Beyond Self-Help

I've been consuming self-help type of materials for the better part of 10 years. In the last few years there's been a shift in my thinking that made me want more "meat" out of my self-improvement diet. The nicely packaged quotes and processes were no longer enough to sustain me.
While I haven't turned my back on the self-help genre, I have now included more of the below subjects in order to define my own path rather than follow someone else's. The subjects are:

• Philosophy - The study of fundamental truths, which includes religion/spirituality, is Self-Improvement in it's "raw" form. It's undigested information and that may be difficult to read for those just starting out on their Self-Improvement journey.
  "Living issues in Philosophy" book by author Harold Titus and Marilyn Smith is a great place to start as it will introduce you to many great thinkers and ideas.
• Psychology - One of the most important thing about success is the understanding of self. Once you understand yourself, you have a better understanding of others which will prove to be a great asset to you on your success journey.
  "Personality PLUS" book by Flaurence Littauer is a great place to start as learning about personalities will help you better understand yourself as well as others.
• History - History can provide perspective and inspiration. It's even better if it is combined with Philosophy and Psychology as it help understand the reasoning behind the action of the great men and women of the past.
  Here, you may want to start looking for information about the person of history that you're most interested in. For me, it started with an "Alexander the Great" biography closely followed by "Ghost on the Throne - The death of Alexander the Great and the bloody fight for the empire his empire" book by James Romm.

While there are no particular order for which subject you should start with I would recommend that you save History for after you've developed an understanding of Philosophy and Psychology as you'll get the most out of your history reading that way. The goal here is simply to find your path towards success and the above subjects, mixed with your own experience, are sure to help.

Emotionally Distant

In a relationship, the physical location of your partner doesn't matter as much as how close you are, from an emotional perspective, with that person. Being emotionally distant is worse than being physically distant. The emotional distance can be such that those involve may start living separate lives even while living under the same roof.

It has been said that time heals all wounds but feeling emotionally distant is like the wound getting re-opened and made worse over time. If no action is done by either party to close that gap then time will make things worse - not better. It's a vicious cycle that's difficult to break.

If you are in an emotionally distant relationship remember this:

"The grass is greener where you fertilize it." -Lana Hamilton

This isn't the time for you to be thinking about getting off the ship. If you don't know how to close that gap it will happen again in your future relationships. Now is the time for you to be looking for help - the following are suggested avenues to consider:

• Couple Counseling - Couple counseling may help you identify the problem as well as develop a plan tailored for you and your partner to work on. This, obviously, requires your partner to be "on board" with the idea as well.
• Books - For some, counseling is out of the question but another good way to get ideas on how to fix problems in our lives is via books. "The 5 love languages" and "Love & Respects" are good books to help give idea on how to heal relationships.
• Far away Vacation - Being in an entirely new environment will force you to communicate to your partner in order to get around places. The forced teamwork may, in some cases, help renew the love. It is also possible to participate in "couple's retreat" type of vacation that are specifically tailored to help couples.
• Share with A Friend - Share your problems with a friend that you know will help you fix the current relationship and not entice you to end it. What is good to have is a different perspective of the issue and some friends are good at giving you those while others will just tell you to "call it quits". While it's true that there are plenty of fish in the sea it's not necessarily the time for you to start fishing again.

Remember that changing partners will only fix the problem momentarily. It's important to identify, and attempt to resolve the issue, in your current relationship so that it doesn't happen again in the future. If you're able to figure it out you'll feel closer to your partner like never before. Good luck!

Society in 3 Phases

Biologically, there are 4 phases we go through each with their own unique set of changes. You start off as a baby, then you become a kid, teen and finally you're an adult.
From a society's perspective, most of us goes through 3 phases throughout our lifespan. The name of each phases are descriptive enough that we can all kind of understand what they entails. The phases are:

• The learning Phase: Everything about this phase screams "learning". The child is born and he his taught by his parents, teachers, mentors and work associates. This is when we learn the most about living on this Earth and our place within society. It is my personal opinion that this phase should last a lifetime but the reality is that people often decide to stop learning after this phase is over. This phase usually ends at the age of 30 years old.
• The Doing Phase: Now that we know who we are and how we'll contribute to society it's time for us to "do" what we've learned in the previous phase. At this point, we're well into a career and we likely own a house with a family. This is also the time for us to be thinking about our future phase as well as the future of our own children. This phase generally goes from the age of 30 to 60.
• The Retiring Phase: This is the time for us to sit on the bench and let other players jump into the field of life and make a living of their own.

It's obviously not a cut and dry process. Some learn for longer through career changes while others skip the doing phase entirely... generally speaking, these are all the things that we're expected to do during our lifetime as a productive member of society. I think that by visualizing our lives in those 3 phases it helps us understand the bigger picture and plan accordingly.