Have you ever felt that time is speeding up? Well, you’re not alone.

It certainly is getting faster for me. Perhaps some of that is related to my getting older. When I was a kid, a year seemed to be an eternity. The school year was really long. The upcoming summer was but a glimmer of hope in the distant future.

The second graders were so much older than the first graders. Adults were ancient people from some other world.

But something is going on in addition to physical and mental aging. Something far more pronounced.

For a point of reference, let’s look at an example from my own life.

Throughout a good part of my life I made a living as a software developer contractor. When I was programming the Alpha Micro computer back around 1980, the programming documentation was about ten or twenty pages long. And it was clear and quite complete.

These days programmer documentation for a specialty might be a stack of books a foot or two high.

A computer programmer’s livelihood depends on his / her skill set. What set of programming tools does the programmer know? How many years of experience does the programmer have with that particular set of tools? This is especially important for a freelancer.

If the skill set is in demand, the programmer lives the good life. If the skill set is not in demand, the consultant does physical labor in exchange for a place to live. I’m writing this from my own experience.

This situation gets even more complicated with the rapid evolution of computer technology.

The same situation is true for many professions. We seem to be living in a high tech world. And the evolution of technology is accelerating at a breakneck pace.

People can graduate college in some specialty only to find that there is inadequate demand for that specialty.

Embarking on a career path seems like spinning a roulette wheel.

Our current “trickle down economy” complicates life to astronomical proportions. But ranting about that won’t help our personal, immediate situations.

In addition to making a living, there are many other areas of potential overwhelm.

There are more social opportunities than ever before.

Families scatter in different directions.

Our hobbies can get more complicated and costly.

It seems like a challenge prepare healthy meals. That seems to take so much time and money. It’s quicker to drive through Taco Bell.

Then we’re tired because of poor diet and lack of exercise.

Many of us are exhausted working in jobs we don’t prefer. And we have to keep learning more boring stuff in an effort to keep up.

All this stuff can be overwhelming. So what can we do in our own personal lives?

What do we do?

Well for one thing we can look at the well known analogy of the calm presence in the eye of the storm. Ok. How do we do that?

There are a few general approaches.

1. We can do consciousness work.
2. We can step back from the overwhelming confusion. Essentially we can get rid of clutter. This includes physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, commitment, social, and entrepreneurial clutter.
3. We can adopt simple, dependable points of reference in our lives.

Consciousness Work

This website is filled with resources that help your consciousness work. So we don’t have to expand on that here.

Handling MultiDimensional Clutter

We all know about handling physical clutter. Many of us, including me, wait until the clutter get’s overwhelming. Then we roll up our sleeves and handle it until we have a reasonable amount of peace. I’m repeatedly amazed by how uplifting this can be.

There are many ways to reduce mental clutter. We can do various forms of releasing such as the short not-trying meditation. Releasing other types of clutter will also reduce mental clutter.

We can do an inventory of our lives and identify what people or situations drag us down emotionally. We can then reduce them, or eliminate them, to scale down our emotional clutter.

And yes, there can be spiritual clutter. The majority of spiritual paths are not all that empowering. They can be a way of making ourselves right and others wrong. And they could simply be spiritual entertainment. If you know someone who is good at muscle testing, you can determine if a spiritual path is empowering or not. You can choose spiritual paths that are empowering.

Modern society seems to present an endless parade of situations that need fixing. We need to save the food supply. We need to save the seals. We need to handle pollution. We need to … The challenges can be totally overwhelming. In other words, we can have commitment clutter. We can narrow this down to one or two causes that resonate with us. And we can volunteer a reasonable amount of time and energy to those causes. Or we can shift energy by seeing everything as perfect the way it is. You’ve probably heard that what you resist persists.

It seems that we have to say yes to every social invitation. Maybe all of them are good. Maybe not. If our lives are swamped, we can limit out social activity to that which is the most uplifting for ourselves and our friends. In other words, we can reduce social clutter.

Today, more than ever, there are invitations to get desperate about making money. So we want to start new business ventures. One of my repeated mistakes is to jump in and create some product without any real assurance that anyone will pay for it. Yet marketing basics include testing market acceptance first before pouring huge resources into a business venture. I’ve wasted many thousands of hours of my life by creating entrepreneurial clutter for myself. The idea is to do market testing before embarking heavily into a business venture.

Adopting simple, dependable points of reference in our lives

In our accelerating world, we need to master ways of being and doing that are reasonably timeless. We need to master skills that will be useful now as well as ten or more years from now.

Mindfulness is quite basic. There are always opportunities. We just have to notice them.

Personal presence is vital in all economic and social situations. You can actually increase the magnitude and quality of your personal presence. This doesn’t mean that you have a strong energetic suit of armor and overpowering energetic output. A soft loving presence can be quite welcome in almost any situation. An inspiring or commanding presence can be vital when action is appropriate. A strong ethics presence is sometimes necessary in the face of unethical behavior. There are many ways to enhance your presence. Some of them could be fun. Acting classes anyone?

Sales and marketing beingness, knowledge, and skills are one of the best guarantees of success in any endeavor. We need to let go of any resistances we have in the area. Got great ideas? Want more friends? Better relationships? Sales and marketing expertise helps.

Communication skills play a major part in any situation. They are vital to sales and marketing. This includes subtle body language communication, verbal communication, written communication, and multi media communication. And it wouldn’t hurt to have your own blog.

Creativity can be learned. It’s fun. It’s extremely empowering. And it can be a complete spiritual path. It applies to all areas of life in all economies.

Self-Education has technologies similar to creativity technologies. We can multiply our abilities to learn well and quickly.

Leadership requires all the above abilities and characteristics. It also requires the ability to make good choices, the ability to create and hold a vision in the face of obstacles, and the ability to get others to hold that vision.

The calm in the eye of the storm

In our accelerating world we need to get into the eye of the storm and learn to stay there.

It involves letting go and raising our consciousness.

It involves cutting down multidimensional clutter.

It involves adopting simple, dependable points of reference in our lives.

How do you feel about all this? What do you think? Any more ideas?

Please write a comment below.

Simplicity is good. Right?

Well it is intrinsically good. Unfortunately the essence of our world is covered by impressions. These impressions are false creations of our egos. We see veils of illusion instead of Divine Essence.

We love to watch Indiana Jones overcome impossible odds and battle away to recover The Lost Arc. We buy lots of popcorn and the theater owners are happy.

But what would we do if Jones simply waved his hand and The Ark appeared in the desired destination? We certainly wouldn’t buy much popcorn. And we would probably want our ticket money back.

You might know that I’ve earned my living as a computer consultant. I developed application software for corporations.

The manager bought me a tuna fish sandwich. Admittedly the sandwich was really good. But it didn’t come close to covering the price of my gas to get there and back.

One time I visited the data processing manager of a local school district. He was wondering if it was possible to get a certain project done in three months.

So I drove fifty miles each way to meet with him  and his team of computer professionals. I solved the problem during the initial meeting. The computer pros sheepishly filed out of the room.

So instead of getting a three month computer programming contract, I lost money by presenting a simple solution.

On another occasion I programmed an accounting system for a certain kind of microcomputer. One of the computer manufacturers looked at the printout of my software. He said it couldn’t be worth much because the stack of paper wasn’t thick.

Never mind that the programming was very efficient. The efficient programming was estimated at a low value because there wasn’t a lot of it. Too efficient. Too simple.

Spiritual Entertainment

This same story seems to apply in the self-help / spiritual world. Many of the popular spiritual / self-help solutions are what you might call spiritual entertainment. Usually there is no significant improvement in the life quality of the people being entertained.

A short while ago somebody complained that my blissercises were not worth much because they all shared a common structure. Essentially they were too simple and easy to do.

The sad part is that she probably never did any of the blissercises because they were too simple. She missed out on huge life-changing benefits.

What is my responsibility in all this? Well, if I don’t present my material in a way that people will accept it, value it, and use it, then the fault is in my failure to communicate.

What do you think? Please leave a comment below.

This action packed course / apprenticeship takes you to a new level in your WordPress competence. You will be able to create and manage the content and looks of WordPress blogs.

The apprenticeship includes a practice WordPress blog for each participant.

Most of the videos are inside your practice WordPress blog.

Yes, there will be lots of homework assignments. The repeating cycle will be learn something and then do it in your practice WordPress blog.

This is for real. It’s not some fluffy course where you get exposed to a bunch of stuff and say “That’s nice.” You roll up your sleeves and practice what you learn.

You can watch a short video that takes you under the covers and lets you see some of the training videos that are included inside your practice WordPress blog. Click here.

By the end of the course you’ll be experienced in applying all of the materials described in the videos.

Bonus: You get two thirty minute one-on-one Skype sessions where you and I go over your course exercises. You are free to ask any questions related to WordPress. There is a catch. You must use this bonus within sixty days of enrolling on the apprenticeship.

You are welcome to email questions. I’ll answer many of them by creating a video and / or written material. The questions help me create a better course for you and everyone else. I’ll answer all course-related questions by email, written materials, and / or videos.

There is a forum for questions and answers. You can interact with other students as well as me.

The apprenticeship will last eight weeks. It’s like college courses in that there is an end date. This prods you to keep moving along. And it frees me after the sixty days.

Are you eager to get rolling with WordPress ASAP? Fast students can finish in a few days.

I’ll see you inside the course.

When you enroll, I’ll create your practice WordPress blog.

With appreciation,
Jim Kitzmiller

There is more to creativity than sitting and trying to figure things out. In fact, creativity is quite often the opposite. Let go and let your stream of consciousness flow. Let the words flow through you. That might have many names including:

• your muse
• Divine Inspiration
• letting go
• surrender
• getting out of the way
• creative flow

Whatever label you use, it is readily available to you.

Most famous writers say they discipline themselves to sit and write – no matter how they feel.

Inspiration follows perspiration.

Script Frenzy is an event that takes place every year in the month of April. People all over the world give themselves the challenge of writing the first draft of a 100+ page movie script, television script, or whatever. It is a challenge, but it’s a lot of fun.

You can find out more at the Script Frenzy website.

If you’d care to play, please add me as a writing buddy. My screen name is Blissercise.

May the bliss be with you.

Your friend,
Jim Kitzmiller

The unthinkable happened this morning. I couldn’t get on my computer.

After a check of emails this morning, I dutifully shut down my computer so I could take it on my morning routine. I would have a breakfast in a local restaurant and then head to Panera Bread – my unofficial office.

As I was shutting down the computer, Windows gave me one of those dreaded messages. It was installing updates. The warning was to not turn off the computer. Sometimes these updates took at least half an eternity.

And I was planning to head out the door with my trusty laptop.

With a few moments hesitation, I closed the cover without powering down the computer. This puts the laptop to sleep in low power mode. It would spring back to life as soon as I opened the cover.

After a quick breakfast (I had to get on the computer asap) my laptop and I went into the local Panera Bread coffee shop.

First Things First

I setup my computer and fired it up. The screen was dark. Oh oh.

While in a state of stress, I went and bought my coffee. Go figure.

Upon returning I breathed a sigh of relief as my computer was alive and continuing the update. Thank You, God.

But it was taking a very long time. Then I wondered …

Did my update require Internet access? (Notice that I said “my update” rather than “the computer’s update”. Geesh!!!)

Would Internet access be blocked because I couldn’t log in to Panera’s network? Would it be necessary to take the computer home to finish the update?

Would I miss my daily morning ritual at the coffee shop?

Fortunately I had scheduled a phone call with my friend Suzan. There was something constructive to do. We laughed about our dependency on computers. She mentioned that she had forgotten to take the charging cord to the library yesterday. She had felt totally stuck. It seems that I’m not the only one.

Although our phone conversation was great, it came to an end. And my computer seemed to be stuck in the eternal update process.

What to do? Well I could write into my paper notebook – one of those ancient objects that remain from earlier civilizations. But yikes …

I had forgotten to bring a pen. My computer was stuck. I couldn’t write. What was I to do?

And I was only on my first cup of coffee.

Then the skies opened and the sun shined through. The update finished. I could actually start using my computer!!!

With a sigh of relief, I logged in and started writing the post that you’re reading now.

There is a lesson to all of this. Maybe, just maybe, I could take a good look at my life.

Some people have asked “Is there life after death?”

Another question is “Is there life after computers?”

Are you hooked on computers? Please write a comment below.

Your friend,

Jim

Well I finally did it. I had quintuple heart bypass surgery on November 16, 2011.

The doctor’s first told me that I needed this surgery in August of 2008. Who me? The meditator, the consciousness explorer … the guy who had done multiple fasts, ate sprouts, and used to drink wheatgrass juice? The guy who used to do ten aerobics classes a week?

Yes me.

I was convinced that I could beat this through natural means.

How did I handle this? Easy. I went into denial. When all else fails, pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.

Right? Wrong!!!

I’m blessed that I wasn’t dead wrong.

How did I find out in the first place?

My inguinal (crotch) hernia started becoming a problem in the spring of 2008. My medicare insurance started on August 1, 2008.

Having researched for the least invasive type of hernia surgery (tension free mesh technique), I found a San Diego, California, surgeon who would meet my requirements. So I rushed into my August 1 doctor appointment. Yes, he agreed. I needed hernia surgery.

All I had to do was get clearance from a cardiologist (heart specialist). It seems that surgeons don’t want their patient to have a heart attack during their surgery.

So I went to the referred heart specialist who ran and EKG on me. He referred me to another heart specialist who used a giant, fancy camera to look at my innards. He referred me to a team of medical professionals who did a catheter test on me. They ran a tube from my groin area up the heart area and injected a dye that allowed them to see the blockages of arteries near my heart.

After a short while people started showing up to look at my pictures on the fancy display. Nobody said anything. One after another they simply showed up and studied my pictures. Apparently I was the featured entertainer of the day.

After that parade ended, the main heart doctor showed up and told me that I needed to have open heart surgery to bypass my blocked arteries. He said my blockages were something like sixty, seventy, and ninety percent in three arteries.

This proclamation was rather sobering. Shortly after the diagnosis I broke out into a severe skin rash over much of my body. My opinion was that the diagnosis caused me to break out into the rash. Later a doctor told me that the contrast (the dye injected into me to show the blockages in the arteries) caused an allergic reaction.

The next day I went for a follow-up appointment with a heart specialist who confirmed my need for heart bypass surgery. I felt that my surgery was a way for him to buy a swimming pool for his mansion.

Judgmental? Who me?

The doctor informed me that he couldn’t perform the surgery while I had the skin rash. There could be a danger of infection.

I felt very grateful for the skin rash. I didn’t want to get the surgery. This was a great excuse.

I dutifully checked into the emergency room to get a quick appointment for my skin handling. The nurse was compassionate. However, there was another parade of intern doctors who came to study my skin rash. Nobody really helped me. They scheduled me for an appointment the next day with another group of doctors. I accepted the appointment and cancelled it later.

I never returned.

Time passes. It is now 2011.

My primary care doctor threatened to take away my driver’s license unless I went back to see a cardiologist. He said I might have a heart attack while driving and plow into a group of innocent pedestrians on a sidewalk. I handled that by never returning to that primary care doctor.

However, that was a wakeup call. I started an internet search for a San Diego heart specialist who had a holistic approach. I wanted a medical doctor who had an appreciation for alternative medicine.

I was quickly losing hope of every finding such a person. However, my persistence paid off. I felt extremely blessed to find a heart doctor who I later called an angel.

Before she saw my earlier test results, she thought that it would be possible to avoid the open heart surgery. A couple days later, after the test results reached her office, her assistant called me in for an appointment. It was time for another catheter test. That test confirmed the results of the earlier test.

So my beloved cardiolgist told me the truth. It was not what I wanted to hear. I needed open heart surgery. However, I did not jump on board with that. I still had hopes of handling the situation with my natural remedies.

Burying My Head in the Sand

I had my own way of burying my head in the sand. It was the sand of illusion. I still believe that the natural remedies could help in the long run. But the flame was rapidly burning the fuse on my bomb. Somthing had to be done quickly.

Yet I waited.

The hernia kept getting worse. My inguinal (crotch) hernia was getting huge. Then I got constipated. The pain was so intense that I could hardly get out of bed.

I managed to arrange an emergency appointment with a hernia surgeon. He had a very abrupt personality and very little in the way of a healing presence. He assured me that he could fix the hernia – after I had the heart surgery.

The pain subsided – temporarily. Then there was another episode of constipation and extreme pain. I made an appointment with another hernia surgeon for a consultation. It was a major challenge just to get to his office. The pain was that bad.

This second hernia surgeon knew my beloved cardiologist. He called her cell phone when I was there. Unable to get a word in edgewise, he later told me that the heart surgery had to be done before I could get the hernia fixed. He mentioned that he was friends with the heart surgen who had an office in the same building.

Finally surrendering, I immediately made my way to the heart surgeon’s office and made an appointment for the first available surgery date. It was November 16, 2011.

This was the beginning of an amazing adventure filled with lessons that impacted every area of my life.

To be continued.

Self-help systems take us beyond the victim level. We become self-determined. We have great intentions. We have compassion. We want to help others.

When does responsibility end? Where does overwhelm begin? Can we stop it before it sinks us? How do we recover?

What can we do about it? Many self-help processes seem promising. Meditation helps for sure. Simplification might be the answer.

Take a look at the short video below. It will help.

I would love your feedback. Please leave a comment below.

May the bliss be with you.

Your friend,
Jim Kitzmiller

I have spent many years creating business systems. And I’ve spent many years in the self-help movements. I’ve used and evaluated scores of productivity tools and self-help systems.

There is one tool that stands head and shoulders above the rest.

You have at least one of these in your home. And you have at least one of these productivity tools in your office.

Watch this video and find out what it is. You might be surprised. And you might not.

Meaningful productivity flourishes in an environment of simplicity.

I would love to get your feedback. Please leave a comment.

Are we making a good living or not?

Are we perceived at our true value or something less?

Do we have happy, loving relationships or not?

This all depends on our self-expression. And it depends on our willingness to honor other people’s self-expression.

This short video gives you a simple exercise that will vastly improve the quality of your life.

Please express yourself by writing a comment below. I would love to read it.

With appreciation,
Jim Kitzmiller

I was raised to be a good little boy. This meant that I should be quiet. Good equals quiet and showing no negativity. Later in my life spiritual seemed to equal having only positive feelings. So I stuffed my feelings.

Stuffed feelings invite health issues. They invite social problems. They invite compulsive behavior.

We can rise above this by taking quiet time to welcome all our feelings, thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

Please check out the video below. It just might help you change your life.

Your friend,
Jim Kitzmiller