Sunday Reading 16 September 2007

We’ve had a touch of cooler weather to come this weekend. Last night the temperatures fell into the 30s (Fahrenheit). It felt good to snuggle under a blanket.

The past couple of weeks have been busy. The Personal Development Blogger’s list started by Priscilla Palmer, and also hosted at the Personal Development Carnival site, has grown dramatically and now contains over 400 blogs.

Inspired by the list, Alex Shalman is giving away an iPod Shuffle. It’s easy to enter, so drop Alex a comment and get your name in the hat. Thank you, Alex. You’re a generous man.

People like to talk about the box. Usually, the box is seen as a bad thing. The box is our normal physical and psychological environment, the things we do and think every day, our habits of living, our comfort zone it is often called. If we never leave the box, if it always stays the same size and covers the same area, it is a self-constructed prison

Alex Shalman’s Can You Handle Yourself Outside The Box sent me to a post by Dawud Miracle, Are You Thinking Outside The Box? Dawud makes the point that we need the box. If we get rid of the box completely, we’ll soon build ourselves a new one or go back to the old box. Effective personal growth doesn’t come from destroying the box. It comes when we grow it. Our habits of thought and living are a framework within which we grow and create.

Getting out of our box doesn’t have to be complicated. In The ancient art of COMPLICATION Craig Harper talks about the extent that we’ll go to keep our boxes. Getting out of our box isn’t complicated. Life, in general, is as hard as we make it. Change mostly comes from deciding to change and just doing it.

Steve Olson gives an example of stepping outside the box in Finding the Remarkable Among the Ordinary.

Change doesn’t normally lead to instant success. Sometimes we have to try Making Up the Answers. The answer may work. It may not. If it does, you’ve got a bigger box. If it doesn’t, you’ve still got a bigger box because you’ve learned something new. Either way you win.

On a side note, have you ever learned something new that has stared at you for months. This week Edward Mills in the comments to The 10 best (insulting) comments I’ve received on StumbleUpon taught me how to find out the reviews on any page that have ever been Stumbled. If you’ve got the StumbleUpon toolbar installed, just click the little cartoon dialog bubble that sits next to the Send to button. Something small, I know, but sometimes I’m slow.

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The Share A Square project, hosted by Shelly Kneupper Tucker at This Eclectic Life, is moving right along. We are over half way there to the 6720 squares needed. Help complete the project of making 140 afghans for kids. Make a few squares, or if you know someone else who crotchets or knits, ask them to make a few squares and send them to Shelly.My thanks go to all those who feel that Shards is worth reading and listening to (can’t forget the podcast ). Special thanks go to those of you who found Shards worth linking to. These includeEdward Mills at Evolving Times in Let’s Begin The Week With Some Winners!
Thank you, Ed. I’m looking forward to it!Liz Strauss at Successful Blog in A Puzzler for a Fun Post and a Little Labor Day Link Love.

Derek Kwa of Sui Generis in Freedom.

Steve Olson in Best of the Internet 9-9-07.

KirkM of Just Thinkin’ in Reflections:
Learning to Live.

We Life Here Now in Creating your own reality.

What kind of week will you make this week?

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