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ORLD IDE EB
IRCLE OF RIENDS

At some point in our lives, many of us find ourselves overcome with the desire to become better people. The World Wide Web Circle of Friends' Pursuit of Excellence is an achievement challenge designed to help its members to grow, expand, and change. Accomplishing this objective requires a diligent and serious effort in all aspects of life -- intellectual, social, physical and spiritual.

Becoming a better person in your own eyes is a whole-life project, and thus you should focus your step-by-step efforts on multiple areas of your existence. Since you likely know innately which qualities you consider good, growing as an individual is simply a matter of making an effort to do good whenever possible. Respect should be a key element of your efforts. When you acknowledge that all people are deserving of compassion, consideration, and dignity, you are naturally more apt to treat them in the manner you yourself wish to be treated. You will intuitively become a more active listener, universally helpful, and truthful. Going the extra mile in all you do can also facilitate evolution. Approaching your everyday duties with an upbeat attitude and positive expectations can help you make the world a brighter, more cheerful place. Finally, coming to terms with your values and then abiding by them will enable you to introduce a new degree of integrity and dignity into your life.

Nothing is more invigorating than working hard to fulfill a noble and worthwhile purpose. The purpose of the WWWCOF Pursuit of Excellence is to be aware of who you are, to believe in yourself and to encourage you to live your life to the fullest. It's focus is to keep your attention on today and to stay in the present moment. One day at a time. It is designed to keep love and peace in your heart with goals such as:

• stop trying to avoid problems and/or being victimized by problems
• living with compassion and integrity
• being honest in every relationship
• learning new skills
• stretching your mind
• searching for good and uplifting thoughts and deeds
• realizing the importance of proper care for your body and
• learning more about yourself and the world around you.

The World Wide Web Circle of Friends' Pursuit of Excellence challenge can be accomplished by all. You have the ability to weave your life into a strong, useful and beautiful work of art. You will be amazed at what you have been missing when you take responsibility and start weaving your own individual reality. One simple question -- what makes you come alive?

Read the following carefully and be honest and soul-searching as you select your own goals.

Once you have selected your goals, commit yourself to a carefully developed plan to achieve those goals. Be diligent in following the plan. You may also find it helpful to discuss your goals, plans and progress with a couple of your understanding and trusted friends in the WWWCOF.

As you endeavor to develop yourself further, you can take pride not only in your successes, but also in the fact that you are cultivating consciousness within yourself through your choices, actions, and behaviors. Do not undertake at one time more than you can reasonably accomplish and sprinkle in some rewards. Do not agonize just trying to get through your goals. While you may never feel you have reached the pinnacles of awareness you hope to achieve, you can make the most of this creative process of transformation. To make your day more fulfilling, while still getting things done, sprinkle rewards throughout your day. For example, take 10 minutes to do something you enjoy after every single task you complete.

Personal growth,satisfaction, serenity and increased power to be of service to others are the rewards for achieving your goals through the World Wide Web Circle of Friends' Pursuit of Excellence challenge.

The challenges which follow are a beginning. They should be followed by a lifetime program of setting and achieving worthy goals. Becoming a better person is your choice and is a natural progression in your journey of self-awareness.

A great starting point to setting goals is removing chaos from your personal world and here are several suggestions on how to go about doing that.

• 1. Get rid of one thing. If the prospect of ridding your entire house of clutter seems to be am impossible feat, make it your goal to get rid of just one thing you don't need each day.
• 2. Clear the clutter out of your vehicle. Get rid of candy wrappers, soda cans, old papers, magazines and other trash on a daily basis.
• 3. Eliminate the chaos from your desk. The surface of your desk should be free of all papers and other debris to set the stage for productivity and creative thinking.
• 4. Make your bedroom a restful haven. Every morning, make your bed right after you get up. Remove the piles of paper. Clear off the dresser tops. Put any dirty clothes in the laundry room. Remove the dusty stuff stored under the bed and get rid of anything you no longer need. When you're ready to go to bed at night, you should be able to do so in a peaceful, uncluttered place.

Each member is encouraged to accept the first two challenges in each category listed below or you may choose your own challenges appropriate to each category.

Mind Stretching - Exercising Flexibility

Flexibility is the capacity to bend without breaking, as well as a continual willingness to change or be changed in order to accommodate new circumstances. People with flexible minds are open to shifting their course when necessary or useful; they are not overly attached to things going the way they had planned. This enables them to take advantage of opportunities that a more rigid person would miss out on. It can also make life a lot more fun. When we are flexible, we allow for situations we could not have planned, and so the world continues to surprise and delight us.

Since reality is in a constant state of flux, it doesn't make sense to be rigid or to cling to any one idea of what is happening or what is going to happen. We are more in tune with reality when we are flexible. Being in tune enables us to adjust to the external environment and other people as they change and grow. When we are rigid or stuck in our ways, instead of adjusting to the world around us we hunker down, clinging to a concept of reality rather than reality itself. When we do this, we cut ourselves off from life, and we miss out on valuable opportunities, as well as a lot of joy.

Just as we create flexibility in our bodies by stretching physically, we can create limberness in our minds by stretching mentally. Every day we have the opportunity to exercise our flexibility. We can do this in small ways such as taking a different route home from work or changing our exercise routine. On a larger scale, we can rearrange the furniture or redo a room in our house. If these are things we already do regularly, we can stretch our minds by imagining several different possibilities for how the next year will unfold. As we do this, our minds become more supple and open, and when changes come our way, we are able to accommodate and flow with the new reality.

• 1. Plan and undertake a reading program of uplifting, outstanding literature. The selection of books may reflect a variety of interests or may emphasize one particular theme.

  Recommended reading: The Four Agreements by author Don Miguel Ruiz.
  ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self abuse and regret.
  DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY - Nothing others do is because of you. What others do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be a victim of needless suffering.
  DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
  BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD - Speak with integrity. Say what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

• 2. Develop a new interest in any creative field (such as poetry, fiction, music, composition, art, dance, crafts, photography, drama) or in a hobby (such as coin, nature, or stamp collections; woodwork, astronomy). Emphasize involvement and participation in a area that is new to you.
• 3. Do you have an area in which you feel embarrassingly inept? Leave the pity party and go back to school. Search for a class or coach that can help you perfect your cooking, etiquette, speech, parenting skills, financial savvy, etc.
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• 1. Enlarge a talent you have already developed, such as music, painting, writing, and dance. Pursue excellence to the point of performing, exhibiting, or publishing our talent for others.
• 2. Expand your cultural appreciation by completing a one-year study program of an art form available in your area, such as operas, symphony concerts, theater, museums, ballets, and folk dancing.
• 3. Enlarge your cultural appreciation by regularly attending cultural events available in your area.
• 4. Participate in a book-review group on a regular basis. Selections may come from any literary category, including biography, dramas, fiction and poetry.
• 5. Within your own family or WWWCOF friends, participate in a structured study of other countries. Prepare and present material about different countries and cultures.
• 6. Improve your knowledge in a specific academic field, such as history, science, literature, political science, or philosophy. Where possible, attend classes or lecture series in the field you have chosen.
• 7. Develop fundamental speaking and writing skills in another language.

• 1. Establish a physical fitness program, tailored to your needs, to help you reach a higher level of health. Complete physical fitness activities regularly. Regardless of your frame or size, you will feel better about your body if you use it constructively. Take a walk, dance, ride your bike, jump rope, or swim. The more you move it, the more you’ll love it.
• 2. Establish a goal of improvement, particularly in terms of eating and sleeping habits.
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• 1. Bring your weight to an appropriate level.
• 2. Acquire greater proficiency in a specific athletic or recreational skill, such as swimming, diving, golf, tennis, basketball, bowling, skiing, skating, cricket, football, or other activities of your culture.
• 3. Acquire greater proficiency in a occupational or homemaking skill, such as carpentry, antiquing, knitting or typing.
• 4. Significantly improve your personal attractiveness through bodily health and vigor, an optimistic attitude, personal charm and friendliness, good grooming, and modesty of dress. (Consider posture, voice, and disposition.)
• 5. Participate regularly in an organized athletic or recreational sports activity.
• 6. Participate in an individual or a group activity that is new to you, such as cycling, back-packing, camping, hiking, culling, or some other physical activity appropriate in your culture.
• 7. Participate in groups organized for recreational activities. Emphasize improvement of physical proficiency through group interest and effort.

  Some interesting facts for your consideration on calories burned in 30 minutes:

  • Sleeping - 39 calories
  • Watching TV (lying down) - 39 calories
  • Reading a book (sitting up) - 43 calories
  • Making a bed - 86 calories
  • Ironing - 99 calories
  • Playing the piano - 107 calories
  • Taking a walk while pushing a stroller - 107 calories
  • Vacuuming - 107 calories
  • Jumping on a trampoline - 150 calories
  • Shooting hoops - 193 calories
  • Mowing the lawn - 193 calories
  • Mopping - 193 calories
  • Grocery shopping - 214 calories
  Note:
  • Medical consultation is recommended when a significant change in physical exertion is contemplated.
  • Handicapped persons may participate by selecting other goals within their physical capacity.
  
  If everyone would eat to live, not live to eat, we'd all be better off."
  .....(Ervin) BUB Bailey
  .....Cindy's Dad

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• 1. Make promises and commitments carefully. When you make a promise or commitment, count it as your word of honour, and act accordingly.
• 2. Seek to eliminate false pride from your character. Avoid doing or saying anything that would cause another to feel that you were haughty or disdainful.
• 3. Seek to be truthful in all you say. Avoid gossip and untruthfulness, no matter how small. Carefully consider your words to avoid hurting or offending others.
• 4. Willingly accept assignments and complete them to the best of your ability.
• 5. Give proper credit for the work of others in conversations, talks or composition.
• 6. Make and honour a resolution that you will not cheat in any way.
• 7. Set your goal to take nothing that belongs to any other person, company, or organization, no matter how small, without permission of the owner.
• 8. Cultivate friends and companions who are earnestly seeking to maintain high ideals.
• 9. Develop a love and dedication to honorable, hard work.
• 10. Be honest in all your dealings and relationships, whether in business, your neighborhood, your religious community, your family members, or those with whom you share living quarters.
• 11. Cultivate patience, tolerance, and love for family members, roommates and other associates.
• 12. Keep sacred any confidences entrusted to you.
• 13. Be courageous enough to acknowledge mistakes, to apologize when appropriate, to make things right if you have given offense.

• 1. Give special service to your own family. If you are not living at home, this service may involve roommates or friends or look upon those with whom you have the maximum frequent contacts as fitting this category. Happiness is homemade. Always endeavour to make your homes happy and pleasant places.
• 2. Give significant service to individuals or groups outside your immediate family.
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There are so many examples ..... use your imagination! However, always remember to dedicate 30 minutes each day just to You. Schedule no less than 30 minutes each day to do something you love. Keep that appointment, just as you would any other important one.

• 1. Teach an art or a skill to someone who cannot afford to pay for such training or who probably would not cultivate it without your help.
• 2. Be a special friend to one or more fatherless or motherless children and take them to worthwhile programs or activities, such as cultural or sports events, camping trips, or outings.
• 3. Assist the elderly, divorcees, those who live alone, neighbours, or others who may need help with household chores, lawn-cutting, snow shoveling, repair jobs, or yard work.
• 4. Write uplifting and encouraging letters to a friend. Continue writing even if the recipient's schedule does not permit an answer.
• 5. Assist people whose activities are restricted, such as those in nursing homes and hospitals or those who have some mental or physical handicap. Visit them, read to them or otherwise assist in any appropriate manner.
• 6. Assist a child needing help with homework, physical activity or cultural enrichment.
• 7. Give your time and physical talent to a meaningful project, serving in such positions as coach in an athletic program, youth camp program director, director of a neighbourhood sports clinic, den mother, or volunteer teacher's aide.
• 8. Participate in an effort to provide books for prisons, hospitals, convalescent homes, etc.
• 9. Visit a soup kitchen in your area and help serve a meal to the homeless people who are there to eat.

• 1. Develop your spiritual life in both inward thought and outward behaviour, through such disciplines as fasting, prayer, study, and cultivation of the awareness of the spiritual in your life.
• 2. Undertake a consistent program of serious scripture study.
• 3. Increase the power of prayer in your life.
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• 5. ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

• 1. Design and undertake a program of Spiritually enriching reading.
• 2. Develop a personal file of teaching and speaking enrichment ideas, including quotations, thoughts, anecdotes, scriptures, and inspirational experiences. Accept every opportunity to use these materials in speaking or teaching, giving appropriate credit to sources.

For anyone visiting this page that is not a WWWCOF member we extend the warmest welcome to you to join our Circle of Friends which began back in March 2001. We proudly boast that we are the most elite group of everyday people doing the most extraordinary things on an International Scale on the internet!

Membership is free, however you must agree with the following three qualifications for membership:

• You hereby agree to be prepared to meet new friends and to have lots of fun!
• You join the Circle of Friends to make friends and become a friend.
• You promise to always be sensitive to the feelings of others and to be a caring and sharing member.

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We are the Circle of Friends, made from a chain,
A chain of daisies with no end.

There's lots to do and plenty of friends to meet in the Worldwide Circle of Friends! We have people from all over the world who meet, chat and share experiences.

Find out more about us in the site, look at the Message Board and then be sure to join in!

“A ball is a circle. No beginning, no end.
It keeps us together, like our Circle of Friends;
but, the treasure inside, for you to see
is the treasure of friendship you've granted to me.

Today I pass the friendship ball to you. Pass it on to someone who is a friend to you.”

A warm welcome from Sharon,
founder of the Worldwide Circle of Friends

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