Thursday, October 27, 2011

Life Is What You Do

In 1969, Joseph Stein together with John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics) adapted the novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis into a Broadway musical. The show opens (and ends) with the song "Life Is," with lyrics that bolster Alexis Zorba's credo that you must grab life while you can.

In 1978, I was a graduate student and teaching assistant with the philosophy department at Miami University. One interdisciplinary course that I taught was "Confronting Death." During class one day, I asked my students, "If you were given the option to know when you were going to die, would you want to know?"

While some said no, others were adamant about their yes. Pressing on a bit I then asked, "What would be the benefit of that knowledge?"

Many students thought it would help them to plan their lives. I recall comments such as:

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Have a joyful day everyone. And remember to live a flourishing life.
Rita
www.ritaschiano.com

To learn more about how you can live a flourishing life, please visit my web site, www.liveaflourishinglife.com.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

How Distracted Are You?

It is not surprising that modern day life is often referred to as the "culture of distraction." We are bombarded with information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And yet, most of us cannot get enough. We channel surf, search the Web, talk and text, drive and text, drive and talk, drive and talk and text. It is no wonder we are driven to distraction.

The term "multi-tasking" originated in the computer engineering industry, and refers to the simultaneous execution of more than one program or task by a single computer processor. What we engage in is human multi-tasking -- the performance by an individual of appearing to handle more than one task at the same time. The operative word being "appearing."

When you stop and think about it, the human brain is really quite amazing. According to a study conducted at the University of California, San Diego, the average American consumes 34 gigabytes worth of information a day, that's about 100,000 words. Now, clearly we don't parse a full 100,000 words each day, but that rather staggering figure does infiltrate our eyes and ears and minds via the Internet, television, radio, iPods, text messaging, cell phones, video games, Wii and oh so much more.
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Have a joyful day everyone. And remember to live a flourishing life.
Rita
www.ritaschiano.com

To learn more about how you can live a flourishing life, please visit my web site, www.liveaflourishinglife.com.