Odysseus and Facebook

Here's a good one from Shoebox: in the ancient world, they were called Sirens; today... Facebook.

Coffee Flowchart

And here's another one for the coffee files:

Life is like a Camera

Here is another great one from Sylvia Duckworth! It has some good growth mindset advice (develop from the negatives and, if things don't work out, take another shot), plus some good attention advice (focus on what's important) and happiness advice too (capture the good times).

Half-Full or Half-Empty

Here's another fun one from the Grammarly blog! Remember that proverbial glass of water, half-full or half-empty? Well...

Stages of Procrastination

This fun procrastination cartoon is from chibird.tumblr.com.

Mondays

I found this fun cartoon from Jeff Stahler at Amanda Patterson's Pinterest Board:

JUST START!

Don't let the day pass you by like the poor bird from Fowl Language Comics... JUST START! :-)

Losing Yourself, Finding Yourself

Here's a beautiful graphic about reading: this is true for the stories you read, and for the stories you write too!

We lose ourselves in books;

we find ourselves there too.

Improve Your Sleep

This is a fantastic article about sleep... not just for teachers! See the infographic below for a summary, and read the article for details about each item: 10 proven ways teachers can improve their sleep.

Unplug for a few minutes

Good advice from the writer Anne Lamott; more quotes here: Wikiquote.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes... including you.

If you look online, you will find that many people have made graphics for this one. Here are just a few:

The best weapons in the universe.

As a firm believer in the power of words, and especially in the power of words-in-books, I agree with the sentiment in this meme:

The best weapons in the universe.

Choose to be optimistic; it feels better.

You can see more of Molly Hahn's beautiful "Buddha Doodles" at her website, and she also has a series of books (including a Kindle book) at Amazon.

The quote is: Choose to be optimistic; it feels better. Dalai Lama XIV

You will see this quote all over the Internet; I don't have a specific source for it... but it sounds like the Dalai Lama! You can find out more about Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama) at Wikipedia, and you can find more quotes at Wikiquote.

When in doubt, go to the library!

Of course I really like this graphic:

When in doubt, go to the library!

Why is it so hard to stop surfing the Internet?

I love Google... but it can be dangerous. Especially late at night.

Holy crap! Look how late it is! Why do I always do this? Why is it so hard to stop surfing the Internet and just go to bed? 

Yoga for Book Lovers

You can find out more at Quirk Books.

1 Squatting Librarian

2 Standing Bookbend

3 Oxford Comma

4 Downward Pageview

5 Middle Shelf

6 Tangled Plot

7 Standing Footnote

8 Standing Blurb

9 Table of Contents

10 Dangling Participle

11 Final Chapter

12 Sleeping Editor

Do It Anyway

This beautiful graphic comes from Contessa.Rocks.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends, and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spent years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Given the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the end, it's between you and mirror. It was never between you and them anyway.

Reading is Magic

The words come from the astronomer Carl Sagan, who was also a great writer; here is an extended quote as reported in BrainPickings:

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

(the image is from Pixabay)

Brand-New Week

Here is some advice for Monday:

Guess what? You have a brand-new week ahead of you to slay dragons, achieve goals, sweat more, gripe less, and ditch the fear! Go!

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from a Book

This great graphic comes from @IntrovertDoodle:

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from a Book
Things usually turn out okay in the end. If not... there's probably a sequel.
It's bood to be different. Be weird. Be complex. Be anything but trite.
All the best characters are flawed. You are NOT a failure.
When things go wrong, hang in there. It's just a plot twist.

Be kind.

This is one of the lovely graphics from BuddhaDoodle.com.

Be kind;

everyone you meet

is fighting a hard battle.

Fire-Breathing Dragon

You are probably familiar with the much-repeated quotation often attributed to Gandhi (but probably not by Gandhi): Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

So, I saw this great graphic at Twitter: I was going to post that Neil-Gaiman-paraphrasing-G.K.-Chesterton quote about fairy tales teaching us that dragons can be beaten, which I like - but thinking fighting dragons always makes me kind of want to be the dragon. So how's this for 2017: BE THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

And that inspired me to make a graphic of my own:

If you had $86,400...

I really like this graphic from TinyBuddha.com.

If you had $86,400 in your account and someone stole $10 from you, would you be upset and throw all of the remaining $86,390 away in hopes of getting back at the person who took your $10? Or move on and live? Right, move on and live. See, we have 86,400 seconds each day. Don't let someone's negative 10 seconds ruin the remaining 86,390. Don't sweat the small stuff; life is bigger than that.

Within your heart peace is possible.

Since this is the "Learning by H.E.A.R.T. blog" I knew that I wanted to include this quote from the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. You can find out more at his website.

No matter where you are

and what you face,

within your heart

peace is possible.

Empathy: Getting Used to One Another

I am urging that we should learn about people in other places, take an interest in their civilizations, their arguments, their errors, their achievements, not because that will bring us to agreement, but because it will help us get used to one another. 
— Kwame Anthony Appiah

I found this TeamWorkArts.com graphic at Twitter. Kwame Anthony Appiah, born in London, grew up in Ghana, and is now a professor of philosophy at NYU. You can read more at Wikipedia.

Points of View

I am such a fan of Jack Kornfield (you can find out more at his website), and I really like the visual image that goes with the quote. :-)

Whatever point of view you have, there's another.

Extraterrestrial Procrastination

I think it's reasonable to imagine that even alien species have procrastination problems too! The cartoon is by Dave Coverly of Speedbump:

Grant Snider: Interior Life

Another genius cartoon from Grant Snider: Interior Life. I though this would be a good cartoon to share for ATTENTION.

My brain could use some tidying up.
I clear mental clutter, adjust my receptivity to social signals, collect hidden thoughts and sweep away distraction.
I cast out negative spirits, strengthen my focus, keep my ego in check, and uncloud my perception. I stay full open to new ideas, and all that stuff that's been cluttering my mind — I'll deal with it eventually.