Hawaiian-Style | Life-Built Poems

BEYOND STUFF-LOVE (Part 3): A Touch Test

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18th-century British textile designer, poet, writer and socialist activist William Morris famously advised: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” It’s become a sort of go-to standard that organizers, minimalists and de-clutterers of every ilk use to look at the stuff with which we all surround ourselves. These days every time you hear that phrase, you can pretty much expect that somebody is going to try to persuade you…

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WHEN MAGIC HAPPENS

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It was at a festival celebrating taro and community in Hana that I saw another one of them — an intense, prepubescent boy who carried an ukulele around wherever he went. I noticed him sitting on the grass very close to the front of the low-built stage under a big canvas tent. He sat there, soaking in the presence of a musician who was making a name for himself in the big city of Honolulu and beyond and doing his…

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SEE THE WHOLE GLASS (AND USE IT)

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We know the cliché – the glass with the water and the accompanying question delivered by some snot of a snippet: Is the glass half-full or is it half-empty? We think we know what the guys in the white coats say about choosing one thing over the other means too. Over and over we’ve been told that if you say the glass is half-full, then you are probably an optimist. If you say the glass is half-empty, then you’re a…

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HOW TO LIVE WISDOM

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In 2011, a video of a kid speechifying after learning to ride a bike went viral. His dad “interviewed” him after his accomplishment, asking him whether he had any “words of wisdom” for all the other kids who wanted to ride a bike.

PERSONAL BRANDING JAMMIN’ — TAKE 2

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Try it. Google “personal branding.” Wo. See that? The little search ‘bots retrieve 381 MILLION results! Since leadership guru Tom Peters first presented the concept of marketing yourself and your career just like a brand in that article, “The Brand Called You” for Fast Company magazine in 1997, the thing has developed some legs and has taken off running in all directions.

A “MOVEMENT” = CONNECTION

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For the past few months, the Light of My Life and I have been showing up at the early Saturday-morning Upcountry Farmer’s Market fairly frequently. It has been some years since either of us visited the market.

FIND THE SAVOR

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One of my favorite Einstein quotes is this: ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.‘ Of all his theories, I think, it’s the best one. Life is either sacred or it isn’t. Life is either amazing, just as it is, or it’s not. You don’t even have to be a big brain to figure out that acting as if everything is a miracle…

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POET LAUREATE KEALOHA (A Journey)

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In 2010, Steven Kealohapau’ole Hong-Ming Wong – “the slam poet known as Kealoha” — was designated by Governor Neil Ambercrombie as Hawaii’s first (and, so far, only) official state poet laureate.

HOW TO COUNTER CHANGE BLINDNESS — Another IPS

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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a growing appreciation of process. [Creativity and change move through every situation you encounter. Enjoy the ride ’cause there ain’t no going back!] Change is everywhere. Everything keeps changing, little by little. Like a tree growing, it just keeps on. The thing is you don’t really notice how big that tree is getting until you find an old picture and are amazed at the difference in that tree your father planted in the yard all…

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YOUR TURN TO TRY

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Here’s another way of Un-Seeing, one involving time and space. Google what “Hawaiian time” means and you will probably get some variation of “late.” Sometimes the definition comes with a fifteen-minute grace-period added and, often, there’s a bit of humor-filled tolerance included. As more than one entry so delicately puts it, we island people are afflicted by a “relaxed indifference to precise scheduling.” Uh-huh.