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About Vern Lovic…

Vern grew up in a one-parent household in a small western Pennsylvania town. He played soccer for school and club teams for twelve years culminating in winning the 1984 State Soccer Championship.

Short vacations to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Ocean City, Maryland when he was 16 yrs old impressed upon him the need to get away from Western PA. and see the rest of the USA. A prime consideration was being close to the ocean for the rest of his life.

Feeling an intense desire to get out on his own and begin life in his own way he ignored a scholarship from a small soccer school and acceptance to Penn State’s Engineering Program to join the Air Force after graduating high school. Vern never studied in high school and couldn’t imagine wasting four years of his parents money and loans to get a degree in something like engineering. The Air Force told him he could choose any job he liked. He chose an administrative position working with computer terminals (dummy terminals) because he thought computers were where the country was going. After technical school he was stationed at perhaps the best military base on the entire planet, Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Vern went from an avid television sports spectator to someone that couldn’t stand to be indoors when the beauty of Hawaii surrounded him.

Vern moved to New York City after meeting a born again Christian Canadian super-model and marrying on Oahu. Zoli modeling agency provided a place to live in Manhattan’s upper West side and Vern began a passionate interest in photography. While Vern’s wife frolicked all over the planet shooting magazine covers and being romanced by photographers, art directors and other models Vern befriended Ted Leyson, famous NYC paparazzi photographer and they spent thousands of hours walking around the city taking photos of celebrities, documenting the homeless and experiencing life. New York taught Vern a lot. He worked with photographers and art directors with cocaine addiction… took nude photos of some of the most beautiful girls on the planet… Talked to Woody Allen, John F. Kennedy, Jr (John-John), Kyra Sedgewick, Mayor Koch and many other people known worldwide. There were incredible times and horrible times. After 3 years he found out his wife had cheated on him with a French photographer and the marriage ended. Vern knew he needed to find the beach again.

A three month trip to Miami, Florida showed him that he could live there for a while and attend college. Initially he was aiming for Physical Therapy but then decided he wasn’t ready to study yet and he settled for a bachelors in Psychology instead. Then a masters in a counseling psychology program. During his school years Vern worked as a counselor for many people with severe to marked mental disabilities. His favorite ‘job’ was as a respite worker with two boys that had been physically and sexually abused by their step fathers. Vern spent over two years acting as a role model for the boys and trying to show them that decent men exist in the world. This experience was one of the most personally rewarding he’s ever had.

Vern grew up in a Catholic household that turned to a “born again Christian” household by the time he was in his teens. Vern questioned many things about the churches that didn’t make logical sense to him and at 17 years he cut ties with the church. Upon meeting his born again wife he started reading the bible and praying daily. His wife spoke in tongues at one point - throwing Vern for a loop. Vern read the bible through a couple times in it’s entirety and enjoyed it, but it didn’t seem to make any logical sense at all to him. When the marriage failed so did Vern’s Bible study and nightly prayers.

Vern’s real pursuit of personal growth and development began in 1991 with a university class called, “World Religion 101″. He began a search for truth about life and began reading and listening to everything he could get his hands on by Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. He attended Buddhist, Sufi, and Hare Krishna group meetings for the experience and found them none-too exciting.

In 1997 Vern began meditating in Vipassana style, flying blind without a teacher or friends that meditated. His experiences during this time were other worldly and awesome to the most unimaginable degree. He stopped cold after not being able to find ANYONE that could help him understand what the experiences were. Having a master’s in psych made him question whether he was sane - were the experiences normal? Nobody among his friends or teachers understood them. A call to an American monk who lived at a temple for 19 years in Thailand told him in 2004 that the experiences were advanced meditative states called “Jhanas”. Apparently Vern had gone through the material Jhanas 1-4 and the immaterial Jhanas 1-4.

Vern moved to Thailand to escape the pressure cooker of the USA and found a home in the northeast, Isaan region where he met a wonderful girl. They live a simple life in Thailand, existing on very little and being immensely happy as a result. Recently he began meditating again, detailing some of the experiences at http://seemlessness.thaipulse.com.

In Thailand Vern taught English for a couple years to Thai children and then in a bold move decided to make blogging his only ‘job’. He maintains a number of web sites and blogs but Aim for Awesome is his number one priority and the one that he enjoys contributing to the most.

Vern is passionate about sharing his life experience with anyone that chooses to improve themselves. Main topics of this blog are:

Life philosophy.
Reality based living.
Raising consciousness.
Psychology.
Meditation.
Life tips & Skills.
Challenging unquestioned beliefs.
Exercise & Flow
Mind: mental mastery, thoughts, motivation, processes.
Happiness.
Living with less.
Big picture view.
Increasing “Worldview”.
What is the point of life?
Relationships.
Private logic.

This site has won small blogging awards and had blog posts reprinted on many other blogs. Vern has written over 100 personal development articles and created e-books about meditation and other topics. Plans are to keep churning out the content as he has a lot to say. This site and downloads will always remain free for readers.

If you enjoy reading the articles why not grab the RSS feed (what is RSS feed?) so you don’t miss the latest articles and e-books.

Vern strives: