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This post is about my first tattoo and the experience I underwent through. Plus what does the tattoo means – many people have asked me what it means.

My experience wasn’t all that painful – as a matter of fact, it was pleasurable. I think that I’ve developed my abilities to channel the pain as something pleasurable due to how many times I was sewed as a kid. I also have this thought on my mind that I read years ago and I retained it for the moments that I need it: “Pain is the weakness leaving the body”. Another fact that didn’t stress or a nervous breakdown was the tattoo artist I went to. He’s very clean, and he let me know of everything he was doing and why.

“Tattooing is about personalizing the body, making it a true home and fit temple for the spirit that dwells inside it….Tattooing therefore, is a way of keeping the spiritual and material needs of my body in balance.” – Michelle Delio

Now I want to talk about the significance of the tattoo part by part.

First thing that people ask me is what does the Japanese letters around the circle means, but more on that later. I am a fighter and I practice martial arts since I was 5. Those words in Japanese are the Bushido – the life code of the samurais. Traduced it means “the way of the warrior”; being a fighter is not simply a sport, for me it is a way of life that I have practiced for a long time and I implement constantly in my daily life. The letters are the 7 virtues of Bushido: Rectitude, Courage, Benevolence, Respect, Honesty, Honor and Loyalty.

Moving on to the circle with the three identical symbols: it isn’t 3 sixes, or a sharingan, or Sasuke’s curse. This symbol is ubiquitous on Buddhist and Shinto temples all over Japan. Its name is tomoe, meaning “turning” or “circular”, referring to the motion of the earth. The tomoe is related to the yin yang symbol and has a similar meaning, representing the play of forces in the cosmos. Visually, the tomoe is made up of interlocked flames (or magatama) resembling tadpoles.

The Tattoo in my back is one of the most common tomoe emblems and haves three flames (triple, or ‘mitsudomoe’), but one, two, or four are not uncommon. A mitsudomoe reflects the threefold division of Shinto cosmology, and it’s said to represent the earth, the heavens, and humankind. It is often associated with the Shinto war deity Hachiman.

To wrap it up, the circles with the dot on the center of the tomoes. That symbol is utilized in many ways around the world, many of them in a religious sense. Called a “circumpunct”, it represents the sun and a Sun God (called Ra in Egypt), gold (as in alchemy), a (unbiblical) archangel (Kabbalah), emotional restraint, and the creative spark of divine consciousness within people linking everyone to the creative mind of a universal “god” thus making each persona “co-creator” (astrology). In the complex symbolic system of Hinduism and Buddhism, the bindu (dot) represents the male force. Together, the circle and the bindu symbolize the spiritual merging of male and female forces.

I utilized with the significance of the three. The first one is called An Ordi, the symbol of the Divine Order, representing chaos, light, life, freedom, good, happiness, infinity, and existence. The second is The Huichol Indian’s Eye of God. The third circle’s meaning is more symbolic and deep to me. It symbolizes emotional restraint: tending to keep one’s thoughts and emotions to oneself: controlled, noncommittal, reserved, self-controlled & will power.

“When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.” – Michelle Delio

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m back after several months of been in and out, from a deep meditation- I had a lot of college homework and needed to think about my life. I took several decisions about my life and within the next few months there’ll be several changes. It’s time to update my life again and, with her, this website as well. For this website and a little about me there will be a new logo, new post, new about me, new areas and more.

I took off my mind several projects which I believe were not necessary at this point in time and to bring forward new projects I have in mind. I hope that, in a few months, the first facet of this change will emerge – wait for updates and new posts. Take care and I hope to hear from you.

In these moments of my life, while I’m writing this, I’m in a constant up and down process. I’ve been thinking about the Project that I will discuss in a few moments – I’ve been feeling with a lack of motivation and, at times, frustrated.

A few days ago, while I was reading a blog on personal finances called getrichslowly.org, I think I’ve found a solution. During the months I’ve been reconstructing my productivity system it’s been on a constant evolution process but it hit a wall, which I find frustrating. This project is the best to-do list, task reminder, motivational exercise that I’ve seen. I think that it’ll function as motivation in the short and long term process.

Let’s call the project “101 Things in 1001 days”. The author of the post in which I’ve seen this got his idea from Triplux.com, but I continued investigating and found various pages in which its authors have established themselves the goal of fulfilling this project. One of them, dayzeroproject.com, a page dedicated to motivating people to propose themselves to this project, offers a easy and concrete guide of what it is and how to begin your own.

Guide from dayzeroproject.com that I used as reference to begin my project:

The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple challenges such as New Year’s resolutions or a ‘Bucket List’. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

Common Goal setting tips:

1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focused. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

Here’s the link to my proyect.

Website, post & stuff that can help you if you take the challenge

Dayzeroproject.com
Wearewhatwedo.org
Dienu.com
Foldedspace.org
Mission101
Top 1000 Wonders of the World
Why You’re Not Doing The Things You Said You Wanted To
30 fun things to do for cheap or free

I like Japanese animation. These past few days, I began watching one called Ergo Proxy. In the first episode I saw a digital pad (photo presented at the top) and I think that would be useful for me these days – I’m trying to be a little more productive, thinking green and considerate with the planet. It quickly came to my mind the rumors of the Apple Tablet, the concepts presented so far doesn’t look anything like Ergo Proxy’s digital notebook but I’m kind of an Apple freak and I probably buy it, even that don’t look nothing like the anime tablet – I know Apple will do good with this tablet.

But BOOM! – Microsoft also haves a tablet concept too and this one looks like the one in Ergo Proxy. There are only a few things that I approve from Microsoft, but if this concept looks like the one in the anime and has similar things I would consider buying it were if not running Windows. My Apple instinct tells me that the Apple Tablet will be nice if it hits the market.

I think that a gadget like this could be useful for many things. I would have one not only because I’m obsessed with high technology, but also because it would make me more productive and I would have major bragging rights if I have one of these in a classroom or in the office.

Link from Gizmodo.com, related to the subject:

Apple Table tags in Gizmodo

Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator Makes New Tablets Look Bad

Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet

Leaked Courier Video Shows How We’ll Actually Use It

I’ve been reading about productivity for a year now. I achieved almost everything I set out this year thanks to my productivity system. I was listening to people talking about the book “The 4-Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss and I was tempted to buy it to see what I could get from it. I read it carefully and extract enough content of the book and what Tim proposes. Here’s a small review on “The 4-Hour Work Week”.

Let it be noted that this is not a book for you to stop working and start procrastinating – it’s a book that teaches you to gain more time and suggest what to do with the time acquired. It also helps and advises you how take control of your life and get out of the 9-5 and even the “Rat Race”. It is for all types of readers from fathers or mothers, single people to young entrepreneurs like me.

Another thing I want you to think about this book is that it tells how the author does his things, Tim explains his techniques and some of them seem so crazy that it could be believed to be impossible. When you read it, you realize that you can’t follow everything exactly as he says – it’s more for reference, so you can extract what is necessary for you and you can create your own system. For that last thing I say, I’d like to apply one of my favorite quotes:

“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee

The 80-20 Rule and the DEAL

In the beginning of the book, Tim tells his story about what happened before taking decisions to get out of the 9-5, persuading us to understand why we need this book and what we can do with what he proposed. The book is based or centralizing most of the time in the “Pareto Principle”, also known as the 80/20 rule. It states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. However, the book proposes the 80/20 rule in a different way – 80% of your productivity comes from 20% of your time, and the other 20% of your productivity eats up 80% of your time. The author uses this as a starting point and surrounded most of the ideas in the book by this principle because, after Ferris learn about this rule, he began his life of NR and lifestyle design.

The fundamental complement of the 80/20 and the proposed variant has of the Ferriss Lifestyle Design system, where most of the Pareto Principle is implemented, is the DEAL. It’s covered across the four chapters of the book, each of which explores one of the components to this lifestyle design.

Definition from getrichslowly.org review:

• Define your objectives. Decide what’s important. Set goals. Ask yourself, “What do I really want?”
• Eliminate distractions to free up time. Learn to be effective, not efficient. Focus on the 20% of stuff that’s important and ignore the 80% that isn’t. Put yourself on a low-information diet. Learn to shun aside interruptions, and learn to say “no”.
• Automate your cash flow to increase income. Outsource your life — hire a virtual assistant to handle menial tasks. Develop a business that can run on autopilot.
• Liberate yourself from traditional expectations. Design your job to increase mobility. This could mean working from home, or it could mean using geographic arbitrage to take mini-retirements in countries with favorable exchange rates.

Extract and Use

Like already mentioned, this book time tells how Tim organizes his life to get out of the 9-5 and create all the system he used now. We cannot use everything exactly as Ferriss proposes it. However, a lot of his ideas can be used, such as:

• How to be more efficient with e-mail.
• How to reduce clutter from your life
• If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
• Life exists to be enjoyed — the most important thing is to feel good about you.
• Why we need to look out side the 9-5 and the Rat Race
• Better and cheaper travel

Final Words from me

The 4-Hour Work Week is a good book. I found it useful and even implemented several things that Tim proposed in my productivity system. And Even I am planning to create a company that runs in autopilot, like Ferriss proposes. I reiterate that this is a book to extract useful things – not to follow everything exactly as Tim says here. My recommendation is to read it carefully, take your time and take what most applies to you.

Here I give the link of some more extensive reviews of the book and my source apart from the book to make this review:

www.getrichslowly.org – Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek
www.thesimpledollar.com – Review: The 4-Hour Workweek
www.davidseah.com – A Review of Tim Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Work Week”