I have been blogging on an off for the past 6 or so years. I have never really taken this seriously, it was more of a way to express myself while I was in university and slowly faded away as I entered the workforce.
Of these last 6 years, I have spent 4 of them working for a small internet startup in Tel Aviv. Where I worked my way up from an entry-level position to a product manager. Over that time I had many debates with myself about if this is the life that I want to lead. In the beginning, I was working in excess of 12 hour days including weekends and holidays. This took a heavy toll on me and my relationships with the people around me.
My husband and I fought about work all the time and I never had the energy to go out with friends. On the weekends if I wasn't working I would want to sleep all the time and this just wasn't how I wanted to live my life. I knew that there had to be more to life than working all the time for a small payout.
Back in December, I took a week off of work to just focus on myself. This was a sort of burnout. I spent days sitting on the couch watching TV and aimlessly surfing on the internet. When I came back to work I felt refreshed, but quickly started to lose steam again. This was when I decided that it was time for me to move on.
I left my comfy, high(ish) paying startup job to go out on my own for a little. I have a few projects that I'm working on and hope to be able to build up a small income from these assets so that I can start to live the life that I want.
Investing in Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies have been all the rage for the last few years and I hear from people all the time who say that they would like to start investing in crypto but they just don't know how.
I decided to sit down and put together a short post on how you can get started investing crypto without being a very technical person.
The easiest way to think about cryptocurrencies is to think of them as virtual money or shares on the stock exchange. They have a value but you can't physically hold them because they aren't a tangible item. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to purchase a whole coin, so if the price of a single bitcoin being over $6K is what was keeping you from getting in the game you can purchase as little as 0.00000001 of a bitcoin. This means that if you only want to invest $100 or even just $1 it is possible.
There are also a ton of different coins that you could invest in, so if you are interested in coins that are more privacy based you might be interested in something like Zcash. You can do a bit of research around the internet to try and figure out which coin is right for you (just as you would to find out which ETF is right for your portfolio). I like to used CoinGecko for my research.
Once you have settled on a coin that you think you would like to start investing with there are a ton of options for wallets. Simply put a wallet is where you are going to store your cryptocurrency, think of it as you bank account.
The wallets that I would recommend you to use are Coinbase and Kracken because they make it very easy to get started investing in just about any coin.
The reason that I recommend these is first because Coinbase is a very simple and friendly platform that just about anyone can signup and start using right way. Second, because Coinbase only supports a very limited number of currencies if you want to invest in something like Zcash or Dashcoin, for example, you are going to need to use a service that allows you to trade in other coins thus Kracken.
I have been with both of these wallets for a few years (Coinbase since 2013).
You have to keep in mind that just like investing in the stock market or forex there is a risk when you invest in cryptocurrencies. I have managed to make a small income from my early investment but there is always the chance that you could loose it all. Don't invest more than you are willing to loose and invest responsibly.
I decided to sit down and put together a short post on how you can get started investing crypto without being a very technical person.
The easiest way to think about cryptocurrencies is to think of them as virtual money or shares on the stock exchange. They have a value but you can't physically hold them because they aren't a tangible item. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to purchase a whole coin, so if the price of a single bitcoin being over $6K is what was keeping you from getting in the game you can purchase as little as 0.00000001 of a bitcoin. This means that if you only want to invest $100 or even just $1 it is possible.
There are also a ton of different coins that you could invest in, so if you are interested in coins that are more privacy based you might be interested in something like Zcash. You can do a bit of research around the internet to try and figure out which coin is right for you (just as you would to find out which ETF is right for your portfolio). I like to used CoinGecko for my research.
Once you have settled on a coin that you think you would like to start investing with there are a ton of options for wallets. Simply put a wallet is where you are going to store your cryptocurrency, think of it as you bank account.
The wallets that I would recommend you to use are Coinbase and Kracken because they make it very easy to get started investing in just about any coin.
The reason that I recommend these is first because Coinbase is a very simple and friendly platform that just about anyone can signup and start using right way. Second, because Coinbase only supports a very limited number of currencies if you want to invest in something like Zcash or Dashcoin, for example, you are going to need to use a service that allows you to trade in other coins thus Kracken.
I have been with both of these wallets for a few years (Coinbase since 2013).
You have to keep in mind that just like investing in the stock market or forex there is a risk when you invest in cryptocurrencies. I have managed to make a small income from my early investment but there is always the chance that you could loose it all. Don't invest more than you are willing to loose and invest responsibly.
How I Improved The Performance of My Etsy Shop
I have been running a small Etsy shop on the side for the past few years. With very little maintenance this shop has been able to generate a small profit.
Recently I decided that it was time to take my Etsy shop to the next level.
I am going to be updating the steps that I take along the way in this blog so that you too can learn from my successes and fails to improve the performance of your Etsy shop as well.
The first thing that I did was to quickly go on Google and do a simple search for "boosting Etsy sales." Needless to say, this resulted in an astronomical amount of search results. I perused the first few results and found that they are all pushing the same messages. You need to improve your SEO, tags, and images of your listing in order to generate more sales.
Coming from the world of Ad Tech (digital advertising technology) this makes perfect sense. Having the right images and the right messaging is what drives results in content marketing, so e-commerce should be no different.
The first thing that I did was to sign up for a free tool called "Etsy Rank". It's a very powerful tool with a ton of reports and insights around what is going on in the Etsy sphere. You connect your Etsy shop/s to the tool and they analyze all your listing to find where you can make improvements. Very quickly I realized that my listings were not getting good traction because the keywords that I had placed in the title and tags were very high in competition, meaning that it was very unlikely that someone who searched for these terms would find my listing and buy my item.
So the very first thing that I did was to go over all my listings and all the tags that were listed under each listing and remove the tags that had high competition. These tags were replaced by tags that had either low or medium competition so that the right people would be able to find my listings.
I started to monitor the performance of my shop very closely for the next few days and noticed a shocking change. Instead of traffic taking off after changing the tags I saw a drop off in traffic. I was quite alarmed to see this so I jumped on to Facebook where I'm a member of a few Etsy seller groups and found a post of someone asking why such a thing seems to have happened to their store as well. It turns out that there is what appears to be a learning period when you change anything about your listings. It isn't recommended that you change all your tags on all your listings all at once because this puts your entire shop back into this learning period which actually results in a lower visit count.
What you should do it spread the changes out over the course of a few days. For example on Sunday change the tags on 3 of your listings, then on Wednesday change another 3 and so on. This way you aren't going to be affected too badly by the relearning of the Etsy algorithm and your listings will continue to appear in the search results.
I have let the new tags rest for a few days and it looks like the traffic is starting to trickle in.
I hope that you have found this blog post to be helpful and that it will help you to improve your shop's sales as well. If you have any questions please feel free to leave me a comment below.
If you have been thinking about opening an Etsy shop there is no time quite like the present. If you follow this link: https://etsy.me/2OdXwvM you will receive 40 free listings towards your new Etsy shop. The best part is, I will also receive 40 free listings so its a win-win situation!
3 Tips for Traveling for Less
My husband and I love to travel.
We love the experience of going to new places, seeing new things and experience different environments. My husband even loves the experience of going through TSA, passport control and checkin as quickly and efficiently as possible (maybe I'll write about that in a different post).
But the problem with loving to travel is that it can get quite expensive. There are a few things that you can do to help minimize the costs of traveling and these are some of the tricks we use to get the most out of our vacations.
1. Booking flights on a low-cost airline.
When we want to take a small weekend get away we turn to the low cost airlines to find where is the cheapest place we can go that we haven't been to yet. Here in Israel EasyJet flies to many different European locations and we have been able to go to both Geneva and London for relatively cheap.
The secret with low-cost airlines is to make sure that you only take what you absolutely need. Because the baggage fees can be large on these airlines (thats where they make all their money) you need to travel light.
For a quick weekend getaway we are able to get by with one or 2 small backpacks and a rolling carry-on each. This means no checked bags, no fees and no waiting at baggage claim when you get there.
We have also been fortunate that on one of the flights they decided to gate check all rolling carry-ons so we were able to gate check our bag for free.
2. Get the miles
Some thing that I have discovered recently is that if you are a milage plus frequent flyer member through United or Star Alliance is that you are earn miles from shopping online.
For the longest time I had thought that there were only two ways to earn miles.
1. Fly more often
2. Get an airline credit card
But there is a third option, its online shopping.
This all started when my miles were about to expire (yes they expire) and I wasn't planning a trip on United anytime soon. I took a quick look on their site to see maybe there is another way for me to keep my miles (I didn't want to have to buy more miles) and there was!
When we travel to the states we order just about everything that we are planning to buy there online through the United Airlines Mileage Plus shopping site and earn thousands of miles.
Just on this last trip my husband ordered a laptop from HP at 12 miles per dollar! Not all the offers will be this good but if you are someone who typically does a lot of online shopping, this is definitely worth checking out.
The miles that each store gives can vary day to day, I recommend only placing an order when the milage is more than 1:1 so your dollars will go father.
If you rack up enough miles you could fly for next to nothing or stay at a nice hotel.
3. Know where to book
In addition to the miles for shopping you can get cash back for booking your hotels and flights online.
I have used the site Ebates to get cash back on flights and hotel stays but you can also get cash back on car rentals and even luggage.
If a place that you want to order that flight or rent a car from isn't on the United list then check Ebates because you could get as much as 10% back from just activating Ebates cash back!
So traveling doesn't have to break the bank. Book a cheaper airline, order the tickets through a cash back site like Ebates, and do all your online shopping through United.
Before you know it you will be traveling the world for less.
The world is waiting for you.
Jack of all Trades
For the past 2 years I've been working at a start up. Everywhere I go and all the people that I meet are constantly saying "wow, a start up. So do you get free lunch and stuff?" The answer is no.
The truth that many people miss, myself included is that working at a start up is hard work. I joined the team when there were only 6 employees we were in a cramped crappy office. It smelled awful all the time and the air conditioner leaked constantly. We did go out for lunch most days, but not because we got free lunch but because the only way we would all be able to eat together and not be at our desks was to leave the office. Not to mention that the mini-fridge in the office always had a funky smell.
When you think about this kind of start up, you expect to work hard, and believe me we did. Every day was a hustle and we sratched and clawed to keep everyone of our customers. But when the team makes the leap from six to 15 and then to 30 people suddenly there is more work to do. When we were six there was a lot of hustle but there just seemed to be more focused work.
I joined the team as an Account Manager (now called a Customer Success Manager) and for the first year or so I was almost fully dedicated to the task. Then the company began to grow and there came the "growing pains" of a rapidly (although from the inside feeling slowly) growing company. Suddenly someone needed to be on top of the company's growing finances, QA needed to be taken more seriously, even the shear sizes of the customers grew expoentially.
Thats when I found myself learning about test cycles, test plans and testing out all kinds of QA software (which I ended up not using since excel was the easiest solution). I got to the point where I was good enough at doing manual QA so that was added to my plate.
Flash forward a few months and on top of the previous two positions I was suddenly learning all about the world of billing. What does net 30, net 45, net 75 mean? Tons of acronyms and filling out all kinds of ACH and ETF (huh?) forms.
As things moved along I started exploring into areas that are more interesting to me personally and what I want to be doing with my career. So, now my job description looked something like, product manager, QA, invoicing and Customer Success Manager. That is quite a mouth full.
The point of this post is that there is a lot of truth to the phrase "A Jack of all trades is a master of none. I find myself everyday getting by with just being good enough. I'm OK at doing manual QA, at this point I could probably manage the billing department of a small company, and I am a pretty good Customer Success Manager.
But I just don't feel like my skills in any of these feilds are really something to write home about. I've gained an emense amount of knowledge and experience in this short time but there is still a feeling of being a Jack of all trades and a master of none.
I guess this can be applied to just about any facet of life. I'm a creative person, well I fancy myself a creative person. When I was younger I used to be into photography and drawing, and now I find myself still into photography, less so in drawing (haven't really drawn in years), but I also enjoy cooking, UI design and learned to code.
Living in this Internet Century, as they put it in "How Google Works," it is understandable that you will have knowledge in many different areas. We don't live in the middle ages where if you were trained as a blacksmith thats they *only* thing you would do for the rest of your life. You have access to all the information out there, its literally at your finger tips.
What we have to realize is that in the current state of the world you can know a little bit about a lot of things because there is always someone who will know more than you or be better at something than you and it is okay.
Buying Books Outside the US
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| The book Depository logo |
and order books to my parents house in America and wait for someone to bring them in for me.The problem with the Amazon
method was that it could take weeks or months to get my books and this was time that I just couldn't wait so I went on a mission to find a different way to get my books delivered. When I told a friend at school about the situation she told me that she has been using this site for a while that offers free shipping to Israel as well as many other countries around the world called Book Depository. So figuring what could be the harm I signed up for an account and placed an order for a relatively cheap book (just in case it never arrived I wouldn't feel like I had lost money one it). Sure enough the shipping was free and the book came in perfect condition!The service:
I placed my order around new years and according to their site it was supposed to take a little more than 14 business days to get to me. I received an email confirming that the order had been placed and the next day an email letting me know that the book was en-route. This was really exciting, I marked the calendar for the day that it should arrive so that I would be on the look out for it. When the day that it was supposed to arrive came around it wasn't in the mail, I waited a few days and still no package, so I emailed the Book Depository and asked them where it was. I was surprised by how quickly they responded and they told me that if the book hasn't arrived yet it was probably lost in the mail. They offered my two courses of option, I could get a refund for the book or they could send me a new one on them.
I took them up on the replacement and sure enough 2 weeks later the book was here! It was a small book so it came in a padded envelope (I have ordered bigger books that come in cardboard) with a bookmark inside. That first book was the only one that has had any issues and since then everything has been arriving on time.
Pricing:
I was impressed by the prices of the book on this site. All the books that I have ordered since joining the service have been at least 10% off some of them more. The books are priced very aggressively and with the free shipping spending $7-10 on a book doesn't seem so bad.
You have the ability to create a wishlist in your account that sets up an alert so when a book that you want drops in price they will send you an email letting you know. This is huge because no other site does this in house, you can set up a tracker like TrackIf that will let you know when a price drops but Amazon isn't going to alert you when a product goes down in price.
Book Depository also has a newsletter that comes out every few weeks with books that are on sale and things that are trending now. So you can almost always get the book that you want at a very low price.
Other fun features that they have on their site are things like seeing what is hot now, and what people in your area are buying. You can see a live map of the world and see what books people are buying in real time and where they are buying from, they have competitions on the site that you can win all kinds of goodies.
When it comes down to it their service is the Zappos of Books.
** please know that the links in this post are affliate links, if you do not wish to use affilliate links you can access the site from here.**
All For The Best
Everyday coming home from class I take the same bus and pass the same bridge with the words “Everything is for the best” written in graffiti on the side. A while back I had been reading “The Zen Art of Happiness” and one of the first messages or lessons in the book was talking about seeing everything that befalls you to be for the best. There are many times when I can look at things and say yeah if I didn’t make that choice then X, Y, and Z wouldn’t have happened. At the same time you can look at bad things that are happening and just feel like the sky is falling.
I always get the feeling that when it rains it pours. Take for example a few weeks ago my watch battery died. Perfectly natural thing to happen, I’ve been wearing for over a year and this was bound to happen. Saturday night I go out to get a new battery and life is good again. On the following Friday my boyfriend and I go to the beach where my watch get a little wet (okay it kind of took a swim) and everything seemed fine. Saturday morning my watch is no longer working. These two events on their own don’t seem all that bad, it was extremely annoying not having a watch for my final exams and getting used to not wearing one, but no reason to feel like the end of the world was coming. Until Monday afternoon when one of my headphones started acting up, where by Wednesday they were dead. Then all of the sudden its like the world is coming to an end. Too many bad things are happening too close together and I no longer know what to do!
Last year I took up running and that was the one thing that really kept me sane with all the things that were going on in my life. After moving to a third floor walk up apartment I just stopped having the energy to go for a run and then have to tackle those stairs that I gave it up. That seems to be the biggest mistake that I made this year. Had I been pounding the pavement to get that aggression out then all the little things wouldn’t be adding up to so much weight like they are now.
So I guess the take away here is that you have to find what keeps you calm. Thank god none of us are the hulk and will smash buildings with our anger but that doesn’t mean that we don’t really cause damage in our lives. Every time I go down that rabbit-hole of this happened, and then that, and she said, it pisses me off! And I just go and unload all that nonsense on the people in your life it just drives them away, but if you keep it all in then all this aggression and anger just consumes you.
There are certain realizations that we have to come to. Things like we can’t fix everything, things that happen in our lives happen for the best possible reason and that its all for the best. You just have to get there, to see the messages that are out there around you and internalize them.
That message on the wall is a reminder to me everyday that “everything is for the best” and that we have to start realizing and taking advantage of it.
Pushy Israelis
This morning we were all sitting in our online journalism class like we have been doing every Monday morning since the beginning of the semester. All class the door is opening and people are looking in like they are expecting the room to be empty and leaving right away, we don't think anything of it because this happens all the time.At 1 o'clock this big Israeli guy walks in to the room and starts yelling at the teacher that she has taken his room. That he has 3 classes to teach today and no room to use because she is "hogging" his. She calmly says to him that we have had this room all semester and that there is no way that this could be "his room." He leaves angrily and we all start talking about how rude he was.
Three minutes later a woman from the logistics office comes in and tells us that she has a new room open for us to use until 1:45 when the class is over. So for the last 40ish minutes of class we move down the hall as the angry Israeli guy (who apparently works at a TV station) glares at us like we've done something wrong.
I have been trying to understand why all these Israelis are always trying to put themselves first. I understand the whole "if you let them push you around then they'll walk all over you" mentality but a little consideration. Can't you choose your battles? This one wasn't really worth it was it? Maybe I'm missing the point here.
A Simple Life
This morning on my bus ride into school I started thinking about what life would be like without all the technology that we have today. How quiet would it be without all the cars? Would we meet more people around us because we aren't clouded by the technology that keeps us in touch with those we care about who are not in our immediate proximity? Life would be so different.Maybe if we didn't have all this technology we wouldn't feel like there aren't enough hours in the day because there wont be websites or video games to keep you distracted. Maybe we would spend more time with our loved ones and less time with our cell phones. Would our lives be less stressful? Studies show that as we take on more in our lives we are becoming more and more stressed with life. I think we can all use less stressful lives, but I just can't seem to give up TV. If we could live simpler lives and still have the shows on TV I'd be happy.
It has recently come to my attention just how many people are sitting or standing around each other not interacting because we're all in our own little worlds with our headphones in. Makes me think about that movie "Josie and the Pussy Cats" where the CD has a subtrack that brainwashes everyone. Makes you wonder if that could happen with all these people wired all the time.
Elections
We live in a democracy and we should be celebrating our ability to control who is in our government, but has anyone ever sat down to think about what if we don't know who we want to be in our government? Do we really know who the candidates are? Are they going to keep their promises? Did they just say those things to get elected? There are too many questions. And I just don't feel like I have the ability to choose who is going to be put into office. What if you end up making the wrong decision? Over the weekend I read over summaries of the parties that are running and they all made points that I agreed with and I had been hoping that reading over their points on key topics would help me to choose one. Turns out that didn't work.
I kept getting stuck on this feeling. What do I know about foreign policy? I've been living in this country for less than 3 years, heck I lived in the US for 20 years and don't know what to look for in a presidential candidate. I was reading Seth Godin's blog other day and he had a post about "With great power comes great irresponsibility" and I agreed with his ideas. When we give people power then they can do what ever they want and all you can say is "I can't believe I picked this guy."
If the guy who gets elected turns out to be a terrible person, is it all okay because a majority of people wanted to put him there? I was too conflicted, a friend of mine said that not voting in a way is a form of voting. I do want to live in a better world, I just feel like all this politics isn't helping, there is so much lying and just saying things to get the votes. That I don't feel properly informed to make an informed decision. I know there are going to be a lot of angry people about this post, but this is my honest opinion on the situation.
Zen Art Of Happiness - Part 2
This is my second post in a series that I am doing while working my way through the book "The Zen Art Of Happiness". Part 1 of this series can be be found here
We are the authors of every next moment
In our lives we are always striving for control. I always want to be in control of the situation, and when I find myself not in control it makes me uneasy and insecure. For my birthday my boyfriend planned me a surprise party, he did a really good job keeping it a secret but I had this feeling that there was something he wasn't telling me. I like knowing what is going on, I like being able to plan things and have thing that I plan happen. Recently I have found that I'm having to more and more deal with this lack of control.
There are many times when I just feel like I'm not that powerful being, that I can't create the future because someone else is making decisions for me. That I make plans and get excited when I know that I'm going to be seeing my boyfriend only to get a phone call telling me that he's not coming home this week, or that my friends actually aren't available to meet up tonight. It feels like I put the thoughts in and the actions just don't happen.
Personal Philosophy
I like most people have never sat down and thought about my personal philosophy. The book makes an interesting point that I have never really thought of before. It says that if your personal philosophy is to always view life positively then the things that happen in your life are all for the best, but conversely if you view things that happen in life negatively and are always saying that life is bad then you will have a hard time seeing the good.
As you belive, so it is for you
There is a quote that says a lot. We are always digging, looking for that hidden meaning in what someone else has said to us. Asking ourselves what did they mean by that? What did their tone of voice mean?
You have to change the way your mind works. Stop thinking about the hidden meaning and work on being in the moment and trying to stay positive. The metaphor that the author brings is that you have to look at yourself like a railway track, there is a switch to see things positive or to see things negatively. Every occurrence that comes your way has the chance to go down the positive or negative track, you just have to decide which one your going to go down.
Have you ever had an event that you were able to look back on and realize that it really was a great thing to have happened? How have you been able to change the way that you think about how event have unfolded in your life? I'd love to hear what you have to think in the comments below.
We are the authors of every next moment
In our lives we are always striving for control. I always want to be in control of the situation, and when I find myself not in control it makes me uneasy and insecure. For my birthday my boyfriend planned me a surprise party, he did a really good job keeping it a secret but I had this feeling that there was something he wasn't telling me. I like knowing what is going on, I like being able to plan things and have thing that I plan happen. Recently I have found that I'm having to more and more deal with this lack of control.We are powerful beings, creating our futures with our thoughts and actions.
There are many times when I just feel like I'm not that powerful being, that I can't create the future because someone else is making decisions for me. That I make plans and get excited when I know that I'm going to be seeing my boyfriend only to get a phone call telling me that he's not coming home this week, or that my friends actually aren't available to meet up tonight. It feels like I put the thoughts in and the actions just don't happen.
Personal Philosophy
I like most people have never sat down and thought about my personal philosophy. The book makes an interesting point that I have never really thought of before. It says that if your personal philosophy is to always view life positively then the things that happen in your life are all for the best, but conversely if you view things that happen in life negatively and are always saying that life is bad then you will have a hard time seeing the good.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. - William ShakespeareHow many times has it happened that something bad happens and you let it ruin everything? This is what happens to me all the time, I'll be having a great day and then I spill something and make a mess and then view the whole day as ruined. According to this way of thinking because I let one bad thing cover everything else up I am causing more unpleasantness to come to me. Wouldn't it be so nice if you were just able to turn off that one part of the brain that is always throwing in the towel and saying "that's it you ruined everything!" Maybe that is just the next thing that I have to work on.
As you belive, so it is for you
The true man sees what the eye sees, and does not add to it something that is not there. He hears what the ears hear, and does not detect imaginary undertones or overtones. He…is not busy with hidden meanings. - Chuang Tzu
There is a quote that says a lot. We are always digging, looking for that hidden meaning in what someone else has said to us. Asking ourselves what did they mean by that? What did their tone of voice mean?You have to change the way your mind works. Stop thinking about the hidden meaning and work on being in the moment and trying to stay positive. The metaphor that the author brings is that you have to look at yourself like a railway track, there is a switch to see things positive or to see things negatively. Every occurrence that comes your way has the chance to go down the positive or negative track, you just have to decide which one your going to go down.
Have you ever had an event that you were able to look back on and realize that it really was a great thing to have happened? How have you been able to change the way that you think about how event have unfolded in your life? I'd love to hear what you have to think in the comments below.
Unraveling
One of the recurring themes I have seen when reading about ways to reduce feelings of being depressed or sad have been to dissociate yourself from people who make you feel this way. Last week I kept myself from thinking about the people that really put me down in a poor mood and I can honestly say that it helped a lot. The only problem I have run into is that no where does any one have suggestions for how to deal with people who put you in a foul mood when you cannot avoid being around them?
There is one person in my life who we just seem to see things differently and there are times when I feel that whatever I do is not the right thing. While for the past week I did a very good job keeping myself far away from them over the weekend it was unavoidable and I just feel that everything I did for the past week seems to have unraveled and I'm feeling like I'm going to have to start this week again from scratch.
Does anyone else ever feel that there are people who are in your life and put you down? Any suggestions for way to keep them from ruining everything?
Zen Art Of Happiness - Part 1
I have begun to read the book “Zen Art Of Happiness” and have decided that
since the purpose behind my starting this blog had been about self improvement,
I will be documenting my progress through this short book. While the book
itself is only about 50 pages long I know that it is going to take a good long
while to get through these pages.The first step towards solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.
The first step is always the hardest. I have been living for a few
years with a problem that has been growing. I have been keeping it deep down
and hidden and like a tumor it has grown out of control. I have become
frustrated with everything in my life, lost all motivation for anything and even
have been pushing away the one person who means the most to me. I have been
taking him for granted, every time I push him away he has been coming right
back, but recently we got into a fight that could have ended it for good.
This has forced me to take a step back. To look at what is going
on in my life and realize that it is time for me to make a change. As hard as
it was I decided that we were going to take a break, I am scared that we may not
go back to where we were or who knows in a few months things can be getting back
on track. While he may never see this, I want him to know that he is the reason
that I am taking these steps towards fixing whatever it is that is wrong with
me.
The first question that the book asks is
Would I want this to be true: “Every event that befalls me is absolutely
the best possible event that could occur.”
When I read this line, my honest answer was no I don’t want
that to be true. There are so many things that happen every day that I have
a hard time seeing the good in them. Like this morning I missed my bus to school
by 30 seconds and all I could think was how I was going to be late and if I just
left the apartment just a minute earlier I would have caught an earlier bus and
I would have made it on that one and I could have been on time to class. This
makes it difficult to see the world in a way where everything that befalls me is
the best possible even that could occur.
The next question that the book posses is:
Will I give that a chance to be true?
My honest answer here was no I don’t want it to be true.
But reading on I come to realize that it really is true. We have to learn to
retrain ourselves, to stop thinking in terms of every event that occurs
individually but as pieces of a whole part. I did miss my bus this morning but
it turns out even if I were on the earlier one I would have ended up just
sitting in the sun waiting for the bus to school that I took any way, but
because I had missed the 567 I was sitting in a bus stop shaded from the sun and
I had a minute to relax and I even got a seat on the bus.
I have to stop looking at every event that happens and right away
jumping to the conclusion that someone out there is out to get me. Maybe these
things happen for a larger reason than we can see. Maybe this fight that we are
in is just a bump in the road to where ever it is that we are going. Neither of
us can see it today and not even tomorrow but what ever happens, it is for the
best.
More Posts on Happiness:
Why its so hard to just be happy?
The difference between kindness and charity
More Posts on Happiness:
Why its so hard to just be happy?
The difference between kindness and charity
The Nanny
I will start out by saying that when I am starting a family I do not plan to have a nanny. While I do know that raising kids and having a career is a difficult task I just feel like there is something wrong if I feel that someone else should be raising my kids and taking care of my house. What does that say about me as a parent? That I'm not good enough to raise kids? That I don't think my kids are worth my time?When I was younger my mom had a cleaning lady who came once a week while we were at school, but this only went on for a few years. I think it was because we didn't really need her. I grew up in a fair sized suburban house in the US and since moving to Israel a year and a half ago I have noticed an abundance of families who hire Philippinos to clean their houses and some to take their kids things like taking them to the park and picking them up form school. Maybe its because the parents a busy, maybe its because the nanny is cheap whatever the reason, the house sizes of these people in relation to what I grew up in makes me feel like they don't need it.
I can see having help every once in a while like a babysitter or even if I'm going to be hosting a party but to hire someone on a regular basis to come and do my dishes just seems a bit absurd! I know that we are all busy with our lives but there is just something so homey feeling about a house that is taken care of naturally.
The other week I was at a friends house and his mom was making a home made birthday cake for his sister's birthday with homemade frosting. The whole time I was there I was thinking about how I miss being at home with my family for birthdays and the cake my mom makes with the same frosting. Most of the places that I go to for the weekends people just buy cakes, pastries and challot but when you grow up on homemade stuff its so hard to go back to the bakery. Living away from home I've come to appreciate my parents so much more and I thank them for raising me the way that they did.
A Post On Parenting
While I know that I am not a parent, and it is an incredibly challenging job there are just a few things that parents do that bother me. I am not saying that the people who do these things are bad parents, I just feel that when I have my own kids there are a few things that I will try to make sure that I don't do.
Using The World As A Bathroom: This is one that I see parents doing all the time. I know that when you gotta go you gotta go and especially for little kids it is hard for them to hold it in, but what are you teaching your kids? That its okay to just drop your pants anywhere and go when the urge comes? What are you saying about the environment? About hygiene? I kid you not, I was at the park today and there was a parent who's child had to use the bathroom so he picked up his daughter took off her pants and let her go right there next to the slide! Not only is that indecent its just plain gross!
Cell Phones: I know that taking your kids to the park everyday is not the most exciting of events but really? There was a father who spent the entire time at the park with his daughter looking at his cell phone! There used to be a lot of mothers who would bring a book to the park to read while the kids played, I feel that a book is better than a phone. There is something about a cell phone that just sucks you into it and before you know it time is just gone. It would not surprise me if the father were at the park on his cell phone and his daughter were snatched up and he wouldn't have noticed.
Breastfeeding In Public Places: There have been numerous discussions in recent years on this topic and I don't want to get too wrapped up in this one. I feel that there are right places and wrong places for it. The other week I was on a bus sitting next to a woman who was breastfeeding, while she was covered it was still a little uncomfortable. I think that if you do need to do it in a public place then maybe it needs to be done in less proximity to other people. Like say a crowded bus is not the place.
Public Transit: Car are expensive, I get it. But there has to be a limit right? A family with 5 kids gets on a crowded bus to travel between cities and want to sit together, the kids are little and loud and the parents have to buy the tickets and then deal with moving people around so they can all sit together. Is it really that much more to rent a car for the few times that you take a family trip to visit the grandparents?
The Nanny: Alright, I'm not really going to stick with just a nanny in this one. There are many families here in Israel that are always looking to hire a nanny or a cleaning lady and I know there are some people who really need them and don't have them and then there are people who feel that they really need them and don't really need them. I am just going to say here that I don't want to have a nanny or a cleaning lady. There are also parents that are always looking for a nanny to basically raise their kids, from bringing them home from school to weekly baby sitters. I know parents have to work but shouldn't they be trying to make time for their kids? The occasional help would be nice but I grew up with out one so I don't see the need.
Parenting For Dummies
When Parents Text: So Much Said...So Little Understood
Parenting From the Inside Out
This is my short list of parenting pet-peeves. I have a bit more to say on the nannies you can find my follow up post here.
There are so many interesting books on parenting out there:Parenting For Dummies
When Parents Text: So Much Said...So Little Understood
Parenting From the Inside Out
Do Students Need To Be Taught Class Room Etiquette?
The first order was being on time. The lecture that he spoke in starts every week at 12:30 and I don’t think any of the students know when it starts. When I got to the university at 10 to 12 a fellow student stopped me and asked why no one was coming to the Dean’s lecture, I told her that the class doesn’t start until 12:30 she was surprised. It was well after 13:00 when students stopped showing up and every time the door opened he stopped talking.
He went on about how we go to a great university and other students would have loved to take our place. He spoke about how we have all these amazing lecturers who come to speak and is it really asking too much for us to give them just a little respect? He made a suggestion that I think if the university really went through with it would make a change in the classroom behavior. What was suggested was for every student who comes late to a lecture they should have their name taken down and for the next lesson they should have to make a presentation to the class. If they continue to disrupt classes they will be sent to a personal meeting with the dean. The final stage would be to send the student in question to a disciplinary hearing which could end in suspension from the institution.
It all just sounds so juvenile but they sad thing is that there are students who really do need to be taught how to act in a classroom. This ordeal was yesterday and today I was sitting in the front row of a class, and you know how people say that if you sit in the front rows of a class chances are you will do better because there is less distraction? Well in the second row directly behind me were these Israeli girls who wouldn’t stop talking the whole time and the lecturer didn’t do or say anything to them. These same girls had been sitting next to me during the lecture with the dean and because they were talking the lecturer after the dean had to stop class 3 to 4 times to ask for quiet. I’m still wondering why she didn’t just throw them out, that’s what I would have done.
Is this only in our school? Is it like this in other universities too?
What is wrong?
The only issue I have is how far does this go? I understand that in my every day life I can be mad at someone for doing something wrong to me but I should be work on not trying to take revenge on others. Imagine what a world it would be if there was no more fighting and revenge. I saw somewhere recently, I really can't remember where that if the fighting in the middle east stopped then there would be world peace. I don't believe that I think that even if there was peace in the Middle East then all the other problems in the world would come to an end. What about Africa and other places with corrupt governments and people who are restless? Should we still have armies? How far can we possibly take this idea that we should not do evil even if evil is done to us? Doesn't that mean that if someone does something wrong and they can get away with it, then they will continue to do wrong until there is some sort of consequence?
5 Reasons Why I Love Going to Families for Shabbos
I have been living in Israel for the past two years and while I don’t find anything wrong with staying in my own apartment for the weekend, and I have done it before there is just something about going to a family for the weekend that makes it feel so much more special. For me it is not about the food or not needing to clean my apartment for shabbos but rather it is more about the company.
1. Being With A Family
When you live on your own there are times when you just miss being part of a family. When I go to friends I don’t usually feel like I’m a part of the family but it is just the environment that makes it feel closer to home than being alone in your apartment or even just eating with friends. It is a more familiar feeling that sometimes we just miss when we are away from your own family.2. Home Cooking
I will admit that I like to cook for myself. I’m not saying that I’m an amazing chef, but when all week I’m eating pasta and trail mix and the occasional pizza, having some home made food is great. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with ordering take-out but some times you really just need a home made chicken soup.3. Seeing Friends
Everyone is living on their own schedule, we’re all busy and the weekend is the only time that everyone has off. It is a time when we can all just sit down and talk about what’s going on in our lives, without the technology of everyday life we get to talk with out distractions.
This is something that when you live at home you take advantage of and don’t even think about it anymore. But after living in a dorm and even an apartment some times I is the size of a house, or seeing a real kitchen with a stocked fridge, as a student you really begin to appreciate all the little things in life.5. Going Different Places
Sometimes we can just use a change of scenery. While I do have a few families that I go to often in the area, on occasion I will make an effort to visit a friend in a different city just to be able to meet up with them and see a different place. Even going to different houses in the same place is a way that I use to change things up. Its interesting to see how different families are and how living in different parts of the same city can be so different.The list is a little short but it’s the honest to goodness truth about why I love going to a family for shabbos. I try to make sure that it’s a family that I know, there are websites like “Anywhere In Israel” that will set you up with a family to go to if you don’t have any one but it just kind of scares me. IF you have somewhere to go, or somewhere you like to go then make an effort to go there, or to visit a new place to gain a new experience it is so interesting how different families are.
Moving Money From American Paypal to Israeli Bank Account
You may ask yourself why would anyone be trying to move money from an
American paypal account to an Israeli bank account? There are simple things
that would make someone want to do this, firstly if you opened your paypal
account while in the US your email address becomes linked to the account so in
order to open an Israeli paypal account you will need a new email address which
is a small annoyance. If you have American bank accounts it would make sense to
have paypal from the US, but then what if you make aliya? Now you want to have
access to that money, but paypal doesn’t allow you to link an Israeli Bank
account to your American paypal.When I first began trying to figure out to move money from an American paypal account to an Israeli I had never thought that it would be so difficult. It has been months working out how to do this, testing different methods and Googleing to see if anyone else was having this issue, a part of me hoping someone else had figured it out. It was just by chance that I finally figured it out; it was one of those moments where you say to yourself “now why didn’t I think of that weeks ago?”
One of the first problems had been that my paypal account was an American one, I had signed up for it while being in the states so it was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to move money into my Israeli Bank account without absurd charges. A friend of mine had an Israeli paypal account and thought it would be as simple as 1, 2, 3 to move money from one account to the other and then into a bank account. It would seem that we were right, it just took some time to get there. When ever we tried to send money from one account to the other we always got the same error. That paypal does not allow sending money to the specified account.
This morning I was sitting in class playing with paypal I hit the send money button and selected the personal payment option but hit a wall again. Then I looked at the page and wondered what if I tried to send the money not as a personal “gift” but as a payment for a service or good the other person had provided me? Walla! I hit payment for “goods” and was prompted to enter my security question before sending the money! What I did next was open a new paypal account with my alternate email (the one I send all my spam to) but this time I opened it as an Israeli. This new account I linked to my Israeli bank account, now its as simple as sending a “gift” to myself I can move money from one paypal account to the other and then on to my bank account.
There is a charge from moving money from paypal to a bank account in Israel, its 8 NIS for transfers under 1,000 NIS and they take 1.20 NIS per transfer but this is a small price to pay for a transaction that done through the banks could cost upwards of $20 for a IBAN or wire transfer. Who’d have thought at changing one setting would make all the difference.
Tzav Rishon
On Wednesday morning I received a phone call from Nefesh B’Nefesh informing me that the army has been looking for me. Needless to say I spent the rest of the day freaking out that they were going to draft me and I was going to be forced into a position that I really don’t want because that is what has been happening to my boyfriend since he joined the Hesder track two years ago. After class when I got home I called the army to find out what they wanted and turns out they had the wrong address for me so they were calling me in for what they call a “tzav rishon” and since I had missed the first three that were sent to me I had to come in the next morning for it.
I called a friend of mine frantic because I had not been prepared for being called in. When I made Aliya a year ago it was a few days before my 20th birthday which is the age that generally women do not have to serve in the army. It was not that I was trying to avoid doing service like most religious girls, it was more that just happened to be the most convenient time to make Aliya.
Going to the recruitment office for the first time was very intimidating, mainly because when you ask someone for help for the most part the soldiers there don’t really have any idea what they are talking about. I felt like I was the ball in a game of table tennis. One desk would tell me where to go and I would go there only to be told that I was supposed to go somewhere else. The best part had to be when I was sitting at one station for over an hour until they called me in to tell me that I was at the wrong station!
At the doctor’s station I waited for over 2 and a half hours to be called in. The soldiers there were so immature about everything, made me think that they are not so different from the 17-18 year-olds who are in the waiting area. This made me feel old because the whole time I was sitting there I was thinking about all the things that I could have been doing with all this free time. When I was finally called into see the doctor a soldier came in to ask the doctor if she speaks English because there was a guy who didn’t speak any Hebrew and she went on a whole rant about how she doesn’t think she should have to embarrass herself speaking English if there are other doctors who speak better English, I didn’t say anything while I was sitting there and then when she turned to me and asked me a question I said, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Hebrew.” The look on her face was priceless.
Now what no one told me was that I was going to have to get undressed for the doctor appointment. In the states when you go to the doctor you don’t have to take off your clothes, so I said to her “and what if I don’t want to?” Then she got all mad at me saying that I’m making a mistake being difficult… when really all I wanted to know was what if I’m not comfortable getting undressed, is there an alternative. Apparently there isn’t. She told me that because of my age she doesn’t think that they are going to call me in, and then afterwards she sent me back to the room I started in.
When I got down to the room they had no idea what I was doing there so they sent me to the front desk, who sent me to a room for a computer test. Everyone there was freaking out about the test and I had been told that it was going to take a few hours so if I wanted to come back another day that would be fine. I was thinking I came here this morning and I really don’t want to come back another day so what the hell I’ll take their test. The test was able to be given in English and what I didn’t know was that it was a much easier test than the one that the Israelis were taking. All I had to do was match up shapes and patterns. To me seemed like the biggest joke ever.
Now all that’s left is to wait for them to send me a draft date, go to the rabbanut and decide what I’m going to do. The options are to opt out because of religious reasons or try and get into “Atudat Olim” and hope that I can get a job in my field.
I called a friend of mine frantic because I had not been prepared for being called in. When I made Aliya a year ago it was a few days before my 20th birthday which is the age that generally women do not have to serve in the army. It was not that I was trying to avoid doing service like most religious girls, it was more that just happened to be the most convenient time to make Aliya. Going to the recruitment office for the first time was very intimidating, mainly because when you ask someone for help for the most part the soldiers there don’t really have any idea what they are talking about. I felt like I was the ball in a game of table tennis. One desk would tell me where to go and I would go there only to be told that I was supposed to go somewhere else. The best part had to be when I was sitting at one station for over an hour until they called me in to tell me that I was at the wrong station!
At the doctor’s station I waited for over 2 and a half hours to be called in. The soldiers there were so immature about everything, made me think that they are not so different from the 17-18 year-olds who are in the waiting area. This made me feel old because the whole time I was sitting there I was thinking about all the things that I could have been doing with all this free time. When I was finally called into see the doctor a soldier came in to ask the doctor if she speaks English because there was a guy who didn’t speak any Hebrew and she went on a whole rant about how she doesn’t think she should have to embarrass herself speaking English if there are other doctors who speak better English, I didn’t say anything while I was sitting there and then when she turned to me and asked me a question I said, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Hebrew.” The look on her face was priceless.
Now what no one told me was that I was going to have to get undressed for the doctor appointment. In the states when you go to the doctor you don’t have to take off your clothes, so I said to her “and what if I don’t want to?” Then she got all mad at me saying that I’m making a mistake being difficult… when really all I wanted to know was what if I’m not comfortable getting undressed, is there an alternative. Apparently there isn’t. She told me that because of my age she doesn’t think that they are going to call me in, and then afterwards she sent me back to the room I started in.
When I got down to the room they had no idea what I was doing there so they sent me to the front desk, who sent me to a room for a computer test. Everyone there was freaking out about the test and I had been told that it was going to take a few hours so if I wanted to come back another day that would be fine. I was thinking I came here this morning and I really don’t want to come back another day so what the hell I’ll take their test. The test was able to be given in English and what I didn’t know was that it was a much easier test than the one that the Israelis were taking. All I had to do was match up shapes and patterns. To me seemed like the biggest joke ever.
Now all that’s left is to wait for them to send me a draft date, go to the rabbanut and decide what I’m going to do. The options are to opt out because of religious reasons or try and get into “Atudat Olim” and hope that I can get a job in my field.
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