Morita Therapy

Morita Therapy is a purpose-centered, response oriented therapy from Japan,
created in the 1930s by Dr. Shoma Morita.



Morita Therapy can be reduced to three steps, as follows:

• Accept your feelings;
• Know your purpose;
• Do what needs to be done.

“Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator or unhealthy or lazy or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die.”

-Dr. Morita

Life is like that.

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
-- Theodore Isaac

Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
-- Albert Ellis

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
-- Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000 

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
-- Ben Stein

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.
-- Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960), Doctor Zhivago, 1958 

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
-- Brendan Gill

 Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
-- Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957) 

Life is full of surprises and and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure-do it well, enjoy it-and then, not now, think about what comes next.
-- Condoleeza Rice 

In matters of self-control as we shall see again and again, speed kills. But a little friction really can save lives.
-- Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess, 2011

When we exercise self-control on a given occasion, we win for ourselves a little credibility we can rely on the next time around. Pretty soon we develop a reputation to ourselves that we want badly to uphold. With each test that we meet, our resolve gains momentum, fueled by the fear that we may succumb and establish a damaging precedent for our own weakness.
-- Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess, 2011 

Life is a thing that mutates without warning, not always in enviable ways. All part of the improbable adventure of being alive, of being a brainy biped with giant dreams on a crazy blue planet.
-- Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing, 2011 

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
-- Dick Werthimer 

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
-- Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), Not So Deep as a Well (1937)

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

Life is just one damned thing after another.
-- Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915) 

 

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
-- Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )

Life is something that everyone should try at least once.
--Henry J. Tillman 

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-- Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) 

Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
-- J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008

Life is a long lesson in humility.
--James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937) 

He only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) 

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
-- John Lennon (1940 - 1980), "Beautiful Boy"

In real life, however, you don't react to what someone did; you react only to what you think she did, and the gap between action and perception is bridged by the art of impression management. If life itself is but what you deem it, then why not focus your efforts on persuading others to believe that you are a virtuous and trustworthy cooperator?
-- Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, 2005 

The lessons this life has planted in my heart pertain more to caring than crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice.
Kirby Larson, Hattie Big Sky, 2006 

Life ain't like books. Books got somebody writin' 'em and tryin' to entertain ya. Life is more like set of Legos. Unless you take care of 'em, you lose a few pieces and you end up steppin' on 'em with bare feet. You gotta take care of your life.
Laura Moncur (1969 - ), Merriton: 35 Minutes Away From Home, 02-29-12

Nature has invented reproduction as a mechanism for life to move forward. As a life force that passes right through us and makes us a link in the evolution of life.
Louis Schwartzberg, TED, the hidden beauty of pollination, March 2011

Life is fickle; the fair man doesn't invariably win.
Mark Hodder, The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack 

(Burton & Swinburne in), 2010

The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.
Norman Thomas (1884 - 1968) 

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
Brenda Gill


The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
Ben Stein


The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates


The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.
-- Zeno


Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
-- Hans Christian


When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
-- Erma Bombeck


I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
--- Elwyn Brooks White

Sasha Dichter's Blog | Reflections on generosity, philanthropy and social change

Sasha Dichter's Blog | Reflections on generosity, philanthropy and social change

The one thing I shouldn’t have spent any energy on (though I certainly did): the size of the crowd.  The notion of speaking in front of a full house at New Haven’s Shubert Theater created a mantra of “2,000 people!” that I couldn’t keep from running through my head in the lead-up to my talk.  Of course the reality is that whether it’s 50 people or 2,000, it’s still my job to stand up there and share what I’m going to share, tell the stories I’m going to tell  – the size of the audience makes no difference whatsoever. (In fact, with the lighting I could barely see past the third row, so it’s as if the audience wasn’t even there in the first place.)

Just a lesson in how the mind tricks us into focusing attention on all the wrong stuff sometimes, especially when something is brand new and when fear seems like an appropriate response.


 Follow Sasha @
 http://sashadichter.wordpress.com/
 OR
 Sasha Dichter is the Director of Business Development at Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital fund that invests in enterprises that serve the poor.  In this role, he leads up capital raising globally for Acumen Fund, including executing a successful $100M capital raise, serving as the point person for Acumen Fund’s Partner community, and heading up global partnerships for Acumen Fund including global expansion.  Sasha is a member of Acumen Fund’s leadership team and the author of the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs. He blogs about generosity,philanthropy and social change athttp://sashadichter.wordpress.com.

Sasha Dichter: The Generosity Experiment | Video on TED.com

Sasha Dichter: The Generosity Experiment | Video on TED.com









Sasha Dichter is the Director of Business Development at Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital fund that invests in enterprises that serve the poor. In this role, he leads up capital raising globally for Acumen Fund, including executing a successful $100M capital raise, serving as the point person for Acumen Fund’s Partner community, and heading up global partnerships for Acumen Fund including global expansion. Sasha is a member of Acumen Fund’s leadership team and the author of the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs. He blogs about generosity,philanthropy and social change athttp://sashadichter.wordpress.com.



Before Acumen Fund, Sasha worked as Global Manager of Corporate Citizenship at GE Money, expanding financial offerings to underserved communities globally; and as a Senior Program Manager at IBM, spearheading the company’s corporate citizenship strategy and launching a leadership program for school administrators. Sasha began his career as a management consultant for Booz & Company in the telecommunications practice, based in New York but working primarily in Latin America and Europe. He’s also had stints with the microfinance group of Bank Rakyat Indonesia and with the venture-backed Navic Networks, recently acquired by Microsoft.

Soft Pedaling Murder: Smothering of alcoholic wife called 'mercy killing'

Anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

Smothering of alcoholic wife called 'mercy killing' - Edmonton - CBC News


Case compared to Latimer conviction

The Crown said the case can be compared to that of Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, Tracy, who suffered from cerebral palsy.

The prosecutor said he is asking for a harsh sentence to protect other sick, disadvantaged Canadians.

Justice Donna Shelley would not convict Lavery on the more serious charge of second-degree murder because she had doubt that Lavery intended to kill his wife.

Shelley believed Lavery was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from caring for his wife, whose condition had deteriorated due her extreme alcoholism.

Shelley agreed with Royal, who suggested Lavery's depression affected his judgment, clouding his ability to think straight and form the intent to kill.

Homeless in America

This post is about a book called, 'Travels with Lizbeth' by Lars Eighner who becomes homeless in Texas. He decides to hitch hike to California where he hopes to obtain work as a writer.  He is a published writer already and likely to do better in CA because his audience is there - the Gay reading community.

The book jacket praises his writing by comparing his writing to great American writer's such as Henry David Thoreau... the sentence that caught my attention was when he said, "I did not undertake to write a book about homelessness, but wrote what I knew, as an artist paints a still life, not because he is especially fond of fruit, but because the subject is readily at hand."  It is the account of one man's experience of homelessness...

The collapse of credit causing thousands of families to be put out of their homes by the Banks in the last few years, makes homelessness a common experience for many American families.

So far it is an easy read and that is what suits me.  My brain hurts from reading too much difficult stuff lately so this is a welcome break.

 

Homeless people could benefit from your time. Photograph: Pat Tuson/Alamy

Image URL: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/