear, can influence our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings to an extraordinary degree. The colors we like best are often those that we need most in our lives, and there are many ways we can utilize them. Basking under a colored lightbulb or gazing at an area of color can stimulate or calm us depending on the color we choose. For example, red stimulates the brain, circulatory systems, and first chakra, giving us an energy boost, while blue acts on the throat chakra, soothing the body and mind. And when we do not feel drawn to any one color, we can still benefit from the healing effects of white light, which is an amalgamation of all the colors of the visible spectrum. It is a cleansing color, one that can purify us on many levels.

Human beings evolved to delight in vivid sunsets and rainbows, to enjoy the sensations awakened by particularly eye-catching color, and to decorate our spaces and ourselves with bright colors. In essence, we evolved to love the light because of its harmonizing influence on every aspect of the self. When we pay attention to the potential affects of individual colors, we can modify our spaces, wardrobes, and habits to ensure that we introduce the colors that speak to us most deeply in our everyday lives.

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Our Evolving Language
Healing Past Hurt

Choose to be more conscious of the words and phrases you use in everyday life as words have power.


There are many troubling phrases in our language that we use without considering their full meaning simply because they have been accepted into common knowledge. Even as our ideals progress, our language maintains some phrases from our past that no longer serve us, for example: Boys don’t cry; good child; boys will be boys; problem child; illegitimate child; and many more. While these phrases may be used without harmful intent, they are inherently negative. Children can be especially sensitive to such phrases, which may stay with them their whole lives, adversely affecting their self-image and wounding their self-esteem. We can create positive change by choosing not to use these words and phrases as we come across them in our vocabulary.

It is challenging to examine our habits in terms of the words we use to express ourselves, but it is also exciting. Language is an area where we can exercise our free will, creating positive change in the world around us by simply choosing carefully the words we use. It may seem like a small thing, but our words have a rippling effect, like a stone thrown in a pond. People naturally pick up on the way other people speak, consciously or unconsciously changing the way they speak in response. We don’t need to actively try to influence people; it happens without our even thinking about it. All we have to do is choose to be more conscious ourselves, putting to rest words and phrases that are outmoded, insensitive, or harmful. We can also exercise our creativity by creating new phrases that carry positive and loving energy to replace the old ones.

You may already have some ideas about phrases you’d like to transition out of your language, and now that you’re thinking about it you may come across many more. As you consciously decide not to use these phrases, you may feel lighter and more joyful, knowing that you have chosen to drop baggage that was handed down to you from a less conscious time. As you do so, you elevate the language for future generations who would no doubt thank you if they could.

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Choose the words you speak with carefully as they are more powerful than you know.


Words carry energy and this gives language its power and its potential to heal or hurt. Most of us can remember a time that someone sent a word our way, and it stuck with us. It may have been the first time we received a truly accurate compliment, or the time a friend or sibling called us a name, but either way it stuck. This experience reminds us that what we say has weight and power and that being conscious means being aware of how we use words.

The more conscious we become, the more we deepen our relationship to the words we use so that we speak from a place of actually feeling what we are saying. We begin to recognize that words are not abstract, disconnected entities used only to convey meaning; they are powerful transmitters of feeling. For the next few days, you might want to practice noticing how the words you say and hear affect your body and your emotional state. Notice how the different communication styles of the people in your life make you feel. Also, watch closely to see how your own words come out and what affect they have on the people around you.

You may notice that when we speak quickly, without thinking, or rush to get our ideas across, our words don’t carry the same power as when we speak slowly and confidently, allowing those receiving our words time and space to take them in. When we carefully listen to others before we speak, our words have more integrity, and when we take time to center ourselves before speaking, we truly begin to harness the power of speech. Then our words can be intelligent messengers of healing and light, transmitting deep and positive feelings to those who receive them.

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Taking Counsel in a Circle
Hearing the One Voice

Gathering in a circle is the perfect container to hear our truths as there are no hard edges, only endless support.


When we sit in a circle together and share our thoughts and feelings, we participate in a powerful, unifying practice whose origins stem from the very beginning of human time. All early cultures practiced some form of this ritual, which gives each individual in the group a voice, and at the same time reveals the one voice, and the ultimate unity, of the group. This profound and simple way of talking and listening has experienced a modern rebirth in counseling, social work, and spirituality.

Most circles benefit from the presence of a leader who opens the circle by calling in angels, spirit guides, and ancestors—beings of light who will be present with those taking counsel. The leader may announce a theme for the circle, or one may simply evolve from the unstructured expressions of each participant. The circle continues for as long as feels right, at which point the leader may summarize what has been said, perhaps leading everyone in a moment of silence before the circle disbands. One of the most powerful components of this work is the talking stick, which can be any object—a crystal, a flower, or a candle—that is passed around the circle from person to person. The person holding the object speaks until he has fully expressed his feelings, and no one else interjects, interrupts, or even responds until they are holding the stick. This enables people who have a hard time speaking out to express long buried feelings and points of view. This is powerful because in a community it is often what is not said or acknowledged that causes the most pain and suffering.

The circle, which contains no hard edges or angles, is the ideal container for these difficult truths. As we hear the many perspectives the subject at hand inspires, we begin to see that our individual truth is just one of many. Our own hard edges begin to soften as the circle flows from one person to the next, and each wave of words cleanses us of one more layer of mental and emotional armor, freeing us to be closer to the people around us. Try using counsel during your next family meeting, school class, or any setting where you feel a centering communication method is needed.

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Free of Gravity
Flying Home

We take flight when we rise above our habitual ways of thinking about things and experience new insights.


As earthbound beings, humans have always had a fascination with winged creatures of all kinds. The idea of being able to spontaneously lift off from the earth and fly is so compelling to us that we invented airplanes and helicopters and myriad other flying machines in order to provide ourselves with the many gifts of being airborne. Flying high in the sky, we look down on the earth that is our home and see things from an entirely different perspective. We can see more, and we can see farther than we can when we’re on the ground. As if all this weren’t enough, the out-of-this-world feeling of freedom that comes with groundlessness inspires us to want to take flight again and again.

Metaphorically, we take flight whenever we break free of the gravity that holds us to a particular way of thinking or feeling or being. We take flight mentally when we rise above our habitual ways of thinking about things and experience new insights. This is what it means to open our minds. Emotionally, we take flight when the strength of our passion exceeds the strength of our blockages; the floodgates open and we are free to feel fully. Spiritually we take flight when we locate that part of ourselves that is beyond the constraint of linear time and the world of form. It is in this place that we experience the essential boundlessness that defines the experience of flight.

Taking flight is always about freeing ourselves from form, if only temporarily. When we literally fly, in a plane or on a hang glider, we free ourselves from the strength of gravity’s pull. As we open our minds and our hearts, we free ourselves from habitual patterns of thought and emotional blockages. As we remember our true nature, we free ourselves from identification with the temporary state of our physical forms. The more we stretch our wings, the clearer it becomes that taking flight is a state of grace that simply reminds us of who we really are.

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Your Perfect Teacher
Life
Many of us long to find a spiritual teacher or guru. We may feel unsure of how to practice our spirituality without one, or we may long for someone who has attained a higher level of insight to lead the way for us. Some of us have been looking for years to no avail and feel frustrated and even lost. The good news is that the greatest teacher you could ever want is always with you—that is your life.

The people and situations we encounter every day have much to teach us when we are open to receiving their wisdom. Often we don’t recognize our teachers because they may not look or act like our idea of a guru, yet they may embody great wisdom. In addition, some people teach us by showing us what we don’t want to do. All the situations in our lives, from the insignificant to the major, conspire to teach us exactly what we need to be learning at any given time. Patience, compassion, perseverance, honesty, letting go—all these are covered in the classroom of the teacher that is your life.

We can help ourselves to remember this perfect teacher each day with a few simple words. Each morning we might find a moment to say, "I acknowledge and honor the teacher that is my life. May I be wise enough to recognize the teachers and lessons that I encounter today, and may I be open to receiving their wisdom." We might also take some time each day to consider what our lives are trying to teach us at this time. A difficult phase in your relationship with your child may be teaching you to let go. The homeless person you see every day may be showing you the boundaries of your compassion and generosity. A spate of lost items may be asking you to be more present to physical reality. Trust your intuition on the nature of the lesson at hand, work at your own pace, and ask as many questions as you want. Your life has all the answers.

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Choose Love
What We Are Made of

Love is often presented as the opposite of fear, but true love is not opposite anything. True love is far more powerful than any negative emotions, as it is the environment in which all things arise. Negative emotions are like sharks swimming in the ocean of love. All things beautiful and fearful, ugly and kind, powerful and small, come into existence, do their thing, and disappear within the context of this great ocean. At the same time, they are made of the very love in which they swim and can never be separated. We are made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not.

It is only the illusion that we are separate from this great love that causes us to believe that choosing anything other than love makes sense or is even possible. In the relative, dualistic world of positive and negative, darkness and light, male and female, we make choices and we learn from them. This is exactly what we are meant to be doing here on earth. Underlying these relative choices, though, is the choice to be conscious of what we are, which is love, or to be unconscious of it. When we choose to be conscious of it, we choose love. We will still exist in the relative world of opposites and choices and cause and effect, and we will need to make our way here, but doing so with an awareness that we are all made of this love will enable us to be more playful, more joyful, more loving and wise, as we make our way. Ultimately, the choices we make will shed light on the love that makes us all one, enabling those who have forgotten to return to the source.

This world makes it easy to forget this great love, which is part of why we are here. We are here to remember and, when we forget to remember again, to choose love.

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Tethered to the Earth
Existing in Bodies

Each of us are poised between the soil underneath our feet and the never-ending ethereal spaces around us.


The physical self can seem like an encumbrance at times. We have little control over its demands, we must monitor it consistently, and its relative fragility can be discomfiting. Many people, therefore, unconsciously long to escape the confinement of their bodies, and this longing can manifest itself as physical discomfort, difficulty adjusting to the rigors of day-to-day existence, or a tendency to shy away from all that is associated with the human earthly experience. Yet the lifetime of physical existence we each must endure represents a vital plateau in our progression as enlightened beings. We inhabit our bodies for a reason. There is much we can learn while coping with the challenges, sensations, and sensitivities of the human body that we could not have grasped had we remained in spirit form. When we leave our physical selves behind to return to our original state, we will enjoy a supreme sense of freedom—yet we will always value the time we spent on earth.

Being wholly present in your body can help you better understand how your time as a physical being is contributing to your development. There may be times when you feel that your consciousness is not grounded in your corporeal form. Your thoughts may seem scattered or spacey, or you may sense that your ethereal self is literally floating away. When this occurs, ask Mother Earth to ground you, or draw upon the potent grounding energy of mountains or trees. These powerful natural forces can help you reconnect with the earth by reminding you that living in a physical state can be a wholesome and enlightening experience. Wearing gemstones with grounding properties, bloodstone, for example, is another way to reaffirm your connection to the earthly plane.

Human beings are tied to the earth, but not wholly of the earth. We are each of us, for the time being, poised between the soil underneath our feet and the never-ending ethereal spaces around us. The unease we occasionally feel in our earthly bodies is merely a by-product of our innate understanding of our dual natures. But the time we spend in our physical bodies will not last and should thus be cherished. For one day, when our evolution is complete, we will return to the source of life to become beings of light once more.

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The Breath of the Universe
The Wind

We can entrust the wind to carry our voices out into the world, knowing it will be carried to its perfect destination.


We can connect ourselves with a basic force of nature by focusing on the essential element of air during a wind meditation. We begin by centering ourselves on our breath. We inhale the life-giving force, feeling it fill us, and then releasing it into the world to let our breath mingle with the breath of nature. If we cannot feel the wind right now, we can recall times when the wind has sent us gifts of caresses on bare skin, ruffling our clothes and playing with our hair. We can evoke sounds carried on the wind, maybe laughter or song, or perhaps just the wind’s own whispers through the trees or across the landscape of our ears. We may summon up an image of falling flowers or leaves from above, vivid colors set free with the wind’s encouragement. We may envision birds drifting on unseen currents with wings unbent, or flags and banners unfurled in the breeze. The scent of a sea breeze may come to mind, or the aromas of freshly baked treats or fragrant blooms that reach us from a distance.

As these memories enliven our senses, we are feeling the vital force that surrounds and animates us. We can look to the trees to sway in time with nature’s rhythm. Just as we can be soothed by the wind, we know that nature has great power. In a rush it can block out all sound, leaving us with only the beating of our hearts.

Wind can even make the inanimate dance and whirl gracefully. With a gentle sigh, the wind has carried sailors to faraway lands and balloons to great heights above. We can entrust the wind to carry our voices and best wishes out into the world, knowing it will be carried to its perfect destination. Releasing these precious offerings to its care, we remember that nature’s power is as close as our breath, and we breathe deeply once again before returning to the world around us.

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Cleansing the Heart of Your Existence
Nine Ways to Have a Healthier Home

Our homes are often our sanctuaries, keep your home healthy by using natural cleaning products.


Our homes serve as sanctuaries in which we are protected from what is potentially harmful. If we are not careful, however, we can inadvertently surround ourselves with substances that can be toxic to our bodies. It is precisely because we rely on our private spaces to serve as refuges from the world that we must exercise great care when choosing how we build, furnish, cleanse, and decorate our homes. Here are some suggestions for creating a healthier home:

1. Be a conscious consumer. If you buy products that contain wholesome, organic, and inert components, you will avoid most common household toxins. Read labels.

2. Your spaces will be as healthy as they are clean when you use natural cleansers and detergents. Almost everything in the home can be cleaned and disinfected using varying combinations of baking soda, vinegar, salt, tea tree oil, herbs, and gentle castile soap. Organic cotton slipcovers can be washed regularly to keep dust mites at bay and to keep us from close contact with furniture that may be off-gassing toxins.

3. Plants clean and add oxygen to the air you breathe when you place them in your personal spaces. Two plants in each room of your dwelling will rid the air of toxins and pollutants while balancing indoor humidity levels. Air purifiers are an easy way to have clean air and are especially useful in a bedroom. Try and clean your air ducts and furnace and change filters regularly.

4. Natural décor that incorporates pesticide-free wood and fibers, organically grown materials, and nontoxic paints and varnishes adds beauty to your house or apartment while lowering your exposure to unsafe chemicals.

5. Scents can help you maintain a hazard-free home. As you enter your home after an absence, pay close attention to the dominant fragrance you perceive. You may discover toxins that might otherwise have gone unrecognized.

6. Be aware of the water you drink and bathe in and consider adding a whole-house filter system.

7. Getting a good night’s rest is easier when your bedding is comprised of natural materials. Organic cotton sheets, down comforters, and wool fiber mattresses offer a wonderful alternative to standard bedclothes.

8. Negative ions are invisible molecules that promote whole-self wellness found in the clean air atop mountains and near rushing water. Equipping your home with a negative-ion generator or salt lamp will ensure that you feel alert and refreshed whenever you are at home.

9. If building a new home, consider carefully the materials you choose and research how much they off-gas toxins. You may not be aware of many glues and hidden substances. Choosing sustainable wood floors over wall-to-wall carpeting can be very beneficial to those with allergies and sensitivities.

Making a few easy changes in your home can provide years of healthy living for you, your family, and pets. A healthy home is a good foundation for living. And whether you use these suggestions or others, the best thing you can do is be aware.

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March 30, 2010
Capturing the Thrill
Do What Excites You

Life is too short to stay in boredom, do something today that excites you and renews your outlook on life.


Each human life has the potential to be dramatic, thrilling, and awe-inspiring. Our lives are, in truth, ours to design. Each day, we make choices that influence the character of our experiences, and our decisions determine whether our paths are rousing or tedious, breathtaking or tiresome. We can create an exciting life by simply doing what excites us whenever the opportunity presents itself. Your passions may ebb and flow, and what excites you one year may not excite you the next, but when you make excitement a regular part of your existence, life becomes more fun and more fulfilling.

If you are somebody that tends to live practically, excitement may overwhelm you at first. To ease the anxiety that prevents you from incorporating all that you find exciting into your life, acknowledge that you are alive right now in this time and every moment matters. When you choose to do more of what excites you, even if your choices requires you to make certain sacrifices, your daily life will soon be imbued with exhilaration, pleasure, and optimistic anticipation.

To understand what excites you, you may need to observe and ponder your reaction to the activities, events, circumstances, and concepts that make up your life. What makes your pulse race, what makes you want to get out of your chair and take action? Try to avoid getting too wrapped up in life’s details; their tedium may cause you to plod through your existence unaware of prospective excitement. Once you have created a substantial list of what excites you, find ways to integrate each item into your routine. You will soon find yourself riding a wave of excitement that lifts you up and makes life truly worth living. What excites you in your life?