Top 10 Most Bizarre Fraternity Hazing Incidents

When I first starting researching this list, I thought it would be funny. Pledges being made to dress as Bugs Bunny and say “I’m a naughty rabbit” all day- that kind of thing. But a few minutes, a few court cases and a few lost appendages in and I realized just how dark these rituals were. This is no schoolboy pranking – people have lost their lives in ridiculous hazing rituals (over 50, according to research by Hank Nuwer in 1990) so be prepared for the dark, disturbing and downright inhumane in our Top 10 Most Bizarre Fraternity Hazing Incidents. Not suitable for children and probably not suitable for college students either.

The Pi Alpha Kappa fraternity of Tulane University (known as “PIKE”) had something of a bad reputation for a long time, with claims by several girls that they had been drugged at a frat party there. But the fraternity’s lowest point came in 2009, when allegations about their “Hell Night” ritual led to the fraternity being shut down, and several members being arrested (no charges were brought – prosecutors are often ex-Frat boys themselves). The ritual involved pouring boiling water onto Pledges, which sounds bad enough until you hear that it was mixed with wasabi, crab boil and vinegar. Two Pledges were hospitalized with severe burns and the university stepped in to shut it down. It doesn’t seem to be missed much – a message on one forum said “This frat was notorious for starting fights, causing major trouble with the university in regards to damages and graffitti, and gave bad people everywhere a clique to expand with. I will shed no tears at its disappearance.”

9. Klan Alpine, Alfred, and The Kidnap

Now, this is a tragic story of a hazing gone wrong. In 1978, Chuck Stenzel was a young athlete just starting out at Alfred University, Western New York. But one night, he was kidnapped from his dorm in the middle of the night, stashed in a car trunk with the other Pledges and lot of alcohol and forced to drink it all. Suffering from exposure to the cold and alcohol poisoning, Chuck was left on a mattress by his “brothers” and died overnight. His mother, Eileen Stevens, made it her life’s mission to campaign against hazing, and has set up C.H.U.C.K. (Committee to Halt Useless College Killings) which allowed her to tour colleges and speak to students about the dangers of hazing. Alfred University continued to allow fraternities until another death in 2002 shut them down for good.

8. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Dartmouth, and the Kiddie Pool

What could be more innocent than a kiddie pool? A lovely toy for children to splash around in…but not if it’s filled with rotting food and bodily fluids. That’s the charming welcome ritual performed by Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of many fraternities held sacred at Dartmouth University. The practice was exposed byAndrew Lohse, a frat member who detailed his Pledge experience in the student paper “The Dartmouth”, where he concluded “One of the things I’ve learned at Dartmouth – one thing that sets a psychological precedent for many Dartmouth men – is that good people can do awful things to one another for absolutely no reason”. Other hazing rituals at SAE included making Pledges chug down vinegar, causing one to cough up blood, and the cooking up of vomit omelettes.

Naturally, Lohse’s accusations didn’t go down well with the fraternities of Dartmouth, which make up 66% of the student body. Some called him a liar, others compared him with a person who’d made up false allegations. But at least one of his frat brothers confirmed most of it was true – but the kiddy pool was actually just full of rotten food, made to look like bodily fluids. That’s OK then.

7. Kappa Alpha Psi, Florida, and The Paddling

Paddling is among the most well-known and parodied of fraternity rituals. In common with another secret society – the Freemasons – fraternities have a reputation for hitting new recruits with a paddle until they leave a mark. But even this most traditional pursuit is getting frat boys into trouble – last year, alone two separate fraternities at the University of Florida were charged with hazing offences related to paddling. One of those was Kappa Alpha Psi, a traditionally black fraternity, who faced 13 misdemeanor sworn complaints. It came to light because another black fraternity - Alpha Phi Alpha – was also being investigated, although the university insists that they are not specifically targeting the black student community, just the act of hitting other students with paddles.

6. Pi Kappa Alpha, Tennessee, and The Rubber Tubing

Now, this will almost certainly make you wince, so prepare yourself – A student at the University of Tennessee was hospitalized with a near-fatal level of alcohol in his blood. So far, not too unusual. But when doctors queried just how how managed to consume so much (0.448 per cent, six times the drink-driving level), the answer took them aback. It was a creative solution involving a length of rubber tubing, inserted in entirely the wrong end for drinking. The practice, known as “butt chugging” is quite widespread and extremely dangerous. As a result, the university suspended the fraternity until 2015 and 12 people were cited for underage drinking. Whether or not it was the conventional drinking method is unclear.

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Top 10 Public Health Scares

There’s never been a better time for creating public hysteria. The internet allows anyone with a phone or a laptop to come up with a theory and it can spread around the globe in seconds. So, when governments announce that there might be a new disease to look out for, it can spiral out of control quickly. The public health scare is nothing new, but the over-inflated hysteria is. In the 17th century, when the public were told that they might just die of plague, it was a very rational fear that was created. And a lot of them did die from plague. But now, some of these fears become irrational very quickly, and that’s where we find our Top 10 Public Health Scares.

10. Bird Flu

Avian flu is one of those diseases that has popped up a couple of times in recent history. The first concerned the H5N1 strain, which has proved to be both infectious and deadly to humans. Since it broke out, there have been 633 cases reported and 377 deaths, mainly in Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt. So when another strain emerged in 2013 – H7N9 – there was panic and reports from China that 43 people had died. However, with one exception, it does not seem to have spread outside of China and there was a distinct drop-off in the number of cases reported after April 2013, suggesting that it’s either a seasonal virus or that the Chinese have taken effective precautions against it (i.e.  by banning live bird markets). That doesn’t stop the media still predicting that it might be the next Spanish Influenza though..

9. Foot and Mouth

Another agriculture-themed one now, and it’s the UK Foot and Mouth outbreak of  2001, which saw 6 million cows being culled, leading to devastation and bankruptcy for farmers. The outbreak was first detected on a pig farm in Essex and was thought to have been caused by the pigs eating illegally imported, infected meat. In 2007, there was another outbreak with the EU banning British beef imports immediately and the Prime Minister returning from holidays to take immediate action, including ordering protective cordons around infected areas. Thankfully, that outbreak was contained before it led to the destruction of 2001, but there was intense interest from the media, hoping to capitalize on the sense of panic. That’s why the only people to break the cordon were photographers, who were later fined and sentenced to community service. That’s what happens when you try and create a public health scare…

8. Salmonella

Of course, not all public health scandals are internet-era. Before the world wide web, the newspapers did a fine job of spreading the panic. And that’s what happened in the UK in 1988, when then-Health Minister Edwina Currie declared that eggs may contain the deadly bacteria salmonella. Her statement was as follows: “most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella” and it caused both panic and outcry. The minister was famous for her controversial statements, such as saying that Christians don’t get AIDS, and this seemed as unfounded as the rest of them. The affair died down eventually, but Currie was forced to resign and her reputation never recovered.

7. High-Fructose Corn Syrup

This is a controversy which is still rumbling on. HFCS is a cheap sweetener added to a scarily wide range of foods, including savory staples like bread. Some people are passionately opposed to HFCS, saying it is fuelling the obesity crisis and that the amount of HFCS found in an average soda is equivalent to a dose of poison. The scare started in 2004, when a research paper  in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that consumption of HFCS went up 1000% between 1970 and 1990. However, later studies in 2012 suggested that the effects of HFCS have been overstated, with the Journal of Obesity  suggesting that fructose is no worse than sucrose, also known as sucrose.  So is HFCS to blame for the rise in obesity and diabetes? I think the answer is that no-one knows yet…

6. Carciogens

Now, this particular scare came from a respected source – the President’s Cancer Panel. In 2010, they released a report on the danger of carciogens (i.e. toxins that increase the risk of cancer) and said that the danger had been “grossly underestimated”. Suddenly, carciogens were all around us – in household products, in barbecued food and even in a colorant in Pepsi. But the hysteria caused by the 2010 report may have been a bit of an overreaction – the American Cancer Society have published stats showing that the cause of cancer is only rarely to do with environmental carciogens, and that the President’s Cancer Panel report “does not represent scientific consensus.” So, another thing we don’t need to worry about? Again, one that might just run and run…

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Top 10 Pieces of History That the English Try to Forget

History is nothing if not biased. It’s a well-known fact that accounts of wars are generally written from the victor’s point of view, and some of the nastier bits get overlooked. And one of the great victors – and great overlookers – of history has to be England. Its history is tainted with imperialistic arrogance, genocide and cruelty. Yet, it tends to get skimmed over when anyone’s talking about the golden days of the British Empire. But it doesn’t take much digging to find the grimmer bits. So, here are the Top 10 Pieces of History That the English Try to Forget.

(For accuracy’s sake, I should point out that some of these events were perpetrated by the British as a whole, some by the English against other bits of Britain and the U.K….but the English tend to feature in them all. As Hollywood knows, villains always have a British accent)

10. The Mau Mau Uprising

Also known as “The Kenya Emergency”, this conflict took place between 1952 and 1960 and there were numerous atrocities on both sides. Kenya was under British rule at the time and the Mau Mau were a group of anti-colonial rebels, who expressed their hatred of the regime in the most vicious way possible, attacking Africans as well as British forces. The rebels may have been vicious, but they were matched by the actions of the British, who killed around 20,000 of them in combat and dispensed capital punishment to a further 1,090 Mau Mau suspects. When the Mau Mau killed 74 men, women and children at Lari the British retaliated by killing 150 of their people. Even more disturbing was theChuka massacre, where British-led troops killed 20 African citizens, and the subsequent torture of suspected rebels. A blood-stained and shameful chapter of British history.

9. The Irish Oppression

English imperialism didn’t just happen miles away from Britain’s shore. It also happened closer to home, with the actions of Elizabeth I’s army in Ireland. Known as one of the greatest monarchs of all time for the cultural leaps that occurred during her reign, Elizabeth was feared and hated in Ireland, or “that rude and barbarous nation”, as she referred to it. Fearful of the Irish making a pact with her enemies, and giving them a base close to England, she sent troops in to quell the more rebellious elements, scorch the earth and kill anyone who tried to resist them. Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, was particularly known for his ruthlessness, putting down the Desmond rebellions with brutal force and lining the path to his tent with the heads of his enemies. Ireland has never forgiven England for these actions, and there is still tension today.

8. The Concentration Camps

It’s often said that the British invented the concentration camp. It’s not true, but they were pioneers of them. The first use of the term was by the Spanish, as they used “reconcentrados” in Cuba during the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) and the British didn’t use them until the Second Boer War, which started in 1899. But it’s an undeniable fact that the British had their enemies in detention camps long before the Nazis did, with 45 camps built for Boer prisoners and 64 for Black African prisoners. And that included women and children, 26,000 of whom died in the camps thanks to the poor hygiene, lack of food and prevalence of infectious diseases. They didn’t invent them, but they certainly weren’t afraid to use them.

7. The Baralong Incident

The British pride themselves on a sense of fair play and this applies even in times of war – if you capture an enemy, you imprison rather than kill them. So it was shocking news when the German submarine U-27 was sunk by HMS Baralong and all the survivors were shot without mercy. The incident happened on August 19th 1915, in the middle of the First World War, 100 miles south of Ireland. The German U-Boats had sunk a passenger ship earlier that same day and so tempers were already raised. There are varying accounts of what happened, but some say that U-27′s commander Bernard Wegener was shot while he had his hands up in surrender. Definitely not the British way, is it?

6. The Massacre of Amritsar

There were many British atrocities committed while India was under their rule, but most notorious was the Massacre of Amritsar. On April 13th, 1919 Indians had gathered to protest peacefully against the Rowlatt Acts, laws which allowed the British to detain prisoners indefinitely and to sentence them without trial. Around 10,000 protesters were gathered in a park called Jallianwalla Bagh, which only had one way of getting in or out. Unarmed and with nowhere to go, the protestors were helpless as the British opened fire on them, killing 379 and injuring around 1,200. This sparked Mahatma Gandhi’s political movement, which continued the peaceful method of protest against British imperialism in India.

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Top 10 Most Momentous Protests

What do you do when you don’t like the way things are run in your country? Well, if it’s a democracy you can vote. But suppose all the people you could vote for are basically saying the same thing? Then it might be time for more decisive action, in the form of a protest. In every free country, protesting is a legal right and in countries that aren’t free it’s even more important to make your voice heard. Not every protest works, but some can change the world. Find out the events that made the politicians  listen, in our Top 10 Most Momentous Protests.

10. Occupy Wall Street

A recent one to start with, from September 2011. The protest was anti-consumerist and calling for politics to be free from the corrupting influences of big business. It started when around 200 people set up camp in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan and didn’t leave until they were evicted on November 15. As part of the movement, there was a protest march involving around 15,000 people bearing the slogan “we are the 99%”, which refers to the fact the the wealth in America is disproportionately spread, with most going to the top 1% of the population. The movement has been criticised for not having clear aims, and being full of “professional protesters” who will jump on any bandwagon, but it was certainly an effective way of getting attention, with worldwide coverage of the occupation and offshoots in other major cities, like London.

9. Iraq War Protests

8 years before Occupy, there was another huge protest that gained worldwide publicity. It was co-ordinated between 600 cities around the world and the cause was the impending Iraq War. On February 15th 2003, 3 million people marched in Rome, in the biggest anti-war rally ever seen, another million marched in London and 1.5 million in Madrid. The message was clear – the ordinary men, women and children who marched (as opposed to professional protesters) didn’t want war. They didn’t trust the claims the government were making about Iraq’s military capacity (this would later prove to be justified) and they suspected that the war was all about the oil in the region (this too may have been justified). The protests were huge but the war went ahead anyway, and the repercussions are still being felt.

8. Vietnam War Protests

Of course, the Iraq War Protests were influenced by an older generation of protesters, who took to the streets to make a stand against the war in Vietnam, and the draft that saw young American men being forced to fight and die for a cause they didn’t even understand. The protests started in December 1964,  folk singer Joan Baez leading a demonstration of 600 people. The next year saw students organizing rallies on campuses and it spiralled from there. The movement coincided with the growth of peace-loving hippie culture and “flower power” and so it captured the imagination of both the young people and the press. Musicians such as John Lennon sympathized and got involved, with his “bed-in for peace”. The protests went on as long as the war did, both tailing off in the 70s. They may not have stopped thousands of Americans dying, but they did create a generation of activists.

7. The Miners’ Strike

Talking of futile protests, here’s a heart-breaking example from 1980s Britain. Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was taking radical action to shake the country out of recession, and part of her action was to start closing coal mines. Miners who had done this job their entire lives now faced redundancy and poverty and so called a strike to protest against the closures. They held out for a year, from March 1984 to March 1985 but the notoriously hard leader was not going to back down and eventually they were forced to return to work. It was merciless. The strike was also characterized by the brutal treatment of the miners by the police during the blockade, with 51 miners injured at Rotherham in June 1984. An ugly episode in the history of industrial relations.

6. Salt Satyagraha

When your country is being oppressed in so many different ways by the British Raj, how do you choose what to protest against? Non-violent protester Mahatma Gandhi chose salt. The British in India had forbade the Indians from collecting or making salt themselves, and subsequently they all had to buy it from the British, at a premium price. With such a hot climate, salt was a necessity to replace the salts lost in sweat and Gandhi knew that it would be a cause every Indian could identify with. He protested by marching 240 miles to the coast and producing his own salt, in defiance of the British rules. It was a breakthrough in the struggle for independence and showed the population (still in shock over the bloody end to a previous protest) that it was possible to defy the British in a peaceful manner. A landmark protest.

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Top 10 Shortest-Lived Presidents

The term system in American politics makes it fairly simple to measure how long a president stays in office – there are a lot of leaders who completed either one full term or two. Then there’s FDR, who managed to get elected to four terms because of unusual circumstances (impending war, ongoing war) and he will probably stay as the longest serving president forever, thanks to the two-term tradition. But what about the shortest? There are exactly ten presidents who failed to complete even one full term – find out who they are in our Top 10 Shortest-Lived Presidents.

10. John Tyler

Stepping in after William Henry Harrison’s death, John Tyler became the 10th President of the United States for 3 years, 11 months and 1 day. As the 9th President had been the first to die in office, there was some confusion over what happened next. Tyler, as Vice-President, assumed control but this move was never fully approved of by his Cabinet, with some members referring to him as “His Accidency“. Still, this set a precedent for Vice-Presidents taking over upon the death of an incumbent, which was eventually made law in 1967 with the 25th Amendment. He was never that popular and fell out with the party that elected him, the Whigs, as well as his own party, the Democrats. Towards the end of his presidency, he attempted to form a new party – the Democratic-Republicans – but that didn’t increase his popularity, and he dropped out of the race in favor of his eventual successor James K. Polk.

9. Andrew Johnson

You might think that assassination is a sure-fire way to appear on the shortest-lived list. Not necessarily – Lincoln was assassinated but he managed a full term and then some (1 month, 11 days to be exact) before being killed. But stepping into the role to complete the term of someone else who’s been assassinated seems to pretty much guarantee you won’t be there long enough to redecorate the Oval Office. Maybe it’s that a nation who are still mourning an assassinated president find it hard to warm to his successor.  That was the fate of Andrew Johnson, who took over after Lincoln’s death in 1865 and lasted 3 years, 10 months and 21 days. He had only been sworn in as Vice-President a month before, in a ceremony that had descended into shambles, thanks to Johnson turning up hungover.

Alcohol was to be his saviour though – he was meant to die the same night as Lincoln, as part of the same plot, but his would-be assassin George Atzerodt got drunk and didn’t even try to kill him. But, although he survived the assassination plot and an impeachment he couldn’t survive to a second term and was replaced with Ulysses S. Grant on March 4th 1869. Johnson disliked his successor so much that he refused to go to the inauguration.

8. Chester A. Arthur

Another president that took over a dead man’s role. After James A. Garfield was shot in July 1881, Vice-President Arthur prepared to be sworn in following the tradition of Johnson and Tyler. However, Garfield didn’t actually die until September 19th so for the summer America remained effectively President-less. By the end of Garfield’s term – 3 years, 5 months and 14 days –  Arthur was suffering with Brights’ Disease and his health was failing, so he didn’t seek re-election. However, he had succeeded in changing popular opinion about himself. One journalist put it like this: “No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired … more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe”. He died the year after leaving office.

7. John F. Kennedy

Of course, the most famous assassination of all time did also lead to one of the shortest presidencies of all time. In November 1963, the young president was popular and expected to have a long run in office. As the world knows, those expectations were destroyed by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22nd. Kennedy was just 2 years, 10 months and 5 days into his first term and was only 46 at the time of his death. Although allegations have since emerged about his private life, he remains a popular president – in 2009, a C-SPAN survey of historians placed him as 6th best president of all time, with several from our list being deemed among the worst of all time. An impressive legacy for less than three years in office.

6. Millard Fillmore

And here’s one that was voted 37th out of 42 by C-SPAN, and who consistently comes close to the bottom in opinion polls. After Harrison’s death in office threw Congress into chaos, it suddenly became more common to die in office than to not. 11th President Polk survived just 3 months after leaving office, then his successor Zachary Taylor died suddenly in 1850 (there would be two more deaths in office before the 19th century was out, as well as Arthur’s death shortly after leaving, as discussed above). So it fell to Vice-President Fillmore to step in, and the entire cabinet instantly offered their resignations, thanks to Fillmore’s controversial support of the Compromise Bill. The Bill was passed, in five parts, including making California a free state and the Fugitive Slave Act, which decreed that all runaway slaves be returned to their masters. This act made Fillmore unpopular with the Whigs, and he failed to receive a nomination in the 1852 election, bringing his presidency to a close after just 2 years, 7 months and 24 days.

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Top 10 Most Handsome Vampires

When it comes to monsters, there is quite a clear hierarchy. Lumbering zombies are at the bottom, with little in the way of looks of manners. Next up are werewolves, who are practically human most of the time but awfully hairy and dribbly when they do change. And top of the pile is the vampire – eloquent, refined, nice taste in velvet-lined cloaks…or at least they did have. Today’s vampires seem to prefer leather over silk and spend more time brooding than getting out there and killing people. But one thing remains consistent – they’re all pretty good-looking. Obviously, no-one wants to make an ugly man immortal, do they? And in celebration of the absurdity of vampire fiction, here are our Top 10 Most Handsome Vampires.

10. Lestat

1994′s “Interview With the Vampire” was a visual treat, with its sumptuously-clothed crowds of 18th Century extras. So, naturally it required a few good looking leads too. Chief among these was Lestat, played by Tom Cruise, – an arrogant vampire who turns a little girl into a vicious killing machine. He had little regard for others, unless he saw them as a potential snack, and ended up being killed by his protege. Writer Anne Rice protested when Cruise was cast, saying that the star of “Top Gun” was far too mainstream and All-American to play her ruthless Lestat. However, once she saw his performance she agreed that he was perfect for the role.

9. Angel

Many vampires like to do a bit of brooding but Angel must is the broodiest of the lot. The main love interest in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” before going on to have his own series, Angel was a vampire with a soul – a feared killer called Angelus cursed by gypsies to hang around feeling miserable for eternity. Played by David Boreanaz, he was a mid-90s teenage pin-up, although by the end of “Buffy” in 2003 he was looking distinctly haggard – a problem for the producers, given that vampires don’t age. Still, his character had been to Hell and back in those years (literally) and so you can’t blame him for looking a little careworn. Oh, and he was a fashion innovator too – he totally pioneered the long black coat look that all these modern vampires seem to sport.

8. Edward Cullen

Somewhere out there, there is a group of teenage girls cursing my name and making voodoo dolls of me for only putting Edward “Twilight” Cullen at number 8 (and a group of 30-somethings will be cursing me for putting him above Angel. You can’t win). But RobPattz, as I believe he’s known, is only really attractive to some people – namely the very young. It’s the big lips, the heavy eyebrows and the fluffy hair – he just looks so teenage. And Edward’s personality is hardly attractive either, being a soppy, “vegetarian” kind of vampire who mopes around, abandons his girlfriends for large portions of the film and gets all jealous over a werewolf. And the silliest thing about the entire “Twilight” saga? When Edward goes out into sunlight, he doesn’t spontaneously combust like a good vampire should. Oh no – he sparkles. But still, you can’t have a list of handsome vampires without him, can you? The teenage girls really would go mad…

7. Damon Salvatore

As one of the main characters of “The Vampire Diaries“, Damon Salvatore has been a vampire since 1864 and now spends his time in a small town called Mystic Falls, fighting over girls with his brother Stefan. He’s a self-declared bad boy, whose eternity philosophy goes something like this: “If you’re gonna be bad, be bad with a purpose. Otherwise, you’re just not worth forgiving.” He’s played by Ian Somerhalder, who shot to fame as Boone in “Lost”. He got killed off in the first series, but that never posed a problem for the show – he just kept turning up in flashbacks and people’s visions. As Damon, he’s another teenage pin-up of a vampire.

6. Spike

Another Buffy hottie, this one came with bleached blond hair, a very fake English accent and a whole load of attitude. He was sired by Drusilla, who in turn was sired by Angel, so he was kind of Angel’s vampire-grandson and, like most families, they had their differences. Even when Angel turned bad again, Spike couldn’t stand him and so went and teamed up with Buffy to try and send him to Hell (it worked). Spike is loosely based on Sid Vicious, with girlfriend Drusilla as his Nancy and liked a bit of punk music while driving around in his blacked-out car. What a pity that the writers eventually turned him soppy – first by putting a chip in his head so that he couldn’t kill anymore (although he could still kill with sarcasm) and later by giving him a soul. And don’t get me started on his ghost phase in “Angel”…

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5 Quotes to Jumpstart Your Gratefulness and Peace of Mind

There is nothing I seek more than gratefulness and peace of mind. When I’m in their grip, I’m floating on air.

You’ve felt it, too, haven’t you?

Then, you’ve also felt it slip away… Because it’s tough to spend every moment of our lives in a state of gratitude, especially when things that happen to us aren’t exactly positive, right? It’s tough to be grateful on a rainy day when everything seems to go wrong. Not to mention feel peace of mind!

Luckily, there’s a way to jumpstart your gratitude engine and get back into a peaceful frame of mind. 

Here are a few quotes I love to read when I need that extra push…

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1. “Sometimes we get so focused on the difficulty of our climb that we lose sight of being grateful for simply having a mountain to climb.” — Oprah Winfrey

I mentioned earlier that it’s hard to be grateful all the time because real life isn’t always rosy. But what it we could be grateful for the difficult stuff, too?

Just having the opportunity to be alive, to be striving for better, to have a mountain to climb (in Oprah’s words) is something to be grateful for. The path we’re on, while it may feel difficult now, is a beautiful one, for its our own. It’s an opportunity.

2. “Nothing which life has to offer is worth the price of worry. ” — Napoleon Hill

The easiest way to squash peace of mind is through worry. According to Napoleon Hill, worry is a waste of your time and your energy. Instead of spending the time worrying, why not doing something proactive instead?

The way I see it, you can worry and act OR you can just act. Which do you prefer?

If worry adds no value to my life and crowds out my peace of mind, I’d rather drop it completely. Are you with me?

3.  “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” – Abraham Maslow

I’ve found the easiest way to stay within a gratitude mindset is to be loyal to my creativity. That is, to continually heed the call of creating what my soul yearns to create. Sometimes, that is writing articles like this and other times that means drawing a beautiful quote I come across. Other times, it’s taking photographs of my child.

Whatever I feel in the moment, I try my best to answer by freely creating with no judgement and no hesitation.

What do you create?

4.“Happiness only comes through inner peace and joy, which is only attainable through being in the present moment, free of expectations.” — Eckhart Tolle

Another shortcut to peace of mind? The present moment.

No matter what is going on in your mind, drop it and pay attention to what’s in front of you. Are you reading this on your phone? Stop and look around. Are you reading this on your computer? Stop and look around. There’s life happening all around you. Are you paying attention?

The life that’s bursting all around you is beautiful. There’s no denying it. Feel yourself be inundated with gratitude for it.

5. “What we know matters, but who we are matters more.” — Dr. Brene Brown

Have you ever watched someone lose their even keel, their joyful state because of something that happened at work? This happens every single day to so many of us.

Instead of letting this happen to me, I try to remember these wise words. My intelligence and my achievements aren’t what matter. What matters is what’s at my core: me, just the way I am, right now. And that feels like the relief in taking a deep, deep breath.

That’s it!

I hope this helps you get back into a frame of mind that’s full of gratitude and inner peace. That’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? To feel wonderful no matter what is going on around us.

I invite you to bookmark this page for when you need a pick-me-up. Go ahead, do it! These great minds will be here waiting to support you and remind you that there’s a better way, a peaceful state of mind available to you at any moment. Every moment!

And if you’re interested in more where this came from, join me over at my website.

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