I was going to title this, “Why people don’t exercise”, but I wasn’t sure anyone would open it since the mere mention of the word “exercise” sends some people into a flurry of frustration and disgust. (Even me at times, so at a Facebook post’s prompting, I changed “working out” to “dancing with life”!) With regards to the title of this post, I went with plain ol’ “Why”, and if you’re still reading this, cool – let me tell you why people don’t exercise (and some other stuff, but that first).

First things first: when you exercise – especially when you lift weights – muscles experience little tears (like a paper does when you rip it, not like the things your eyes produce when you’re sad). That tearing of the muscles causes a kind of “burning” sensation, and, quite frankly, it kind of sucks. It’s really uncomfortable to feel that burn, so people avoid it. Also because they don’t see...

…has been yelling at me a lot this week. Positively screaming in my ear all week long.

Here are some things she’s been saying:

You’re not writing enough.

People are going to stop caring what you have to say.

The ideas you have aren’t interesting/engaging/good/funny etc. enough.

You’re being too slack around your business.

And on and on. And on. Every minute it seems like there’s a new statement from Judge Judy (so unoriginal, I know, but it works).

Guess what? It’s all BS.

It’s not real.

Not for me, anyway.

I don’t believe her. I think she’s lying to me to get me all riled up.

Well, that’s not going to work!

See because if I believe even for one second that she’s right, that my ideas aren’t ________ enough, that I’m being too slack, that people will stop caring what I have to say, then she will be right.

Yes, I realize she is me. I get it.

The thing is, however, that...

Did you know that your brain sends a message to your eyes to basically ignore your nose, even though your eyes can see it at all times? (And you just totally became aware of your nose right now, didn’t you? I told you! Cool, huh?)

The reason your brain does this is because you don’t need to see your nose all day long. It’s pretty much the same reason you never think about your elbows, your ears, or your eyelashes, for example, even though they’re always there. And if someone asked you to touch your elbow, you could do it without looking, I’m sure. You know exactly where it is without having to see it all the time.

“What’s your point, Laura?” you may be asking.

Here’s my point:

The things that get your attention are the things you see.

This may feel like a simple and obvious truth, however I’m not talking about physical things that are right in front of you, like a closed door or...

Please watch this.

Every time I show this to my classes, the same thing happens: I can hear a pin drop, and no one talks for about thirty seconds after I turn it off.

We have more than enough.

This is Landfill Harmonic.

Make beautiful music this weekend.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI]

IMPOSSIBLE:
Flapping your arms and flying, fitting your entire body inside a regular-size thimble, walking from San Francisco to New York in one day.

Or, anything science says is physically impossible.

POSSIBLE:
Everything else.

Good? Good.

I learned a new acronym recently: FOMO. It stands for “Fear Of Missing Out.” (Warning: mild snark ahead.) As if any one of us needs another acronym to remember, OR another reason to carry around fear. Sigh.

Anyway, the origin of this phrase apparently comes from social media, where people (young people, mostly) incessantly post photos of themselves doing various things or attending various events – parties, concerts, trips, etc., and, sometimes just photos of them in their homes or what they’re having for dinner – resulting in other people who look at their pages feeling as if they are “missing out” on something by not constantly having a new event to attend or a fun and exciting plate full of food.

I remember as a teenager always comparing myself to others. Now, as an adult (and after many years of tool-gathering), I’m conscious of not comparing myself to anyone else since we are...

Some days, I think I am absolutely hysterical. I say something that I think is funny, and fall over laughing at what I’ve just said.

My husband thinks it’s absolutely adorable when I do that, and he ends up laughing - not at my comment, usually, but rather at the fact that I’m laughing so hard at what’s just come out of my own mouth.

What has started to happen now is that I’ll be with other people - colleagues, friends, etc. - and say something I think is funny, laugh at it, and inevitably they’ll start to laugh, too.

Do you know why?

Maybe sometimes they laugh because they want to be nice, sure. I’m betting, though, that there’s another reason: laughter is contagious. Hearing someone laugh instinctively makes us want to laugh, as well, or at the very least makes us curious about what was so darn funny.

When I was younger, people laughing at me felt terrible. I instantly became...

One morning, about four years ago, it was absolutely pouring torrential rain outside. I had been rushing around that morning to get out of the house (evidence of my formerly awful time management), and had had a particularly stressful ride into work. Upon arriving to school, I realized I hadn’t made the copies I needed for my first class. Feeling crunched and already wanting to go home and call it a day, I decided to change my plan last-minute (yes, sometimes we do that).

As the kids came into the room, I knew I needed a massive change of energy.

I told my students I wanted them to go online and look up good news articles; they would treat the assignment as if they were looking up regular current events, as we had done a few times before, except this time they were only allowed to find happy stories. They spent about twenty minutes researching, about ten minutes putting together...

Once upon a time there was a young girl named…Laura. (A bit anticlimactic, I know.) Laura once thought that she had very little value in the world, and so she allowed herself to be continually run over by others, letting them intimidate her and make her feel inferior. As a result, Laura came to believe that she was “less” of a person than others around her; that somehow, she was a “no one”, when everyone else was a “someone”.

This is what she believed. And this belief impacted absolutely everything she did (and didn’t do). It caused her to live a very stressful life, always wanting what she didn’t have (but thought she “should” have), and wishing she were “more popular” and “cooler”.

What Laura didn’t realize, though, was that her beliefs were causing her to create this reality for herself. And in this reality, she didn’t matter. She wasn’t worthy of having confidence or self-esteem...

WHOA.

What?!

Just “give up”?

Yep.

OK, OK - it’s not what you think.

It’s not “give up” in the sense that you stop moving every day towards your dreams, or that I’m suggesting you just throw your hands up and exclaim, “THIS IS ALL JUST TOO &*!@% HARD!!” Truthfully, if you’re living a big life, chances are that at some point you’ll want to do that. I want to do that sometimes, too.

And still, I gave up. I gave up ways of being that were no longer serving me. I gave up feeling like I “should” be living some kind of teeny, tiny life where I don’t “rock any boats” or go after my dream so that I get to live every day on my own terms.

I gave up feeling sorry for myself when I put energy into something that didn’t turn out the way I expected it to.

I gave up harboring jealousy towards people who I thought were “further along” in life’s journey than I was.

I gave up resentment for the...