Replacing old habits with New ones

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Koi, oil on panel, 12 by 16 inches (gifted)

Let’s encourage our kids (and even ourselves!) to make time for reading a good book. If we could habitually spend hours on our smartphones doom-scrolling, then we have time to read a good book. And if we habitually have the time and energy to come up with reasons and excuses for “I don’t have time,” then we indeed have the time and energy to read a passage or a chapter!

A few months back, I realized how much time I was spending (wasting) on the internet. So, I reasoned that if I could effortlessly and mindlessly spend hours on the internet, then I surely could do the same reading a good book! But mindfully, of course.

It’s been so refreshing and enlightening. I still doom scroll occasionally, but I no longer mindlessly let myself get sucked into the internet black hole.

If you haven’t, I encourage you try it for yourself. Replace your internet doom-scrolling habit with reading a good book (paper book, ebook, or audiobook). Depending on which genre you choose to read, it could be good for your mind and spirit. It’s funny that you could learn so much and still know so little, but at least you could be more knowledgeable and wiser than your previous self. Life is not a competition.

I’m a slow reader with a short attention span. It has been months since I began reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time, and I am almost midway through. But that’s okay, again, life is not a competition. Find your own balance.

So, here are a few interesting books that I have read or am reading:

• Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time 🔭🤓

• Matt Strassler’s Waves in an Impossible Sea (He also talked about wavicles, which Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned in one of his books.) 🔭🤓

• Dr. Farid Mostamand’s Rumi Teaching, A Guide To Self-Discovery And Personal Growth which gives insights into Rumi teachings on love, mindfulness, and meditation through his poetries 👍 🧘

• Thich Nhat Hanh’s books (Also on love, mindfulness, and meditation.) 👍🧘

• Haemin Sunim’s The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down 👍🧘

• Robert Frost’s poems (Sorry, I think this guy is depressing. I wonder what happened to him on his life journey as Robert Frost.) 🤷

• Carlo Rovelli’s Reality Is Not What It Seems 🔭🤓

• Paul Halpern’s Synchronicity (It’s not New Age, like Rovelli’s book, it is about quantum science.) 🔭🤓

• Tao Te Ching (My head hurts trying to understand what this Chinese philosopher is talking about.) 🤷

• Eknath Easwaran’s translation of and insights on The Bhagavad Gita, and his other books.

• Winnie the Pooh books. Of course! 🥰

I’m also reading Meggan Watterson’s book, Mary Magdalene Revealed, which I’m reading again. First two times in ebook format, and the third time in audio book format. 👍🧘

Occasionally, comic books too! 🛸👽🪐🚀

The offerings

Oil on panel, 8” x 6” (gifted)

Freely give, and freely you shall receive. In a world where you can be anything, choose to be kind, compassionate, and patient with yourself and others.

Oil on panel, 8” x 6” (gifted)

I got into the Muslim Mosque 

And the Jewish Synagogue, 

And the Christian Church,   

And I see one altar.

I searched everywhere,

To find a gift to bring you. 

Nothing seemed right.

What is the point of bringing gold to 

The gold mine, or water to the sea. 

Everything I came up with was like 

Taking spices to the Orient.

It is not good giving my heart and my 

Spirit because you already have these. 

So I brought you a mirror. 

Look at yourself and remember me.

— Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273)

Red Clay Creek

Water flows however it pleases, no matter how one tries to make it do otherwise. — James Craig Madison, September 28, 1957 - December 1, 2021, Asheville North Carolina

Oil on panel, 12 x 8 inches