Lesson from a Centenarian

Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, was one of the most celebrated centenarians, who lived from 1464 to 1566 AD.

In his youth, Luigi had abused his health with a wanton lifestyle leading to an extremely weak constitution, accompanied by many physical ailments.  

At the age of thirty-five, he was given up by his physicians to die. Luigi’s physicians prescribed a temperate lifestyle as the only way to end his suffering and preserve his fragile life. That temperate lifestyle was no more than self-restraint or self-discipline in diet and drink for calorie restriction.

He lived on that minimal diet of calorie restriction from age thirty-five until eighty-five, when his relatives began to urge him to eat a little more since he was getting old and he required more physical strength. He complied to their request, and began to eat a little more than he used to for the past decades. Luigi reluctantly agreed to increase his food intake from twelve to fourteen ounces. Immediately, he became seriously ill with high fever. Eventually, Luigi had the longevity wisdom to revert to his former anti-aging living with a diet of calorie restriction. As a result, he lived in a state of unbroken health and happiness until the age of one hundred and two.

Luigi was famous for his longevity living in relation to calorie restriction. He expressed his wisdom in his discoursed when he was in his eighties and nineties. His wisdom has been an inspiration for more than five centuries. His longevity wisdom was simple and down-to-earth:

Never overeat. His diet consisted of only twelve ounces a day of solid foods of bread, a vegetable soup with tomato, an egg yolk, and a little meat, divided into two meals, and fourteen ounces pure grape juice, also divided into two servings.

Can you eat as little as Luigi did?  

Well, the bottom line is: always eat less; eat only when you're hungry.Don't eat because it's lunch or dinner time. Remember, you will never die of hunger, but you might die of overeating.

The key to Luigi’s ant-aging living and longevity wisdom was calorie restriction, or how much he ate:

The moral lesson from the incredible story of Luigi is simple: The key to health and happiness is inextricably associated with the quantity of food you consume daily; and the science of health or anti-aging living is simply eating less or consuming fewer calories.

Go to my new website: Health and Wisdom Tips 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Get My New Book for FREE!

“YOU JUST DON’T DIE!” 

My newly published book is FREE for download on Amazon from December 8 to December 12.

This 154-page book is about how to live your life as if everything is a miracle if you just don’t die as you continue with you life journey with the many changes and challenges confronting you, including your loss of vision.

Human existence is meaningless without life purpose and human happiness. The pursuit of longevity has been going on since time immemorial. Consciousness holds the key to the success of this pursuit. Consciousness of living is wisdom of the mind to understand the self, others, as well as how and why certain things happen. Wisdom in living enables one to complete the rest of one's life journey and reaching the destination.

To live to 100 and beyond—if you just don’t die—you must ask questions about life; after all, living is about asking questions and seeking answers to the questions asked, and thereby instrumental in providing wisdom or a blueprint to continue the rest of your life journey.

The first question you should consciously ask yourself is: "How long do I wish to live?" Of course, that is only a hypothetical question because you really don’t have much of a choice—unless you would like to purposely end your life prematurely. Naturally, the answer to that question may also change over different phases in your life, depending on the quality of your life in that particular phase.

The second question you should consciously ask yourself is: "Why do I want to live long, or why not?" This question will be naturally followed by the third question: “How do I live long, or what can make me desire to live longer?”

The final question—if you just don’t die—is: "How should I live the rest of my life to overcome my daily problems and life challenges?"

The objective of this 154-page book is neither to convince you to crave longevity, nor to show you how to live to one hundred and beyond. It simply presents you with the consciousness of living the rest of your years—if you just don’t die!

Click here to get your FREE COPY. Don't miss the opportunity!.

Stephen Lau

Copyright©

Accepting and Embracing Life Problems and Challenges

Life is never smooth sailing, and life journey is always a bumpy ride, full of changes and challenges. Learn to live your life as if everything is a miracle, including the miracle of accepting and embracing those life problems and challenges.

To illustrate, after the death of a dear friend or someone close to you, you may experience a period of denial—refusing to accept the harsh reality of death. This is the human mind's way of protecting us from painful emotions associated with grief and sorrow. 

Sorrow may bring anger: anger with yourself or whoever responsible for the death of your loved one. The human mind always looks for an answer or an explanation of why something undesirable happened. If you blame yourself, then guilt and regret may ensue; if you blame others, anger is generated.

The next phase is bargaining with God about reversing what has happened to you. You use "what if?" and "if only" sort of pleas to bargain for second chances.

After the initial denial, reality begins to sink in. You start to feel the bereavement that cause you to sink into deep depression with negative emotions of grief, regret, and sorrow. This is the darkest or even the longest stage of grief and sorrow. 

The only way to overcome pain and sorrow is accepting and embracing. Sooner or later, you will come to terms with the death of your loved one when you become aware that everything is going to be OK, that you will survive the loss of your loved one, and go on living as if everything is a miracle even though your life may be different without your loved one.

What causes stress and its related negative emotions? Your resistance to life is the ultimate cause of your body stress and negative emotions. You will not experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, fear, frustration, and sadness if you do not resist anything in your life, past, present or future. By not accepting something unpleasant in present or in the past, you have subconsciously created memories that project the unpleasant present or past experience into the future, and your resisting of the possibility of a repeat of that present or past experience creates fear and anxiety.

Instead of accepting negative emotions, many of us prefer not to experience them, and end up resisting not only life but also negative emotions. Instead of accepting, resisting only leads to more stress and negative emotions, and thus creating a vicious circle of resistance and stress.

Live your life as if everything is a miracle by letting go of resistance, and accept what life has to offer. Find your hidden resistance in your life and learn to embrace it, if you  cannot let it go.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Wisdom from the Presidential Election

The presidential election was over! We could all get wisdom from it.

"Life is a learning process, which continues throughout the life journey until the destination is reached. That is to say, one can always learn something from almost anything, provided one has an empty mind, which is a reverse mindset.

Many of us think with a preconditioned mindset, that is, the mind is already loaded with data that has become the subconscious mind directing the conscious mind. Remember, we are living in an all assumptive world. Once we begin with an assumption (just any notion), that assumption may generate a presumption. With the human ego thinking that we are always right, we begin to develop a prediction that our assumption would become a reality in the future. Accordingly, the mind anticipates an expectation to be fulfilled somehow. That is how the human mind operates, but not how the reality may turn out.

To illustrate, in this presidential election, people made an assumption that a certain candidate would be the ideal candidate for president. The notion then became a presumption, reinforced by the media and the polls, turning it into a prediction that finally became the expectation of the voters. The devastating outcome was the ultimate frustration of the voters supporting the candidate.

This is the reality:

Assumption + presumption + prediction + expectation = frustration

A reverse mindset is the antidote to the above. Before your assumption becomes a presumption, rethink your assumption: remember, there are many exceptions to any assumption. Wisdom is thinking about the exceptions rather than the norm, instead of the other way around. Focusing on the norm often leads to hasty presumption, and then natural prediction and ultimate expectation, leading to frustration at the end.

Likewise, in the presidential election, voters readily jumped from their assumption into their presumption, prediction, and expectation without questioning the authenticity and reality of each. The outcome of frustration was the inevitable norm, and not the exception."

The above is from Health and Wisdom Tips.

Remember, don't be assumptive; always look at the exceptions and not the norm. Life is forever changing, and a static life is not worth living. Adapt yourself to the changes, or change yourself  Worse scenario, if you can't do either, embrace the changes, and that is the wisdom in living.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Stress-Free With Intellect, Not Intelligence

According to recent CNN health news “Learn to Live with It: Becoming Stress-Free”, use your intellect, and not your intelligence, to manage and cope with your everyday stress.

Intelligence is knowledge, which doesn’t help you with stress; intellect, on the other hand, is wisdom, which may help you coping with stress.

Stress comes from the internal, and not the external. Stress originates from the ego-self. You have an ego, and therefore you “expect” things, people, and circumstances to do things your way to satisfy your ego. If they don’t meet your expectations, they become your stressors. NO EGO NO STRESS. You need intellect, which is essentially human wisdom, to let go of your ego in order to be stress-free. It’s just that simple.

Here is the health news:  

“People the world over believe that stress comes from external sources.

One complains of a nagging wife or hysterical husband. Another finds fault with the demands of work or the exploitation of management. Someone else grumbles at summer being too hot or winter being too cold.

Everyone thus lives with the belief that factors outside themselves produce stress -- so their entire focus is on correcting the external world. Yet despite our best efforts to fix these external factors, the problems remain unsolved and our minds continue to be consumed by stress.

Pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow, peace or stress—these are not found in external objects or beings. They are found in the relationship you have with those things.

For example one person finds pleasure in smoking cigarettes. Another detests them. One man may go to his lawyer to divorce his wife while another waits, desperately wanting to marry her. A cigarette produces pleasure to one, pain to another. The same lady produces joy for one, sorrow for another.

In life, be it with business or family, relationships matter. Lack of a proper relationship leads to frustration and builds up stress. Ironically, people take utmost care to choose the "right partner," but fail to set up the "right relationship" with that person -- and lose peace and harmony in the process.

It is not whom or what you meet in life that matters but how you meet it.

Your relationship with the world is entirely dependent on the nature of your inner personality. Your inner personality comprises two things: the mind and the intellect.

The mind desires and feels. The intellect reasons, judges, and decides.

When the intellect loses control over the mind's desires, you become disturbed. Stress is the mental agitation caused by unfulfilled desires. Thus the fundamental requirement for a stress-free life is to develop a strong intellect and control desires.

Intellectual strength is distinct and different from intelligence. Intelligence is mere storage of information—knowledge acquired from external sources and educational institutions, from teachers and textbooks. Any amount of intelligence cannot, per se, develop your intellect. The intellect is developed by individual effort through exercising one's faculty of questioning and reasoning.

With the lack of development of the intellect, people fail to understand that every human being is distinct and different from another—that each is governed by his or her own singular nature.

Therefore, we should assess the nature of each human individually. But few follow this practice in life. Without making individual assessments you are not able to relate to others properly. As a result, you expect one to behave differently from one's fundamental nature.”

The bottom line: let go of your pre-conditioned mindset to think out of the box to attain intellect, and not intelligence, to live a stress-free life. Get the ancient Tao wisdom from China to reverse your thinking.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Wisdom in the Art of Living Well

Wisdom is the essence in the art of living well. Life is always full of challenges throughout its many different phases and stages. To live as if everything is a miracle, we need wisdom, which is different from knowledge; the latter is collection of data, while the latter is the assimilation and application of the data collected. A knowledgeable person is not necessarily wise. Wisdom requires much thinking of the mind, which is the capability to ask questions that leads to asking more questions and seeking answers from the questions asked. Albert Einstein once said: “Thinking is hard, and that’s why so few people do it.” We have to think in order to be wise.

Tao wisdom is the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China, who was the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works in world literature. Tao wisdom is profound human wisdom that enables you to live as if everything is a miracle.

The interpretations of Tao Te Ching are as many as its translations. Each author is looking at Lao Tzu‘s immortal classic from his or her own perspective, and this is also one of the many reasons why Tao Te Ching is eye-opening and thought-provoking. The Bible and Tao Te Ching are among the most translated and extensively read books of all time, and for a good reason: one is about God’s wisdom, and the other is about human wisdom.

My own translation of Tao Te Ching is based on my belief that Lao Tzu’s masterpiece is about the Creator of the universe, and that with true human wisdom man sees not only the manifestations but also the mysteries of God’s creation. Therefore, without the profound human wisdom, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to understand and thus believe in God.

Throughout the entire script of Tao Te Ching’s 81 short chapters in only 5,000 words, Lao Tzu never used the word “God”, “Creator” or “Higher Being”; instead, he simply used the word “Way”, which, to me, implies the “pathway” to understanding the mystery of God and His Creation. Remember, Lao Tzu was born several hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ.  It should also be pointed out that Tao wisdom, which is the wisdom of Lao Tzu, later on evolved into a religion (Taoist religion) in China; but Lao Tzu never intended his wisdom to turn into a religious belief.

TAO: The Way to Biblical Wisdom is divided into four parts.

The book is about true human wisdom without the “conditioned” thinking of contemporary wisdom. Without the “reverse” mindset of Lao Tzu, man may have difficulties in understanding true human wisdom, let alone the spiritual wisdom of God expressed in the Bible.

Part One is about my reasons for writing the book, and also why Tao Te Ching is a “must read” for anyone who seeks real human wisdom.

Part Two is my own translation of the 81 chapters of Tao Te Ching with respect to the Bible; each chapter is followed by some selected Bible verses for further reflection on what Lao Tzu has said.

Part Three is about the essentials of Tao wisdom with detailed explanation in plain English and with everyday life examples to help the reader understand the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu.

Part Four is an explanation of how Tao wisdom may help the reader understand God’s wisdom in the Bible. Tao is the Way to Biblical wisdom.

To get the digital copy from Amazon, click here; to get the paperback, click here.

Don’t miss the opportunity to get both human and spiritual wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Perfect Alignment

Living a life of balance and harmony is a tall order -- maybe one of the tallest order in life. We all want to do things our way, as well as expect things to happen our way too because we all have an ego-self, which controls and dominates us. The body, with its many desires, affects how the mind thinks. The mind, with its many thoughts and memories, create the desires of the body. The close body-and-mind connection determines how we live our lives. The mind is supposed to control and oversee the body. Without a blueprint and a road map from the soul, the mind may easily become lost while navigating the body along the life journey. The art of living well is to attain perfect alignment of the body, the mind, and the soul to live as if everything is a miracle. 

To achieve this goal of perfect alignment, you need to let go of all your attachments to the material world; you need profound human wisdom, in particular, the ancient TAO wisdom from China.

As If Everything Is A Miracle: 

This 125-page book is about the wisdom to rethink your mind, renew your body, and reconnect your soul to realign your being for total wellness and well-being to live stress-free as if everything is a miracle. In this day and age, living in different phases of life is challenging. For one thing, in this world of technology and information, many of us are addicted to speed, which seems like a prerequisite for success in career and in many others facets of life. As a result, stress is unduly created, which may lead to toxic actions, reactions, thoughts and emotions.

Consciously and subconsciously we have created for ourselves a world in which our bodies, our minds, and souls have become toxic and we live as if nothing is a miracle. To do just the opposite—living as if everything is a miracle—we have to renew the mind, renew the body, and reconnect the soul, and realign the being so that we know who we really are, instead of who we "think" we are.

Believe in yourself: believe that you can be a better, happier, and healthier you. Believe that you can be a centenarian, if you choose to. The only hurdle is stress in contemporary living. Learn how to overcome your stress by letting go your ego-self. No Ego No Stress!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Unlocking the Mystery of the Human Mind

Letting go holds the key to unlocking the mystery of the human mind.

Why is it important to understand how the human mind works? The mind is responsible for thinking. Our thinking comes from our thoughts, which derive from our perceptions based on our five senses. Our thoughts then become our memories, stored in our subconscious minds. These subconscious  memories affect our many life choices and decisions either positively or negatives, producing many experiences that become our assumptions and predictions that further change the way we think. In short, our life experiences become the raw materials with which we form not only our realities but also our ego-selves.

Letting go of our assumptions, predictions, and expectations may change the way we think, and thus change our realities.

Very often we are the slave and not the master of our own mind. That is to say, we are dominated by our thoughts which control how we act, react in the physical world. In other words, we are controlled involuntarily by our mind because our mind has too many attachments in the physical world, such as careers, relationships, material comforts, and among others which we hold on to as our security blanket. Human attachment is an addiction to control. We think we can control our fate through attachment, which is no more than our emotional dependence things and people that define who we are and that distract us from fear and uncertainty of the future.  

TheWisdom of Letting Go.

The human ego is composed of different attachments to the physical world, such as careers, emotions, memories, money, and relationships, among others. The human ego is unreal; it is only a distorted reflection of the real self. The human ego not only confuses the mind but also prevents it from finding out the realities about the self, others, and what is happening around. True human wisdom comes from knowing who you really are, not who you wish you were, and what you really need, not what you want or desire. Attachments are just emotional distractions in the mind from confronting changes in an ever-changing world. Let go of all attachments to see the absolute truths of all things.

The ancient Tao wisdom from China provides a blueprint for nourishing human wisdom: an empty mind with reverse thinking, mindfulness for clarity thinking, living in the present with no expectations of the future, no picking and choosing, accepting and embracing everything that comes in the natural cycle of change—what goes up must always come down. True human wisdom is the ability to understand that attachments are no more than distractions of the human mind from letting go of anything that is impermanent. 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Get My Book for FREE

29 Smart Steps to Teach Your Smart Kid to Read

Get your book for FREE from AMAZON from October 4, to October 8, 2016.

This 117-page is based on how I taught my daughter to read some 30 years ago. 

Like all proud parents, I was and still am proud of the fact that I could teach her how to read when she just turned three (most children learn at the age of five). The TV and all electronic devices may not be as effective as YOU, the parent, to teach your child through everyday intellectual interactions, games, and activities. 

This book provides 29 steps that could begin as early as your baby is one-month-old. My daughter became a proficient reader when she was five (reading books with little or no illustrations). By seven, she would not let me teach her anything -- she could find everything from books. It paid off and it's worth all the initial efforts in teaching her to become an early reader. Now she's an attorney in the United States.  I wrote this book because she has recently become a mother herself, and that's why I wrote this book to share my experience some three decades ago.

Don't miss this opportunity to get your FREE book.

Also, read my book" Make Your Smart Baby Super Smart.

Stephen Lau

Congratulations! You've Got Cancer!

One of the underlying causes of human disease is stress. Cancer stress may even add insult to injury. Use your mind to overcome cancer stress.

Get my book on cancer stress: Congratulations! You've Got Cancer! for FREE from AMAZON between Oct 3 and Oct 7. 

This 132-page book is about what to do when one is diagnosed with cancer. I am neither a doctor nor an oncologist. This book is based on a wrong cancer diagnosis of a close member of my family. I simply show you the power of the mind not only in coping with the traumatic experience of a cancer diagnosis but also in overcoming the disease itself. In addition, I present detailed information on what an individual must do on the cancer journey of cure and recovery. A cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. Rather, it is an opportunity for growth and development. Harness your mind power to combat cancer.

Stephen Lau

Life Is A Miracle

Life is a miracle; even your breath is a miracle in itself. To live your life as if everything is a miracle, you need wisdom of the body, the mind, and the soul, and they are all inter-connected with one another.

Happiness is the essence of life and living. Therefore, almost everybody is always pursuing happiness. However, without human wisdom, the pursuit of happiness is like wandering in the wilderness without a compass and a road map. Indeed, true human wisdom holds the key to opening the door to human goodness, which will ultimately lead to human happiness.

As If Everything Is A Miracle: This 125-page book is about the wisdom in living as if everything is a miracle, just as Albert Einstein once said: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is to live as if nothing is a miracle. The other is to live as if everything is a miracle."

The body perceives all sensations and experiences in the physical world. The mind interprets and registers them in the subconscious mind, which controls the conscious mind in its daily life choices and decisions, resulting in actions, non-actions, and reactions of the body in the physical world. The soul feeds the mind with spirituality that provides connection and interconnection with others through empathy and compassion, gratitude and generosity, as well as love and forgiveness. The body, the mind, and the soul—all play a pivotal role in the wisdom in contemporary living. The essence of this wisdom is their “alignment” with one another for balance and harmony in the being of an individual.

For more information, click here.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Reverse Inflammation for Better Health

Inflammation is the underlying cause of many diseases, pains, and aches. Diet is the best solution, and not pharmaceutical drugs  Hippocrates, the Father of modern medicine, once said: “Let food be your medicine, and your medicine your food.” Physical pain is often due to the consumption of inflammatory food. 

To illustrate, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which is becoming an epidemic in the United States, affecting more than 25 million people, and 70 percent of them being women, is a disorder of the intestines, resulting in pain, bloating, gassiness, and changes in bowel movements. 

Diet is the culprit of pain, and inflammatory foods are behind it. In addition to inflicting pain, inflammation at the cellular level is the cause of aging, chronic diseases, such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and even Alzheimer's. Foods can be pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory. Pro-inflammatory foods are those that cause a rapid rise in blood sugar, leading to the rapid release of insulin into the bloodstream. Your diet not only affects your cells but also your brain. According to Dr. Steve Henricksen, a brain researcher, "We used to think the brain was like a computer. Now we think each cell is like a computer, a separate computer. And one single cell is like the whole brain." The cells in the human brain produce neuropeptides that can increase or decrease inflammation, thereby responsible for body weight, energy level, mental functioning, mood change, and regularity of the immune system. In other words, neuropeptides play a pivotal role in inflammation and the natural health of an individual. 

To overcome inflammation that causes diseases and disorders, take anti-inflammatory spices in your diet.

Ginger is one of the many highly recommended spices for motion sickness, and upset stomach. Researchers in Denmark have attested to the efficacy of ginger in reducing arthritis symptoms, one  which is pain. 

Turmeric is an Indian curry spice that is also anti-inflammatory. Turmeric is prized not only for its flavor in curry, but also for its sun-like golden-yellow dye. As ab an anti-inflammatory spice, it is also applied cosmetically to enhance skin health and tone. In India, topical turmeric-based ointments are used to treat bruises and joint pain, and skin disorders. Turmeric is a safer and more potent anti-inflammatory agent than standard NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen. Given that it has properties instrumental in enhancing the human body's cortisone-type hormones, turmeric is anti-aging.

Researchers at the University of California have also recommended that turmeric should be used as a chemotherapeutic agent for colorectal cancers. Other studies have indicated that turmeric is efficacious in reducing cholesterol, and thus helping the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Due to its potent anti-inflammatory attributes. turmeric may prevent brain and nerves disorders, including Alzheimer's disease.

The bottom line: take anti-inflammatory foods, and avoid sugar as much as possible. Sugar, which is toxic, comes in many different forms. Most processed foods have hidden sugar, and therefore should be avoided.

The best anti-inflammatory diet is a clear, bland diet of unrefined grains, such as brown rice and beans, and low-fat meat, with lightly cooked vegetables.

Great Taste No Pain: A digestive system to give you no pain eating! Get rid of your digestive pain in one day; end digestive pain fast and naturally. It provides a science-based 4-day eating plan, including snacks, and 13 mouth-watering breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes, and much more! Enjoy your food with no pain and no gain! 

Anti-Inflammation Diet: Ready to look younger and healthier? Get the anti-inflammatory diet to help your brain to help your body.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau