Life in a Week... A Book About Being Really Happy and Life in a Week... What Is Spirituality are two of my creations that I wanted to share with the world. I feel we all have a story to tell but, more importantly we feel blessed when we can put a smile on someones face! I hope my stories inspire you to do just that with the ones whom are closest to you!


THANK YOU for stopping by my blog and please let me know if your visit here put a smile on your face! My personal email is kellerslifeinaweek@gmail.com

If you like what you read here then go to the right and order a copy of each of the books today!


Have a fun day, Michael Shawn Keller

Monday, May 30, 2011

Recognize faults and let go (excerpt from my 2nd book)

Have you ever gone into a beautiful church with beautiful antique artifacts, pristine walls, and perfect paintings and then you sat in a pew only to notice a crack in the stained glass window? You realize you keep looking at the crack and wonder why that ugly crack hasn’t been fixed; the church has plenty of money to fix it. All of the magnificent beauty of this church is suddenly reduced to almost an insult to you and your time. I use this analogy to make the point that we do the same with people; have you ever seen a friend after five or ten years and the first thought in your mind is “wow, they have gotten old and obese.” Our thoughts naturally go toward the negative. this is taught to us even as children, and it is a habit most of us have because of repetition of these thoughts. After a few moments of talking with your old friend, you realize the person had three grown children now working in fields such as nursing, social work, and teaching. It is exciting to know this person has brought up three children who all chose careers that now help society to be a better place.

No person is perfect, we all have flaws and when we point out other people’s flaws, we are just distracting ourselves from our own. I have found jealousy will always turn into hate and low self-esteem which, often causes us to notice flaws and we tend to gossip about others in order to boost our own feelings. When you are around someone who is gossiping, it is always best to remain silent and not even nod your head in agreement, because this will only encourage this type of behavior.

A wise man once told me there is good and bad in everyone and just always try to illuminate the good. This may not be easy at times and it may take practice but it is a habit worth reaching for. Most experts agree, it takes two weeks of daily activity to form a habit, good or bad. A good exercise would be to pick the person closest to you and write down on a sheet of paper, all the things annoying you about this person. On a second sheet of paper, write all of the positive things about the person. The second part of this exercise will be much harder but really dig down deep and free-write without even thinking. Remember sitting in the church and constantly looking at that crack in the stained glass window and dwelling on the broken piece. So often, we polarize the broken parts of people and ignore or simply don’t even take the time to notice the good attributes. Remember, we are not perfect but, we should work to improve our faults; a good way to do this is to let those imperfections of our loved ones and ourselves go! Once you have completed the exercise, draw a big box around the page about the annoyances of the other person and then crinkle it up into a ball and throw it away forever! Hang onto the second part of the exercise and read it once a day for two weeks; you will see a difference in the relationship becoming healthier and a change in the way you look at everything about that person.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Pride or Ignorance?

I often hear a lot about pride. I hear “well, I have my pride so I won’t back down” or “I know I heard that person say something two houses down and I won’t put up with it!” What. Really? Two houses down? Who cares, worry about your own house! A wise man told me that you should try to keep the peace because the more you worry about what others say about you, you are only giving them more power! The more you stress about what someone else is saying, the more you are strengthening their grips over you. Don’t worry about other peoples homes, look at what’s going on in your own. The anger that you hold inside of yourself is only creating a prison in your own life, let it go and you will live more freely. I believe we need to understand what pride means before we start throwing that word around and causing problems in our own lives. Here is the Webster definition of pride; “inordinate self esteem: conceit. A reasonable or justifiable SELF RESPECT.” It is key to understand pride is about oneself, the way you feel about yourself; not petty actions by others.

I was at a Hibachi a few months back with a few friends and sitting around the table was an older couple who were a few drinks deep and I over heard the husband say to his wife that my friend and I were “fags.” I almost threw my noodles at this man who knew nothing about me but, I took a deep breath and thought “ why should I loose my delicious noodles (which I crave 24/7) and ruin a fun time out with friends whom I care about! I would only be giving him power over my emotions and therefore letting him ‘win power’ while making me the foolish one who is kicked out of a really nice place that I love to frequent. I could have easily said “well, I have my pride” but, how would my pride have been if I created a problem over foolishness? I simply ignored his ignorance and he ended up leaving shortly thereafter because his wife was embarrassed by his foolish behavior. I had some more noodles, a lot of laughs, and ended up having a really fun night!

My point here is that if you worry too much about what others think about you then you are always going to be defensive and will never enjoy what surrounds you. If you are so sensitive about foolish words, then you are actually weaker than the one who is so ignorant and insecure about themselves that they are trying to tick you off in order to feel better about themselves. Ignorance is alive and well in our world and we are surrounded by it at most times of our lives but, do we want to stoop to the ignorant persons level or are we smarter than that? Once we realize that we are not perfect we can start to understand that neither is that other person two houses down or at the hibachi but, we will be giving them power by our own foolish prides if we let their actions create our reactions! As we get older and wiser, we begin to realize that we don’t have all the answers but we can make changes in this world by making changes in our own homes and not worrying about two houses down...

Cartoons with a positive message! I do this when I am bored (wierd)

About scams...