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Posted in Book Reviews/Interviews | April 12, 2010 | 17 Comments
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Image by I want to talk about something absolutely awesome today. Your life. In details.
Small, even tiny things can make the biggest difference between a bad day and a day full of awesome discoveries.
Just recently I have discovered something awesome – The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. This book is a great fountain of positive thoughts. What I loved the most is that you do not have to read the whole book at once. You just open the book at any page whenever you feel that you need an additional source of positivity for the day.
You can keep this book in your bedside table, take it on a road trip, keep it in your desk at work (and read a few stories when your boss or your colleagues are giving you a hard time), or take it on a plane with you. You can never get tired of it!
The book is not just a funny collection of stories. It is a guide that will teach you to see amazing things in your daily life (at least this is how I see it). It will show you how to get inspiration from things like seeing your loved one smile in their sleep, coming home after a long day to the smell of someone cooking dinner and putting on your favorite comfy T-shirt at the end of a busy day.
I believe that seeing awesomeness in the world around you is the best strategy to always feel in balance. I’ve asked Neil Pasricha to answer a few questions about life balance and his book. His answers are absolutely awesome!
1. What is the most awesome part of your life?
Well, I’d say right now it’s certainly getting to talk to so many people about awesome things.
I honestly never imagined on that chilly spring night in 2008 that anything would amount of my tiny website 1000 Awesome Things. Honestly, it was just dark days outside – ice caps melting, wars raging, forests burning, hurricanes swirling – and I wanted to remind myself of the simple things like bubble wrap, snow days, and the cold side of the pillow.
All of a sudden the site’s won all kinds of awards, I’m in the papers, there are 10 million hits, and ten agents are approaching me for a book deal. So that’s pretty awesome.
Also, I ate a delicious tuna sandwich for lunch today. Absolutely perfect tuna to mayo ratio. And some spilled out the back so I ate it with my fingers afterwards. That’s pretty awesome too!
2. What is the most “unawesome” thing (if any) in your life?
Well, life’s not always smooth sailing. For me, for anyone.
Over the course of the site I’ve battled a lot of personal hardships. My best friend Chris took his own life and my wife told me she didn’t love me anymore. Losing the two closest people in my life at the same time wasn’t easy… and it’s taken a long time to grieve and move on. But really, it’s talking about the smell of gasoline, thinking it’s Thursday when it’s Friday, and chatting about the last day of school that’s helped me.
I feel like a lot of us – maybe all of us – have pains and tough situations. And I sorta feel like maybe focusing on the good things in life, on the awesome things, can cheer us over to the other side. There’s a lot of hope out there if we want it.
3. What is life balance in your opinion? Do you feel that you have it? How do you get it?
Well, I mean everyone would have their own definition of balance. For me there’s gotta be a swirling sense deep in your stomach and buzzing on your insides that tells you if you’re feeling settled and relaxed and at ease with yourself.
There are days I have that feeling and days I don’t. There will be weeks or months I’m in balance and probably weeks or months I’m not. For me the key is reminding myself how lucky we are to be here – reminding myself that we’re the last in a long line of survivors that had babies for hundreds of thousands of years so we could be alive. Zooming my head way out and remembering we’re spinning on the only planet in the giant, big ol’ galaxy that can actually support life. And we get to be humans! The ones with math and music and magic and mysteries.
We’re so lucky every single day. And we only have a few years to enjoy all of these tastes, smells, sights and sounds. We’ll never be as young as we are right now… so that always reminds me to appreciate when the cashier opens a new lane at the grocery store, getting called up first to the dinner buffet at a wedding, or peeling an orange in one shot!
4. How do you find awesome things in life? Do you have some technique to help all of us see “awesomeness” around?
First up, I talk about it on 1000 Awesome Things and The Book of Awesome every day. There have been times I wrote the daily entry in a crummy mood and let it, or the comments, or previous posts cheer me up.
But I will say: I don’t think it’s necessary or even ideal to be perfectly perked up every day. As long as we’re feeling ourselves, aware of our thoughts, and moving forward and pushing on… we’ll be okay.
So my technique? I suppose it’s watching for the tiny things all around us all the time. Just paying attention to the swirling clouds of cream going into coffee or the fun of slipping through a door as it’s shutting without touching it.
Anastasiya, thank you sincerely for the opportunity! I really appreciate all your support and hope you have a very AWESOME day!
Thank you Neil!
You can read more awesome things from Neil on his blog 1000 Awesome Things and of course you can order his book The Book of Awesome (affiliate link).
What is awesome about your life? Let’s share our awesome experiences in the comments below!
Keep it balanced!
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Smart Thoughts (17)
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Hello, 
What a beautiful blog! Thank you for the wonderful inspiration and beauty of your space. Wishing you continuing wellness.
Thank you Sandra! I hope to see you here again in the future.
Life is truly awesome. The most awesome part I have right now that I am a bit surprised with is that I am happy with the challenges I face. I am literally almost excited in the face of challenges. I know they are helping me grow and that they take me closer to my dreams. This is interesting for me because in the past I used to freak out when I had any major challenge. So life is not perfect but it is definitely awesome!
I think that challenges are great because they help us reconnect with ourselves and discover something new about ourselves.It is really awesome!
Hi Anastasiya, this is Jeremy Johnson and my first time on your website. I found your website through a retweet from Lana from daring clarity (thanks Lana!)
Finding life balance and what is awesome are two things I don’t spend enough time on. I have an awesome family with a cute wife and two cute little girls. How awesome is that? I also face the awesome challenge of my quest to work full time for myself doing what I love (writing and my websites), even with a great full time job as a web developer for an internet company.
Time will tell, but I can say that I am happy right now with where my life is going, even with the challenges I have today. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Thanks for stopping by Jeremy!
Having a loving family is absolutely awesome! I also find so much joy and happiness in every day simply because i have a great husband and two of the most precious girls:-)
Good luck with your writing and websites! This is a great passion to follow (I know because I do the same thing) and I hope that you will be able to turn it into your business pretty soon.
Anastasiya,
Thanks for this “awesome” interview. One of the things I try to do daily is to identify things for which I’m grateful. I try to spend time in gratitude. Some days I find a lot, some days not so much. But there’s always something or someone for which I can be grateful. Gratitude has a way of lifting the spirit and of of opening our eyes to the awesomeness that’s all around us. It’s true: awesomeness is everywhere if we just have the eyes to see.
Peace!
Anastasiya, thank you for this review. It sounds like an excellent book to add to my well-being resources.
I really enjoyed reading Neil’s book and this is the only reason I put a review on my blog. Little wells of inspiration like The Book of Awesome are something that can brighten any day and just put a smile on your face. I hope you’ll enjoy the book.
Anastasiya, what’s awesome for me right now is that as I am typing I am flooded in sunlight – it seems that Spring has finally arrived in London!
How does it get better than this, doing what I love (writing) and being at ease and peace with the world?
Thanks for the awesome inspiration:-)
Spring is absolutely amazing, Arvind! I wish it could last all year round. I think that you simply do not need any other inspirations for writing other than spring breeze, gentle sun and blooming trees. I just looked outside and got one more breath of inspiration from my spring yard
Hello Anastaysia,
Inspiring post.
The awesome part of my life is I have a loving husband and a beautiful daughter. No matter how hard the life goes togetherness allows us to swim through it.
I feel blessed each day and I am thankful to god for this and that is the reason I Pray.
Bye for now,
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl,
thank you for sharing your “awesomeness” here. I agree with you that being grateful for the wonders that we have in our lives (our loved ones, our children, our health etc.) is the only way to living a blessed life.
Anastasyia -
I really enjoyed this post. I’ve just been in California (where I used to live) and people there are into AWESOME. On the radio I heard the DJ say “it’s another super awesome day in the Bay Area” – something you don’t hear on the airwaves in the UK. Neil is clearly a supercool character and takes lifes ups and downs with applomb. I like his focus on the small and every day. Thanks for sharing.
Phil
I think it is so important to realize that we all live in the awesome world and we are surrounded by awesome people. Even if sometimes we do not really feel that it is true (we all have our bad days after all) we can still choose to look at the bright side. Making a conscious effort to look for awesomeness in every day and every activity is the ultimate way to bring positivity into your life. Neil does a wonderful job at showing exactly how awesome our lives are.
Dear Anastasiya,
This a truly wonderful way to go about acknowleding where we are in our lifes right now, and how one can go about directing the positive energy into the pockets that are least ‘awesome’.
Thank you for an inspiring read.
You have given me some inspiration here Anastasiya. Perhaps I should be more mindful of the little things which can bring delight into my life.