happiness

I remember hearing the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin and feeling instantly elated. The lyrics and melody were simple but made a lot of sense to me.

If you want to increase the amount of joy in your life, it has to begin with the way you love, treat and honor yourself. If you are reaching outside of yourself for people, things, food, drugs, alcohol or jobs to be your source of joy, you will be at the mercy of circumstance. Real power comes when you realize you can feel joy for no reason at all.

The fall season is generally a time for harvesting crops. It is the time of year for seeing what has grown from the seeds that have been planted and then moving the harvest into storage for the winter. I was thinking about what I am harvesting at this time in my life, and what came is that I am harvesting a myriad of blessings.

I have a wonderful friend, Jami Lula. He is a gifted singer/songwriter, and one of his songs says, “I won’t waste one more minute of my life.” Those words moved straight to my heart and I was guided to say to myself, “Is there anywhere you are wasting time in your life?” The answer that came to me was surprising: a resounding “yes.” Indeed, I was in a holding pattern in some pretty significant areas. This revelation brought me to a deep recognition that I was stuck.

“Everything’s amazing. Nobody’s happy.” We heard this line from a comedian named Louis CK. If you get a chance, check out this clip of an appearance he made on Conan O’Brien. It is a wake up call put in a very funny package.

A therapist friend recently joked with me that everyone outside a relationship is hoping to get in one, and everyone in a relationship is either trying to change his or her partner and/or get out completely. Sex and relationships are no different from any other aspect of our lives in that it’s all about how we deal with what is presented to us. To be truly happy — and like anything else at which we want to excel — it requires practice, patience and maturity. And a lot of mistakes made as sincerely as possible.

In our society we’re very concerned about how little we care, how selfish and greedy we are. We realize that we need to care more, we need to have more compassion, we need to have more empathy, we need all that.

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Green Living

The Environmental Performance of the 15 Must-Have Christmas Gifts

There is a light white blanket on the earth this morning. Colleen was laughing at the excitement of the California kids. It is beautiful, and quite a dramatic change. All of a sudden so many different activities are possible… sledding, snowball fights, building snowmen, skiing and snowboarding. A new perspective cloaks the gray from our minds and bodies.

I am sitting on the beach in Brazil. The sun is beginning to set. The waves are crashing; no one is around me but my girlfriend and a beautiful young native man running up and down the beach. His skin is so dark it shines and his naturally muscled body moves effortlessly and confidently. I doubt he spends much time at the local gym since there is only one in town and I have only seen tourists there. He looks like it is the way he lives his life that sculpted his body. Then I realize it is the same for all of us. Our body reflects how we live our life. How do you live each day? What do you eat? How much do you sleep? How much do train your body and how much do you play?