how to live the good life

Pixar’s Joe Ranft’s 2 Rules for Living

Many years ago I attended Joe Ranft’s memorial service with my sweetie, who, at that time, worked at Pixar with Joe on such films as Monsters Inc. and Cars (soon to be released). Joe was always generous and kind to my sweetie and to me — and it turned out that he was that way…

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Failure, Faith and Perseverance

I’m in a tizzy right now. I have an unknown, itchy red rash under my arm. My stomach is upset and bloated. And my office has a giant pile of clothes on a chair I’ve been meaning to take to the consignment store, but haven’t. When I want to shift something, I clean out. But…

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Sherry Richert Belul

Do You Dream of Being Famous? Act Like You Are

What if we are living the dream now, but perhaps it is the tiniest seed of the dream? Still, it is the dream and we can recognize it as such. Like if we were growing lettuce and we just planted a small lettuce pod. It wouldn’t look like lettuce and we couldn’t yet eat it for dinner, but we’d know for certain it was lettuce.

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Verbal Aikido Skills

I Was Hit in Aikido—and it was an honor

I was hit repeatedly at an Aikido training over the weekend. And it was an honor. When I told a friend about this she said, “At the first hit, I’d be out of there. Off to get a latte and shopping for shoes.” Of course a part of me wanted out of there. The other part welcomed the opportunity to polish my spirit. As Rumi says, “Criticism polishes my mirror.” My work will be done when nothing can annoy, irritate, anger, or ruffle me. That is a long way off.

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