The Future is a Paradox  

Looking around the world, it is easy to get lost in fear. Natural and man-made disasters seem to be happening everywhere. The local and international news does not let us forget about how close we all are from world oblivion.

Perhaps someone should let these agencies know that all of this is old news. I for one would really like to start hearing something different. If you think that I am being glib, perhaps you should ask your grandparent or great-grandparent (if you are lucky) about it. Your grandparents will be happy to tell you that when they were young, news was just a slightly modified version of what is being presented now.

Back in the good old days; ‘The Great War’ to end all wars (WW I) was going to end the world. The ‘Dirty Thirties’ was the decade of the greatest recession in the history of the United States. This depression made the current one look like nothing; people were committing suicides all over the place, and thousands of people travelled all over the country looking for work.
The great ’Dust Bowl’ was in full swing in the Southern United States. Imagine being in there in 1935 when ‘Black Sunday’ turned your entire world into night. Imagine being in one of the hardest hit states, seeing your entire world in economic ruin then looking up to see a giant wall of dust heading straight for you. Your only real source of information is some little radio as the entire world goes black during mid day. Certainly the world must have seemed like it was going to end that day.
Soon after WW II hit and everyone knew that the end was near. Europe was completely devastated. Fascism was the new cool, and millions died.
The world nearly ended in 1962 with the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ and the Russians nearly blew away China in ‘69 (look it up if you don’t believe me). The list goes on I’m afraid.

Yet through all of this, people kept on doing what they always do; survive and prosper. Within this hell there was also joy and laughter. Some people in the world were completely untouched by all this craziness, some actually didn’t even hear about any of it!

Things will always be what they have always been; sometimes almost beyond tolerance and at other times full of joy, love, and happiness. The future can be a source of fear and the past can cause anger and regret. But every moment holds within it unimaginable potential.

When things get to be a bit too much to take:
Try and find the joy in this infinite moment. Forget about the future and the past. Also do yourself a favor and turn off the news for a while.

The time has come, the gig is up. No more can we sit around and say that life is happening to us.Are there conspiracies? Are we being manipulated by a select few? This is no longer a valid question. The answer to every question is:

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN REALITY!

There are so many conspiracies and so many theories about what will happen next, that it’s almost starting to get funny…almost.
If you are to believe some; there will soon be a global disclosure on the existence of aliens. Some see this as a great event that will herald a new consciousness shift while many others see it as a way to further manipulate the masses.
Are aliens real? Will they save us all? Or are they just a made up cultural icon? Worse, are they a created event to be used as a way to weaponize space?

Does any of that matter? You say yes/no and I say sort of:
It only matters if you believe it matters!

Join the minority and take a chance; try to accept as true for a while the idea that everything that you experience is there because of what you think and believe. For example; imagine the fact that if you are in a bad mood (because you believe the world sucks ass at the moment), you will only see things around you that will further confirm your belief. You will see the garbage around you, you will notice those that are acting dumb or stupidly, and as anger consumes you and your blood pressure goes through the roof you will shake and shiver, stub your toe and spill your coffee.
Yet if you try a little NLP (like maybe changing your physiology), you can change your mood and your focus (aka. Thoughts/Belief) and start seeing some of the things that you missed, like the kids helping the old man or the beautiful leaves on the trees. You begin to relax, your blood pressure goes down, you feel more confident and if you make this relaxation thing a habit, you add ten years to your life.

But thoughts and simple beliefs can’t change your reality you say. And I say that a simple smile just allowed your body to begin to release endorphins which have instantly made you feel good. Constricting around 53 facial muscles has allowed you to relax and begin to see the world from a totally different perspective. Moreover you are contagious; instead of thinking about aliens and world domination, you are now thinking about sunsets and happy times with your friends (happy attracts happy). People around you smile back and sometimes muster a happy, “hello.” Now you have done it, they are smiling too and before long they will also be suffering from happy thoughts.

Some even believe that thoughts are actual things that exist outside of their heads. Infinitely creative acts that exist independent of the thinker that thought them and that these thoughts attract to themselves other thoughts that are similar to themselves. These crazy people believe that these infinitely creative creations are responsible for our entire reality. But you don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to. Just experiment with the idea that your thoughts and beliefs can alter your mood, your physiology, your focus and your life span.

So try it for a while and see what happens. Take responsibility for your beliefs and your thoughts. Try to only retain those thoughts and beliefs that are rewarding and uplifting to you personally. And if you do find yourself entertaining negative and personally hurtful thoughts and feelings, ask yourself why you feel like you do. Find out what you believe that makes you think and feel as you do. If it’s a dumb belief based on silly propositions; change it. Have fun, play with your beliefs! As the great Bob would say, “Pull the wool over your own eyes.”

I posit that the oldest profession was not prostitution, but that it was instead Prophecy. If we think of man as a creature evolving over time then we could also speculate that sex was always an important topic and most likely one of our oldest desires. But if we continue to contemplate our evolutionary man then there certainly was a time when man the animal became the thinking man.

At this time, when conscious thought as we know it first appeared in our species, man must have found himself alone and afraid in a very big and very dangerous world. The thinking man now sat in this present moment, aware of all his past glories and failures and contemplating all of his possible future gifts and curses. Aware in this fashion, perhaps man’s biggest desire was not sex but power. Power after all can stop that terrible fear, and powerful people are never lacking in sexual company…
And what could be more powerful than knowing the future?
Profits, seers, and those that could hold council with the Gods must have become very important indeed.

But can humans really predict the future? Is the future written in the stars, therefore unchangeable and destined to happen no matter what? Is the future just one of many futures that can be changed with forethought, knowledge, and discipline?

Sir Isaac Newton was an incredible man. He was a mathematician, an astronomer, and a physicist. His discoveries in the sciences changed our way of thinking forever. He is the one that discovered the laws of gravity; he also made amazing discoveries in motion and optics.
What is not well known about Newton though is that he was also a great prophet. He was a very devoted Christian and dedicated a large portion of his life to deciphering the riddles that he believed were hidden in the scriptures. He was a tireless and passionate scientist and applied this natural talent to solving the enigma of humanities future.

Newton became preoccupied with the bible which he believed held messages for all of mankind. He was also obsessed with the temple of Solomon, perhaps believing as some do, that it is the blueprint to the mind of God. His main focus became the books of Daniel and Revelations. Using scientific methods, astronomy, and mathematical calculations of his own design; he became certain that he had decoded a timeline that clearly revealed the future of mankind.

Newton wrote over a million words trying and finally deciphering, to his own satisfaction, the cryptographic puzzle which he believed existed within the words of the bible. His conclusion, based on his studies, told him that there were three basic events that would herald the end of days:

1.    The corruption of Christianity.
2.    The return of the Jews to the Holy Land.
3.    The third and final reconstruction  of the temple of Solomon.

During his lifetime, Newton was already aware of the corruption of the Church and actually declared the papacy, “The great whore of Babylon.”  But he knew that the next two events would not happen within his lifetime and it seems that he planned for this event by making sure that his work survived to present day; a time when these prophecies might help us all.

His calculations begin by first postulating the date in which the Christian religion began it’s decent into paganism. Newton tried many dates for this downward beginning and finally settled on 609 A.D. He believed this because this was the date that the Roman Empire gave parts of its power to the church. At this time, old pagan temples were reconstructed to make way for the new Christian religion and as a result many pagan practices began to be assimilated.

This date is very important because the prophet Daniel tells us in the Bible that 1,290 or 1,335 “days” after this great fall of the Christian religion the Jewish people will return to the Holy Land. What Newton did here was to suppose that the “days” that were spoken of were actually years and that each year contained 360 days (which are the number of days that the bible tells us were in one year).

If you add 609+1290 you get 1899. In 1897 the ‘World Zionist Organization’ (WZO) was established. This organization set up certain banking organizations and was primarily dedicated to help the Jewish people migrate back to the Holy Land.
If you add 609+1335 you get 1944. The ending of the Second World War happened around this time and as a result of what occured during this war, the Jewish people were finally allowed to return to the Holy Land and establish the new nation of Israel.

Now when it came to the Final Days and the Apocalypse, Newton used a passage that can be found both in the books of Daniel and in Revelations; “time, times, and half a time.” This is a very cryptic statement but Newton tackled it in this way:

TIME = 1 year (360 days)
TIMES = 2 years (720 days)
HALF A TIME = ½ a year (180 days)

If you add 360+720+180 you have a total of 1260. Newton again believed that these days meant years and was able to calculate in this way that the Apocalypse would happen 1,260 years after a certain key moment in history.

After much thought and study, Newton finally settled on the year 800 A.D. He settled on this date because on Christmas day 800 A.D. Charlemagne was crowned king of the Holy Roman Empire. This day, was to Newton, the beginning of this new political system that was to become the new Christian Church.

If you then add 800+1260 you get 2060. This was the date of the Apocalypse according to the prophet Newton. He mentions in his writings that he does not want to, “set dates,” but he also writes that, “The time, times, and half a time do not end before 2060 nor after…”.

So is the future written in the Stars?

From a certain perspective it seems that the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton is telling us that it is. Certainly to think that what is written by God (or many Gods for that matter) shall come to pass, is to say that the future is something set by a force or forces far above and beyond humanity; and man could no more change the word of God than he could move the orbit of the stars in the sky.

Newton would not publish these writings during his lifetime. Some believe that he did this because he feared persecution which might taint his scientific work. But perhaps Newton believed that even though mere men might not be able to change the will of God they might be able to help themselves through knowledge. It is interesting to note that these manuscripts disappeared after Newton’s death and were hidden from the world for over two hundred years. Supposedly stored in a home in Hampshire, his manuscripts mysteriously reappear and were auctioned off in London on 1936. Did Newton plan this? Did he write this manuscript for a future audience? An audience that he hoped would benefit from his words and discoveries?

The skeptic  in me finds it very difficult to believe that our destiny is written in a holy book, or the starts. But I have a ruthless mistress, by the name of logic, and I have found that her prognostications are never wrong. I might be wrong, using her methods, because I forgot to take a certain variable into consideration, but ‘she’ is never wrong. I sometimes think about the fact that science could be seen to be a new religion of sorts with a great mathematical God that is as wrathful as any Old Testament God.

Perhaps Newton is right and our future is set for ever in the stars, or our DNA as a scientist might say, and therefore cannot be changed. I will have to disagree on this; my vanity hopes that we can set our own course and as long as we don’t blow ourselves up or poison ourselves to death, there will come a time when we will be able to change the orbit of the stars. There is something though that Newton and I can both agree on I think;
Whether the future is set in stone or not, all people can benefit from the knowledge of it.

Knowledge is power.

The power of our thoughts is seldom fully realized. Most people pay very little attention to the thousands of thoughts that go through their minds every day. This is a shame because thoughts play a monumental part in our lives and can truly be said to shape our reality.

Our minds mechanically judge every aspect of our existence and these judgments are first interpreted by us through our thoughts. We might be driving on our way to a meeting for example be barraged by thoughts of worry and anxiety. This is a good indication that we have apprehensions or fears about our upcoming get-together. Since most people absorb all their thoughts without any censor and take them all at face value, they can’t help but be very affected by all of the commotion that is going on in their heads.

A great way to learn to manage these rampant thoughts is to practice a technique called “Mindful Meditation”. With this method you can become more aware of all of the thoughts that you are having and as a result you can begin to manage stress, depression, and even chronic pain. By managing your thoughts you can manage your emotions and how you deal with every situation in your life.

In order to practice the art of Mindful Meditation, you will have to learn to be present and in the moment. As a Zen Roshi might tell you, “Be here, now”. Keep your attention focused on the present moment and allow your mind and body to relax.

In order to develop your attention muscles, you might want to perform some of the small tasks of your day in this type of present moment focus. For example you can try and perform all of your chores while focusing solely on the present moment. You will find that all of these simple tasks become far more enjoyable when you are able to do them with your attention focused on the here and now.

When you get a good grasp of this ability to stay focused in the moment and you feel confident that you have developed your attention muscles, I want you to start to pay attention to the thoughts that enter your mind at each moment of your life. This can sound like a simple thing but it does take some work on your part. It is though, one of the most rewarding experiences that you can have in your life.

If you are having trouble grasping the Mindfulness Meditation technique, I want you to try this exercise:

Imagine that all of the thoughts and sensations that you are having at every moment are like balloons moving past your mind. Perhaps there are some that are bigger than others or some might seem to fly across your field of awareness faster than others, but you will realize that at every moment you have many of these balloons making their way cross your mind. Pay attention to these thought/sensation balloons. Don’t judge them or focus on any of them too much. Just watch in a detached way as they make their way into and out of your present moment.

If you have a thought balloon enter your mind on your way to your meeting that has you stuttering or screwing up the things that you were planning to say then you will get nervous and anxious. This is how our thoughts control the reality of our lives. Through Mindful Meditation you can begin to get a grasp on your mental experience and learn to control the experiences of your life.

Learn to let those negative thoughts float past you without paying too much attention to them. You can even imagine that these negative thought balloons are being blown away from your mind by a strong wind. Focus only on those thoughts that empower you and let go of those that do not. By controlling your thoughts in this way, you will be able to greatly increase the quality of your life experience.

The prerequisite to any healthy lifestyle is a good night’s sleep. With our hectic everyday lifestyle this can sometimes be a difficult thing. Nerves that are held in a constant state of tension, due to our stressful lifestyles, make it very difficult to relax when we finally get to bed.

There are things that you can do to help you get to sleep on time and to be able to sleep on a regular basis:

•    First on the list is exercise. If you have an office job or any kind of a job where you are stationary for large periods of time, then you definitely need to exercise on a regular basis. Work out your cardiovascular system as often as you can. This doesn’t have to be anything stressful, just as long as you are raising your heart rate a bit and your are maintaining that rate for a good fifteen minutes.

Walks are a wonderful way to exercise, and if you can’t get out for a walk then a nice casual ride on a stationary bicycle is a great alternative. Exercise does more than just get you tired so that you can sleep better. Exercise is the best way to beat stress and make you feel good. A good work out gets your body to release “endorphins” which are the feel good chemicals in your brain.

•    Avoid the coffee. It seems that it’s next to impossible to go to work for eight hours now days without ingesting at least one cup of coffee. The reasons are understandable and there are times when you just need to get your dose of caffeine. Do try to avoid taking too much; see if you can go from 3 cups to 1 cup. But if you must have your java, then have a cup early in the day and try to avoid coffee in the afternoon. This will help your body to get rid of most of that caffeine in your system before bedtime.

At all costs try and stay away from those power drinks that are so popular right now. These drinks will usually contain more than just caffeine; they can contain Ginseng, Gingko, Taurine, or all of the above.  Your body has a much harder time getting rid of all of these chemicals and as a result you will find that sleeping will get harder and harder.

•    Try to keep some kind of schedule. The biggest thing to avoid is the mid afternoon nap. I personally know a large number of people that say that they have a hard time going to sleep, but you wouldn’t know it when their nap time rolls around. Try to wake up and go to sleep at a certain time and avoid any deviation from this schedule. If you know that you get really tired at a certain time of the day then make sure that you make plans to be out and about during those times so that you don’t fall prey to the “cat nap” gods.

A great way to get you in the mood for sleep is to create a routine. Every night before you go to bed, you might for example want to do few light stretches, fluff your pillow in one particular way, turn off the light, and go to sleep. The idea here is that your body begins to equate this routine with sleep. Eventually a simple routine like this will be all that you will need to get yourself in the perfect state of being for a wonderful night’s sleep.

WHO (World Health Organization) has just declared that the Swine Flu (H1N1) has reached pandemic proportions¹. This means that health experts believe that it is now an unstoppable virus. This new virus can be transmitted from human to human and causes influenza and the symptoms related to it.

Many are very worried that this will kill many people, cause global panic, and economic downturns. With this in mind, we hope that this article will shed some light on possible preventions and how you can fight back so that you don’t feel so powerless in this coming storm.

First and foremost, please don’t panic. Things are not nearly as bad as they might seem. The symptoms of this flu are not as severe as you might believe; most healthy people that get it have reported that it feels like a very intense flu. The reports indicate that most healthy people are knocked off their feet for a couple of days when they are first infected, which can be intense, with headaches, nausea, and fatigue. These symptoms usually go away after a few days and are followed by coughing, nasal congestion, soreness of throat, vomiting, and headaches.

Most people have very little to fear from this current version of the Swine Flu. Whether you are old or young, you can easily overcome this flu by being smart and taking good care of yourself. In the Northern Hemisphere we are deep into spring which brings with it Hay Fever or Rhinitis (as it is known medically); many who suffer from these extremely common symptoms might think that they have been infected by the H1N1 virus. Please don’t jump to quick conclusions and stay positive.

Do go see your doctor if you experience any heavy symptoms as mentioned. But also take cold/flu and allergen medication like normal.  The worst that can happen is that people begin to panic and act irrationally, endangering themselves and the lives of others. It has been reported for example that Argentina has brought its emergency health services to the brink of collapse due to panic. As thousands rushed to hospitals fearing the worst, the Buenos Aires medical centers have received a massive blow that makes treating actual patients nearly impossible. It has been also reported that people began stoning a bus because they believed that it contained a person infected with Swine Flu ². This is definitely what you want to avoid doing.

Do take all of the precautions that you can:

•    Buy some hand sanitizer with large alcohol content and use it on a regular basis. Use it after you get home from work and whenever you have been in public, especially after touching things like public door handles or using ATM machines. Or wash your hands on a regular basis, with good soap and making sure to scrub for a good minute.
•    Keep a stock of simple surgical face masks. If things do get bad in your area, like they did in Mexico City for example, these handy little masks can give you good protection from air-born viruses. Recycle them on a regular basis, making sure to bag and throw away used masks properly.
•    Stock up on some household supplies: Water, food, toiletries, batteries, etc. Nothing crazy, a good three week supply would be perfect. The biggest threat is a panic or a governmental shut down of public works, like Mexico, which will mean that access to supplies, might be limited.

The WHO has asked that the immunization campaign be speeded up and it is believed that this can begin as early as September. Until then there are some medical and some natural medicines that you can use to help yourself:

A.    Number one on the medical list is Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) which seems to provide some resistance to the H1N1 virus. You can also use Zanamivir (Relenza) which can also help. Most developed nations have a large supply of these medical agents and a visit to the doctor will allow you access to these.
B.    If you don’t have access to the above or are inclined to take more natural cures, then we recommend the following:
•    Garlic; this is an amazing herb that has been used for thousands of years to fight off just about anything. Get the real stuff, not pills, and take up to twelve cloves a day if necessary.
•    Juniper
•    Lemon Balm
•    Tannic Acid; Pine trees (Pine needle tea) or really concentrated tea are great sources of this.
•    Oregano Oil; Fantastic stuff. Will kill just about anything. Make sure that you get some with the highest carvacrol concentration possible. A few drops under the tongue twice a day is all you need.
•    Spicy food; do you think that it’s a coincidence that spicy food is popular in all countries that have hot tropical weather? Food that is spicy, with high concentrations of hot peppers, will kill most intestinal bacteria.

All of the natural stuff can be gotten at a grocery store or a health store. Get one or all of these if you like and you will be well prepared. Do some research on your own or ask a person at a health store and they will give you plenty of information. There are other herbs out there that can help but these are the only ones that I am willing to bet on.

Finally stay positive. Many health studies have reported that there is nothing more powerful than a positive mental attitude. Use visualization and relaxation to fight off those nasty little viruses. Know that you are healthy and that you will stay that way, and you will be surprised by the results.

1.     http://www.who.int

2.    news.yahoo.com 200611

Are you one of those really shy types? The kind of person that just can’t seem to bring himself/herself to talk to a new person or group? Perhaps you are a bit of a wallflower and it all has to do with the fact that you just can’t get the courage to go up to that interesting/hot person that you have been dying to meet.

Actually I think that most of us suffer from shyness to one degree or another. You can remember back to the days of the old school dances when you were a kid and how it was so hard to do anything because all the kids were clumped together for protection likes schools of fish, and there was no way that you were going to cross the entire gym floor, and face the scrutiny of the other kids to ask somebody to dance.

It’s possible that this is where mean comes from; all the kids trying to protect themselves from all of the perceived evil out there. They clump into little groups that lash out at others so that they can rally against their own internal fears.  A fear born of shyness?

But there is one simple cure to the shy bug and it doesn’t take much effort. All you have to do is to learn to refocus your attention a bit so that you’re not so focused on that which is scaring you silly at the moment.

This technique is not going to fix the world woes and it won’t end the evil predation that goes on in most school environments but it can allow you to do those things that you found socially impossible before. If you know what you are doing and you have made up your mind that you will be going to put yourself in a very socially difficult situation, or you are going up to that very hot person and break the ice, then I have just the little bit of help that might make that incredibly fearful moment a lot easier to bear.

This technique actually won’t just allow you to do the impossible, it will also help you so that you will be less clumsy and a lot more dashing. The basic premise as I have stated is that you will be focusing some of your attention on something besides the act of the moment and in this way allow yourself to relax and to act in much more capable manner.

What I want you to do is to focus your attention on your thumb.  Just as you feel the pangs of fear that come from your upcoming social interaction, I want you to begin to make an effort to focus less on that event and more on your thumb. Focus your attention on your thumb.

We could use percentages; for example I want you to focus about 20% of your attention on your thumb and the rest on your social interaction. If you find that you are still a bit nervous, I want you to increase the focus to your thumb to 35%. The less that you focus on the social interaction that you are involved in, then less that you will worry and the less fear and nervousness that you will feel.

Trust that your body will carry on without your intense focus and that it will in a sort of automatic pilot like way do all the things that need to be done and it will say all that  you need to say. This will help you if you are one of those people that gets those terrible nervous shakes. Just trust in yourself and keep your focus on that magical thumb. It will be up to you to regulate how much focus you wish to give to your thumb and how much focus you want to give to the interaction that you are having.

Of course you don’t have to focus on your thumb. Any part of your anatomy works pretty good; just try to make it an outer extremity. I like the thumb because if you are having trouble focusing on it, you can grab it with your other fingers and hold on to it, this helps your attention and your focus. Don’t panic and squeeze your thumb though, just Hold on to it lightly, since this is all the help that you need with your focus. Definitely don’t squeeze tightly because this will be a sure sign to others that you are nervous, and  you might end up hurting yourself. If you want, the feet are an awesome thing to focus on instead of the thumb.

As a rule of thumb :), I would recommend that you focus about 20% of your attention on your on the extremity of choice and then increase the percentage of focus until you are feeling comfortable. Never go to over 50% focus on the extremities though as this might not allow you to focus enough on the social interaction; you don’t want to start babbling or all the sudden start looking at your thumb or feet for no apparent reason. Play with it as you see fit and try using the idea of giving your focus percentages so you can stay clear as to how much you are focusing on any one thing.

Next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, just focus your attention as outlined above and you won’t have any more problems with shyness or nervous anxiety.