ReThink Success

According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, a University of Sydney researcher–Elizabeth Cowley–found that people often engage in too much positive thinking, selectively focusing on one win among hundreds of losses when they think back on the overall experience. According to Ms. Cowley, “When we want to justify engaging in an activity which could potentially be irresponsible–like gambling–we may need to distort our memory of the past to rationalize the decision…people who have frequently spent more money than planned on gambling edit their memories of the past in order to justify gambling again.”

This may explain why the free market, which is based on rational human behavior, is fundamentally flawed. It may also explain why I continue to attempt to play golf despite having a very large handicap–just one good shot keeps me coming back for more!

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals (2008, April 22). When Positive Thinking Leads To Financial Irresponsibility Like Compulsive Gambling. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 21, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/04/080421111630.htm

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. You have probably heard of (and seen) this famous 3-R triangle. The first two are fairly straightforward because YOU can have direct control over what you buy and how it is used after its normal life-cycle. However, recycling occurs outside your realm of control and it is a different process depending on where you live. Recycling is a pretty simple concept: take something that isn’t useful anymore and make it into something new instead of just throwing it away. It can be anything from recycling old paper into new paper, to converting glass bottles to tile or countertops. But in reality, recycling can get pretty complex–how it interacts with our environment, our politics, our economy and even our own human behavior patterns will play a major role in the future of our planet. Regardless of how little control we have over the process or its complexity there are simple steps that can be taken to recycle the products that we buy or obtain depending on the recycling program in your community.

Benefits of Recycling

As our population continues to grow and our natural resources continue to be mined and depleted, it is a no-brainer that it is better to recycle an item than to throw it away. It’s good for the environment, rewarding, and, in some areas, can earn you spare change. Recycling helps cut waste that would otherwise be buried in landfills and provides a steady supply of pre-used materials that can be transformed into new, practical objects we use every day. For example, the aluminum can that is currently holding that soda in your fridge or on your desk may have held somebody else’s beverage just 60 days ago before it was recycled. Recycling is beneficial to the environment and to us.

For example, recycling efforts in 2000 resulted in an annual energy savings of at least 660 trillion BTUs, which equals the amount of energy used in 6 million households annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Need more reasons to recycle? Check these out:

• If everyone who subscribes to the New York Times recycled, we’d keep over 6,000 tons of pollution out of the air.
• The 36 billion aluminum cans landfilled last year had a scrap value of more than $600 million.
• Recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite.
• Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70%, water use by 50%, air pollution by 20%.
• If every American household recycled just one out of every ten HDPE bottles used, it would keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfills.

How Recycling Works

Thankfully, in my community, we have available a recycling facility that utilizes a single-stream recycling process (check out this video for an example). For this type of process, recyclables are collected in one container at the source (your home or office) and then sorted at a central facility. The process is similar to regular trash collection in many communities. You just dump all of your recyclables (no separating required) in a separate bin and it is collected on the same day that the trash is collected on a weekly basis. My community provided every household with a small blue bin with a cover, similar to, but smaller than, the green trash bin for regular trash. However, for many other communities, homeowners must either separate their recyclables into separate piles–paper, plastics, glass, etc–to either have them picked-up or must make a special trip to dispose of the materials at a collection center.

The reason why many communities don’t offer single-stream recycling is because it usually isn’t profitable and is usually has to be subsidized. But while the financial costs of recycling may not always benefit the recycler (i.e., it can sometimes cost more to recycle than what can be recouped in selling the final materials) the environmental costs are clearly beneficial.

How to Make Recycling Work For You

Even though my community offers single-stream recycling, I still found that my household was not recycling everything. We keep our recycling bin outside with our trash bin; and like many households we have trash cans located in the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and home office. However, we only had one recyclables container located in the kitchen. This is where we threw out all of our food empties–spaghetti sauce jars, aluminum cans, beer bottles, etc. In our office and bathroom, we didn’t have a recyclables container so all of our paper from the office (e.g., mailings, newspaper, print-outs, etc) and empty shampoo bottles and other empty plastic containers from the bathroom mindlessly got thrown in the trash. To remedy this situation, we bought separate containers for the office and bathroom for these items. Now we recycle most of the disposable items in our home. I’ve seen some companies, like Simple Human, that now make a combined trash/recycling container. If you want to go high-tech and high-design (and high-brow), check out the Ecopod designed by BMW. For those who don’t live in a community that offer single-stream recycling, consider purchasing a stackable bin unit that allows you to separate your recyclables and then easily remove the bins to either deposit curbside or at your local recycling drop-off center. Once you’ve set-up a system that works for you, then the act of recycling will become second nature. Now if we can just get manufacturers to stop producing and selling us products that are so wasteful to begin with (or we stop buying them until they do). But that’s a blog entry for another day. Happy recycling!

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In my “about” page, you will see that I recently obtained my graduate degree in environmental sciences and policy and am currently working at a nonprofit. I grew-up in a financially poor but very loving family. My family was unable to pay for my undergraduate and graduate education so I worked my way through school and took out student loans. I now have close to $100,000 in student loan debt. Because I work in the nonprofit field, I don’t make much money. I love the work that I am doing and feel that I am making a direct impact in protecting the environment and human health.

However, I am increasingly feeling as if I am drowning in my debt and feel like much more of my time is being spent on trying to find ways to make money than to focus on the things that I really care about. In an effort to sort-out my motivations and conflicts and to better understand what success means, I decided to create this website. I also thought that it would be a good way to possibly bring in a secondary source of income after reading about how blogs and other websites have become so financially successful. I don’t want to annoyingly monetize this website (and frankly my lack of marketing skills and website coding skills prevent me from doing so). What I want to do is to continue providing free resources to the reader that will help improve their understanding of success and expand their way of thinking on the subject–to improve their chances of being healthier, wealthier, and wiser.

If you find the information on this website helpful, please donate by clicking on the “donate” button to the left. As (if) donations come in, I will document how they are helping to pay down my student loan debt.

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Over the past several weeks, I have been identifying, consolidating, reviewing, and reformatting several classic books on success that are currently available in the public domain. I was surprised to come across such material that has been around for decades and is now in the public domain. These books are powerful resources that everybody should have on their bookshelves or on their hard-drives. As such, I plan to format them so that they are easy to read electronically and in hard-copy and make them available here for free–similar to James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh ebook that I recently reviewed and have made available. Below is a list of the books that I have found so far that I am currently reviewing and reformatting. Look for these free ebooks soon…I’ve seen them offered on other sites and on Amazon for up to $50…

• James Allen, Above Life’s Turmoil
• James Allen, The Way of Peace
• P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting or Golden Rules for Making Money
• Lord Beaverbrook, Success
• Arnold Bennett, How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
• Arnold Bennett, Mental Efficiency and Other Hints to Men and Women
• Annie Payson Call, The Freedom of Life
• Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds
• Theron Dumont, The Power of Concentration
• Frank Channing Haddock, Mastery of Self for Wealth Power Success: Power For Success
• Norval Hawkins, Certain Success
• Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
• Elbert Hubbard, Love Life and Work
• Melvin Powers, A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis
• L.W. Rogers, Self-Development and the Way to Power
• Samuel Smiles, Character
• Samuel Smiles, Self-Help
• Samuel Smiles, Thrift

Popularity: 100% [?]

Ebook: As a Man Thinketh (pdf)

In an effort to evaluate what success means and how to become successful, I have researched several historical texts on the subject. One of the pre-eminent texts on success is by a British author, James Allen. Considered to be one of the first self-help gurus, he wrote over 19 books over a 9-year period. Many of these books illustrate the use of the power of thought to increase self-fulfillment and success. His most famous book, As a Man Thinketh, published in 1902, outlines nine basic principles on how to train the mind to achieve positive results. Although written over 100 years ago, these principles are applicable in today’s world and have inspired several other self-help books and programs over the years.

This book is currently in the public domain. I have repackaged it into an easy-to-read format and have made it available for you here for free (see link above).

• Thought and Character
  James Allen sets up the premise of this book by stating the adage, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” In this, he explains that a man is literally what he thinks—his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. As such, if a man’s mind has thoughts of evil, pain will become manifest. Conversely, purity of thought will be followed with joy and happiness.

• Effect of Thought on Circumstances
  In this chapter, James Allen goes further and argues that one’s thoughts not only define one’s character but also one’s circumstances. In short, good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.
  James Allen also writes that good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results and that bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. He continues by writing that the circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental disharmony and that the circumstances which a man encounters with blessedness, are the result of his own mental harmony. Furthermore, he writes that one’s thoughts cannot be kept secret, because they rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

• Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
  In this chapter, James Allen writes that disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in health, vigor, and grace. Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood, so long as they continue to think unclean thoughts. “Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts,” he writes. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food.

• Thought and Purpose
  In this chapter, James Allen argues that until thought is linked with purpose, there is no intelligent accomplishment. Once a man has conceived of a legitimate purpose in his life, he should then mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor the left. “Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded,” he writes, “they are disintegrating elements, which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless.” He concludes the chapter by stating that thought tied ceaselessly to purpose becomes creative force and that he who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations.

• The Thought-Factor in Achievement
  In this chapter, Jim Allen writes that all that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts. A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought, a man ascends and achieves success.

• Visions and Ideals
  In this chapter, James Allen writes that the dreamers are the saviors of the world. He writes that if you dream lofty dreams, so shall you become. “Cherish your visions” he writes, “cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.” He ends by stating that gifts, powers, material, money, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits—or results—of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions and dreams realized.

• Serenity
  In his final chapter, James Allen writes that the calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. He states that the strong, calm, man is always loved and revered. He concludes by imparting these timeless words of wisdom “self-control is strength; right thought is mastery; calmness is power.”

See the link above to read the book itself. It is a short read and well worth it.

Popularity: 97% [?]