Mikiko’s BodyBlog

…So I started working at a tech company in Silicon Valley.  Naturally, people found out my love for fitness and exercise, so when they initiate conversations, it’s usually nutrition or exercise related.  Time and time again, people tell me how they try to incorporate healthier snacks and more protein into their diet.  I keep a huge container full of protein powder at my cube (my favorite–Optimum Nutrition Strawberry flavor) and always offer to share, but no one will take me up on it!!! :(

Is scooping from the container unsanitary???  Do I have cooties???

From the wise words of Adrian Savage (posted on www.lifehack.org)

Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you. 

• Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other. 

• Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive. 

• Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot. 

• Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find. 

• Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained. 

• Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more. 

• Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed. 

• Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth. 

• Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too. 

• Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you 

I’ve "lost" my share of shows (yes, I know, just getting on stage makes us all winners, but isn’t coming home with a trophy just soooo nice???), but have never conceded to defeat.  I have always looked to outcome as a learning experience to better myself as a competitor as well as a person.  I have never been one to quit because I have been kicked in the gut.

I’ve recently found more inspiration in the Cossacks.  Growing up as an ignorant American, I’ve recently started getting in touch with my Russian roots.

There is a large painting that has always been in my grandma’s house that has always intrigued me.  It’s a painting of a bunch of drunk Russian men sitting at a table, and looks like they are having a lot of fun.

I found out that the painting is a copy that my dad did (he’s a pretty good artist) of a painting titled, “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire” by the Russian artist Ilya Repin.  The original is currently exhibited in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.  My uncle also had a copy of the letters (in Russian) framed next to it.  Of course, I don’t read Russian so I never knew what it said.  The letter was a response written by the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan.

Basically the Sultan wanted the Cossacks to submit to the Turks:

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians—I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.—Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV

Basically, the Cossacks told the Turks to go shove it:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil sh–s, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a b***h, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, f–k your mother.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-f–er of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding Christian pigs. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse! - Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host

So don’t ever let anyone tell you what to do! :)