The Importance of Attitude

One of the most important factors in determining our success in life is our attitude.

William James an American psychologist and philosopher captured the fundamental significance of attitude in his profound words; "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."

Attitude is a mental state relative to what we believe and affect our entire live. We express our attitude in our words and actions. It is a habitual way of thinking that can either lean towards an optimistic or pessimistic viewpoint.  Whether your thinking is “full-glass” or “empty-glass” in nature, you have the ability to choose your own attitude.

Attitudes are greatly influenced by association which means they are contagious. The best way to develop a positive mental attitude is to surround yourself with optimists. Positive people have a magnetic influence which attracts help and support that assist them in achieving their goals. They have developed a ‘can do’ attitude and a resilient nature that propels them forward.

Once you begin to condition your thinking, you will develop a positive mental attitude that will greatly accelerate your future success.

Attitude is Everything

The process of human change begins within us. We all have tremendous potential. We all desire good results from our efforts. Most of us are willing to work hard and to pay the price that success and happiness demand.

Each of us has the ability to put our unique human potential into action and to acquire a desired result. But the one thing that determines the level of our potential, that produces the intensity of our activity, and that predicts the quality of the result we receive is our attitude.

Attitude determines how much of the future we are allowed to see. It decides the size of our dreams and influences our determination when we are faced with new challenges. No other person on earth has dominion over our attitude. People can affect our attitude by teaching us poor thinking habits or unintentionally misinforming us or providing us with negative sources of influence, but no one can control our attitude unless we voluntarily surrender that control.

No one else "makes us angry." We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude to a test. If we select a volatile attitude by becoming hostile, angry, jealous or suspicious, then we have failed the test. If we condemn ourselves by believing that we are unworthy, then again, we have failed the test.

If we care at all about ourselves, then we must accept full responsibility for our own feelings. We must learn to guard against those feelings that have the capacity to lead our attitude down the wrong path and to strengthen those feelings that can lead us confidently into a better future.

If we want to receive the rewards the future holds in trust for us, then we must exercise the most important choice given to us as members of the human race by maintaining total dominion over our attitude. Our attitude is an asset, a treasure of great value, which must be protected accordingly. Beware of the vandals and thieves among us who would injure our positive attitude or seek to steal it away.

Having the right attitude is one of the basics that success requires. The combination of a sound personal philosophy and a positive attitude about ourselves and the world around us gives us an inner strength and a firm resolve that influences all the other areas of our existence.

"ough" can be pronounced in TEN DIFFERENT WAYS

Ough is a letter sequence often seen in words in the English language. In Middle English, where the spelling arose, it was probably pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative, e.g., [oːx] or [uːx]. It is by far the sequence of letters with the most unpredictable pronunciation, having at least six pronunciations in North American English and over ten in British English. A few of the more common are these:

• /oʊ/ as in "though" (cf. toe).
• /uː/ as in "through" (cf. true).
• /ʌf/ as in "rough" (cf. ruffian).
• /ɒf/ as in "cough" (cf. coffin).
• /ɔː/ as in "thought" (cf. taut).
• /aʊ/ as in "bough" (cf. to bow).

Pronunciation	Example	Comment
/ʌf/	tough, enough, hough	Compare "huff"
/ɒf/	cough, trough	Trough is pronounced /trɒθ/ by some speakers of American English
/aʊ/	bough, plough	Pronounced like the word 'Ow'
/oʊ/	though, dough
/ɔː/	thought, bought	Regularly used before /t/, except in drought /draʊt/
/uː/	through, brougham
/ə/	thorough, borough	Both pronounced /oʊ/ in American English
/ʌp/	hiccough	Variant spelling of "hiccup", though the latter form is recommended in both British and US
/ɒk/	hough	More commonly spelled "hock" from the 20th Century onwards
/ɒx/	lough	A lake; Irish analogue of Scots "loch"

Note that "slough" has three pronunciations according to meaning:

• /sluː/ (as in, "slogging through a slough of mud")
• /slʌf/ (as in "to slough off")
• /slaʊ/ the town of Slough in Berkshire in England

Other pronunciations can be found in proper nouns, many of which are of Celtic origin (Irish, Scottish, or Welsh) rather than English.

• For example ough can represent /ɔːɡ/ in the surname Coughlin, /juː/ in Ayscough and even /iː/ in the name Colcolough (/koʊkliː/) in Virginia.

The original pronunciation in all cases except hiccough was the one of lough. However the /x/ sound has disappeared from most modern English dialects. As it faded, different speakers replaced it by different near equivalents in different words (namely, /f/, /w/ → /ʊ/, /ː/, or /k/).
The two "ough"s in the English place name Loughborough are pronounced differently, resulting in Luffburruh. Additionally, three parishes of Milton Keynes--Woughton /ˈwʌftən/, Loughton /ˈlaʊtən/ and Broughton /ˈbrɔːtən/--all have different pronunciations of the combination.

• Tough, though, through, and thorough are formed by adding an additional letter each time, yet none of them rhymes with another.

A comparable group is omb, which can be pronounced in at least four ways: bomb /bɒm/ (rhymes with Tom), comb /koʊm/ (rhymes with home), sombre, and tomb /tuːm/ (rhymes with gloom).
augh is visually rather similar to ough but admits much less pronunciation variation.

• /æf/, /ɑːf/ as in "laughter"
• /ɔː/ as in "daughter"

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nanotechnology lab produces world's smallest book

The world’s first, nano scale book was published as a work of fine art, April 9, 2007 by Robert Chaplin at the Nano Imaging Facility of Simon Fraser University. This book, complete with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN-978-1-894897-17-4), is entitled ‘Teeny Ted From Turnip Town’. It was written by Malcolm Douglas Chaplin and is a fable concerning the success of Teeny Ted from Turnip town and his victory in the Turnip contest at the annual county fair. It is at present the world’s smallest published book.
The only catch — you’ll need a scanning electron microscope to read it.
At 0.07 mm X 0.10 mm, Teeny Ted from Turnip Town is a tinier read than the two smallest books currently cited by the Guinness Book of World Records: The New Testament of the King James Bible (5 X 5 mm, produced by MIT in 2001) and Chekhov’s Chameleon (0.9 X 0.9 mm, Palkovic, 2002).
The production of the nanoscale book was carried out at SFU by publisher Robert Chaplin, with the help of SFU scientists Li Yang and Karen Kavanagh. The work involved using a focused-gallium-ion beam and one of a number of electron microscopes available in SFU’s nano imaging facility.
With a minimum diameter of seven nanometers (a nanometer is about 10 atoms in size) the beam was programmed to carve the space surrounding each letter of the book.
The book was typeset in block letters with a resolution of 40 nanometers, and is made up of 30 microtablets, each carved on a polished piece of single crystalline silicon. The entire collection of microtablets is contained within an area of 69 x 97 microns square with an average size of tablet being 11 x 15 microns square.
The book is made up of 30 microtablets, each carved on a polished piece of single crystalline silicon.
The story, written by Chaplin’s brother Malcolm Douglas Chaplin, is a fable about Teeny Ted’s victory in the turnip contest at the annual county fair.
Considered an intricate work of contemporary art, the book is available in a signature edition (100 copies) from the publisher, through the SFU lab.

Source: Simon Fraser University; Robin Chaplin

Priorities of life may drive happiness

Genes and early life experience don't set a limit on the level of your happiness, a new study has claimed, challenging the long-held belief that feelings of satisfaction are predetermined by genetics and upbringing.

Researchers, who looked at data of about 60,000 Germans for up to 25 years for their study, found that feelings of happiness and well-being respond to external factors such as healthy lifestyle, religion and working hours.

According to lead researcher of the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne, the findings suggest genes only account for around 50 per cent of well-being, with external factors accounting for the rest.

Previous studies suggested that happiness is predetermined by genetics and early upbringing, and that we eventually revert back to the same level of happiness regardless of changes in our lives.

For the latest study, the researchers analysed data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP) that interviewed more than 60,000 people, aged 16 years or older, every year between 1984 and 2008.

They found that the more people decided to prioritise goals such as good relationships and good health, the happier they were, regardless of major life events.

A large numbers of the participants reported substantial and apparently permanent changes in satisfaction, or happiness, indicating that set-point theory has significant flaws.

The theory suggests that long-term happiness in adults is essentially stable, or has a set-point, relying on genetic factors, including personality traits molded and expressed early in life.

According to the researchers, the SOEP study turns this notion on its head, suggesting that both micro and macro economic policies can have a major effect on the ongoing levels of individual, and collective, happiness.

Lifestyle choices, partnering options and religion, as well as working hours and social participation were all found to have a significant impact on the levels of happiness of the study participants.

Previously it was thought that these factors could have short-term impacts on happiness, but that happiness would eventually resettle to its set-point.

The researchers suggest a new measure of happiness that takes into account both set-point theory, as well as lifestyle, preferences and choices.

Positive attitude helps cure illness

A positive attitude on life could help you to bounce back from the challenges of ill health, suggests a new study.

Psychologists say that putting on a brave face works even for serious complaints such as arthritis, diabetes and heart conditions.

The study of Britons (British) aged 50 to 90 found that those with resilient personalities felt better despite their various aches and pains.

Unfortunately, this inner strength takes years to develop and cannot be turned on overnight, according to the research at Bangor University in North Wales.

"Resilience is the key but it's probably something which builds up over a lifetime – in some cases because of experiences in childhood"

Older people were more likely to suffer poor health but tended not to grumble about it.

"Even though they may be suffering, older people are likely to say "Oh, I'm all right'

Tips to stick to New Year resolutions

A study has found that most people who make New Year's resolutions fail to keep them within one week of starting. Now tips have been offered to help them reach their goals.

Here are the top 10 tips to help us see our resolutions through are:

1. One thing at a time:
Many of us make the mistake of trying to achieve too much instead of deciding on what is important to us and making just one resolution.

The chance of success is greater when we channel our energy into changing a single aspect of our behaviour at a time.

2. Plot your success:
Find a way of charting your achievements. Keep a journal, or cover your fridge or notice board with graphs or pictures.

3. Try something new:
Repeating resolutions you have failed to keep before is a recipe for disappointment. Set a new goal, or approach an old aim in a new way. For example, instead of trying to lose a set amount of weight, vow to exercise more.

4. Be specific:
Think about exactly what you are going to do, where and when. Vague plans fail. For example, instead of saying that you will go running on two days each week, decide you will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays straight after work.

5. Set S.M.A.R.T goals:
Make sure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based (SMART). For example, instead of simply saying you want to find a new job, come up with bite-sized goals for each week, such as rewriting your CV then applying for a job each week.

Map out small steps that will slowly but surely take you to where you want to be, write them down and stick to the plan.

6. Carrot, not stick:
Motivate yourself by focusing on the positive, rather than beating yourself up about your failings. Think how much better life will be for you, and those around you, when you achieve your aims.

7. Go public:
Many of us prefer to keep our New Year's resolutions to ourselves. Unfortunately, this makes it all too easy to simply forget about them. Instead, go public. Write down your resolution on a large sheet of paper, sign it, and place it somewhere prominent in your home.

Tell your friends, family and workmates and ask them to support you. For example, if you want to lose weight, ask colleagues not to offer you biscuits with your tea.

8. Be persistent:
New habits take time to learn, and once in a while you will slip up and revert to the old you. Most of us give in to temptation occasionally, whether it is a cream cake or a crafty cigarette.

9. Get image conscious:
Visualise yourself doing whatever you need to do to achieve your resolution. Focusing on this image will help you believe in your ability to succeed.

10. Be positive:
You will get better results from thinking about the good things that will come from your new lifestyle rather than the negative aspects of your old habits.