What you're looking at is the most expensive home in the world on the market. It's worth $139 million and is presently unlived-in. It has 103 rooms, 5 swimming pools, 50 seat screening room, bowling alley, squash court, and tennis court. It has a heated marble driveway and 24K gold leafing on the library floor.

WHAT?!?

Outside of the fact that even on the outside, visually it's stunning, can you imagine living in there. *sigh* Now that's my kind of house!

How about some place a little more tropical?


And this is just the view from the deck.

This property is located at the Turks and Caicos. 13 acres.

This one is on Lyford Cay Beach


This one is in the Bahamas.


Parrot Point - Sugar Loaf Cay


Caves Point...

Enough with this... I have to head to lunch.

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Yesterday brought me to a set of challenging events that I am very happy to say, I conquered. Here's what happened.

On my way home yesterday there was a track fire at the subway station ahead of us, so everyone was told to get out of the train and that it was going to head back to Manhattan. I was hoping to get home as quickly as possible to go for my run, but with this delay, I wasn't too sure if that was going to happen.

We were all suck in Long Island City, which, if you don't know, it a warehouse neighborhood, so not the most well populated of areas. It's also rather far from where I live. Thankfully it was still light out, so I wasn't too concerned. The tolken booth clerk however wasn't in the best shape. I tried asking for a bus map (FYI: whenever you are lost in a borough, don't ask for a train map, always ask for a bus map b/c it will give you a map of the borough you're in- as well as the subway stops). The clerk was in assumption mode since there was a mob of people behind me that were pushing to get a transit pass so they can get a free transfer to the nearest subway station. He had yelled at me before I was able to tell him I didn't want a transfer, but that I wanted a map. I even used the book I had in my hand and wrote "I just want a bus map", which he glanced at, but didn't respond to. It wasn't until he let several people bypass me that I yelled at him in the booth "I DON'T WANT A TRANSFER, I JUST WANT A BUS MAP!", he didn't bother looking up at me, just gave me my map and I headed out of the station.

While I was looking @ the map, I followed it, got lost of a second, then got my bearings. During which I actually fell on to my side (there was a rather large hole in the sidewalk), but someone helped me up. Did I mention I was wearing white pants? So here I am walking in this desolate neighborhood to the bus that will take me straight to my neighborhood, and as I was getting witin eyeshot, I saw my bus leave. I wasn't going to run through that traffic because I value my life (it meant having to run pass the entrance ramp to a highway- not happening). So I decided to take my time crossing so I wouldn't get killed and just head to the bus stop.

When I finally got on the bus, it was after 7PM. I knew that the bus would take about an hour to take me home. So I slept. By the time I came to, it was after 8 and I was losing sunlight, which wasn't a good thing bc I really wanted to go running @ the track, and since it's the summer, the lights aren't on @ the track at night, which means running in the dark; alone.

Oh, and did I mention my period started that day, and yeah, I was wearing white???

Now with all of this, you would figure I'd be pissed right? You might not believe this, but I was laughing about it the entire way through. Even the fall with my white pants that were just washed. I wasn't angry. About the only thing that got me annoyed was the token booth clerk issue, but otherwise, I was smiling and laughing. I wasn't forcing myself to do it either. I just saw the humor in the situation. And despite the fact that it was dark, I went running anyway, and had a good run too. It ended a bit later than I hoped, but I was still able to get the more important stuff done.

It really dawned on me this morning on my way to work however, how much of an achievement that was for me to not get angry, but instead be not only calm, but even enjoying the situation. I wasn't on any drugs, I didn't have anyone with me, I wasn't even on my cell with anyone at all. It was just me, working on getting from point A to point B. There's a lot of power in that, and I'm happy to say, I was able to get through it with a smile and a laugh (rather than pulling my hair out).

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I read a response to something I posted in one of my blogs this morning that started getting me angry. I started sensing my blood boiling, and then I instantly shot into my brain "that's your ego talking Jan, drop the ego". So I read the remainder of it like a textbook. A lot of it had stated opinion as fact, but later clarified that it was fact in the writer's eyes. In other words, it was still their opinion.

The whole thing got me thinking... does it really matter what your friends think of you? In truth what anybody thinks of you is really their own opinion that they carry. There's no truth in it and it's only based on observations, which are bias anyway.

Some of you might think that these people are your friends or loved ones. So the way they see you should matter to you. Actually I have to highly disagree with you.

I mentioned in the last sentence in the 2 paragraph that observations are bias. They are. They are not based from a clean slate. They are made in conjunction with personal beliefs, exeriences, and personal fear. Most people tell you that to become a millionaire, you have to graduate college. Actually that's a farce. 7 out of the 20 most richest people in the world did not graduate college, including the man that heads the list himself Bill Gates. Don't believe me? Go to Forbes.com. In the top 10 there are two college dropouts. #10 himself didn't even graduate high school!

I'm not telling you to drop out of school, so don't even go there.
(like I really need some irrate parent flaming me over their child dropping out because of this post)

What I'm saying is opinions are bias. Don't buy into it. If you really want to find out something, you do your research. If you really want to achieve something and someone tells you it's impossible, prove them wrong. Every major development in history has been made by people who were told it wasn't possible. Ford, Franklin, the Wright Brothers, Edison,...

The toughest part of all this isn't the actual doing and achiving of your goal. That's the easy part. The hardest part is not allowing your own ego to get in the way. An ego reaction is so automatic that it's second nature and the majority of us have never been told that it was a bad thing. Ego tells us we're either too good, or not good enough, regardless of the reason, it's self defeating. Opportunity works best when ego is not in the way.

Let's think about this. If you get an idea to invent something, but you don't want to develop it because you don't think you have the smarts to make it happen, that's your ego working. Let's take the polar opposite. If you get an invite to go to a party, but you know that the people that are going to be there aren't as smart as you, or as worldly, or they are in a lower financial bracket, or not as well maintained, and therefore you automatically think you're going to have a miserable time, that's your ego working. Any label that measures the value of you over or under anything is ego at work. Not saying you shouldn't respect yourself, or be proud of yourself, or even value yourself. These are very important. The thing is you should never deem your self worth compared to levels that are illusionary.

So going back to where all this started. I told myself my ego was what was making me angry. And that whatever that other person wrote was what they carried. It neither values or devalues what's inside of me and what I carry with me. I can still write, I can still breath, I can still walk, and I can still do what I do best. It didn't damage me, just challenged me, and I did the right thing by dropping my ego.

It'll take continual work, but I'll get through it.

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The only thing you can change is yourself. Of course this is while change is happening around you. You either evolve or devolve. You may believe you're staying the same, but in truth your growth or breakdown might be just slow.

Yesterday I made two considerable strides personally. People might consider them small, but I considered them great.

1. I jogged for 40 minutes yesterday. I don't know the distance bcause I was focused more on time than distance, but just the fact that I was able to jog for 40 minutes, without stopping, made me very happy. In the process of I think 2 weeks I went from a walk/speedwalk/jog routine to a straight jog. It made me really happy. It meant that whatever I was doing was working and gave my work validity.

2. I was able to calm myself down from a really angry mindset to a joyous on within 10 minutes, without the use of substances. This took some talking to in my part with myself. I know the whole thing about "talking to yourself" isn't really deemed what normal people do, but most people don't have inner peace either, so let us not follow the norm. I was at a point last night where I wanted to scream my head off about something when I took myself in my room and talked to myself in the mirror, putting everything in perspective and calmed myself enough that I not only cracked a smile, but had a sense of balance and inner peace. I couldn't stop smiling. What did I tell myself?

"Everything that happens is just an experience. Our ego gives it the label of positive or negative. Our ego is also that which decides if it offends us or not. We cannot control the experiences we have, but we can control how we preceive them, react to them, and more importantly, use them in our favor."

The ego is superficial. If you don't allow it to get in the way, you will be quite surprised to find what happens.

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Right now I'm going through a headache and I think I know why...

Fruit.

I've been on Phase I of the South Beach diet for a little more than two weeks and today I am officially on phase II. I was allowed to bring fruit back into my diet, so I did. For one of my snacks I made myself a fruit smoothy.

Now if you don't know anything about this diet, the first two weeks runs like atkins. No fruit, no carbs, no sugar. Well, out of personal experience I know that once you do this for a while, the second you add any sugar back into your system, you're going to get a nasty headache. Fruit has sugar, sugar causes headache.

Enough said.

But out of experience, I also know that the lack of sugar caused one annoying problem with me; lack of endurance. When I would go out running, if I didn't have a little sugar in my system, I wouldn't be able to complete a full lap jogging. I also didn't do so well when I played DDR. It was like my focus wasn't there.

So now I've gotten rid of my excess sugar from my system and this whole thing of easing it back into my diet is somewhat painful, but necessary. They're not processed sugars, so I don't have to worry, and because I've added protein powder, flaxseed, and 2% milk, it slows the digestion process, which is what I'm looking for.

Oh, and if you're curious to know my progress in regards to this thing, you can check out my diet blog...

http://dietordietrying.blogspot.com

From my heaviest weight, I'm looking to drop 80-100 lbs. Thus far from my heaviest, I've lost 30 lbs.

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The biggest problem that humans have are all attached to one thing: the ego. Our egos are what tells us we're better or worse than someone/something, are responsible for us getting offended and/or angry. Basically it's the one thing that messes up our lives the most.

Since I'm going through my transformation, I've decided I'm going to push my ego aside, with the one exception (because it deals with my personal respect and self preservation). If I feel someone is harmful to me, in any way, shape, or form, I will separate myself from them as much as possible. Otherwise everything else is fair game.

But let me get back to what I was saying. The reason I've decided to push my ego aside was because of something that occurred to me this morning. This morning I found that my roommate had left the apartment early. She and I have been friends for over 15 years to the point that we are like family. We even fight like sisters. Anyway, whenever some big event goes down, we usually invite the other to join. When she was gone so early I instantly thought that she was going with her co-workers some place fun like 6 flags or something and didn't bother inviting me because she was in one of her moods lately. Stupid, I know, but that was my ego getting hurt and assuming bs. Anyway, she came home a couple of hours later and then went to her doctors appointment.

Then this evening, she had the ball game on the tv while she was @ the computer. I was having dinner and wanted to watch the game (it was getting interesting), so I sat on the couch. Instantly she put her hand to her face like "WTF are you DOING?!" I wasn't too sure if it was because of me sitting on the couch or the game, but I figured I'd better use this time to practice pushing my ego aside, so I didn't move. At one point I gasped over what had just happened in the game, and again, hand to face, other hand was moving and I knew what was going on. She was annoyed that I was sitting on the couch. She didn't say anything though. But at that point I was finished with dinner so I went to the kitchen to clean up my dishes. She was still pissed though. And I thought to myself "she's using my experiences to get herself pissed off". I know she wants to be able to go back and forth from laying on the couch to watching television whenever she feels like it, and by me sitting on the couch, she wasn't able to do it. She could have said something, but she didn't. And even after I had left the livingroom, she was still upset. And this was all because I sat on the couch.

I can tell you, a small piece of me was hurt and angry by this, but when I saw it for what it was, the anger disappated. How often do we allow ourselves to get hurt by what others do, and it might not even be towards us? Because regardless of what we all were taught in our childhood, the truth is we are the ones that decide what offends us and what doesn't. Nobody forces anything on you, and the truth is you're doing it to yourself. If someone passes you quickly and you accidently spill your coffee on yourself, most people would get pissed off by the person who passed you, however it's you that's allowing yourself to get bothered by this experience. In truth, all actions have no polarity. In other words, nothing has a positive or negative unless we give it to them. Just like there's no better or worse. That was created by humans and dictated by humans (ego), because in truth, nothing in nature is imperfect.

You know the line "one man's trash is another man's treasure"? Same deal.

But getting back to it. Ego is the one thing that causes us pain. It causes us misery and it causes us grief. Please don't confuse ego with appreciation. Appreciation for who you are, what you can do, the life you have, the friends you keep. That's not ego until you start attaching the positive/negative labels to it. When you start feeling good about something like this "I hang out with the popular crowd, therefore I'm cool", guess what? That's ego. You're no longer appreciating the fact that you have good friends, you're giving false value to yourself because of the false social worth of those around you.

All ego does is make you miserable or make you a target. I'd rather get rid of something like that as quickly as possible.

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