— D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

From The Quotations Page’s “Motivational Quotes of the Day” 2005-07-13
http://www.quotationspage.com/mqotd.html

Great series! Since you are such an inveterate reader, perhaps you might share those books that have had the most impact on you, along with your comments. Thanks!

On a side note, I also like how you attack the default context of the USA (being a good cog). When one rejects this idea and one has to interact with others (esp. family members) who have bought fully into this context, it can be a tad tough explaining to them your “wierd” way of thinking. BTW, have you ever read Thoreau?

And also, you are one lucky SOB to have a wife who supported you in all these transitions with no guaruantee on things like stability of future income. And to think you met a woman like this in LA!

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Getting people to “wake up” is a very difficult thing to do; you have a lot of work cut out for you. I haven’t been successful in making much of a dent in the awareness of others. For a while I did try to do this, but I was met with so much resistance that I decided my time would be better spent working on myself than trying to pull others along. Interestingly though, some people around me have changed their lifestyles somewhat (especially their diets, but it took more than a year after I became vegan for that to happen). But there are some that I’ve had to let go of because our values have become contradictory. It was tough at first, but I feel a lot more free now.

By the way Steve, out of the articles and blog entries that you have written, the ones I like most are those that challenge me to think about how to improve myself and my life. Most (or even all) of the personal development books and audio programs I’ve read/listened to tend to tell you what you should be doing. I think there’s a lot more value in challenging people to think for themselves about what they should do. I believe one of your blog entries was titled “Trust yourself, not the experts” where you said that you can’t expect everything in those motivational books to work for you just because it worked for the author. This is why I think advice on that level is less useful than guiding the reader to think about his/her life and come up with their own solutions.

Great article. I especially like your idea about setting up an organization dedicated to personal development.

A word of caution about veganism: it isn’t the healthiest diet for everyone. There are certain genetic tendencies that make some people better suited to plant-based (carbohydrate) diets versus meat-based (protein and fat) diets. The concept is known as Metabolic Typing and it has been around for quite some time. I suggest everyone take this Free Metabolic Typing Test before they consider starting a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Of course regardless of your metabolic type, a vegan diet may be better for the environment than a meat-based diet. However, I believe that if you eat according to your metabolic type, the huge improvement in your energy, consciousness and health will allow you to help the environment much more so than the impact of your eating habits.

If you’d like to learn more information about metabolic typing, including specific food recommendations, I highly recommend Paul Chek’s How to Eat Move and Be Healthy, which I believe is one of the best true health books you can read today. There is also more free information on Dr. Mercola’s site.

In the meantime you can find dozens of other short stories on why people go vegan.

As for veggies being tasteless, are you buying organic produce or mainstream swill? Fruit and veggies from mainstream stores are tasteless to me — carrots are the worst. Try organic produce from a store like Whole Foods or Wild Oats if there’s one near you, or get them from a local farmer’s market. There’s a huge difference in flavor and quality.

Steve Pavlina has done a great job again. Last week, he wrote a series of six articles on the meaning of life. What is your purpose of life? How should you act on your life? It is very important to find those answers for yourself - to find your purpo…

Now that I see your mission explicitly expressed I can´t feel but a deep sense of respect towards you. It seems like a castle in the sky, an impossible endeavour, yet I know it is possible. I´ve seen how some of my friends have entered this path, and I myself did about 18 months ago. I have to say many articles you have written have tremendously impacted my way way of thinking.

A couple of months ago I experienced a shift in my awereness, the kind of inside change that makes you look at everything different. The fact that you write so crearly about this kind of phenomenoms helps me greatly in understanding what I´m going through, it gives me perspective bc more often than not your words resonate within me.

Hey Steve, you are making an impact on people around the world. You did on me. And I´d like to believe I am know positively influencing my own environement. It´s a ripple effect.

Press on.

Do you have any links to back you up on the vegan diet claims? I’d like to go into it a bit more in order to see the problems, pro-contra, etc.