Your Present Moment – Stillness, Choice and Transformation

Your present moment – this moment – the one you are in right now – is the intersection between your past and your future. If you let them, your time choices come alive in this moment.

At once profound and mysterious, your present moment is a place of stillness. As you allow yourself to settle in and fully experience the stillness, your moment reveals itself as both an opening and a turning point.

Always, your present moment offers you the potential for deep insight and transformation. But the paradox is that it doesn’t work to aggressively mine your moments for meaning.

No, it’s with openness and stillness that you need to start. I’m not talking about developing a time management skill or implementing a productivity tool but rather about letting yourself experience an encounter.

That is where you need to start, to truly live the power of your present moment. As Marianne Williamson has written:

The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is. No matter what time it is, it is always now.

The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived. You are alone with yourself and a wealth of powerful choices as you pause and let yourself just BE in the present moment.

Last week I wrote about living mindfully in your present moment, and one of the things I noted is that:

Living in your moments, breathing in what they have to offer, you get to know yourself. Your wants, needs, and interests are constantly evolving, and they emerge from your moments if you let them.

I’d like to continue and build on that idea today by picking up on an article from zenhabits titled Savor Discipline: Merge the Interests of Your Future & Present Selves. Here Leo Babauta explores the challenge that being disciplined presents us with in our moments. What do we do – how do we choose – when, essentially, our present and future interests aren’t in sync?

The first thing that he does – and I love this – is to frame this as a relational issue. We have our present and our future self in dialogue about whatever choice we’re wrestling with.

Next, he removes the self-critical component that so often trips us up and keeps us stuck by suggesting that we treat this conversation as an exchange between two friends.

Imagine you were going to lunch with your friend, and you had to decide where to eat. You each have different preferences. Choosing one over the other – going to Japanese food (your friend’s preference) instead vegan Mexican (yours) – isn’t fair. So maybe you pick a third choice that you both like (a place that serves sushi burritos, perhaps). Or maybe you choose this time, and your friend chooses the next time. Either way, both are happy.

You pause, in your present moment, and your present and future self work out a compromise. As soon as you pause, you are introducing an element of mindfulness. This, in and of itself is transformative, no matter what you decide.

And of the options available, Savor Discipline is a path that opens new doors that your present and future self hadn’t even known existed. I’ll explore this exciting option further in my next post, so stay tuned.

And in the meantime, here’s to your time success!

Keeping Upholstered Home Furniture Clean and Presentable

Aside from regular cleaning, the simplest way to maintain the furniture in your home in its most presentable and serviceable condition is to use them with as much care as possible.

In households that have young children and pets, this can be a very challenging task. Chairs, couches and sofas are meant to be sat on – not stood on or jumped on. It is not a venue for rough housing with the family dog. Nor is it for wiping popcorn buttered hands on. But unless you’re maintaining a spinster lifestyle, inevitable mishaps like stains and spillages cannot be avoided.

To maintain furniture upholstered in fabric, it is best to do spot-cleaning as soon as an “accident” happens. Just spray on and scrub in a cleaning solvent on the stain and wipe off with a dry cloth or paper towel. For dust and grime that seem to settle in the fabric from normal daily use, home shampooing on a regular basis is recommended.

Leather and vinyl only need to be wiped clean with a sponge dipped in a soapy solution. Use a soft bristled brush to get stubborn grime off if necessary. Wipe off with a soft dry cloth. Leather needs to be moisturized to retain its sheen. In lieu of commercially available leather moisturizers, colorless shoe polish may be used. Apply the polish evenly, then buff and polish thoroughly. On the other hand, oil-based products should never be used on vinyl as these may cause the material to become brittle.

To avoid nicks, scratches and snags, make sure the furniture have ample space around them. Do not place them flush against the wall or other furniture unless they were designed to do so. Maintain a fair distance from heating vents and direct sunlight. Try not to eat messy, dripping food around upholstered furnishings. Otherwise, be prepared to soot-clean right after your meal.

Of course, hiring a professional cleaning service is always the best choice. Most services have a pick-up and delivery option. Some services will clean your furniture right in your home. If the cleaning required is a hefty task, like a major spill on light-colored upholstery, these are the people to call. They’ll know what cleaning agents or solvents to use that won’t damage the fabric’s design and color. But still, unless your home furnishings are the expensive heirloom type or made by a known designer, these services may also cost a paltry sum.

SEO – The Trend For Present World

Search engines have become as important as oxygen in our life. It’s always necessary to find the right information, at the right time. Many different web companies and agencies providing Search Engine Optimization, or SEO services are so much in demand these days. Although its initiation dates back to as early as the starting phase of 1990s, it is only much recently that it gained high priority in every company’s to-do lists. For the past few years, SEO has revolutionized how information is presented and accessed over the Internet.

The whole idea of Search Engine Optimization involves the task to improve the visibility of a web page or a website, during searches in various search engines. By understanding the trends of searches done by the target audience in the search engines, and the different algorithmic pattern of search followed by these search engines, SEO companies can provide you with high rankings. Only then can your website or webpage feature at the top of the search results in the most preferred search sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Alta Vista, and many others.

SEO began with webmasters, who used SEO to improve ranking for their own websites. After this was succeeded they started to offer their services on SEO marketing websites. The fact is that search engines use crawlers to search for new websites on the Internet. When a new website is found the crawler will follow the links on that page and start indexing it in the search results. Nowadays, When SEO companies try to conduct optimization they will optimize content and html code of a website to improve indexing and loading time. When conducting SEO many factors are involved to achieve top ranking. Factors like distance of the home page to other internal pages is an important factor and influence indexing and PageRank. Fancy flash files or other dynamic content can cause problems to get indexed. So it is always advisable not to go for such fancy elements or hire a professional SEO consultant to give you advice how to implement such graphic elements into your website.

Secondly, building one way links can help to increase ranking of webpages and websites dramatically. Basically, the algorithm of search engines involves links placed on other websites pointing to your site This can improve the visibility, and provide a better ranking.

Since the competition in search engines is huge it is important to choose the right SEO company to conduct the online marketing campaign for you. More and more SEO companies are springing up each month, with the intention of providing you with the best optimization techniques and skills. But in case you are interested in SEO not just compare prices, you should always go forth with a reputed and renowned company, having considerable experience in this field.

Billy Horner, is one of the founders of SEO-WATCH, a European managed web site design, SEO and web based application development firm in Thailand. Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without modification, including all information. Please include the two hyperlinks to: web design Pattaya [http://www.webdesignpattaya.net/] and our other web site with SEO Thailand when using this article in newsletters or online.