After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here....
This is one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. Last month, more than 200 “agents” of New York City based Improv Everywhere converged on Grand Central Station. On the dot of 2:30 PM, the “agents” froze in place for five minutes. One man dropped a briefcase full of papers on the floor just before the appointed time. Another couple held a five-minute long kiss. Still others froze in the midst of kneeling, removing clothing, or eating. The normally crazy-busy Grand Central Station slowed down a bit as onlookers tried to figure out what was going on. Check out the video below. Click HERE to learn more about Improv Everywhere – who they are and what they do. It’s good once in a while to stop taking ourselves so seriously and just have a little fun.
Last week I wrote about the joy of discovering interesting places right in my own back yard, so when the weekend rolled around and the weather turned warm and balmy, I drove to Tarpon Springs, Florida, just an hour and a half north of Sarasota. Originally established in 1884 as an exclusive winter resort for wealthy northerners, Tarpon Springs earned its name from the Tarpon, a variety of sailfish abundant in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico surrounding the town. Although successful as a resort, it was soon discovered that the Gulf waters also held riches in the form of sponges covering the sea floor, and by the 1890′s the sponge diving industry had become the community’s most important industry. Greek divers who earned their living by harvesting sponges from the floor of the Mediterranean immigrated to Tarpon Springs and by the 1930′s the sponge industry was generating millions of dollars.
Today, Tarpon Springs proudly bills itself as the “Sponge Capital of the World” and offers something for everyone. Shops line the sponge docks, displaying wooden bins overflowing with half a dozen varieties of sponges, from the inexpensive silk sponges used for applying makeup to the pricey Sea Wool sponges used for bathing and washing cars. Continue reading →
Occasionally I write about my desire for a kinder, gentler world; one where unconditional love and acceptance is the norm rather than the exception. On a daily basis, I try to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Something as simple as a smile can change a stranger’s day. When I perform a tiny kindness, the recipient of my action feels good and unconsciously passes that kindness on. By the end of the day there’s no telling how many smiles my action generated, how many doors were held open for strangers, how many traffic accidents were averted because a driver let someone merge into the lane in front of him.
Many of us are examining our lives and finding that they have fallen short of our expectations, our desires, our dreams. Some of us realize that we had our values screwed up. We placed importance on things that did not really matter; things like money, fame, success; rather than the things that should have mattered, like honesty, respect, compassion, love, family, and friends. And many of us, myself included, are trying to make up for lost time.
Some days I can feel the world changing. With increasing frequency, I learn of situations where people have done the right thing rather than the convenient thing or made a compassionate decision with foreknowledge that the results may not be in their best interest. The video below is just one such instance, and it is worth a watch. It inspired me and renewed my commitment to treat everyone I meet with loving kindness.
It seems I jumped the gun the other day when I asked everyone to go to the website where they could vote for their favorite story and automatically be entered for a chance to win a week at a spectacular resort in Martinique. The contest actually launched today and I notice that all the votes for the best story were set back to zero, so perhaps they were just testing prior to going live. The site is now back up again and voting has recommenced, however the story that previously had more than 200 votes has already received 49 votes the second time around, so I need some votes if I have a chance of winning. Click HERE to go to the contest site, or just click on the Martinique ad on the right hand side of the blog. The name of my story is “The Power of Suggestion,” and I hope you think it’s good enough for your vote.
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