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Karen Hall and Jerry Stahl: “If you’re here for four more years or four more weeks, you’re here right now. I think when you’re somewhere, you ought to be there. It’s not about how long you stay in a place, it’s about what you do while you’re there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?”

Ask yourself. What would you do with your life if money was no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?

Below a very inspirational video narrated by Allan Watts (what a voice!) and created by tragedyandhopeproductions.org.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Ghandi

Happy weekend y’all!

Kathryn L. Nelson: “Sometimes it is the quiet observer who see the most.”

Once a year, mostly during a vacation in the sun, I completely shave off the small trimmed beard that is with me since March 2007, allowing the sun full access to my ‘whole’ face! 😉

The returning meme after shaving becomes: a beard or not a beard, to shave or not to shave, to Be(ard) or not to Be(ard)…that *is* the question…

I’d say: you vote!

So:

  or   ??

(oh, I do keep the majority vote… 😉 )

Betty Friedan: “It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.”

The hotel has background music playing in the courtyard, nice although the playlist is never changing and seems to be exactly 24 hours which means that I hear the exact same songs at the exact same time of day…everyday! Arrgghhh, repetition is so not my thing! 😉

Every morning at breakfast though I hear a particular song that I really like…my Song of the Day!

Please enjoy Alan Parsons Project with ‘The Turn of a Friendly Card (part 1)‘.

The song uses gambling as a metaphor for life; some people are waiting for the turn of a friendly card to make their lives change for the better. They are unhappy in the process of waiting yet don’t realize that they are their own master of their life…

Well, I’d rather take matters in my own hand, turn the cards myself and discover that though some cards are more friendly than others, all have something to learn in them! 😉

Nice last sentence while I am enjoying my retreat in the sun:

“But a pilgrim must follow in search of a shrine
As he enters inside the cathedral…”

Andre Gide: “Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.”

It is quite surreal to open Facebook this morning and see almost everyone in NL posting pictures and/or giving their opinion of the fresh fallen snow in the Lowlands. Living in Norway, snow is a winters guarantee and I am pretty sure to find a nice 1 meter of the white stuff waiting for me when I come back by the end of this month…grrrroovy!! 😉

Quite surreal, snow covering NL (and in the process causing the biggest traffic ever, over 1000km this morning!) while the lowest temperature *ever* measured in Curaçao is 20.3C…snow is nowhere near and ice is found exclusively in the freezer! 😉

Time to balance the Facebook pictures of snowy NL with some sunny pictures of Curaçao…life is good!

 (click to enlarge)

John Scalzi: “If the universe is bigger and stranger than I can imagine, it’s best to meet it with an empty bladder.2

Norman Vincent Peale: “Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

Charles W. Eliot: “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”

A year ago I posted a fantastic picture of the Milky Way (Look up, it is beautiful!), only to be seen when you LOOK UP…well, it seems as if the mobile age causes us to hardly do so 🙁 …a pity as it is beautiful up there!! (lack of a decent camera, and some clouds, prevent me from taking pictures of the sky here in Curacao 😉 )

You know what? Perhaps, halfway while looking up, you might see something interesting called a fellow human being…CONNECT! 😉

(via We Never Look Up)

(the site is now providing stunning picture of the universe btw)

John Milton: “He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.”

The first book in my Vacation Reading List is Vladimir Megré‘s ‘Anastasia‘; a more than brilliant book in which the readers are taken on a life-changing, personal journey into truths of Nature, sexuality, spirituality, child-rearing, education, planting a personal healing garden, the power of each human being, and more.

I am halfway, and I already consider this as the best and most important book of all time…!!

Then today I stumble upon a YouTube clip which is showing the projected threat of our technological advancements described in the book…no coincidence and a wake-up call for all!

Check it out:

Natasha Bedingfield: “No one else can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open

Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten.”

Drinking enough water is important, especially while sunbathing in sunny Curacao! 😉

If there is no water at hand, one should not be fooled by the glass with water in the YouTube clip below…it is just a drawing, in 3D, yet *very* real!

Neale Donald Walsch: “Answers arrive in more ways than one. Sometimes they come through us, and sometimes they come to us.”

Wow, this one is GOOD! Please take 10 minutes to watch Kathleen Taylor and her TEDx talk ‘Rethinking the Bucket List’…it might just change your view on what really matters in life.

She found that “people at the end of their lives are incapable of bullshit”, and the number 1 regret of those who are dying (as per Bronnie Ware’s ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying‘) is: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Some more quotes:

“Dying people teach us that it is never to late to shed what is false and to become who we really are, I’d like to hope that it is never to soon.”

The big existential question “What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” is actually the wrong question…the better question is “Who am I being with my life?”

“Stop bullshitting and make your life story about how you truly are, because I believe the world needs you to!”

Verrrry interesting…Njoy!

Roald Dahl: “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

Having a ‘Vacation Reading List’ becomes a yearly tradition (and I love it!) and once again, it is diverse and longggg! I hope that I have enough time to read all the books I brought with me, or else…well, then I might need to book some more days here in paradise! 😉

The books on the table are (in no particular order):

– Vladimir Megré – Anastasia

– Neale Donald Walsch – When Everything Changes, Change Everything

– René van der Gijp – Gijp

– Macworld January 2013 edition

– Ken Robinson – The Element

– Steve Jobs – The Biography

– Robert A. Pullen – Uitzicht door Inzicht

– Go Dive – PADI Open Water Dive Manual

– Paulo Coelho – Aleph

Yeah, these books will keep me ‘busy’ for a while…well, as long as the sun is shining, the temperature warm and the cocktails cold I will be fine! 😉