Self-Improvement and Interesting Knowledge

Our Arbitrary Conception of Life

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We are all members of a very shortsighted species. As I have discussed in other articles in this paranormal section, our perception of the world is very limited and yet we insist that our perceptions of reality are the only things that exists.

We are like the frog stuck inside a well who thinks that the sky is only a 3 foot by 3 foot circle above him

The frog having never seen the expanse of the sky outside of the well, only believes that the sky is a small and insignificant patch high above him. This frog might even start all sorts of different mythologies and scientific theories comparing the sky to a small lily pad that exist far above. It could come up with all sorts of theories to try to explain why the sky is so small and yet holds so much light, and it might be very satisfied with its answers thinking itself to be very logical.

Like that frog we believe that life only exists within certain parameters. Because of our relative size and our limited perceptive abilities, we believe that life is a hard commodity to find outside of our little well and that it only exists within the parameter of certain rules, which we consider to be quite logical and factual.

We tell ourselves that a rock is not alive because it doesn’t fall within certain criteria for example; criteria which we have rigorously developed using the vast amounts of knowledge that we have been able to gather inside our little well. Seen in this context, can you see the problem with our logic?

The reality of it all is that we are ignorant fleas riding on top of a humongous elephant who sits upon a gigantic turtle the coasts along an infinite river that is filled to the brim with the most exotic and beautiful things imaginable.

We consider the lady that talks to her plants to be a little eccentric. Those that would think that the Earth is a living sentient organism are considered to be outright fools by most of us. Life beyond our perceptive range is as impossible now as the Earth revolving around the sun was 800 years ago in Europe. We might not burn heretics anymore but electroshock treatment is not out of the question.

When we look at something like a rock we cannot consider the possibility of it to being alive. We don’t think that it’s alive because it does not meet certain criteria which we use to separate life from nonlife. For example it does not move on its own, it does not procreate, it does not breed, it does not breathe, and it does not seem to have a will of its own, so it is definitely not a sentient being to be sure. But in many ways this criteria only holds true because of our limited perception within time.

Within our time frame, a rock does not seem to move. Yet if we were to look at the life of a rock within the timeframe of the thousand years or perhaps even longer, we would see that that rock does move. It is moved by the shift of the Earth, the wind, the sun and the very atmosphere in which it exists. It procreates by acting with other geological life, it absorbs certain gases and liquids over time and it even evolves into other states as a coal is transformed into a diamond for example.

Certainly any rational person would tell you that this is not exactly moving or acting on its own since what the rock is really doing is just riding and being changed by the atmosphere all around. A rational person would say that this isn’t exactly moving and it is definitely not any kind of sentience because the rock hasn’t chosen anything for itself it’s just riding a wave.

An economist though would most likely point out that in many ways most of us are very similar to that rock. If we are to look at an individual moving by himself in the middle of the street, we could say that that person seems to have an individual will and is moving as a result of his or her desires. But when we study people statistically and we study thousands of them at once and over a large period of time, statisticians and economists have sometimes concluded that our ideas of free will and independent movement are really a kind of illusion.

People are moved by the forces all around them and are shaped by these forces just like a rock. The individual desires that they hold so dear, and classify as one of the most important parts of their individuality, seem to be shaped completely by external forces. In other words, seen from a certain perspective and within a certain timeline, people are very rock like in their nature.

Looking at a plant we have no qualms about stepping on it or exploiting it to our own benefit without ever considering the fact that it could be a living, thinking, and feeling individual. By our standards, that plant is not alive because it doesn’t react the way we do. And yet if we are to take a time lapse camera and in this way to watch several days’ worth of action within a few minutes, we can see that the plant does move. Within the time lapse film we can see that the plant moves towards those things that it likes and shies away from those things that it does not like. The plant within its own time field, seems to communicate, feel, and even think in ways that are very similar to ours.

Perhaps a brain is just an organ that is required by certain beings living within our particular time frame!

We will never be able to discover the paranormal until we can begin to understand and overcome our perceptive limitations. These perceptive limitations cloud our judgment as to what life and even sentience are fundamentally.

Video: The Dark Sea, The Rulers of the Earth, and the Problem with Perception

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This is really the fundamental secret that allows a small few to control the many.

Books mentioned in the video:

 

 

 

We tend to be very sure of ourselves. You could ask just about any person on just about any topic that you like and he or she would tell you the way things are. When they tell you the way things are they will tell you in such a way that you will know that they are quite sure about what they’re talking about.

But can we be that sure? Can any of us be that sure about the things that we see and what we perceive of the world around us? The problem with being so sure arises from the fact that our perception, the sense data that we are able to perceive, is not that powerful or that exact.

Looking about you, you would most likely say that you are quite certain about the things that you see before you. Certainly, if you see a book and you reach for that book you will find that the book is there. We are all quite certain that if we hear a bus and see a bus then that bus must be there, and if we don’t get out of the way then we will surely feel the consequence of that mistake. The world is not an illusion, we prove that to ourselves every day, this is not the problem. Our problem lies in the fact that we believe that the world is just like the way we see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, and taste it.

Unfortunately our senses have a very limited range. If we were to study every single one of our senses, like hearing for example; we would realize that within the broad range of possible noises, we are only able to hear only a very small range of them. While humans have an average range of hearing in between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, there is an infinitude of possible sound above and below this limit. To give you an example, the lowest sound ever perceived in the universe is said to have been 0.0000000000000016 Hz; this sound was detected by astronomers studying the Perseus Cluster.

Imagine the amount of noise that you can’t hear right now. If you ever see your pet lifting its head and caulking it ears one way or the other, without you ever having heard anything at all, then you get a basic idea of just how limited our hearing is.

The point of all this is to illustrate the fact that our sense perceptions are very limited, and yet we seldom stop to consider the fact that there could be entire universes existing around us that we are not able to perceive in any way. The size of our universe is limited by the range of our perception, and even with our most subtle instruments, this perception is still quite limited.

The world out there is not an illusion, but we are only able to perceive a small fraction of it. Even our most sensitive instruments cannot begin to perceive all that is going on around us. These instruments can even give us a highly skewed interpretation of the world around us because we tend to create instruments to perceive what which we think we should perceive.
Realize then that wherever you are right now, there’s far more going on around you than you could possibly imagine. While it is possible that you could have a very large imagination, that imagination is still limited by your senses, because it is nearly impossible to imagine that which we can’t even conceive perceptually.

We live in an infinite world made up of the known and the unknown. Our mistake comes from our insistence of trying to fit the unknown into rules that we have developed through the little that we do know. Instead of looking into the unknown with a broad perspective, we tend to look into it with a narrow focus, trying to see what we expect to see because of what we already know. But the unknown is the unknown because it exists in a realm beyond our current perceptual and intellectual capabilities. The only way that we will be able to make any headway into the unknown is by expanding our intellect enough so that it is able to understand that the broad range of possibilities out there can only be accessed by swiping clean our current expectations.

There’s an old Zen story that illustrates this point:

An academic from a local University once approached a Zen master wanting to learn the Way. The master asked the academic into his home and served him tea. While they were having tea the master politely told the academic that he could not possibly teach him the Way and that the academic would need to go somewhere else. When the academic asked why, the master asked him for his teacup; he told the academic that he was like that teacup and that what the master had to teach was like the tea in the teacup. The master grabbed the teakettle and began to pour tea into the teacup, but soon the teacup was full and the tea began to run over the teacup and fall to the ground.” You see,” said the master, “if I were to teach you about the Way, you would never be able to grasp it because you’re teacup is already full.”

When we walk around being ever so sure about what we perceive of the world around us, our teacup is full. The problem with normal human perception is that it lies to us, but just like the best liars it doesn’t tell us an outright lie, it just tells us half-truths. In order to empty our teacup, we must begin to realize that our perceptions are highly limited and we tend to see only what we expect.

But even with our limited perceptive abilities, there is the possibility of extending our awareness. We do see very little of what is around us but we can learn to see more. In my book The Occult Experience I show you different ways to expand your perceptions, and I do recommend it to you if you are interested in trying to empty your teacup.

Anyone that tells you that the paranormal does not exist is someone who is completely unaware of just how little of the world they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. Anyone that tells you that UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, psychic abilities, etc. CANNOT be real; has deluded him or herself into believing that the unknown is only made up of different combinations of the infinitesimal parts that they do know.

Our Mind and How it Clouds Perception

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Am I here now? This is probably the greatest question that you could ask yourself whenever you are trying to decide whether it is your mind that is clouding your perceptions. The concrete world around us exists because of the fact that our minds have been conditioned to only see this things around us in a certain way.

Have you ever gone into a situation expecting certain things? Have you ever judged or looked at something with the expectation of seeing things in a certain way? I’m confident that you would say that you have, but would you believe me if I told you that you most likely do this all the time? That there is nothing that you perceive without the clouding effects of your mind.

The truth of the matter is that our minds are constantly telling us what to perceive and how to perceive it. The ‘conditioned mind’ can be that little voice that tells you what to do or how to think. It’s that little voice that just won’t go away even though you want to see things in a better way or a different way. The mind is also those rampant thoughts that you can’t seem to get rid of. These rampant thoughts usually create different scenarios and outcomes that often times seem to be totally contradictory to what we intend.

Most of us understand this to be that difficult part of our minds, that we would love to get under some kind of control; this is definitely PART of the conditioned mind. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to witnessing the unknown. The conditioned mind can be far more insidious than we would realize, it often operates beyond our conscious control. What it does is that it tells us how to see the world and any deviation from that standard perception can cause great emotional and psychic trauma.

The conditioned mind is a robotic entity of our own creation. Another and perhaps better way of understanding this is to see our mind, that conditioned mind, as a rut or a well-worn path which we can’t seem to deviate from. This path exists within our brain, conditioned through endlessly repetitive thought patterns that have literally created a superhighway of neural synapses within our brains.

The sad part is that there is an infinity of other roads that we could take. There is a giant world out there for us to perceive but we insist on taking our well-worn path. This well-worn path or rut, has become so entrenched within our psyche that it has gotten to the point where any that would stray even a little from this perceptive path, become pariahs in our society that must be reconditioned or eliminated.

Some have tried to get rid of the mind altogether and in this way find some kind of peace. But in order to experience the paranormal we must go beyond merely eradicating the mind altogether because it is this mind that we must use in order to find different paths and different avenues of perception. To eliminate the mind altogether can be a very freeing experience that brings to those that can achieve it a happiness so profound that it is usually termed bliss.
But those that would study the paranormal, those that would venture forth into the unknown, need to be able to use the mind. For those that seek the paranormal, it is not a battle against the totality of the mind, it is a battle against the conditioned mind.

We psychonauts; those that would travel deeply into the spaces beyond, must learn a different method. We battle the conditioned mind and in this way we search for different roads within that infinite map of perception.

What is The Occult Experience All About?

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You are sitting in a room, you look about you and you perhaps see a plant or a table. Unless you are extremely sick or have ingested some kind of mind altering drug, you can be quite sure that what you see out there is real. Most of us do not question the things we perceive with our senses.

We can all say that what we see out there, what we experience,  is real. We take it for granted that whatever we see in the outside world, whatever we perceive through our senses, is what is out there.

It would be very laughable if I were to tell you that what we see out there is really a type of indoctrination. Many throughout history have been ostracized and sometimes destroyed for far less. For example if I were to say that a certain country is bad or that a certain religion is wrong and that the perceptions or logic that you used to come to the conclusion that those things that you believe are right, is faulty; then I would be questioning a fundamental assumption or belief that you have about what is really out there. I would be questioning your perceptions and that can be a very dangerous thing.

In my book, The Occult Experience, I do not only question singular beliefs like religion or patriotism, I question the entirety of our external perceptions. What I am essentially saying in my book is, that our external reality, that which we consider to be the real world, is actually an imposed illusion. I argue and make the point that what we perceive to be out there is only the result, or mostly the result, of a type of belief structure that has been imposed on us since the day of our birth. That this imposed belief structure clouds our judgment, and limits our possibilities. That this imposed belief structure relies mainly on our assumptions about the existence of an objective world. An objective world in the sense that we, and all the things around us are essentially objects. That we do not have much more to us than does that table or that plant that you might be looking at in your room. That boundaries are defined and nothing exists beyond these boundaries, that we are mechanistic creatures; the pinnacle of a mechanistic evolutionary process that is brought about by definite and arbitrary laws that govern the entire universe.

In my book I give you some concrete examples of why even scientists are beginning to believe and agree with the fact that this very object oriented world that we perceive is a lie. Modern scientific advances like the FMRI are allowing scientists to see our brains in a completely different light. We are beginning to discover that our sense perceptions are far more malleable than we first supposed. That our brains can create many diverse external realities.

Studies into the cognitive processes of different cultures, of feral children, and people with certain kinds of brain injury are beginning to show us just how malleable our cognitive perceptions really are. The study of hypnosis and mass hypnotism have shown us for over a century now that human perception can be incredibly altered through different methodologies.

Now I’m not trying to say here that this belief structure, this indoctrination that is imposed on all of us is a type of evil plan perpetuated on us. Then again I am not saying that this is not the case either.

Certainly we can see that a group consciousness, or a groupthink as it were, has allowed us to do some amazing things. For example our civilization would not be possible without this indoctrinating system. Through our integrated group psyche, through our ability to perceive like those all around us, we have been able to create great civilizations and masterful works of engineering. It is indeed the case that it was most likely an advantageous process to be able to have all of us be able to participate in a reality that we could all see clearly. The development of language and writing made this group mind or psyche even more concrete.

There is an advantage to this matrix, and our ancestors knew it.

Unfortunately this group mind, this indoctrination that has been imposed upon us is also a trap. And I say that this indoctrination has been imposed upon us because of the fact that while it is indeed the case that this belief structure is most advantageous, it is also a cage and a trap. One that we must now agree to since we don’t have any other choice.

Perhaps at a time long ago, perhaps before the invention of writing, people had much more freedom within this group belief structure. Unfortunately it is the case that we are now caged within our reality structure, a structure that does not have much flexibility and any deviation from its imposed beliefs can mean quick and certain punishment.

As an individual, you are no longer able to question the system. Certainly we can see through our history that questioning the system would bring about certain punishment. As I said we can look at the witch trials or other such events where people who questioned or acted in a manner outside of the belief structures imposed on us were quickly and ruthlessly weeded out.

With the advent of our new information age, this indoctrinating group mind has gained incredible power.
I’m sure that using this group mind we can certainly grow as the species even more, that  we can and will  create even greater things together.

But with the development of this incredibly powerful information system that connects all of us around the world, we are also at a cusp. A time when it might become impossible for any of us to even contemplate that there are more things out there than we have cared to dream of.

But why exit this group mind if it has so many positive attributes? The reason why we need to learn how to step outside of this group indoctrination is because this group mind is incredibly limiting. As I said it turns a magical creature into a mechanistic meat sack. A meat robot existing in a flat and soulless universe, a universe that is destined to wither and fade away through total entropy.

My book explores ways to exit this group consciousness. It tells you how to escape this matrix that we have imposed upon ourselves, imposed upon ourselves so well that we have forgotten that we were the ones who imposed it upon us. Imposed upon ourselves so well that we have forgotten that there is anything else but ‘it’.

We need to exit this matrix in order to find our true potential. My book “The Occult Experience” shows you how to escape this imposed group mind. It tells you how it happens and how to get out of it.

Using the methods outlined in the book, you will be able to expand your intellect, perceive a greater range on the energetic radiation all around us, begin to access far greater ranges of subconscious information.

This book is designed to prove to you that the Occult experience is real and that this experience can be quite beneficial to all.
Whether you are interested in proving to yourself, once and for all, the reality of paranormal phenomena. Whether you are a paranormal investigator that needs new ways to truly expand and begin to really see that which you seek, or whether you are an advanced Occult practitioner that wishes to try new and powerful methods to go beyond where you currently find yourself;

This book is for you!

The occult experience is real and it is as meaningful and as pertinent as the objective reality that you so take for granted now. The occult experience requires focus, practice, and patience but I do believe that it is the one thing that will start filling some of the holes that we all have, some of the questions that we all have about our existence and about our place in this infinite and magical universe.

Was H.P. Lovecraft an Astral Traveler?

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“the world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”  H.P. Lovecraft   

 

Is it possible that H.P. Lovecraft was a dreamer?
His writing forever changed our conceptions of the world around us and even though he wrote as a fiction horror and science-fiction writer, his concepts of reality have expanded the possibilities of our minds. His perceptions of the reality around us were so far ahead of their time and so completely unique in so many ways, to other Western writers of the time, that one could say he either had an incredibly powerful imagination or he had access to a fountain of experience and information that was denied to the rest of us.

What do we know about H.P. Lovecraft:

  •  He was born August 20, 1890 in Providence Rhode Island
  •  He was a man who preferred to be alone, and aside from some notable exceptions, he was a loner his entire life
  •  His propensity for wanting to be alone made him a real 40-year-old virgin
  •  He change the face of horror, fantasy and science fiction
  •  He was one of the first and definitely the most eloquent writers on what could be called trans-dimensional entities; in many ways he introduced the concept to the West
  •  First to introduce modern popular culture to the dreaded Necronomicon

 

It is funny to think that such a well-known author had very little success during his lifetime. Aside from having his stories published on ‘Weird Tales’ and doing some ghostwriting, his work saw very little success during his lifetime. But is this not something that one would expect from a dreamer? By dreamer I do not just mean someone with his head in the clouds, but someone who actively engaged in deep dream projections and astral travel.

Those that are active dreamers (astral Travelers) tend to love to be alone and they have very little skill in dealing with the world around them, especially the people that they must interact with. H.P. Lovecraft’s work did not see much success during his lifetime I think because of the fact that he just really didn’t try that hard to get his stuff out there. Something that would be expected from someone who essentially spent most of his life traveling trans-dimensionally through dream worlds. He was essentially not too thrilled by this dimension we call ‘waking reality’.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.”      H.P.

He is best known for speaking of a type of life that was beyond the conception of many of the readers of his time.  He spoke of monolithic and epic trans-dimensional beings, beings that did not care about humanity, that were so above us that to even look at us was beyond them. He spoke of immense lumbering and slobbering creatures that treated humanity like cattle to be consumed and used. He often spoke of things which could not be described, and the horrors that awaited us within odd and demented angles. He spoke of the existence of an epic and insurmountable hidden universe; a universe that awaits those that sometimes clumsily open doorways into the true reality of the outer cosmos.

Those that have the ability to travel on the astral planes, mention similar things. They speak of a world which is far removed from the one that we believe to be real. Their visions speak of a greater reality, a greater truth where humanity does not exist as the pinnacle species, but just as one small speck within an infinite cosmos. Those astral travelers tell us the same tales that H.P. Lovecraft spoke of, I suppose the only difference being that H.P. was far more eloquent.

While it is possible that H.P. Lovecraft could have looked up this information in his beloved library or imagined such incredible worlds; there is a certain strength and intensity to his work that in my opinion would be impossible to replicate except by someone who has seen this hidden universe himself. Indeed those that read his works and have not experienced or have any conception of the astral or dream worlds in those odd angles, tend to think that H.P.  was a bit of a nut. Many of his biographers tend to portray him as a very odd and disturbed character with many psychological flaws that they attribute to his upbringing. A dreamer on the other hand sees a kindred spirit when he hears about the life of H.P. Lovecraft.

True clairvoyants, unlike those on the psychic channel, tend to be people who spend most of their time alone. Many of them have nearly nonexistent sex lives because they either know on an instinctual level or directly that ‘sex energy’ is ‘dream energy’ and should therefore not be wasted. They are usually alone because being around others can be quite disturbing since it is quite easy for them to pick up on the terrible machinations that makes up the mind of man.

Astral travelers or dreamers tend to be an even more sensitive lot. They seem to be odd characters with many psychological problems just like H.P. himself. But this is the result of those deep trans-dimensional travels; a being traveling into those macabre dimensions is usually torn asunder by the things that he is witness to. The psyche itself is sometimes pulled and torn in different directions because of the intense trauma caused by the very makeup of those strange worlds. A dreamer returning to what we consider to be the ‘normal world’ can sometimes bring back scars. Who can blame them for thinking our world trivial after having experienced such amazing interdimensional adventures.

The world sees H.P. Lovecraft as a strange and odd fellow, but I see him as a courageous individual that lived a life of great adventure; a rebel who did not bow before the social pressures of his time. His adventure existed in those worlds that he wrote about in his books and his treasure was found in the infinite inner cosmos; no money could ever be enough to surpass this. I think he was interested in having enough wealth and possessions to be able to keep his beloved library, enough to eat, enough to take care of himself, and a quiet and comfortable place to write. In my opinion H.P. was a dreamer of remarkable ability, an astral traveler who forever changed our conception of the vastness around us.

 

 

An interesting note on the Necronomicon involves H.P. Lovecraft’s one and only love, Sonia Greene. Sonia was a very eclectic woman that had an extensive group of friends and acquaintances. Some researchers have postulated the possibility that Sonia Greene came in contact with Alastair Crowley before she met H.P. Lovecraft. Crowley did live in New York for a while and his time there seems to coincide with the time that Sonia Greene would have been living there as well.

Alastair Crowley is a famous magician of that era who in his own way reintroduced the Western world to the world of magick. Crowley was very open about his endeavors as a magician but he seldom spoke about his sources, and yet he seems to have been engaged in dealing directly with those very trans-dimensional beings that H.P. Lovecraft spoke of in his stories. Some have postulated that Crowley told Sonia Greene about the Necronomicon!

It is quite possible that she could have met Crowley. Sonia Greene seemed to know many of the intellectuals in New York at that time. Certainly she would have known some of the people that Crowley would have been interested in meeting himself. If she did run into Crowley, would he have shared some of his knowledge with her, knowing that she had such great interest in the occult herself? Did Crowley tell Sonia Greene about the Necronomicon because he had the book in his possession? Did Sonia Greene mention this dreaded book to H.P. Lovecraft?
Is it possible that the Necronomicon is more real than we think? Could one of the greatest astral travelers have had a direct connection to one of the greatest magicians of the 20th century through Sonia Greene? Perhaps… probably not. But Definitely an interesting idea worth researching.

Cure Carpel Tunnel with DVORAK (?)

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Getting a handle on the QWERTY (or) DVORAK debate

DVORAK is a revised layout of the English keyboard that was invented by the US physician Dr. August Dvorak in 1932. It is said to be far more efficient and faster than the QWERTY keyboard that is standard today. A great deal of controversy surrounds the battle between these two keyboard layouts and their practical application. This paper is written to try and address some of these issues and perhaps help in settling some of the debate. I hypothesize and hopefully prove that DVORAK has great application in the relief of physiological stress that is accompanied by the heavy use of keyboard entry.

Most modern people have become used to spending a great deal of time in front of a computer. Whether this is because of the fact that people now work more and more in an office environment or because they like to spend a lot of time on the internet, the computer (the keyboard that runs it) has become a huge part of all our lives. As a result, carpal tunnel has become an endemic illness that affects larger and larger groups every day.

Basically if you spend large amounts of time on a keyboard, then it is quite probable that you will develop some kind of pain due to carpal tunnel; which is defined as a compression at the wrist of the median nerve. This can cause numbness, tingling, and pain. It can be cured to a certain degree by assuming a correct posture, developing an ergonomic working environment, and by wearing a wrist brace. But a large part of the problem is due to the amount of typing that we do and the stress that this causes on our hands and wrist joints.

If you are suffering from any of the symptoms of carpal tunnel and you have gone as far as you can go ergonomically, then I suggest that you give DVORAK a try.

Is DEVORAK faster than QWERTY? Is DEVORAK more efficient mechanically than QWERTY? The former is a difficult question to prove because of psychological issues that I will get into later, but the latter can be proven with some calculation. In order to prove or disprove the efficiency of any keyboard layout, we must ask ourselves: Which are the keys that I must type in most often, and how hard is it for us to type these keys?
In order to answer the latter question, we can begin by finding out which are the most used letters in the English language? Fortunately there are 2 great sources that might be able to answer this(1):

  1. The first is the letter frequency used by Linotype machines. This is a keyboard operated machine that cast an entire line of text into one large piece of metal. These machines which are sorted by letter frequency for convenience, set the following letters as being the most often used (in descending order):
    Etaoin shrdlu cmfwyp vbgkqj xz
  2. The second is the Morse code letter frequency organizer; which organizes letters in frequency of use so as to give these letters the shortest symbols for ease of use (in descending order):
    e it san hurdm wgvlfbk opjxcz yq

If you look at a DVORAK keyboard (Fig 1) you can see that Dr August designed his keyboard with these letter frequencies in mind.

Cure-Carpel-Tunnel-with-DVORAK

 

 

 

 

 

Fig 1

 

Perhaps these sources are old, is there more recent evidence? Actually as a result of statistical analysis, it is now possible to know with relative certainty the frequency of letter usage in English or any other language. The graph below shows the percentage of letter usage in the English language(2):

Cure-Carpel-Tunnel-with-DVORAK2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As can be seen from the above graph, both letter frequency measures are very accurate ( the linotype letter frequency is nearly identical to the new data). But how does this stack up when it comes to actual words and to typing in general.

In order to measure this I again referenced two sources to get the most used WORDS in the English language:

  1. The first is based on the combined results of British English, American English, and Australian English surveys of contemporary sources. These include; newspapers, magazines, books, TV, radio, and real life conversations(3)
  2. The second is a rank of word frequency calculated by running word list in wordnet dictionary database against a few popular search engines from 2002 to 2003 (4).

Using the first twenty words in each of these sources, I calculated the number of letters that are found in the central letter row of each keyboard layout. For example using the central word row of the QWERTY keyboard:

[A S D F G H J K L], we find that the word [THAT] has 2 letters that are found in this middle row.
We can say therefore that… 2/4 = 1/2 = 0.5 of [THAT] can be found in the most easily accessible row in QWERTY.

I did this same calculation for each of the twenty words in each separate source. You can see the result of my calculations on the two bar graphs below (to see my complete calculations, please see the bottom of article).

Cure-Carpel-Tunnel-with-DVORA.3K

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to these calculations;
QWERTY has an efficiency of 36 %
DVORAK has an efficiency of 87 %

Cure-Carpel-Tunnel-with-DVORAK4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the second set of calculations:
QWERTY has an efficiency of 40%
DVORAK has an efficiency of 87%

With two statistically viable samples of twenty words each we can see that DVORAK is mechanically about 47% more efficient than QWERTY. This means that without having to move your fingers at all (just pushing down on the key below your finger), you can type a significantly larger percentage of English words using DVORAK. As a result, your hands and wrists will be far less strained and it should improve carpal tunnel by the large reduction on strain, stress, and fatigue.

As you can see from the two graphs, the words chosen by both sources are nearly identical, which is something that you would expect if these two sources are accurate. Because of the fact that we don’t have percentage of words used (actually I did find percentage of words used but it counted words and ‘lemmas’ so not really an accurate representation in my opinion), we can’t have 100% accuracy on our calculations. But with the above method, you can easily make a decent estimate of the mechanical efficiency of DVORAK. Also I did not want to pursue these calculations to a great extent because of the fact that generally speaking (a mean of the English population) we will all be using these words, but specifically we might be using words regularly that are quite different from this mean. For example if you are a biologist, or a computer programmer, you will most like have your own set of used words that are slightly or very different from the ones sampled here. In this case, you will have to try and come up with your own list of most used words and calculate the keyboard efficiencies as I did and decide for yourself whether switching to DVORAK will be of any help to you.

What about speed?
Well mechanically we can easily ‘guestimate’ that DVORAK should be about 47 % faster than QWERTY. Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon seems to have given great credence to this when she became the world’s fastest typist using the DVORAK keyboard (212 wpm!)(5). But why then isn’t everybody switching? And why are some people finding it so hard to get positive results with DVORAK?

There are two big reasons for this and they both have a psychological basis:

*  The first reason is that it is actually hard to learn a typing format. In order to learn QWERTY, you probably began by playing around as a kid. You found your parents computer or typewriter and started to play with that. Eventually you had to take some kind of course in school, which you had to pass, and now you possibly find yourself in a work environment that uses machines that only support QWERTY. That was a lot of effort to learn one typing format!

This relates directly to the ‘learn to ride a bicycle’ weirdness. At first the effort to learn to ride a bike is hard, but after you ‘get it’, you never forget. You don’t think about what you are doing, you just do it. Learning a keyboard format is the same thing, it took you a bit longer perhaps to learn QWERTY but now you don’t think about it, you just let the fingers magically find the keys on their own. Actually if you had to think about it, you would probably screw up all the time. This is because neurological connections in your head have been established through repetition and without thought resistance, your brain will naturally take the neural path of least resistance. The less you think about doing it and just do it, the better you do.
But as anyone who is bilingual will tell you, you can have two competing and complex neural paths in your head. There will always be bleed-through (as in Spanglish for example) but your brain is complex enough to be able to handle both complex neural paths.

*  The second reason is that nasty/healthy tribe mentality that we all suffer from. Most of human history is the history of tribes. We are hardwired to instinctually identify with a group of individuals and to fight to protect that group and what it stands for. If I am from the small DVORAK tribe and you are from the QWERTY tribe we are going to be instinctually antagonistic towards each other. If I am from the PC tribe and you are from the Apple tribe…
Well you get the idea.

We are all very complex creatures that love our tribal connections( did someone say Facebook?), but sometimes those tribal connections don’t make logical sense. We can now be part of many tribes and can consciously choose which tribe suits our personal needs best.

Speed seems to be better with DVORAK, but you will have to prove that to yourself.
There is a great driving force in life; this driving force is called need. If you have pain and are suffering as a result of carpal tunnel yet you need to keep typing because of your job or personal desire, then I suggest that you switch to DVORAK. I believe that that the calculations above prove that point.

If you have the need to use DVORAK then I suggest that you take the time to learn this keyboard layout properly, which is actually a lot easier that you think. The links below will be of help I hope. I am not an affiliate and I do not endorse any of the products and sites below. They are given here as help and additional resources for any interested parties.

http://www.tenthumbstypingtutor.com/ (Great tutor for learning QWERTY or DVORAK)
http://gigliwood.com/abcd/ (Another real good DVORAK tutor)
http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/index.html (A site that helps programmer’s layout their DEVORAK keyboards with optimal placement for key commands)
http://www.dvzine.org/ (DVORAK in zine form)

Sources:
(1)(2) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency>
(3) world-english <http://www.world-english.org/english500.htm>
(4) insighting <http://www.insightin.com/esl/>
(5)thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast <http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/fastest13.html>

Claculations:

dvorakclc1

_______

dvorakcalc2

 

 

Win friends and Influence people, the honest way!

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We are often told that dealing with people is a fine art. Often we are told that, “you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.” There is definitely a huge amount of information given on how to deal with people by complimenting them and appealing to their egos.

 

The thing is that if you look really deeply into this type of technique for dealing with people, you end up getting a bad taste in your mouth. Most people won’t admit to it, and they will play along the lines of how it is always a good thing to be nice to others. The thing is though that most of this complementing and ego boosting tends to be very shallow and untruthful. In your mind you get the picture of the person that is smiling at you but doesn’t really mean that smile. Personally I think of the hard-core salesman that would say anything to get you to feel good so that you would buy his product, or the retail person that must smile in order to get through the day but she hasn’t really felt like smiling for a very long time.

 

‘Political correctness’ also comes into play here where lately people seem to find it very easy to say what they believe they should say instead of being honest. What I AM trying to say is that this whole, “Win friends and influence…” type of game can be quite dubious at times. There is though a better way to deal with people using these techniques.

 

  •  First of all you don’t need to give someone a complement if you don’t feel like giving someone a complement. Be honest with them and yourself, there are times when people are not meeting your expectations and you should not complement them for it. To think that if you complement them you will get better results can be a critical mistake, one that is as grave as blowing your top every time you don’t get what you want. The complement technique has a time and a place and when it is used at the right time and in the right place it can help you and the other person by creating a positive atmosphere through positive feedback. When used at the wrong time it makes a liar out of you and the person that you are dealing with.
  • Never underestimate the power of honesty. By being honest with yourself and with the other person about how you feel about them, perhaps you can begin to help everyone out and reverse this whole political correctness craze. Imagine what it would be like if people got actual truthful feedback about how they are treating you or how they are acting towards others. No one tells the truth anymore, we have all become politicians.

But how do you do this “ win friends and influence people” technique correctly? Perhaps we should begin by only complimenting those people that truly deserve it. Because it is indeed the case that those people that are good to us do need this positive feedback. It is quite often the case that these folks who treat others with respect or who provide good service are not given the kind of praise they truly need.

 

The praise that they truly need is truthful. This kind of praise has a certain emotional quality to it that cannot be faked and when it is given to another person it is a truly inspiring thing. It can be even a small word or two but this is enough usually to boost another person’s spirits and to give them hope about what they are doing and who they are as a person.

 

Praise given because it is supposed to give you an advantage over someone else so that you can get what you want is not true praise. This Kind of false praise is made up of empty words that do not have the same emotional tone; which is a truly important thing. You are lying telling someone how wonderful they are so that you get what you desire and the other person is lying to you by smiling and accepting this token to their ego like a tip for a service that they haven’t even provided yet . In the end you have two people who are participating in what has come to become known as “the politically correct society.” Deep down we know what the truth is.

 

The other day I had to get some x-rays done because of a certain accident that I had been in. This meant that I had to go get x-rays on two separate occasions. The lady who took my pictures was nice and quiet and did her job as efficiently as she could. On the first set of x-rays when my doctor looked at them he commented on the fact that they were very good pictures and that the person that had taken them had done a good job. When I went to see this lady again to get the further set of x-rays taken, I went through the same routine as before letting her do her job in her quiet efficient manner. In my mind I thought of the doctors praise and thought of telling her about it but then decided that I shouldn’t because I would be bothering her. I felt shy and did not want to tell her what I had heard, and then I remembered the fact that there are times when a person needs to hear that they’re doing well, that they are appreciated for what they do.

 

I straightened up and I told lady that the doctor had said that she had taken some great pictures and that thanks to her, his diagnosis was a lot easier. It was an honest compliment given to a person who did a good job and who probably didn’t hear that very often. This was made evident to me when she told me that it was too bad that the radiologist in charge never said such things but that she appreciated the doctors comments because she thought that he was indeed a good doctor himself.

After a little complaining like this, she started to light up and became very excited about the fact that she did a good job, on perhaps a small matter since I’m sure that she takes many x-rays a day. She made sure that I had the numbers that I needed so that I could call and find out about the results to my x-rays and while she was taking my new x-rays she did a darn good job taking extra time and extra care with each picture that she took. My complement allowed me to get better service and results.

 

But the truly important thing here is that my complement was an honest one and it was probably a complement that was needed because the lady probably had not heard her work praised very much in the past. My complement had an emotional honesty to it that I could not fake and it was this feeling of goodness towards that other person that made this complement so powerful. It was hardly a couple of phrases that I spoke but I’m certain that it helped her greatly and it helped me by making me feel good about what I had done; overcoming my shyness in order to let another person know that they are appreciated.

 

You can indeed get what you want if you go around complimenting and feeding another person’s ego. But it is far more important that you become more honest and give praise only when praise is due so that we all begin to become more honest with each other about how we feel. It is also a type of responsibility to be able to get over your shyness and praise those people that truly do a good job and are truly helping you in some way because even though you sometimes feel like it’s not important enough for you to speak up, the reality is that those people who are truly worthy of praise do need your good feelings; those loving feelings that come honestly from your heart. A praise like this can give someone meaning and it can allow them to overcome difficulties in their own lives through the strength of your positive emotional energy. Give a little love when others deserve love, such honest emotion can only bring goodness into your life and the life of others.

 

 

Through Self Acceptance you can beat crippling emotions

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One of the biggest causes of stress, anxiety, and negative emotions of any kind is our inability to cope with our mistakes. Even though it is a well understood fact that we are all fallible, a fact that is easily understood logically, making even the smallest of mistakes can cause an instant upsurge in blood pressure. Some people are able to see and accept the mistakes that others make without much trouble but they tend to fly off the handle, emotionally speaking, whenever they themselves make a mistake.

While I could go on and tell you about the fact that we are all imperfect creatures, that we all make mistakes, and that these mistakes are a natural part of our daily process, I doubt that it will help too much when it comes to forgiving yourselves for the mistakes that you make. The reason for this is that even though people can logically understand that mistakes are a natural part of life, they can’t seem to be able to reconcile the mistakes of others and the mistakes that they themselves perform. That is when people understand the concept that mistakes are a natural thing, what they are really doing is accepting the fact that others will make mistakes and that these mistakes are natural. It is much more difficult though for them to accept the fact that they will make mistakes and that these mistakes are natural.

See there is the real crux of the matter; accepting the fact that YOU will be making a lot of mistakes often

Why is it so hard for us to accept this? The reason I believe is that whenever we try to understand something logically, we tend to go through the process like any academic process; we tends to put it on the blackboard as it were and look at it in a detached fashion. We put all the facets of this particular problem outside of ourselves, structure these facets, and then figure out how they fit together to create this particular problem. While this is a very good way to understand logically why it is that we all do make mistakes, this is not a very good way to realize EMOTIONALLY that what we are seeing on the board is going to happen to us as well.

What you must do therefore is to begin to realize and to accept as fact the inevitable conclusion that you will be making mistakes. In order to do this you must consciously take the realization that you logically came to and put yourself into that scenario that you had previously only conceptualized on that imaginary board in your mind. By doing this you will objectively understand that you are not a detached being merely observing a logical conclusion but an actual person who will be affected completely by the logical conclusions that you have made.

Basically what you need to do is to take the last step in your logical reasoning. This step involves the conscious realization that you are the one that will be making those mistakes. That you will be making mistakes often and that you need to forgive yourself for these mistakes because they are natural.

Let me repeat:
you will make mistakes, many mistakes, and this is natural. It actually will help you to get better at everything that you want to do

I’m not asking you to make an emotional realization, because these emotional realizations can only happen through time and personal experience. What I’m saying is that you need to accept the final aspect of this logical conclusion that you are making and by doing so you will allow yourself to make mistakes without so much emotional trauma. When you can do that you will have taken a big step towards self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is one of the most powerful things that you can do in order to relieve the stress and anxiety in your life. While many systems out there tend to really advocate a change in emotional stability, it is my personal opinion that in order to make deep and lasting change in your life you first need to make an objective realization and then through time develop the emotional stability that comes along with that realization. To just work on your emotional states will only have you bouncing back from one emotional state to another without ever fixing the problem at its root; which is usually a belief that you hold. These beliefs can best be tackled by using logical and objective thought so that you develop a natural inclination towards your desired goal. Essentially you are not fighting yourself you are expanding yourself and giving yourself direction consciously.

Incorporating self-acceptance can make a huge difference in your life. Realizing that mistakes are natural and that you personally will be making many mistakes as a natural result of your existence, can be one of the best things that you can do for yourself.

  • Accepting the fact that you will make mistakes, accepting yourself, can be very helpful. When you do this you are inspired to correct any behavior that you do not like or that you do not think was correct. If you make a mistake and you can’t handle that fact emotionally, then you will not try to correct these mistakes but you will try to ignore them instead, cover them up. By accepting the fact that you make mistakes and therefore accepting yourself as who you are, you will quite naturally take whatever steps are necessary to correct your behavior. Without personal recrimination you will logically or intuitively try to find a way to correct the mistake so that in the future you are able to function better. You will be a better problem solvers when you are not so emotionally distressed.
  • When you accept the fact that you do make mistakes, you are accepting reality. Since there are no perfect people, at least that I know of, then it is quite unlikely that you are the one true perfect being on Earth. If you look around, is there any person that you know or have heard of the has never made a mistake? Since the answer to this question is no, then why is it that you expect that you will never fail while others are allowed to do so?

 

Mistakes are there so that we know the right way to go. Through mistakes realize that what we have done was not correct and are therefore given an answer as to how to proceed next time. If we make a mistake that next time around then we are told again that this too was a mistake and we must therefore correct our course by going in a different direction. In other words;

mistakes are our friends!

Accept the fact that YOU are going to be making many mistakes throughout the rest of your life. Forgive yourself for these mistakes and accept yourself. Develop self-acceptance and through this one act, relieve yourself of much of the stress, anxiety, and negative emotions that can make your life a difficult thing to bear.

Why you experience negativity from family and friends when you practice Self Improvement

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Any kind of self improvement involves change. Change can be a very difficult thing for the individual because it means a totally new perspective or lifestyle; anything new can be quite scary. If this change is difficult for the individual who is often times wholly dedicated to changing, imagine how difficult this change must be for the people around you.

One of the biggest setbacks whenever we are trying to make any kind of personal self improvement, is the disapproval that we can sometimes experience from the people around us. It is sometimes the case that this negative feedback from the people around you can be caused by jealousy. Sometimes when others see you doing well in your goals, it can be very unsettling for them which can cause them to lash out at you.

This is definitely not something that is often discussed in self-improvement articles and other materials. It can be difficult to admit that often times the most difficult thing in achieving your goals is overcoming the negative angst from others. Whenever you make a goal and begin a major re-modification of some aspect of your life, you must be prepared to deal with the negative energy from others.

Sometimes this negativity can take on the form of a lack of any kind of positive reinforcement. Usually the first thing that a person notices when they start to make a deep change their lives, is that those around you tend to get very silent. This silence stems from a desire to not provide approval as a result of the other person feeling threatened by your good effort. Sometimes it is even the case that actual negative remarks are made which can be very damaging when you are expecting moral support and positive energy from those that you consider allies. Indeed it has been noted for example that one of the greatest hindrances to sobriety can be the family members or friends of the person who is trying to make a positive change away from a life of dependency*.

It must be realized though that this jealousy is very seldom evil intent. Generally what is going on here is that people are being forced into a change of routine and this change can cause huge amounts of anxiety for them. We are all bound by our routines and we hate anything or anyone that breaks these routines that we hold so dear. Routines create comfort because they allow us to participate in a cycle of activity that can be easily controlled. This control stems from the fact that we know exactly what we are doing now and what will happen in the future. This kind of comfort is most satisfying and is indeed a pleasurable thing, but when a person creates a change in their life there is a ripple effect that can affect all the people around them.

When you create a goal for yourself and are very successful in the changes that you wish to make, you end up affecting those people around you by breaking certain routines that they’ve held dear, that provide great comfort for them.

  • If for example you have a friend that you always went out for a smoke with and all of a sudden you are no longer there because you have decided to give up smoking, you create a routine break for that friend and this causes anxiety for him or her.
  • If you set a goal to become more financially successful at something and begin to see positive gains, then all your friends and family will see this as a change and therefore a break in their personal routine. If you could do it then why can’t they? Shouldn’t they be trying as hard as you? They used to believe that life was so and so and all of a sudden you brought a big change in their lives; one which usually instigates a forced introspection in themselves.
  • If you begin to practice a change in how you think about things, for example trying to practice the law of attraction in your everyday life, and you begin to have a more positive attitude, people can see this as a negative in their own lives. Again this is not evil intent, it is just that you broke another person’s routine; life was so and so and then all the sudden you came along and changed it. While you might find it quite negative that others are trying to destroy your positive outlook, you must try to see it as just that other person’s only way to cope with the change in routine that they now face.

 

This website is dedicated to giving you ideas and methods to improve many situations in your life. I hope that you use some of these methods and that they work for you, but I must let you know that these methods can cause some grief. This grief comes from the negativity that you might experience from the people around you. This negativity is not caused because these people have evil intent towards you but it is caused because as a successful person, as a person that has successfully implemented a self improving change, you are also the cause for change towards all those that are a part of your life. As you change, you change the way others perceive you and therefore perceive themselves and the world around them. You possibly change the way others relate to you and therefore create a routine break that can be quite discomforting.

When you begin any kind of self-improvement goal, be prepared to handle this negativity at first. It is just a change in routine which others will have to deal with. As one routine dies, another begins and once you overcome this initial negativity from others you will begin to see that this new routine that you are creating will create its own momentum and help you maintain the change that you fought so hard to make. By understanding that the negativity from others is just another little hurdle in your self-improvement, you will be prepared for this and hopefully will have the strength to overcome it.

The most interesting aspect of all this is that once a new routine begins, as the people around you begin to perceive you in a new way, this new routine will be an ally that will help you maintain the change that you have made. If you start falling back on your old ways, it will be those people around you that will help you maintain your new change by pointing out any discrepancy in the new routine that they have become accustomed to.

*http://www.arrowheadlodgerecovery.com/arizona-substance-abuse-treatment/the-familys-role-in-substance-abuse-treatment-for-a-loved-one/

Simplest way to get yourself Happy Now

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In this ‘new age’ we are told over and over again that maintaining positive thoughts is the best thing that we can do for ourselves. Now whether you believe in this whole New Age movement, this whole law of attraction bit, I hope that you do realize that a positive state of mind is a good thing no matter how you think about it.

You do not need to believe that thoughts create reality in order to realize that a positive state of mind will create a positive effect. If for example you are about to partake in any activity, if you engage in this activity with a positive state of mind, one that makes you feel confident and energetic, you will definitely realize better results. In other words you don’t need to maintain a positive state of mind just so that you can attract those things that you want metaphysically, a positive state of mind will also help you in the objective sense.

But how do you attain this positive state of mind? There seem to be an infinite number of exercises and ideas about how to do this. Most of them seem to be quite complicated if you really think about it; its usually this step by step formula where you are supposed to feel this, imagine that and make it all brighter or smaller or something. Sometimes these methodologies seem like a cooking recipe.
Well if I have not bored you completely and I have not scared you off with my proposition of another method for attaining a positive state of mind, then please let me give you an exercise that is incredibly simple and only requires one thing; the power of your focus and attention.

You see fundamentally all of these exercises really rely on this one principle; the principal of focus. If you’re able to maintain your attention focused on one positive thing no matter what, you will be able to maintain a positive attitude in just about any situation.

When I say focus, I do not mean stress or strain. If you stress or strain yourself you might actually hurt your body and perhaps even give yourself an ulcer. There’s a big difference between concentrated focus and physical effort. The body gets tired and too much tension can be quite detrimental to it, but the mind never tires and it is always going even when you are sleeping. The trick then is to use your mind to focus your attention and not your body.

An easy way to know if you’re doing this correctly, is to see if you are tense. If you are tense when you are trying to focus your attention on something then you are doing it wrong. Try to relax your body first and then focus your attention. Over time you will be able to focus your attention without the need to tense up your body as well, it is most important that you learn to do this properly.

Okay so now finally to my little exercise to help you stay positive in any situation. Well it’s as simple as this: focus on a word.

Let’s say for example that its gloomy day outside and you just want to get a little happier. Then all you need to do is just to focus on the word HAPPY. Just try and hold that word in your mind for as long as you can and you will notice instantly that the longer that you can focus on this one word, the happier that you will get. It will instantly begin to correlate with happy memories that you might have had in the past and with happy thoughts or goals that you might have about the future.
And that’s it, that’s the entire thing.

But the trick comes when you want to try and maintain your focus on that one word. If the power of your attention, if the strength of your focus, is not that good then your ability to maintain your attention on this one word will be quite difficult. Most people have difficulty maintaining their attention focused on a single item for a few seconds. If this is the case for you, then what you need to do is just keep practicing.

Practice is a simple thing, all you need to do is to bring your mind back to the one word that you want to focus on. For example as you try and focus your mind on the one word HAPPY, you might start thinking about what you’re going to cook later or about some responsibility that you have to take care of. What you need to do is to catch yourself mentally wandering off and refocus your mind on the word. Don’t get frustrated and just keep refocusing your mind on that one word.

It is possible to attain an incredibly powerful focus. But this takes time and I suggest that you do not get discouraged at first. Just try to increase the amount of time that you can focus on the one word that you have chosen. See if for 15 to 20 minutes you can focus more on the word that you have chosen and less on all the other stuff that keeps popping into your mind. Continue like this and see if there ever comes a point when you can actually think about that word for the entire 20 minutes!
If you feel confident, increase the length of time that you spend thinking about this one word.

With this incredibly simple exercise, you will be able to focus your mind to a great degree. If you’re able to maintain your focus on the one word that you have chosen long enough, then maintaining a positive state of mind will become quite easy for you. You will certainly have to work on the power of your focus and attention but having this strong power of focus and attention will benefit every aspect of your life. Think of it like exercising, a pleasurable exercise, that will give you so much that is worth every single bit of sweat that you lose doing it.