A Prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Greetings all!

Happy Holidays! 

As we prepare for 2019, I would like to share a prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, probably best known for his book The Little Prince (which I highly recommend!). 

Teach Me The Art Of Small Steps

Lord, I’m not praying for miracles and visions, I’m only asking for strength for my days. Teach me the art of small steps.

Make me clever and resourceful, so that I can find important discoveries and experiences among the diversity of days.

Help me use my time better. Present me with the sense to be able to judge whether something is important or not.

I pray for the power of discipline and moderation, not only to run throughout my life, but also to live my days reasonably, and observe unexpected pleasures and heights.

Save me from the naive belief that everything in life has to go smoothly. Give me the sober recognition that difficulties, failures, fiascos, and setbacks are given to us by life itself to make us grow and mature.

Send me the right person at the right moment, who will have enough courage and love to utter the truth!

I know that many problems solve themselves, so please teach me patience.

You know how much we need friendship. Make me worthy of this nicest, hardest, riskiest and most fragile gift of life.

Give me enough imagination to be able to share with someone a little bit of warmth, in the right place, at the right time, with words or with silence.

Spare me the fear of missing out on life.

Do not give me the things I desire, but the things I need.

Teach me the art of small steps!

If you are making any New Year’s resolutions, think small steps! But whether your steps are small or big - may they take you on an exciting journey of fulfilled goals and dreams! Happy New Year! May it be healthy, happy, and fun!

Thought of the week - Love

Greetings all!

Here is an inspiring thought for the upcoming week (from http://www.deeshan.com).

Hope you have a great week! Happy Holidays!

Know Thyself [16 Personalities Free Test]

Greetings all!

Are you a Defender or a Virtuoso? Are you more competitive or more empathic? Are you self-assured or self-conscious?

I recently came across an interesting personality test that is somewhat similar to the MBTI framework but expands it into Roles and Strategies.

TAKE THE TEST HERE (available in several languages): https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test 

The test questions identify the five personality aspects that define the personality type:

• Mind – how we interact with our surroundings
• Energy – how we see the world and process the information
• Nature – how we make decisions and cope with emotions
• Tactics – how we approach work, planning, and decision-making
• Identity – how confident we are in our ability and decisions

Then, there are two layers:

• Roles (inner) – our goals, interests, and preferred activities
• Strategies (outer) – our preferred ways of doing things and achieving goals

Read more about the theory here: https://www.16personalities.com/articles/our-theory

What did you think? Drop me a line!

Plitvice Lakes [Visiting Croatia]

Greetings all!

Do you like lakes? Henry David Thoreau said, “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”

Here are some pictures from my trip to Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes: 

Take a virtual walk here and turn on sound for background music: http://www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr/files/panorame/plitvice-en.html

Isn't the scenery gorgeous? Drop me a line! 

Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid? [Improbable Research]

Greetings all!

Did you know that a cat might be both a solid and a liquid? How can it be?! Keep on reading!

Image and the scientist's quote below from https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2649/Physicist-Wins-Ig-Noble-Prize-For-Study-On-Whether-Cats-Should-Be-Classified-As-Liquids-Or-Solids

I recently read that Marc-Antoine Fardin, a French scientist, said "At the center of the definition of a liquid is an action: A material must be able to modify its form to fit within a container.  If we take cats as our example, the fact is that they can adapt their shape to their container if we give them enough time. Cats are thus liquid if we give them the time to become liquid." 

For his work on the rheology (the study of the flow of matter) of cats, he won the 2017 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics. This, of course, took me to Improbable Research (https://www.improbable.com), which I found fascinating! 

According to the Improbable Research website, “Our goal is to make people LAUGH, then THINK. We also hope to spur people's curiosity, and to raise the question: How do you decide what's important and what's not, and what's real and what's not — in science and everywhere else?” 

The prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates in an annual gala ceremony at Harvard University. Below are some of the winners:

2018 

• MEDICINE — For using roller coaster rides to try to hasten the passage of kidney stones
• NUTRITION — For calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets
• PEACE — For measuring the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile

2017

• ECONOMICS — For experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble
• MEDICINE — For using advanced brain-scanning technology to measure the extent to which some people are disgusted by cheese

2016

• BIOLOGY — Joint prize 1) for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and 2) for creating prosthetic extensions of the researcher's limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats
• LITERATURE — For the three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead

The site quotes Isaac Asimov who said “"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but, 'That's funny..." Reading about Improbable Research confirms that!

RESOURCES:

• https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2649/Physicist-Wins-Ig-Noble-Prize-For-Study-On-Whether-Cats-Should-Be-Classified-As-Liquids-Or-Solids
• https://www.improbable.com
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheology 

What did you think? Drop me a line! But please do not try to squeeze your pets into containers to measure their liquidity!