Choosing Health, Wealth and Happiness
I was spending a few minutes on Facebook recently and a friend had posted something about a cardinal spending a lot of time in his yard. He felt it was a visit from his mother who had passed away several months ago. I had never heard of this before so I did what any curious person would do, I promptly forgot about it and went about my day.
My sister (child#1, daughter #1) commented to me the other day that my blog was starting to sound like a self-help book. I took this as a compliment! I used to scorn self-help books, thinking they were just for people who, well needed help. Then I hit a point in my life where I needed help and I turned to the library and a whole shelf of books that offered help. I wanted a change in my life but I didn’t know what to change or how to change, or how I would handle change.
I lot of books offered the same type of advice that sounded a bit like this. Figure out what makes you happy and do more of that. Pretty basic, simple advice that certainly doesn’t sound like rocket science but it pretty powerful all the same. A lot of these books also say follow your passion but I didn’t know what I was passionate about. So I focused on what made me happy. Continue reading “Do What Makes You Happy”
We all have really awesome, amazing days where everything goes according to plan. We check off all of the important items on our to do list, we make the phone calls we have been putting off, we remember it is our turn to cook dinner. We all also have those days where everything we touch seems to break, everything we say seems to hurt feelings, everything we do seems to go wrong. We are all human and this is just part of the human experience.
I have met people throughout my life who take personal responsibility only on those days that go well. They accept credit for the success, they proudly smile and nod their heads at the acknowledgment of a job well 
done. However when it comes to taking responsibility for those bad days where everything goes wrong, they are nowhere to be found. They have excusitis. “It is not my fault”, I’m not the one you are looking for”, “I wasn’t here”, “blame so and so”, “I did my part”. I first came across the term “excusitis” in a book called The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. Don’t you think it is a great word? Continue reading “No Excuses”
My life used to be much more complicated than it is now. I used to commute 40 miles to work on congested Massachusetts highways, spending up to 1 ½ hours in the car each way. That is 15 hours per week sitting in the car. I had a stressful job, working on average 45 hours per week for a company that always seemed to be putting out fires instead of accomplishing anything. I had to travel an hour to visit my close friends and 7 hours to spend time with my family. Life was tough. Continue reading “Simple Pleasures”
Why do people allow themselves to get stuck in a rut? Why do people remain in that rut doing the same thing, day in and day out despite knowing they are adding to their unhappiness. Why do they ignore the life-preserver that is being thrown to them that can open the door to health, wealth and happiness? When given suggestions on small steps they can take to make life better, they think – yes that is a good idea but I don’t have the time or the energy to do that. Or, that might work for someone who doesn’t have kids or doesn’t work killer hours or doesn’t have debt up to their eyeballs. Continue reading “2 Life-Preservers”
A few weeks ago I posted Money Lessons From Mother Fran and that got me thinking how much of my personality and how I approach life is rooted in lessons I learned as a kid. My parents grew up during the depression and saving, scrimping, re-using, and repurposing are second nature to them. I know I inherited this mindset as did my siblings although we don’t all apply the lessons in the same way. Continue reading “Mother Fran’s Tips to Stretch The Food Budget”