The LuxMob Info Tags

Since times immemorial man has been trying to search, explore new ways to make his sex or love life more interesting or pleasure seeking. The means and methods employed earlier were all quite uncomfortable and at times embarrassing but the usage was always there because of the consistent desire to reach the apex of bliss.

We have always been in search of an additional energy along with our own natural energy to add a punch to our sex life with our partner.

Here comes the era of magical “blue pills”, these small, blue colored pills can be taken orally to enhance your sexual life. Could anyone ever imagine a pill improving our sexual health? The question lies far from our imagining powers. But, YES! That’s true the miraculous pill is in the market for you to explore the real zenith, the true bliss of a romantic, passionate relationship.

Sildenafil, sold under the name Viagra is a drug used to treat male erectile dysfunction (impotence). “Erectile Dysfunction” means the inability to achieve erection, an inconsistent ability to do so, or the ability to achieve only brief erections.

Part of the physiological process of erection involves the parasympathetic nervous system causing the release of nitric oxide (NO) in the corpus cavernosum of the penis. NO binds to the receptors of the enzyme guanylate cyclase which results in increased levels of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), leading to smooth muscle relaxation, resulting in increased inflow of blood and an erection.

Sildenafil is a potent and selective inhibitor of cGMP specific phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) which is responsible for degradation of cGMP in the corpus cavernosum. The molecular structure of sildenafil is similar to that of cGMP and acts as a competitive binding agent of cGMP in the corpus cavernosum, resulting in better erections. Other drugs that operate by the same mechanism include tadalafil (Cialis®) and vardenafil.

As with all prescription drugs, proper dosage is at the discretion of a licensed medical doctor. It is usually recommended to start with a dosage of 50 mg and then lower or raise the dosage as appropriate. The drug is sold in three dosages (25, 50, and 100 mg).

Amongst sildenafil’s serious adverse effects are: priapism, severe hypotension, myocardial infarction, ventricular arrhythmias, sudden death, stroke and increased intraocular pressure. Common side effects include sneezing, headache, flushing, dyspepsia, prolonged erections, palpitations and photophobia. Visual changes including blurring of vision and a curious bluish tinge have also been reported. So, what are you thinking now? All search, thinking ends with viagra. Here, you have a new, easy and comfortable means to add on that extra energy, vitality and thrill to your romance.

viagrapunch is an authentic website advertising for genuine viagra pills. In order to educate people about current Viagra researches, fake Viagra and misleading ED products, http://www.viagrapunch.com is committed to providing visitors with complete information on viagra pills, latest news, personal views, articles and discussion board on
viagra pills related topics.

About the author
The author is an amateur writer focusing primarily on health related topics or on the health related research findings.
For more information on Viagra, visit http://www.viagrapunch.com

Spyware, viruses and worms… oh my!

If you are connected to the internet, you need to make sure you get your computer set up properly if you want to avoid problems down the road.

With all the viruses, spyware and other threats on the internet today, no computer should be set up without the proper protection.

And that protection needs to be in place as soon after you hook up your new machine as possible.

The following five steps will make your computer a much harder target for threats. You still won’t be completely immune to problems, but 99% of the time the threat will pass you by, looking for the easy mark.

1. Running a Personal Firewall

A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet.

Setting up a firewall is the absolute first thing you should do if you’re going to connect to the internet. Without a firewall, your computer could get infected in as little as one minute after connecting.

If you have a brand new computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2, there is a firewall built into Windows. It will already have been turned on when you first set up your computer.

If you’re running an older version of Windows, even an earlier version of Windows XP, there is no firewall automatically set up for you. In this case there are two possibilities:

• Your computer came pre-loaded with a firewall such as Norton Internet Security or McAfee Internet Security
• You have no firewall installed and should download one ASAP.

If you don’t have any personal firewall software installed, you should do so right away. Zone Alarm is a very good firewall program that has a version that you can download and install for free.

You can download the free version of Zone Alarm from http://www.computer-help-squad.com/zonealarm.

2. Turn on Windows Updates

Again, if you’re running Windows XP Service Pack 2 this is already set up, but otherwise you should turn on Windows Updates. Microsoft releases updates for security problems and other bugs in Windows on a regular basis.

These updates will keep your computer running better, and they often fix security issues that could compromise your information or privacy.

If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can double-check that automatic updates are turned on by clicking Start, then click Control Panel, then double-click Security Center. The window that opens will tell you if automatic updates are turned on, and lets you turn them on if they’re not.

To turn on automatic updates in earlier versions of Windows XP, click on the Start menu, click Control Panel and then double-click on System. On the “Automatic Updates” tab, click the option to “Automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify.”

To turn them on in Windows 2000, click on Start, click Control Panel and then double-click on Automatic Updates. Again, click the option to “automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify.”

Now when Microsoft releases updates, they will be downloaded for you automatically and Windows will tell you when they are ready to be installed.

3. Install & Update Antivirus Software

Most new computers come with antivirus software these days. You might have Norton, McAfee, PC-Cillin or another brand. No matter what program you have, you will need to update it when you get connected to the internet.

It doesn’t matter how new your computer is - there will be new viruses, and new updates for the antivirus software, since it was loaded.

The exact process is different for each brand of antivirus program, but most of them will have an icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop, beside the time. The icon might be a picture of a shield (McAfee), a stethoscope (Norton) or something else.

In most cases, if you point to the icon for your antivirus and click the right mouse button, a menu will pop up with an update option. It could be simply called update or could be something like Live Update or Download Latest Updates. If you click on the update option (with the left button this time) it will install the newest updates for you.

If you’re not sure which icon is for your antivirus software, just point to each one for a few seconds and a little title should pop up telling you what it is.

4. Install Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware - and other things known as adware and malware - is becoming as big a problem as viruses. Spyware programs can cause a lot of problems with your computer, not to mention they can track your personal information and you never know where it’s being sent.

Some new computers might includes antispyware software, but most of them don’t yet. There are quite a few anti-spyware programs available, some free and some not. The one I recommend is from Microsoft and is one of the free ones.

One of the reasons I like it is because it always runs in the background and will automatically catch a lot of spyware before it gets on your computer.

Many of the other programs don’t catch it until you run a scan. Not only does this allow things to get on your computer, it also means you have to actually remember to run a scan.

You can download the free Microsoft Antispyware from http://www.computer-help-squad.com/antispyware.

5. Set up a Free Email Account

This last item is not as critical as the first four, but I would highly recommend you set up an email account with one of the free services like Hotmail or Gmail.

Once you’re on the internet, you’ll find a lot of useful information that you want that requires you to provide an email address. In some cases, these people will end up sending you a bunch of spam.

If you use a free email account to sign up for anything that you don’t know for sure you can trust, it’s not going to fill your main email with a bunch of junk.

This goes for anything really, not just online information. If you’re entering a contest or signing up for anything offline and you don’t know where your information could end up being used, I would suggest using your free email address.

If worse comes to worse, and your free email address gets inundated with spam, you can always just set up a new one and let the old one expire.

Some of the better free email services are www.hotmail.com, www.gmail.com and www.yahoomail.com.

If you’ve had your computer for a while and never done any of these things, you should still take these steps to get it set up properly. It will definitely save you a lot of time - and possibly money - as you use your system.

John Lenaghan offers easy-to-understand computer help at the Computer Help Squad website. Find out more about these 5 steps - sign up for the Computer Help Squad newsletter and receive your free 5-part guide.

Why are certain persons more successful than others in their personal lives and in their professional environment? Some are perhaps very successful at their homes, having good relationships with their spouses and children, but having many communication problems in their office: problems with bosses, but good relationships with co-workers or vice versa, good relationship with the bosses, but conflicts with other managers and subordinates. Others again are having good relationships at the office at the expense of their marriages and family life: too much time is being spent at the office and the family at home is being felt ignored and left behind.

The root cause of the problem is communication or to be more exact: effective communication. It is actually surprising that a lot of communication is going well most of the time. However, if a communication problem happens, the question: what went wrong? Usually remains an unanswered question. There are plenty of books, articles and websites dedicated to the problems of communication. Some give scientific evidence of communication barriers and obstacles, but leave finding practical solutions to the reader. More practically oriented recipes are difficult to implement due to lack of time and practice. For example the trait assertiveness: it has become common knowledge that it is important to be assertive in daily life. But how can one be assertive if he or she is introvert by nature? On top of personality (extrovert versus introvert), there is the issue of culture: people from certain countries are simply less extrovert than from other countries.

Wouldn’t is be extremely useful to have a simple formula of effective communication which can be used in all circumstances? I think the following formula would be helpful:

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION=
SELF-INTEREST + INTEREST OF OTHERS - DISTUBING FACTORS

OR

EC = SI + IO - DF

Let’s look at the three elements of this formula.

SELF-INTEREST

When people communicate, self interest is probably the main reason for communication. One is far more interested in his or her own interest than in the interests of others. The above formula can actually be simplified even further by simply stating that communication is equal to self-interest. For this reason, communication is rarely effective because one is not trying to find a common ground in interaction processes but merely seeking a way to fulfill certain short-term interests. The most important problem in communication is probably asymmetry. The two parties in question are having different agendas and different interests which is further complicated by asymmetries of, knowledge, power and authority. For this reason, negotiation skills and tactics have become a very important trait of modern civilization. In the old days, physical strength was the determining factor to force the other party to compromise. Thanks to civilization, consensus can now be reached by communication. This civilizing process is basically a shift from a “command and control” communication culture to a “negotiating and persuasion” culture.

This shift has resulted in a greater emphasis on the ability to effectively communicate verbally and non-verbally with each other. This also implies better education in which development of dialogue skills has become the backbone of modern education. One is at a young age already required to be able to express their thoughts clearly in class presentations, essays, reports and not to mention in theses of various sorts in tertiary educational settings.

INTEREST OF OTHERS

The interest of others has probably been the most important issue in many textbooks about effective communication. The ability to listen, to get and give feedback, to control anger (”anger management”), conflict resolution, stress management, etc., have been discussed in great lengths by many authors, scholars, management trainers, etc.

The problem is accommodating the interests of others have become more important with the introduction of information technology and the ability to trade goods and services in cyberspace. True globalization has probably already occurred in cyberspace where a global 24 hour economy has been created where everybody is exchanging goods, services and information all over the world.

Everybody has become a customer! It is important to look at the needs of others as your customer. This marketing concept was first used in transactional settings, but was introduced in learning organizations and now has become an important concept in all corners of life.

The issue of discovering the interests of others has even been infiltrated by non-scientific ‘tools’ like astrology, numerology and tarot cards. Before the discovery of these tools, one was still utilizing (and still is utilizing) many scientific tools offered by psychologists ranging from psychoanalysis, conversation analysis, transactional analysis and the sort resulting in various therapies which might be effective depending on the willingness of the buyer to take it seriously or not.

How can one discover the interests of others? This requires a proactive approach from both parties. Two strategies might be helpful. The first strategy is called the PAIR approval strategy: Placate (listen, empathize, respond with concern); Attend (to the other); Investigate (circumstances details of issue); Resolve (decide on action to take). The second strategy is called the five-step method: listen, respond, decide on action, take action and follow up.

DISTURBING FACTORS

The third element of effective communication is probably the most difficult one: how to eliminate disturbing factors or how to overcome communication barriers. There are basically six types of barriers between people communicating with each other: differences in perception, incorrect filtering, language problems, poor listening, differing emotional states, and differing backgrounds. In order to overcome these barriers, one must be willing to avoid selective perception, condense messages to the bare essentials, use specific and accurate words possible, always verify your interpretation of what’s been said, be aware of the feelings that arise in yourself and in others as you communicate, and attempt to control them.

Communication barriers also exist within organizations. Although all communication is subject to misunderstandings, business communication is particularly difficult. Barriers can be caused by: information overload, message complexity, message competition, differing status, lack of trust, inadequate communication structures, incorrect choice of medium, closed communication climate, unethical communication, inefficient communication, and physical distractions.

There are three distinct moments which can cause many communication barriers in organizations; during negotiations, when dealing with customers, and holding meetings. When you are negotiating, psychological barriers may arise. These psychological barriers may be yours or may belong to the other party. Be aware that people carry some of these barriers and ‘listen’ for their effects. Look for signs of them in the other party (and in yourself) and use your communication skills to ease or lower these barriers. Dealing with customers, in turn, can be very hard because some customers are hard to please and difficult situations can arise. If a high level of service is not provided, the result will not only be loss of business, but often an increase in the number of difficult and even abusive customers. They have not yet been lost. Deal with them professionally. The negotiating process, finally, demonstrates a fundamental tension between the claiming and creating of value. Value claimers view negotiations purely as an adversarial process. Each side stride tries to claim as much of a limited pie as possible by giving the other side as little as possible. Each party claims value through the use of manipulative tactics, forcible arguments, limited concessions, and hard bargaining. Value creators, in contrast, call for a process which results in joint gains to each party. They try to create additional benefits for each side in the negotiations. They emphasize shared interests, developing a collaborative relationship, and negotiating in a pleasant and cooperative manner.

My name is Martin Hahn Ph.D. and I am an industrial sociologist with more than 20 years experience in teaching, management consulting, and corporate training. If you want custom-made advice about communication in your workplace or with non-job related people, please feel free to contact me at martinmim21@hotmail.com. All requests will be handled professionally and your communication problem will be handled in strict confidence.

“What can I reverse auction” is a typical question that we hear nearly everyday from our clients. This article will define and explain the Top 10 criteria that we look at to make a decision as to whether or not an item or service is a good reverse auction candidate. We have found all of these topics to be very important and they will provide a guideline to help you along the sometimes bumpy reverse auction road. While these points are not rules written in stone, they are based on research and our experience in helping reverse auction clients.

Here is eDynaQuote’s Top 10 List:

1) “The dollar amount should be sufficient to generate the interest of potential suppliers.” The sufficient dollar amount will be relative to the market, but larger dollar volumes will generate a lot of interest from many suppliers. And the more interested suppliers you have in a reverse auction the better.

2) “You should have at least two qualified suppliers.” Have a documented supplier qualification requirement process in order for the vendors to know that their competition is legitimate and to validate your selection process. Qualifying your vendors is extremely important since you need to have your competition on a level playing field, and you do not want sub-par products or services.

3) “Write clear and complete purchase specifications.” You should know exactly what you want, how much you want and when you want it or your suppliers will not be able to bid apples to apples. A reverse auction is not an RFP where some details can be left to figure out later. You should be able to clearly specify your purchase before you choose to run a reverse auction.

4) “Define and document award criteria.” Since most commercial purchases are based on factors other than lowest price, you should define, document and make available to the suppliers your award criteria. You should be able to accurately tell your vendors exactly what they need to do in order to win your business.

5) “Supplier change-over risk is low.” Look for areas where the cost to change suppliers is low. Keep in mind that costs are not just a hard dollar figure for the product or service you want to reverse auction. Think of all the other costs involved such as training, compatibility issues and what the learning curve looks like.

6) “Have a good forecast of the quantities and dollar volume.” Be sure to aggregate accurate data on how much you currently spend. You should be able to clearly document what and how much you are buying so you can provide those details as historical data to potential suppliers. You could be short-changing yourself and not getting as big a volume discount as you could be.

7) “Only include similar items in the same bid package.” While you can have many similar line items in a reverse auction, you do not want unrelated items in the same lot or bucket. Keep dissimilar items separate to avoid confusion. This will also allow suppliers to focus on their core competencies, and not disqualify them from bidding if they do not provide one item in the lot you are reverse auctioning.

“Keep reverse auctions below ten line items.” You want to keep the bidding simple, so do not over-complicate it by adding too many line items to the reverse auction. You can say “see attached spreadsheet” and include many similar items for them to bid on in one overall line item. Once you get too many line items, the suppliers will lose their focus and not be as competitive.

9) “Clearly define an alternate submission process.” If alternates, substitutes or options are allowable, you will need to clearly define what the submission process is and make those alternates available for all suppliers to bid on. You still want an apple to apple comparison when using reverse auctions, so be as clear as possible as to what you will or will not accept as an alternate. You do not want to leave a potential supplier in the dark about what alternates you are willing to accept, or you run the risk of not having a successful reverse auction.

10) “Are there compressible margins for the suppliers to compete on?” Stay away from using reverse auctions on items that have a market traded price such as oil and natural gas. You can reverse auction the distribution of these items though. The idea here is to reverse auction items that have prices set by the decisions of people and company pricing policies, and to avoid reverse auctioning items that have a freely traded market price.

Doug Luthringer is a Client Development Manager at eDynaQuote (http://www.eDynaQuote.com) with over two years of strategy, implementation and training experience in online reverse auctions and over six years with online forward auctions such as eBay. Doug has also been invited to be a guest speaker to talk about how to properly use reverse auctions to small and medium size business, as well as university students.

One of the biggest threats to the continued growth of Search Advertising is the increasing plague of click fraud. Although there are varying forms of click fraud, most people define it as any click generated, and paid for, where the intent is to drain the advertiser’s budget. Advertisers know some clicks are more qualified than others, and not every visitor from their PPC campaigns will convert to a customer. But, they have a right to expect that the traffic they are paying for is coming from people at least marginally interested in their products or services.

What Motivates Click Fraud?

Why does click fraud exist? What motivates people to deceive the system by sending PPC advertisers bogus traffic? The short answer (as usual) is money.

Many Pay Per Click Advertising networks are partially, (or in some cases totally), dependent on affiliate sites to generate traffic for their advertisers. These networks syndicate their customer’s ads so they will appear on the sites of their affiliates. Every time someone clicks on an ad the PPC Network and the affiliate site share the revenue. The more clicks the affiliate site generates, the more money it makes. While the vast majority of affiliates are legitimate trustworthy sites, others are in the business of exploiting loopholes in the system to line their pockets with real money by generating fake clicks. Often times the weapon of choice used by these rogue sites to cheat the system is a software script that automatically clicks on PPC ads.

Another variation of click fraud uses a more personal touch to steal advertiser’s money. In the hyper-competitive world of Pay Per Click Advertising the battle for premium positioning at an affordable cost can cause companies to use less than ethical techniques to gain an edge. Companies can drive up their competitor’s marketing costs by clicking on their Pay Per Click ads. If their competitor’s marketing costs get too high they may lower the bids on their keywords, or stop bidding on the word altogether. Either way, the cost for the word goes down, giving the fraudulent company an opportunity to increase their ranking on the page at a lower cost.

The Search Engine’s Response To Click Fraud.

All the Pay Per Click Search engines have systems in place to detect click fraud, and screen questionable clicks. One example of how they do this is by keying in on the IP address where the click originated from. If they see too many clicks coming form the same IP in a short period of time they will often screen the traffic.

The Search Engines are in a unique position when it comes to Click Fraud. On the one hand they benefit from it. The amount of revenue attributed to Click Fraud varies depending on who you ask, but everyone agrees that if illegitimate clicks were completely eliminated, all the major Search Engines would suffer a significant hit to their revenues and stock prices. However, the Search Engines also realize that the long term health of the industry depends on establishing trust with their advertiser base. Going forward we can expect to see Search Engines deploy increasingly sophisticated methods to eliminate fraud, and corresponding responses from the dark side of the Search Advertising industry.

Decreasing The Amount OF Click Fraud For Your Campaigns.

While it’s impossible to completely eliminate fraudulent traffic, there are some things you can do to increase the percentage of good traffic from your investment in Pay per Click Advertising.

As a rule of thumb, the more a Pay Per Click Ad network depends on affiliates for its traffic, the more susceptible it will be to fraud. The reason why the overall traffic quality is better on Google, Yahoo and Lycos is that each of these sites has their own branded destination where consumers go to search. If you advertise on these sites you know where your ads will appear (although even these bigger sites use affiliates to varying degrees). Once you venture into the second tier Pay Per Click networks however you’ll find that almost all of their traffic is generated through partner sites. Companies like Kanoodle, Enhance etc…don’t own sites where people go to search the web. Nearly all their traffic is generated through their affiliates which makes it more difficult to control fraud.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, click fraud is a necessary evil of Pay Per Click Advertising, at least for now. However, as with most aspects of PPC Advertising everything eventually boils down to conversions and profits. If your campaigns are generating enough quality traffic to meet your conversion metrics you should continue to invest in the campaign, even if some of the clicks are fake. If your traffic is riddled with too many automated clicks it will eventually become obvious in your conversion numbers, and you should stop the campaign and put your money into pay Per Click networks that control more of their own traffic.

Stan Hauser is a leading expert on effective Pay Per Click Advertising strategies, and the creator of http://www.pay-per-click-advertising-guide.com

There is a big adjustment coming in terms of our Human and Spiritual evolution, where Mythology and Parables will again play a vital role in the process. As mentioned in part 1, when our usual systems of information discernment fail us - you - we - I - will turn back to something familiar and old.

Myths are as old as the dawn of man. They predate human history because the latter is only a recent event. Recorded history began just a few thousand years ago and there are at least 100,000 Earth years with human civilization involved yet to be accounted for. All of them as rich, I believe, as those we can currently look into through our history books. Prior to that, it was the Oral Tradition that kept subsequent generations informed. Oddly enough, some of those Oral Traditions are still alive today in certain cultures (Egypt for example) where this missing 100,000 years of human history is available.

So where is this all taking us, this excursion into Myths and Parables? To where we stand right now, at the doorstep of this new era, the dawn of another epoch, the launching point of the new Millennium. At present we can only guess at what is coming next, and how fast it is moving toward us. But it is a fact; change is on the way. Some would argue that it is already here. Right now! Because Change, transition and transformation are endless cycles. They beat their way to our doorstep and march through our lives. They are as inevitable as the seasons. In relation to repeating cycles of change for us humans, we are in one now. The Millennium has already begun.

And what is more important during such turbulent times than Faith? Faith, Spirituality and Self-Confidence are tested during such times. If we’ve only been flirting with the advancing new knowledge and subsequent changes making their way toward us, then we’d better get on board quickly because we’re in for the ride of our life. One that we could not anticipate before.

Now that we’re on the doorstep of this Change, this Great Leap Forward, why bring up a tired old subject like Mythology and its companion, Parables? And that is a very good question. Why should we reach back into the mists of time, of pre-history, for something that is supposed to help us leap forward into this new Century and Millennium? Why indeed?

As mentioned earlier, historically, in times of turmoil and chaos, Myths were called upon to help explain events, to provide a forum for discussion, to advance the idea that we, the human race, were indeed ready for the advancing change. And here is the “Mucker” in all of this. The fact is: “We bring change upon ourselves.” Then we scramble about to try and make sense of it. Yes, We, the human Race, drive change! And long before we formally understood this process, we had Myths and Parables about it. We always had Myths announcing and/or standing, at the vanguard of a New Era. They were and still are the “gatekeepers” and “shepherds” for the future. They told us what was coming over the next horizon and what we needed to do to get through this inevitable challenge. Myths and Parables not only helped us prepare, they helped us execute the changes and adjustments that are always necessary to the success of such a process.

How are we to prepare for this rapidly advancing Millennium and the Changes we are bringing upon ourselves? We have to reach into our Souls now for the sustenance that we need. There, hidden inside, behind all those roles, addictions and fears we show the world, is the Energy, the Vitality, and the Inspiration that is to take us through our great leap forward. There inside is the “Heart” that rings the “Bell” that awakens us to our true destiny. It is no accident that we are here now, at this time in our history. And it is no accident that a great variety of warning “Bells” are sounding. It’s up to each and every one of us to tie into our Individual Myths and activate them for the coming Millennium. We are at that doorstep now. It falls to each of us to step on through.

So, how do we apply Mythology and Parables to our modern life? Is there a formula or pattern to follow?

Jesus Christ, among others, implored us to listen to ourselves inside our “Hearts.” Plato and a number of his fellow Greek philosophers advised: “Know Thyself.” Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “To Thine Own Self be True.” And over the years of our recorded history, many other prophets and teachers repeated the same advice. This very guidance comes to us again through modern day psychologists, psychiatrists, artists and spiritual advisors.

But even before the above mentioned proponents had their say, Mythology was there promoting the very same advisement. In fact, many modern day proponents of “getting to know your self” refer back to certain Myths to underline their point. Freud did it. So did Carl Jung, along with numerous others over the last century. Myths are still guideposts to the Modern Era. They’re just not so visible anymore and they’ve suffered from the bad press of being a synonym for fiction.

Joseph Campbell, an anthropological researcher from the latter part of the 20th century showed us how Myths and Parables crossed cultural boundaries and were recycled through succeeding generations. He pointed out, for example, how the Hero Myth appeared in most ancient cultures and has survived through untold generations into the present, to be recycled again. Where do we find them today? In our movies for starters, television, comics, books, and music.

Carl Jung spoke of the “Collective Unconscious,” which in mythical lore was related to “Psyche,” a Goddess, whose function it was to inform humans on their condition and plight. She too was instrumental in teaching us how to “know ourselves” better. Hence, modern Psychology is derived from this source and owes its very name to a Mythical Goddess from Antiquity!

Psychology, which is my field, is about getting to “know yourself,” using the tools of the trade - testing - psychotherapy - counseling - clinical investigations - and so on. Pop Psychology is about getting to “know yourself” for $15.95 over a weekend - Nuff said! Getting to “know ourselves” isn’t going to happen that easily or economically. My own experience, both personal and professional, is that this process is a lifetime commitment with every step having its own challenges and rewards.

Back to the bigger picture now, what we are witnessing here, as this new Millennium gets rolling, is “transformation” or “getting to know ourselves” on a grand scale. Already we are being told about it. Economic structures, Social structures, Religious structures and therefore, Personal structures are going to change dramatically. Like it or not, it’s already underway. The New Age sections of bookstores are full of such references; and these also cross over into Pop Psychology, Para-Psychology, Philosophy and Religion. Just check out your favorite bookstore.

Looking at all of these sections in today’s bookstores begs the question: “Why is such a plethora of mythically based reference material being thrown at us right now? To announce the advance of the New Era is the answer! It is here and we’ve got to deal with it. Like it or not, our current structures won’t accommodate it. We need different reference points to guide us through this transitional period. Guideposts that can override the limits of modern terminology; that can trace their roots back through the mists time and can consistently be relied upon like the needle in a magnetic compass; always pointing in the same direction - towards the Self, the True North and Center of our Personality.

It is “To Thine Own Self be True” over and over again. Right here, right now, that is the Sine Qua Non of our Era. We cannot move forward as individuals and a species without this most important central resource. Our Self is our guide to our personal creativity, our life purpose and the Divine. And this True Self will take us to the very core of our Being - Our Soul! That is where we are headed and what defines the current challenge.

Maurice Turmel PHD is an Author, Speaker and Performing Songwriter. His site features Self-Help books, Inspiring Music, Stories, Reflections and Poetry that can help YOU discover how truly great YOU are. The WebSite is dedicated to that end. It also features his collection of articles, reflections and stories as teaching tools, and his latest Ebook, “The Voice,” a Spiritual Sci-Fi novel. It will introduce YOU to all the basic concepts that characterize The Healthy Life, both Spiritually and Psychologically.
http://www.mauriceturmel.com