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I have a great vision of my life and I passionately work on actively creating my life.

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss.
The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert.
The leader leads, and the boss drives.”

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Pastore

1. Ebooks promote reading. People are spending more time in front of screens and less time in front of printed books.

2. Ebooks are good for the environment. Ebooks save trees. Ebooks eliminate the need for filling up landfills with old books. Ebooks save transportation costs and the pollution associated with shipping books across the country and the world.

3. Ebooks preserve books. (The library of Alexandria was burned and the collection ruined. Richard Burton’s wife, after his death and against his wishes, destroyed a book he had been working on for ten years. The original manuscript of Carlyle’s The French Revolution was lost when a friend’s servant tossed it into the fire.) Ebooks are ageless: they do not burn, mildew, crumble, rot, or fall apart. Ebooks ensure that literature will endure.

4. Ebooks, faster to produce than paper books, allow readers to read books about current issues and events.

5. Ebooks are easily updateable, for correcting errors and adding information.

6. Ebooks are searchable. Quickly you can find anything inside the book. Ebooks are globally searchable: you can find information in many ebooks.

7. Ebooks are portable. You can carry an entire library on one DVD.

8. Ebooks (in the form of digital audio books) free you to do other activities while you are listening.

9. Ebooks can be printable: and thereby give a reader most or all of the advantages of a paper-based book.

10. Ebooks defy time: they can be delivered almost instantly. Ebooks are transported to you faster than overnight shipping: in minutes or in seconds.

11. Ebooks defy space: ebooks online can be read simultaneously by thousands of people at once.

12. Ebooks are cheaper to produce. Thus, small presses can attempt to compete with media giants.

13. Ebooks are cheaper to buy.

14. Ebooks are free. The magnificent work of Project Gutenberg, and other online public libraries, allow readers to read the classics at no cost.

15. Ebooks can be annotated without harming the original work.

16. Ebooks make reading accessible to persons with disabilities. Text can be re-sized for the visually impaired. Screens can be lit for reading in the dark.

17. Ebooks can be hyper-linked, for easier access to additional information.

18. Ebooks — with additional software and hardware — can read aloud to you.

19. Ebooks let you tweak the style. Many ebooks allow readers to change the font style, font size, page size, margin size, colors, and more.

20. Ebooks may allow the option for the addition of multimedia: still images, moving images, and sound.

21. Ebooks, with their capacity for storage, encourage the publishing of books with many pages, books that might be too expensive to produce (and purchase) in paperback.

22. Ebooks — without outrageous DRM schemes — are made for sharing. Ebooks can be quickly duplicated, and then distributed to strangers or given to your friends. Worry no more about your loaned books that will never be returned.

23. Ebooks empower individuals to write and to publish, and in this way help to challenge “the crushing power of big publishing”, that excludes so many authors from the New York City publishing circus. Publishing can move from the impersonal and profitable, to the personal and pleasurable.

24. Ebooks — thanks to the simplicity and speed of publication and feedback — allow authors to experiment in many themes and styles.

25. Ebooks posted online encourage comments, corrections, and feedback — which eliminates mistakes and improves accuracy — especially important when dealing with scientific and technological issues.

26. Ebooks allow publishers to publish (and readers to read) works by a larger number of authors, and works on a wider variety of topics. Critics of traditional book publishing (such as Jason Epstein and Andre Schriffin) state that economic pressures have reduced and limited the number of authors and topics that traditional publishers will now produce.

27. Ebooks defeat attempts at censorship. All these works were banned: Analects by Confucius. Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Ars Amorata by Ovid. Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio by John Milton. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. Wonder Stories by H.C. Andersen. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Ulysses by James Joyce. … Many of these books were confiscated, burned, or denied availability in libraries, bookstores and schools. Ebooks guarantee that readers maintain their right to read.

28. Ebooks help paperbook publishers to sell paperbooks. Cory Doctorow has explained that the giving away of ebooks, for free, has helped to sell the paperback editions of his stories and novels.

29. Ebooks are evolving. As technology develops, ebooks may contain new features. For example, a book of recipes may contain a recipe calculator to figure how much maple syrup is needed to bake 200 cookies. An ebook that prepares you for the GRE could include an interactive test. An ebook about politics might allow you to click a link and register to vote, or send an email to a Congressman that tells him he is not a good environmental steward.

30. Ebooks are good for paperbook publishing. By setting an example for diversity and freedom of expression, ebooks may motivate the stagnant book publishing industry towards the renewal of small presses, the end of the blockbuster-bestseller publishing mentality, and a healthier balance between the needs of commerce and culture.

http://epublishersweekly.blogspot.com/2008/02/30-benefits-of-ebooks.html

I believe in a true purpose for the life I was given.

Here is an excerpt from the Boy Scouts of America 1911 Handbook

Scout Virtues, Pg 8-10.
There are other things which a scout ought to know and which should be characteristic of him, if he is going to be the kind of scout for which the Boy scouts of America stand. One of these is obedience. To be a good scout a boy must learn to obey the orders of his patrol leader, scout master, and scout commissioner. He must learn to obey, before he is able to command. He should so learn to discipline and control himself that he will have no thought but to obey the orders of his officer.
He should keep such a strong grip on his own life that he will not allow himself to do anything which is ignoble, or which will harm his life or weaken his powers of endurance.
Another virtue of a scout is that of courtesy. A boy scout ought to have a command of polite language. He ought to show that he is a true gentleman by doing little things for others. Loyalty is also a scout virtue. A scout out to be loyal to all to whom he has obligations. He ought to stand up courageously for the truth, for his parents and friends.
Another Scout virtue is self-respect. He ought to refuse to accept gratuities from any one, unless absolutely necessary. He ought to work for the money he gets.
For this same reason he should never look down upon any one who may be poorer than himself, or envy any one richer than himself. A scout’s self-respect will cause him to value his own standing and make him sympathetic toward others who may be, on one hand, worse off, or, on the other hand, better off as far as wealth is concerned. Scouts know neither a lower nor a higher class, for a scout is one who is a comrade to all and who is ready to share that which he has with others.
The most important scout virtue is that of honor. Indeed, this is the basis of all scout virtues and is closely allied to that of self-respect. When a scout promises to do a thing on his honor, he is bound to do it. The honor of a scout will not permit of anything but the highest and the best and the manliest. The honor of a scout is a sacred thing, and cannot be lightly set aside or trampled on.
Faithfulness to duty is another one of the scout virtues. When it is a scouts duty to do something, he dare not shirk. A scout is faithful to his own interest and the interests of others. He is true to his country and his God.
Another scout virtue is cheerfulness. As a the scout law intimates, he must never go about with a sulky air. He must always be bright and smiling, and as the humorist says, “Must always see the doughnut and not the hole.” A bright face and a cheery word spread like sunshine from one to another. It is the scout’s duty to be a sunshine-maker in the world.
Another scout virtue is that of thoughtfulness, especially to animals; not merely the thoughtfulness that eases a horse from the pain of a badly fitting harness or gives food and drink to an animal that is in need, but also that which keeps a boy from throwing a stone at a cat or or tying a tin can on a dogs tail. If a boy scout does not prove his thoughtfulness and friendship for animals, it is quite certain that he never will be really helpful to his comrades or to the men, women, and children who may need his care.
And then the final and chief test of the scout is the doing of a good turn to somebody every day, quietly and without boasting. This is the proof of the scout. It is practical religion, and a boy honors God best when he helps others most. A boy may wear all the scout uniforms made, all the scout badges ever manufactured, know all the woodcraft, camp craft, scoutcraft and other activities of boy scouts, and yet never be a real boy scout. To be a real boy scout means the doing of a good turn every day with the proper motive and if this be done, the boy has a right to be classed with the great scouts that have been of such service to to their country.
To accomplish this, a scout should observe the scout law.
Every boy ought to commit to memory the following abbreviated form of the scout law.
1. A scout is trustworthy.
2. A scout is loyal.
3. A scout is helpful.
4. A scout is friendly.
5. A scout is courteous.
6. A scout is kind.
7. A scout is obedient.
8. A scout is cheerful.
9. A scout is thrifty.
10. A scout is brave.
11. A scout is clean.
12.A scout is reverent.

I came across the learning principles of William Glasser, M.D – a psychiatrist who wrote many papers on improving the U.S. school system and was an advocate of non-medical treatments to mental disorders. He said:

“We Learn . . .
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss
80% of what we experience
95% of what we teach others.”

When that little voice inside your head won’t go away, you need to listen and understand you have other issues you need to address. Those little voices if ignored will become powerful voices that will not be contained, and will show up as non-verbal actions of resentment, then gossip or sarcasm.