“Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Who among us hasn’t heard this phrase?
Well, most of us disagree, at least a little. This is because money can seem to make us happy.
But it can also drain our life of all meaning, as we work long hours at a job we don’t like only to come home too tired to enjoy our few remaining waking hours.
Several years ago, my husband and I found a way to approach money that had a positive effect on our happiness. Now, three years later, we have become quite good at it – so I would like to share with you what has worked for us.
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JUCOAll the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.~Henry Ellis
Despite my best intentions, I’ve spent the past week looking for a fight.
It started as a small seed of frustration over a few things work-related, and passively I stood back as it bloomed into something far greater and much uglier than I ever should have allowed.
My reaction to the situations I encountered was completely off balance.
I found myself seething with anger when a well-meaning coworker took over a task clearly delegated to me. I started sobbing when a meeting that ran longer than expected left me with a $50 parking ticket.
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Vanessa PaxtonEach morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.~Groucho Marx
One day a few weeks ago, my alarm failed to wake me up, which sent me rushing around the house. My day suddenly put into fast-forward.
I decided to take one last sip of coffee before I left for a meeting and ended up spilling it all over my clothes. I changed and ran out the door only to realize later that I left my grocery list in my other pants.
This was quickly turning into “one of those days.” You know the type. Nothing seems to go right, no matter how hard you try.
And one of the hardest parts of those days, at least for me, is keeping my chin up. It’s so easy for my outlook to go south when a few chips are stacked against me. It’s like a chain reaction of mood dominoes.
I did this meditation once with a stranger at a seminar years ago, during which I found myself with tears, much like what Richard describes below. Check it out. Try it with a friend.
If you want to know God
Then turn your face toward your friend
And don’t look away.~Rumi
I sat looking directly into the young woman’s eyes.
She looked right back.
After a few minutes, tears began flowing uncontrollably down her cheeks.
We kept looking.
Twenty minutes into our gazing session, the tears stopped.
The news of the shooting that took place at a Denver Colorado movie theater shook the world. Our TSN contributor Kayla Albert happens to live a few minutes from the theater (and ironically had tickets to the midnight showing of the movie that night and ended up not going). This article was written three weeks ago on her reflections to the traumatic event. Don’t miss this article.
Love is what we were born with.
Fear is what we learned here.~Marianne Williamson
My eyes followed him as he paced back and forth from window to door and back again. He appeared agitated and on edge, and his demeanor immediately made me uneasy. I felt the pit in my stomach expand each time he passed by my table.
A few short minutes later, someone else appeared and the two sat and chatted at a nearby table. The scene I was witnessing was simply a man keeping an eye out for his late friend. Yet it sparked in me something I wasn’t used to feeling: fear.
Fear is generally not something that I grapple with – I’ve always felt that the world is filled with kind, loving people and I don’t need to be on alert every time I’m in a public place.
Then last Friday morning I awoke to the horrific scene that was unfolding at a Colorado movie theater a few short miles from my home.
Don't miss this inspiring and beautifully written article on finding inner peace through our core. Kate eloquently articulated something I’ve been feeling but haven’t quite bubbled up into words. Amazing job.
Undertaking the journey to get some ground under our feet,
is completely missing the point.~Pema Chodron
Things I have tried, in order to reach a state where my life felt like it was all put together, where it was all in order, and to never again feel bad:
Meditating
Yoga
Reading lots of spiritual books
Attending workshops
Counseling, therapy, coaching
Raw foods diets (the books always talk about feeling so “clear” and “mentally alert”)
Workshops oriented around catharsis
There are more things that I could list off, but I’ll stop there–you get the picture. All the while, I was searching for something that the searching itself was going to keep me from finding–because all the while, I was “doing stuff” in order to maintain the illusion of control.
I’ve spent the last week brooding over unexpected events that have transpired in my work and personal life, holing myself up in a darkened room contemplating all of the dire consequences these events will have on my present and future.
The same thoughts have been turning somersaults in my mind for hours on end, disrupting my sleep and pushing me to lash out when it’s entirely unnecessary and, sometimes, inappropriate.
In truth, I took situations that were completely neutral and transformed them in my mind to represent all kinds of gloom and doom. I’m beginning to see this as something I’m ridiculously good at–something I know that I need to change.
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ShannonKeep your heart open for as long as you can,
as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself.~Morrie Schwartz
I distinctly remember the time I first thought about love.
I was 5 years old. It was a bright, sunny day outside and my mother told me that she and Dad no longer loved each other; and that they wouldn’t be living together anymore. My little 5-year old world was rocked.
I remember trying to take it all in—to process it all as fast as a 5-year old brain could. Thoughts rushed through my mind one after the other. I would no longer be living with one of them and seeing them everyday.
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Vanessa PaxtonThe world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.~Helen Keller
My beautiful state, the one I’ve called home for all of my life, is burning.
Wildfires have swept through some of the most picturesque corners of Colorado, forcing thousands to take stock of their belongings, grab what matters most and flee their homes.
The destruction is heartbreaking and the enormous mass of land that’s been destroyed ensures that each person in this state is affected in some way.
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. For anyone who has attempted to write a book (or even a Blog post), you can likely relate. The emotional resistance and fear of failure is so great, it can paralyze you into taking no action.
Anyway, so everyday I forced myself to sit down at 6am, and to not get up until I had 1000 words or more written down. The writing each day wasn’t always great, in fact most of it wasn’t good and had to be removed during editing.
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Eduardo Izquierdo
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