Celebrating the Couch Potato

Ah, couch potato, that icon of American pop culture values. Isn’t that life? Why would anyone want to exert extra energy to be productive when you can simply plop down on couch in front of telly and enjoy all that delicious snack food and a cool one. Why worry about a yard that needs mowing, a sink full of dishes or that overflowing garbage can. They will all be there tomorrow or even next week - you can take care of them then, or not. There are more important things to do. On TV there are all those fantastic game shows, ball games and sitcoms. Oh, those beautiful sitcoms. You can, literally, sit there for hours and be transported to an altered state of consciousness where you can laugh and cry and be entertained and not have to do one little bit of thinking whole time. And don’t forget those great video movies. You can transport yourself to become a great athlete or movie star, and can even fall in love or feel a whole range of other emotions without ever having to risk danger or heartache. What a life! Then there is great food. Everyone knows that best food in world is snack food. It is virtually drips with tastiest greasy stuff you can find. And there are dozens of flavors of chips and all kinds of frozen pizzas and other tasty things you can just throw into microwave during a commercial. Then there are all sweet snacks. My favorite has to be Zebra Cakes, but who could turn their nose up at cookies, cakes, pies and candy. And drinks - ah yes, drinks. There are so many flavors of canned soda these days that you could have a different kind every day for a month - and so many are low calorie. That’s so great because with all of calories you save drinking those, you can grab a couple of extra slices of pizza. Of course there are a couple of minor drawbacks. Being a couch potato may cause you to gain weight and suffer a few health problems that go along with that. And with lack of exercise you might end up being a bit weak physically. And of course, with all TV viewing, mind gets a little numb. But what are a few minor irritations compared to overwhelming happiness that allows you to sing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” even in your sleep.

What to Do When You Are Chased by a Snake

I lived for several years on Japanese island of Okinawa. It is a tropical island setting with a wealth of beauty and lots of things to do. We lived on side of a mountain that overlooked Pacific Ocean. The beauty that we were able to observe from there was breathtaking. There were a lot of enjoyable things about living in Okinawa, but one of things that I enjoyed most was learning to scuba dive. The island itself is a coral reef island so it is surrounded by all different types of coral - different colors, different shapes. There are also dozens of varieties of tropical fish. And water was as clear as a bell. Even from surface, by wearing a mask, you could see all of beautiful sea life that was thirty or forty feet down. But for a diver, it is not just sea life. Different parts of island have very different terrain, and you didn’t even have to have a boat to enjoy it. In most places you can just swim out a few feet and have a great dive in water that is anywhere from fifty to one hundred and twenty feet deep. In some places there is a wall. You swim out and all of a sudden bottom goes from twelve feet to sixty feet deep straight down. Other places have caverns or giant boulders or wavy hills. So much variety. Of course, scuba diving can be dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing. That is why people who want to take up sport have to get training. There is an actual certification that a person must get in order to participate in sport. In certification class you study all of things you need to know to be safe. You learn how to use equipment and actually practice doing it. You learn how to calculate length of time you can dive at different depths so as not to get bends. And, of course, you learn about different kinds of sea life - particularly about creatures that can be dangerous. One day I was out diving with a friend and I came across a brown water snake. There were two kinds of snakes in waters of Okinawa. Both are poisonous, but brown ones are more so, and they are more aggressive. Well, I didn’t see this snake until I was fairly close to him and when he saw me, he started coming at me. I had seen this kind of snake before and always steered clear, but had never had one come toward me. I had been told that they won’t mess with you unless you mess with them, but for some reason this guy started coming and kept coming. Now I don’t like snakes, to begin with, and especially poisonous ones. When I saw him coming, I turned around and swam away as fast as I could. After I had gone a little ways I looked back and, to my surprise, he was still coming. You guessed it, I swam even harder. That rascal chased me close to forty yards before he finally gave up. Well, I knew that he wouldn’t chase me forever and that if I could move out of his territory he would leave me alone. If I had not known what to do, though, I might have tried to attack him back or do something else stupid that would have caused disastrous results.

The Four Foundations for Gaining Control of Your Life Knowing what to do is not something that just happens to us. We have to take time and make effort to figure out what we need to know, then go after it. We have to prepare. But we also need whole picture. If we prepare in wrong areas, or if our preparation is incomplete, we will end up as if we had never done any preparation at all. This principle applies to every arena of life - to our family, our job, our sports activities and every other area. Since principle is so pervasive, it is important to make sure we completely understand it so we can use it in life. People tend to be way too narrow in way they apply growth principles to life. It is not possible to select one or two elements of life to grow in and neglect rest. The areas that are not strong will, eventually, pull down even areas that are strong. We have to develop our whole self all time. So just what are areas that we have to focus on? Well, there are four.