How important is a free spirit in a structured world?

There’s a plan that’s by design, and this meet is one of several progressive milestones…

Masters outdoor championships

Sleeping in a dorm closet on the floor was a privilege, because it meant the opportunity to wear…

dorm room pics

… to wear this runner’s bib on the shirt above.

Men's 1500

How important is a free spirit in a structured world? Dear Son (and Cheryl), of all the people in the world, you know how hard a man with a dream works.

And with 2012 being the greatest Summer ever, you should be noticing tangible change in the free-spirit aura. Thanks again for allowing the trip to Lisle, Illinois yesterday and the day before.

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When Midlife Celebration Gives It Away For Free, Does It Become Less valuable?

Midlife Celebration's 5,000+ Posts Have Always Been Free, All The Time

What’s the inherent value of something from Midlife Celebration if it’s free? Isn’t it generally assumed the more expensive it is, the more it’s worth?

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The Truth Hurts

Fog

Fog

The truth hurts. The truth can also set us free.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever!”

Can’t you just hear people saying this, or thinking it?  I say it too.  We all do sometimes.

In fact, I’ve said this all my life.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Until a few years ago when things began to change.

One close friend describes me as, “A Transformed man.”

Just yesterday, at jeffnoel.org (spirit) I posted about the fog, the semi-conscious state many of us seem to go through life with. Some may call it auto-pilot.

As we are into the fourth day of the new year already, wanted to remind everyone that the goal from all this writing is:

  1. To leave a trail for a young child
  2. To help others with their goals
  3. To eventually raise money to find a cure

These things have the ability to help transform anyone. At the moment, it’s working slowly, but powerfully.

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Five A Day – Part Three

“Why did you create five blogs in the first place, knowing that you’d never be writing in all five everyday anyway?”

Two logical reasons:

  1. My model for balance had four parts, not two
  2. I’d link each of them to all the others, for SEO

Mid Life Celebration is about balancing life’s big choices, and there are four:

  1. Mind
  2. Body
  3. Spirit
  4. Money

This fifth blog, jeffnoel.com, was created because I thought there should be an “office” or “headquarters”, so to speak – one that didn’t have a theme and wasn’t part of the model.

And when the previous jeffnoel.com didn’t renew after having that domain, www.jeffnoel.com for seven years, it was a natural choice to pick my given name as a dot com.

That’s it.  That’s how it happened.  And now, I can’t stop myself.

In a sea of blogs that drone on about whatever, I’m carving out a space among the few who have five-a-day, droning on about whatever.

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How Many Posts?

Total posts?

Since March 2009, 1,152.  From five daily blogs, by the way.

Not bad for a guy who simply wants to “leave a trail” for his young (9 years old) son.

And, oh yeah, one other thing.  Not bad for a father that wants to help raise enough money until a cure is found for his son’s incurable disease.

Hopefully, you’ll never tire of hearing about this.  I don’t.  How could I?

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World-Class Benchmarking

Benchmarking.  Seeing, not how others do things, but more importantly, seeing how others think.

I am a serious bench-marker.   Way more than the average bear.

There will come a time when my (five) blogs have more sophisticated features.  All good things take time.  Rome wasn’t built overnight.  I didn’t wake up one day and get to represent the United States at the WMA Master’s Track & Field World Championships.  It took a decade.

Anyway, this blog caught my eye because of Trent’s 14 Money Rules.  Click here to go to Trent’s blog.  Scroll down a bit, its on the right side column.

Money, like our mind, body and spirit, need constant attention, otherwise we will not reach our potential.

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Rules For Being Human

I’ve had this article for ten years, given by a friend. The author is unknown. Here it is in it’s entirety:

The question remains, despite all the work and inquiry of the researchers discussed in this column and countless others: How can we build committed, competent people and workforces?

I received the following as a handout at a class I attended;  the author is unknown.  Because these reflections give me solace, I am sharing them.

1.  You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2.  You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time information school called life.   Each day in this school you will have opportunities to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons, or you may think they are irrelevant or stupid.

3.  There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, of experimentation.  The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately work.

4.  A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6.  There is not better than here. When your there has become here, you will simply obtain another there that will again look better than here.

7.  Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8.  What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.

9.  Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you.  All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

jeff here again.  How was that for the first installment of “Too Long Tuesday”?

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Too Long Tuesday?

There’s been a very calculated effort to make all five blogs comply with a “short post” challenge.

It was a simple test to see what would happen.  What happened?

Website traffic spiked.  Thank you everyone, for your interest.  While the real reason I blog so much is selfish, it’s actually an amazing joy to think others may benefit as much as me and my Family.

This leads to today’s title, Too Long Tuesday.  It seems an occasional long post may work, without overwhelming me or you.

Personally, and generally speaking, long blog posts bore me.  No offense to those who write them.  Have written a fair number myself, but mostly in the early days.

Time marches on, and so has this post.  See ya tomorrow at Too Long Tuesday?

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