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Choose Gratitude over Apology

I find there are far too many instances where people, when accepting help, generosity, or when perceiving that they have created any minor inconvenience, will say “I’m sorry” instead of “thank you”. Why is it that when accepting gifts, however small, we bow our heads, avoid eye contact and just toss our penitence to the gifting person. What might we feel like if instead of habitually uttering the shame-filled and insecure words, “I’m sorry” when accepting a small gift of generosity, we chose two entirely different words – “thank you”. Thank you pulls both the sayer and the receiver up. Thank you requires the confidence of the sayer to believe (or act like they believe) they are a person deserving of the gift they are receiving and shows the receiver recognizes that the giver has both the resource and the generosity to be able to give. The two words build both people up. “I’m sorry”, on the other hand, pulls

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Engagement: A Good Place to Start

In my life I have found, that whenever I’ve felt lost, or questioned my direction or where to start, the best place for me has always been to start with engagement. I start with something present in my life and choose to become engaged in it and suddenly good things happen. Engagement is great because it is free, you either choose to engage, or you don’t. But when you do, magical things start to happen. The magic happens because when you become engaged, your identity shifts to that of a performer. As a performer you concern and align yourself with performance. When you are concerned with performance you think in terms of actions and effects. You perform an action and you create an effect. This combination of activity and effect builds over time and serves to orient you when you are lost, strengthen you when you feel weak, and distinguish you when you feel ugly or worthless. The key is

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Welcome to Habit Earth

Welcome and Happy Earth Day! This is my first post for Habit Earth, and I’m excited for the journey ahead. The content on Habit Earth is meant to encourage incremental changes in everyday behaviors that reduce consumption of and dependence on single use plastics. My role is equal parts student, instructor and your enthusiastic supporter on the path to creating better habits and a better planet. Earth, we have a giant plastic problem. Plastic waste is an issue developing into a crisis and is caused by hundreds of choices we make every day. Choices we make on autopilot without even thinking of an alternative. We run into reminders of these choices almost everywhere, it is nearly impossible to go on a hike on a popular trail or walk through your neighborhood without seeing single use plastics littering the way. It doesn’t have to be this way, but where should we start? When I think of how to make an immediate

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