The four essentials:

1. Move Naturally – Make your home, community and workplace present you with natural ways to move. Focus on activities you love, like gardening, walking and playing with your family.

2. Right Outlook – Know and be able to articulate your sense of purpose, and ensure your day is punctuated with periods of calm.

3. Eat Wisely – Instead of groping from fad diet to fad diets, use time-honored strategies for eating 20% less at meals. Avoid meat and processed food and drink a couple of glasses of wine daily.

4. Belong to the Right Tribe – Surround yourself with the right people, make the effort to connect or reconnect with your religion and put loved ones first.

More info at Blue Zones.

I feel I should correct the one-sided ending of the previous post…

The process of individuation, of becoming more fully, deeply, richly human, of bringing the soul into this life, and of awakening as what we already are, it is not really one that is likely to make us lonely, not even in a conventional way. In becoming more fully human, we also become more mature and more deeply ordinary. And this is exactly what most of us are looking for in our friends. If anything, it makes for easier, deeper, richer friendships, and more numerous as well if we are looking for that.

The process only becomes an obstacle if abstractions becomes more important than the lived life, if there are still strong shadows there, a strong belief in certain ideas, a strong attachment to certain identities and images. And if these are present, then it is only natural that others will shy away from it. It is valuable feedback to ourselves.