Latest in Awareness & Growth

Our Culture of Waste: Why We Should Stop Wasting (and How To Prevent Waste)

(Riding on last week’s post on reasons why people are fat, inspired by my recent travels in the U.S., today’s post is about waste and how to prevent it. I can’t imagine this would be a popular topic given other conventional topics of personal growth such as ‘How to cultivate a habit‘ or ‘How to improve our relationships‘, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be written about. This is equally as important as other areas of personal growth, if not more. Read on.)

Waste

In the 7 weeks I lived in New York City, one of the occupants in the apartment I stayed in, a local, was extremely wasteful. He had a habit of buying a lot of food while he was out, storing it in the fridge, and doing the same thing the next day – to the point where half the fridge would be filled with his food.

Since a lot of his purchases were takeout or prepacked meals, they would go bad after a week or so, and would eventually get thrown out, much to my horror. Bear in mind some of the food would be literally untouched. As much as I tried to salvage the situation (by taking the vegan friendly bits), much of the food was…

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Published Jan 30 2012
Filed: Awareness & Growth, Cultivate Habits, Healthy Living, Love & Compassion, Money & Wealth, Productivity & GTD
Tags: consumerism, culture of waste, how to prevent waste, materialism, wastage, waste

11 Blatant Reasons Why You Are Fat (And Will Continue To Be)

Fat Belly

Being in United States, I noticed how people here can get quite large in size. While there are plenty of people here who are in good shape and health, there seems to be more overweight people (per segment of population) compared to outside US, and the ones who are overweight seem significantly larger than the average overweight person outside US.

(For what it’s worth, I’ve been in cities such as New York City, Washington DC, Philadephia, Boston, Los Angeles and soon San Francisco, where people are probably more health conscious than other US states. I can imagine the situation is probably worse in southern states like Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Oklahoma.)

A quick search on Google reveals that obesity is indeed a growing issue in US, despite efforts to control the problem. About one-third (33.8%) of US adults today are obese, with 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 who are obese. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Preventation).

What is it that makes people fat? Is it the lack of healthy food options? Is it the lack of exercising facilities? Is it the lack of knowledge on healthy living?

Possibly, but I don’t think that’s the main reason. If anything, I think US (at least…

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Published Jan 20 2012
Filed: Awareness & Growth, Cultivate Habits, Emotional Mastery, Healthy Living
Tags: diet, eating, emotional eating, fat, fat loss, lifestyle, reasons you are fat, weight loss

How To Handle Molestation: A Real Encounter

How To Handle Molestation

Have you ever been molested before? I have, and today’s article is about how to handle molestations.

My Molestation Encounter

Last week, I was on Amtrak (the railway network in US), going from New York City to Los Angeles. It was a 3-day train ride (Jan 5-8), with a transit in Chicago.

Not all the passengers were going from NYC to LA. There were multiple stopovers, where passengers would depart, and new passengers who would get onboard. This meant I was sitting with different people throughout the ride. I was in the coach cabin, with an aisle and 2 seats on each aisle.

On the first night, there was someone seated beside me, so I slept on my seat. While the seat itself was fairly spacious, could recline a fair bit and came with plenty of legroom, it was not as comfortable as sleeping on an actual bed. I made the best out of the space given, curling up in my seat, while the person beside me did the same too.

On the second night, after transiting in Chicago, it turned out there was no one seated beside me for the night. So I occupied both seats and used them as a bed. It was as comfortable as it could get…

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Published Jan 14 2012
Filed: Awareness & Growth, Character Building, Emotional Mastery, People Skills, Travel
Tags: bully, bullying, fear, how to handle molesters, molestation, molester, sex offenders, sexual abuse