StaywellMA

My friend is a fan of Paulo Coelh and has quiet a collection of the authors books. Hence  I've been using this quarantine time to raid his bookshelf . I always held the though that his book, The Alchemist , was over hyped in the media and didn't really live up to my expectations. That disappointment made me reluctant to read another books by Paulo Coelho. However I am here to say I LOVE these 3 books. One of them is actually a companion to The Alchemist and I love it more than the later. 1. The Supreme Gift. This book is entirely about 1 Corinthians 13: Love is kind. As fate will have it, I picked up the book on a day, my love walk was at an all time low. Mind you, I had no idea what the subject matter of the book was. It was nice to be reminded that LOVE IS NOT SELF SEEKING and LOVE KEEPS NO RECORDS OF WRONGS 2.The Warrior of the Light I did not want to PUT THIS BOOK DOWN. I had to exercise restrain and take appropriate breaks from reading to make sure...

Is it better to be  book smart  or  street smart? As someone with a graduate degree,  to be honest. I'll say street smart . I know lots of street smart people who read a lot. Yes what they are reading might not be on the academic curriculum of your favourite accredited university. But, street smart people take ownership of their own learning and customize their learning based on skills that they can apply to their lifestyle. Street smart people APPLY KNOWLEDGE actively which translates into wisdom but a lot of book smart people just have knowledge in it's passive form. They absorb more than they implement. They are more interested in intellectual debates instead of applying their knowledge in a practical sense.  Book smart is just you reading a bunch of text books and unfortunately sometimes there is a very large disconnection between school curriculum and the real world. If I could do it over, I would have gone to ...

Loneliness Is it really a bad thing? or just a normal natural emotion in the range of colorful emotions we all feel as humans. I think it's okay to feel lonely. Instead of fighting the emotion, lean into it, experience it and allow it to flow through you and out of you. Especially if it's loneliness surrounding an event  (in this case we are all quarantined), don't be in denial of the circumstances that trigger your loneliness. How am I dealing with loneliness now? 1. I acknowledge what am feeling. 2. I try to exercise to shake off the negativity of the emotion. 3.I call that friend that I KNOW WILL MAKE ME LAUGH. 4. I watch a funny movie or comedy show to make me laugh. 5. I journal my feeling and try to figure out what is triggering the emotion.  If I figure out the source, I ask myself if there is something I can do about it #Turnitoff . Sometimes my loneliness is triggered by community holidays that I don't currently identify with...

It's been 2 months of quarantined and I've only eaten food that was prepared out of the home once. Being home all day has inspired me to try out different recipes that I will traditionally just pick up at the grocery store because of their convenience. The average pre made salad costs how much? $5 - $10 ? depending on where you shop. I decided to indulge my salad cravings by picking up some ingredients at the store and making my own salads at home. I also substituted boiled eggs with chicken I already had in the fridge on some days. My grocery list cost about $20 ( not all items are shown above like dressing in the fridge) and  I was able to make 6 salad bowls with these ingredients. Something  that would have cost me +$50. There is no science or rules to making a salad. I like meal options that allow room for customization. The only thing I will say to keep in mind is your salad dressing. If you're counting your calories, salad dressings can ...

I didn't realize how much the tragic story of Ahmaud Arbery affected me. At first, it felt like another black man getting murdered story that we have sadly gotten accustomed to seeing in the news. The New York times did an article on it called " The condition of Black life is one of mourning" . But this one was different for me. As an avid walker + runner, I go everywhere. Even when I travel, which is something I do frequently for work and play. You will catch me on the first day of any hotel stay, asking for running routes recommendations from the concierge. Even now with the pandemic, I've been evacuated to a new city and all I do is run/walk on most evenings around my new  neighborhood as part of my mental health. For a while I will get anxious when I stepped out for my regular routine. I started turning down my headphones or having them completely off just to make sure I was more alert to my surroundings. This isn't to say I wasn't already...