Pluto Blog

Most of us are fortunate enough to live in places where we’re free to choose how we live. What we think, what we do for a living, how we spend our time – for the most part, we choose all of those for ourselves.
“Independence” can refer to so many things. When we talk about our prosperity, what do we want to be independent of? From what must we declare our freedom?
Here’s a big one: independence from the limitations of the opinions of others. Many of us feel the conscious or unconscious need to live up – or down – to the expectations of others.
We’re playing roles in our families that we’re reluctant to break out of. Maybe our parents set parameters for our lives – big ones or small ones – and we’re afraid to burst through those boundaries and “disappoint” them.
We’re uncomfortable if we rise above our current peer group. That’s not just because we want to fit in, but also because our peers make us feel uncomfortable if we don’t. Many of the people who are in the same situation we are don’t want us to break out of it. If we do, it reminds them that they could too, if they wanted to. But they haven’t made the decision to do what it would take, and that’s not a good feeling. Even if they don’t actively hold us back, they don’t encourage us to break the mold.
I’ve heard it said that where you’ll be in five years can be predicted by looking at the five people you spend most of your time with. Why would that be? Because that’s the mindset you build around yourself. That’s the energy you spend your time in. If you consistently surround yourself with people in the same circumstances you’re in, you’re not in an environment that will help you generate new ideas that would move you beyond. And if you do come up with these ideas, you’re not supported in developing and pursuing them.
In his highly motivating book “Prosperity”, Charles Fillmore writes:
There is a great similarity in the homes of nearly all people who have about the same-sized incomes…But here and there are exceptions. Someone is expressing his or her individuality…This free, independent spirit has much in its favor in making a prosperity demonstration. The delusion that it is necessary to be just like other people are or to have as much as other people have causes a spirit of anxiety that hinders the exercise of faith in demonstration.
We all know to fight the tendency to envy what our neighbors have. Here we call it “keeping up with the Joneses” – that feeling that if the Jones family down the street got a new big-screen television set, we should get one too. But what about the urge to keep “down” with the Joneses? Is your circle of acquaintances subtly keeping you from looking ahead and thinking bigger? Are you choosing to let them? That’s not to say you need to give up your friends. But you can be open to more than what they see.
We’re lucky enough to live in societies that allow us our choices. What a waste it would be to not give ourselves the chance to exercise them.

I have had many confidence issues in my life, all of which I have either dealt with or overcome. I have written about some of these issues below.
1. The Bald Patch
2. My height
3. My weight
4. The stutter
5. My lack of belief in myself
6. My career
THE BALD PATCH
Even though to some people it may seem trivial, I was born with a bald patch the size of a ten pence piece. As I went through childhood and especially the teenage years I became more and more self-conscious and paranoid about it.
It was especially noticeable when it rained or when I went swimming as my hair would become wet. People at school would ridicule me and I was forever trying to hide and cover the bald patch even though most people knew about it.
It hurt when people laughed at me and eventually I stopped going swimming altogether.
MY HEIGHT
Out of all of my close male family and friends, I am the shortest at 5ft 4. This probably should not influence my confidence however with people continually looking down on me it did. I have been called many names, the nicest being “Shorty”.
I was always jealous of other people taller than I was. I hoped that one day I might have a late spurt. This never came.
My height affected me with sport. I wanted to be a striker at football however the coaches only wanted people over 6ft tall. At snooker I am constantly have to use the rest which makes it difficult to play up to the best standard and at tennis I was constantly being lobbed.
It also meant that I only felt comfortable dating women 5ft 3 and under which reduces the available market considerably.
MY WEIGHT
During senior school I was very thin. This may have been the result of my parents turning vegetarian when I was twelve. At the time there were very few replacement foods and it seemed as though we went from having meat and two veg to just two veg.
As my parents cooked the food I had little option but to also turn vegetarian. After a few weeks I approached them and told them that I missed and wanted to eat meat. They were understanding to a degree and said:
“If you want it, you cook it”
At this age I could only really be bothered to cook properly a few days of the week and that gradually became less and less.
People at school would call me names like skin and bone and my weight became another area of paranoia for me.
THE STUTTER
At the age of four I developed a stutter. This became gradually worse as I became older even though my parents were told that I would grow out of it.
For what fluent people would class as simple tasks like reading from a book at school, answering questions, saying my name and address, ordering items at the bar or in a restaurant, and speaking on the telephone became a constant battle.
It was a very frustrating impediment, as I seemed to be able to talk quite fluently to people I knew well and whom I felt comfortable with, but at other times especially under any form of pressure could not say a word.
At the age of twenty two after about eleven months of sheer hard work and practice I managed to overcome the stutter and I now help other people who stutter to achieve fluency as well as helping people with confidence problems.
For more information about how I overcame the stutter please refer to http://www.stammering-stuttering.co.uk or contact me for an information pack.
MY LACK OF BELIEF
I always had a lack of belief in certain areas.
I would notice a female in a bar for example and would want to go over and talk to her but would have the negative attitude of I’m not good enough, why would she be interested in me? I stutter, I have a bald patch, I have a menial job and I am very thin.
Even if I approach her and am successful, I would then be expected to buy her a drink, possibly phone her, possibly meet her parents, and maybe even get married! The thought of attempting these things with a stutter and with a lack of social confidence was far too daunting for me.
I left school at sixteen mainly due to a lack of confidence and the stutter, but then had the problem of finding a job. Again my lack of belief came shining through. Who would want to employ somebody with a stutter, who has a lack of confidence and who is shy around people?
MY CAREER
After leaving school at the age of sixteen I now had to find employment. Suffering with a stutter and a general lack of confidence meant that work involving the phone or regular interaction with other people were not really an option.
I decided that I could probably cope with filing duties in an office and eventually gained a position at an insurance company.
I started at the lowest grade, a grade two and the work was routine and mundane. The average time to stay at this level before being promoted was six months. The grade three post involved sharing a phone and this is something I found very difficult to use.
To become upgraded you had to apply in writing to the personal officer and then if you passed the interview were then promoted. My attitude was that if I don’t apply I would stay as a grade two, which is what I wanted. I was probably the only person in the country who did not want to be promoted.
My boss would ask me at regular intervals why I was not applying and I would make up an excuse. To keep him happy I took the insurance exams.
After three years I had completed the first qualification which was a set of five exams. To my horror my boss congratulated me by stating that he was upgrading me to a grade three starting Monday without the need of an interview.
This promotion should in effect have given me a confidence boost however with my stutter out of control under the pressure and some of my colleagues mocking me I became more and more withdrawn and depressed.
I would be invited to social events and would make up excuses of why I could not go as I had a lack of belief that I could cope with the occasion and all the socialising involved.

OK, so here we are. We've switched the calendars out and made our resolutions. Now it's time to set about the process of making those changes we've resolved to make. You haven't forgotten already have you?
I heard you say this year I'm going to... stop smoking, exercise more, take a few night classes, start saving for retirement, eat healthier, cut my alcohol intake by 50%, get more rest and on and on and on. Choices to change. I applaud you for living consciously enough to even realize that some changes might be good.
Unfortunately there are those who don't dare think that on any given day, we can in any way we choose change anything or everything about ourselves and thus our lives. It seems we've somehow been coerced into believing major portions of the course of our lives are set in stone and are therefore unchangeable.
This of course could not be further from the truth.
On any day we wish we can open a new book for reading or start writing a new and exciting chapter of our own, in our own. We can stretch ourselves to meet new challenges, or we can choose to shrink away from them. At will we can turn old friends new again, and new friends old. We can move up, or we can move on. The choices that we can and must make are essentially endless.
What we must not loose sight of is that these things are in fact CHOICES. And even more importantly we must realize it's through these choices that our history is being continually written.
We also of course have the choice and option of exercising our choice not to choose. I call this the choice of mediocrity. This tag because not to choose is still a choice made. It's just allowing the choice to be made for you rather than by you. A very mediocre way to live. It's choosing to pretend to be alive rather than going ahead and doing it. I can't imagine though why someone would CHOOSE mediocrity. I Guess it's a comfort thing? I mean what the heck, we're here anyway. May as well do the thing. Right?
Anyway, not to get sidetracked...
If things aren't the way you want them to be the first thing you must do is choose to do something different from what you're currently doing. My personal philosophy on this one is if things aren't working, ANY other course of action is better. Figuring it's already not working so I can't break it. It's already broken.
We have both the ability and the responsibility to make conscious decisions and choices. What I'm suggesting is that you resolve to be the driver in your life rather than a passenger. You wouldn't set the cruise control on your car and just let it take you where ever it ends up would you? Don't do it with your life.
We must not allow errors in judgment to be repeated every day. If you want things to be different at some point you must resolve to do soing their lives and their lungs in jeopardy.
Chlorine fumes corrupt the air quality of a home simply by remaining a part of that home’s water. Chlorine escapes into the air each time the dishwasher is used or a toilet is flushed. The shower, also, is one of the biggest culprits in the corruption of air quality. Because chlorine vaporizes at a much lower temperature and faster rate than ordinary water, more than 85% of the chlorine in showering water will translate into chlorine fumes that can be inhaled in the shower stall. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that breathing in chlorine fumes in a shower stall or in the home environment will cause instant death or immediate, severe damage to the lungs. However, chlorine fumes can slowly begin to damage the delicate tissue of the lungs, causing or aggravating such diseases as asthma and bronchitis.
The Water Filter Solution
As stated above, the solution to the problem of chlorinated water will not likely occur on a municipal scale. The threat of waterborne diseases and other contaminants is simply too high for any responsible public official to abandon drinking water chlorination (at least as long as no other feasible option exists). The solution to this problem lies on an individual-by-individual, home-by-home basis.
The newest and most innovative method of reducing the risk of chlorinated water lies in home water filtration. Chlorine is the most dangerous and insidious contaminant of municipally treated water, and drinking water filters and whole house water filters are two of the only methods of water purification that are capable of removing chlorine.
An individual cannot always rely upon city officials to protect him and his family from all dangers. It is the responsibility of the private citizen to protect himself when he can. Facing the dangers of chlorine, a home water filter is simply the best and most effective means of individual protection and prevention.