Songs for Japan

There's already a zillions places where you can give to help people in Japan, but here's another original one and you get something in return!

It's an album that includes 38 songs from today's top stars all for a tiny 9.99$ to support Japan.

The 38 tracks include some of their biggest hits, featuring an exclusive remix of Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way,” Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You,” Bruno Mars’ “Talking to the Moon,” Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love," and more. All proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross.

Buy the Album

Thank you everyone for your generosity!!

Merging thoughts and blogs

First, I want to thank everyone of you for the response and feedback you gives me on my blog. It's very appreciated and I'm grateful to have gathered so many readers in such a short period of time. I wasn't sure about starting this blog last fall but now I'm enjoying every bit of it and am very pleased with the route I took.

I got a comment about my last two entries about the cost of food and the elephant mindset story. If we combine those two blog together it would mean that we'd have to change our mindset to grow our own food.

It's a pretty good idea actually and if people can catch things out of Bliss Odyssey like that, it's great. My goal is to make people think about what's around them and make them aware of their choices.

I'll go a little further and merge another blog to these two. The highway alternative. There are always some alternative ways of doing things. Taking the highway or buying frozen vegetables, either way, it's your choice. Alternatively, you can take the country road which is filled with pleasant sights or grow your own flavorful carrots. We all sometimes need to take the highway alternative in life, the fastest and easiest route but we must not forget that we all have a choice. Remember that sometimes putting a bit more effort or time into something returns a greater memorable experience.

Food for thought: Actual cost of food

Food. We need it. A comment my better half made after reading an article about food pricing made me think about where food comes from and etc. So I did some research on food pricing. The numbers I found are aligned with those from the article. You can read further about the number in this Food Marketing Institution (www.fmi.org) report on food marketing.

Basicaly, when you pay a dollar for food only 19¢ pays for all the effort needed to grow and produce that food. The remainder (81¢) pays for marketing fees which includes transportation (4¢), packaging(8¢), retailer share(4.5¢) and the biggest portion going to the labor of all that marketing (from truck driver to store clerks) at 38.7¢

Of the retailer's 4.5¢ share, only 1.9¢ is profit. The rest pays for its operations and its own marketing.

And there's an "other" 22.4¢ which I did not find much explications about but the sure fact is that it's a quarter of your money going somewhere else than paying for the actual food or paying for jobs created by this whole marketing process.

Next time you go to the superstore, divide your total bill by 5 and that's the cost to produce the actual food you bought.

That being said, where ever you are, support the local merchants as much as you can.

Here's a few more interesting links from fmi.org :
Competition and Profit
Supermarket Facts

It's called Mindset

I got the following from a friend, it's a good sign when you start getting suggestions on things to add on your blog. It was an image but I retyped it so it fits better in my blog.

If anyone knows where that text comes from or who's the author let me know, I like to give credit to the rightful author of what I put on my blog. And if anyone want to share some of your favorite quotes or story on my blog let me know as well!

So here's the Elephant Story.

As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were held by only a rope tied to their legs. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but they did not. My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

"Well", he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free." My friend was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believes they couldn't, they stuck right where they were. The powerful and gigantic creature has limited its present abilities by the limitations of its past.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life holding onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it before? How many of us go refuse to attempt something new and challenging because of our so called MINDSET?

Your attempt may fail, but never fail to make an attempt...

&

CHOOSE not to accept the false boundaries and limitations created by the past...

Book and a quote by Lionel Ritchie

Not too long ago I posted a blog entry about an article by Neil Strauss in the Wall Street Journal, I loved the article. That article was the starting point of Neil's promotional campaign for his new book, Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. Why am I telling you this? Because a few days after his article, in his newsletter, Neil asked people who wanted to take part of his "Street Team" to help promoting his new book and I joined in. It's been simple exposing tasked like changing your Facebook profile picture to something including his book and twitting some stuff on Twitter.

Those of you who know me on Facebook and Twitter, that explains my strange behavior of the past weeks.
 

My FB profile picture as part of the Street Team.

For doing that, I got some little bonus stuff. Quotes from the books prior to its launch, some pictures and some other media stuff.

I want to share a quote from the book with you today. It's actually a quote from Lionel Ritchie which is in the book.

“I did decide to write about what I experienced in climbing to the top. And finally when I got there, I discovered what was at the top. You know what was there? Nothing. Not one thing. What was at the top was all the experiences that you had to get there.” – LIONEL RICHIE

I find this a very powerful quote. Achievement in life is something but the best part of all achievements is the journey which led to it. Make it your Odyssey.

P.S. I'm not posting this on my blog because it's part of Neil's publicity campaign but because I do like his work and think it's worth posting. I can't wait to read the complete book. Go check it out, http://bit.ly/ELYWYD

The Highway Alternative

This is just a thought which can somewhat relate to this earlier post.

A question came to my mind yesterday as I was coming back from my vacations, driving back home on the highway. What is more important to people, saving time or experience something pleasurable?

If I ask you which of these two is the nicest picture.

I assume most people will say the left one. Correct me if I'm wrong. But then everyone will take the highway because it's faster even if it's boring to drive bumper to bumper for hours with nothing to look at.

It's not all bad, it gives me time to think about something to write on my blog.

So this is the highway alternative. It is but one choice that most people pick simply to save time. Cheese slices is a more modest example. 10 minutes workouts. Disposable wipes. Whatever you can think about, I'm sure everyone's lives are filled with time saver gimmicks.

Interesting fact about time:

I read about an interesting study about time not too long ago, sorry I don't remember the source. They asked people what they would do if an 8th day was added to our 7 day week. Most people answered they would use it to do more work hence the same stress filled activities they do the rest of the week. The study also showed that those were the same people who said they had no time to relax. If you can live your fully stressed life within 7 days, why fill the 8th day with more stress?

Which bring me to my next question, why fill the 7th day with stress?

Quote - Body Workout And Pain

Here's a quote for those of you who like to workout. There's always a thin line when working out trying to do too much and not enough. Too much and you injure yourself. Not enough and you don't improve. But one thing is sure is that if you don't feel a little bit of pain you're not working hard enough.

"Pain is only weakness moving out of the body"

I guess, this notion could also be applied to other aspect of life as well. It's hard to become stronger in any aspect of life if you don't go through hard times. Unfortunate, but true.

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Here's a very interesting video I found today. It explains a lot of things I see around me these days. Watch it and see if you find it truthful. It says it's scientifically proven but as all things concerning humans, nothing is really provable.

Plus the animation and drawings are just plain cool.

Enjoy!!