Like the above quotation from the late Mother Teresa suggests, today is the only guaranteed time a person has to impact his or her surroundings. One small way that I have found to do this very bliss-inducing thing is through sponsored click-to-give charity. The idea is simple: click on a link and a sponsor pledges a certain amount of money. My website of choice in the matter is the wonderful CleanBreath.org.
CleanBreath.org is a central database of dozens of click-to give charity sites stretching to all corners of this big, beautiful globe free of charge! I have been using the site and giving for free for over a year and thanks the good fellows and ladies at CleanBreath, I have been able to give, amazing as it may seem, to around 20 charities per day!
So if you like giving back but you don't have the deepest of pockets, or the economy has eaten them alive to oblivion, do yourself a favor and mosey over to http://cleanbreath.org and change the world by giving the world some change... one click at a time.
Promotional poster (all rights retained by filmmakers)
Your favorite wheelchair-rolling blogeteer's Batman singing telephone-o-gram is now featured on a special Dark Knight Rises Fanpage on Facebook! Please support! The new film is set to open July 20, 2012.
I am 30 years old. I am a writer, blogger, amateur rapper/emcee, poet and an up-and-coming entrepreneur. I have a great family and great friends -- and I was born with Cerebral Palsy Spastic Diplegia. I have all my limbs. And yet, Craig Deitz who, as his family would have you believe, was gifted his lack of limbs by the beautiful grace of God has seemed to accomplish far more in his life than I have in mine. At this I am thoroughly jealous and inspired all at once.
Craig is a state attorney in his home town of Pittsburgh, PA. He lives apparently independently: driving his car, cleaning his house, going bowling, skiing, and yes, swimming competively! In some peculiar sense, seeing Craig's life in this video makes me ashamed of not having accomplished a bit more in my life. Thanks to craig's metaphorical kick in the pants, I am truly more motivated than ever to remove all obstacles from my life! Thanks be to Craig!
Craig will be speaking on December 6, 2011 at Misericordia University. For more information, visit the link here. Or for more about Craig Dietz, go to craigdietzspeaks.com.
By all accounts, the New York City skyline was pristinely clear on a gorgeous Tuesday morning in September. I had just woken up for my usual Tuesday day off from my college classes. I went into the downstairs living room of my father's house and turned on MTV for no reason of particular importance to Christina Milian's song and video for her hit single "AM to PM." My father came down the stairs to the doorway to leave for his construction job at the new Palisades Mall. I very distinctly remember telling him "I love you," I didn't always. After deciding that I had some work I should be getting to, I went to my computer upstairs climbing in my handicapped-accessible manner. (I mention that part for those readers who wonder about such matters.) I checked my email and to started to work on my assignments for my classes as I was then a 20-year-old Sophomore at my local community college. I went about my business for at least an hour with my headphones playing my personal internet radio playlist filled with everything from Michael Jackson to Marvin Gaye and The Cranberries. Strangely even thought I recall that Cristina Milian song, I don't recall any songs that might have been playing as I was given the incredible news by my dad's girlfriend at the time, "Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center", she shouted."
I rushed back downstairs for some reason and I turned on the radio. It was set to 92.3 K-ROCK, the station that carried Howard Stern's radio show from New York City. It was already after ten o'clock and the damage had largely been done. Howard broke from his typical raw and jokingly lecherous character to be a kind of comfort to his listeners -- taking calls from friends, family and whomever happened to be on the phone lines at that moment. He seemed almost prayerful and while howard Stern had always been notoriously irreligious, his tone, though not religious, seemed to somehow call me to prayer on the living room floor as he gave updates. I spat out spirited rounds of Hail Marys and Our Fathers from my Catholic upbringing and wondered how for it would go. Who would or had already died that I know? What if the plane in Pennsylvania got to the White House or the Capitol Building? What if they hit the Indian Point nuclear power plant near my area? Was I going to die? I remembered what I last said to my father and in knowing that he would try to help that day, I wondered if I had seen him for the last time. I thanked God for everything I had been given in my life and asked forgiveness for where I had fallen short. I must have prayed for over three hours non-stop lying belly-down with my face buried in my folded hands
The YouTube videos below contain the audio of that special Howard Stern radio broadcast. Thank you, Howard. I will never forget this.
Let's roll... on!
To those lost on that day and especially Michelle Bratton: may the comfort of God find you well and happy always!
They ask me what makes me so positive
And I tell them that having no one like me is the key --
Having no rivals on wheels in my neighborhood, school or job is a freedom --
A freedom from unrealistic expectations
For a freelance writer, rapper, digital artist, poet and pro wrestling geek.
Yes, when not waxing philosophical about the merits of wheelchair pogosticking, I, your wheelchair philosopher, moonlight as Batman... um... DAMNIT! You'e not supposed to know that -- shhh!
Today we're revisiting my steps on how to be more productive -- something that is a focal point of this blog. Enjoy!
Three Simple Ways You Can Be Happier and More Productive in Under an Hour
Take 45 minutes to one hour to do these three things:
1. Stop thinking about what you can't do and switch it to thinking about what you CAN do. Your brain can't picture "NOT", it can only picture what is. If I, for instance, say "Don't think about the color blue", you'll think about BLUE first.
2, Visualize your BIGGEST goals and write them as if they are happening already. Do this for at least a half hour.
3. Finally, make a list of things you want to do in your life in three columns with the "Things to do" in the first column and "How to do them" in the second column. Then make a list of people who can help you accomplish these goals in the third column and finally... call those people later.
