Happiness

Grateful

by MomGrind

thank youFor my health. Because mom is right: Health is the most important thing. With ill health, it’s very difficult to enjoy life and to focus on anything other than one’s ill health.

For my husband, who is also my best friend and biggest supporter. I’m still at awe whenever I think of how we met, narrowly escaping never meeting at all. Fate? Perhaps. Luck? For sure. I’m the luckiest woman in the world to share this journey with you.

For my children, who bring me immense joy (and also angst, let’s be honest) every single day and certainly keep me on my toes and keep life interesting.
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Too Cool for Halloween?

by MomGrind

cool teenagerI’m old, I know. My opinion doesn’t really count and I “don’t get it.”

Or maybe I do.

I was a preteen once. It wasn’t 200 years ago, although admittedly it was two and a half decades ago. I then went on to being a teen. Believe it or not, we rebelled too. We too felt that our parents were clueless. We too worried about being accepted by friends and being popular (which is the word we used back then, before “cool” was invented).

But I’m older and wiser now, and even though I know you will not listen to me and will refuse to learn from my experience, I just have to say this.

Life is too short to worry about what others think about you.

And that’s why I object so strongly to the concept of being cool. Being cool, or attempting to become cool, is the very definition of allowing what others think about you to take over your life. You might secretly think Halloween is fun, you might miss the days when Halloween meant dressing up and going trick-or-treating and getting piles and piles of candy. But your cool, couldn’t-care-less, too-old-for-kids’-stuff exterior, the one you had worked so hard to build, will not allow you to admit that if it were up to you, you would be out there on the streets, dressed up, carrying a bag and going from house to house asking for candy.

Coolness makes me sad. And on Monday night, when I heard that several of the kids in our neighborhood have decided that they’re “too old for this,” even though they are really very young, I felt sad for them. For you. For all of us, who were once happy chortling kids, jumping up and down with joy at the sight of anything that made us happy (be it our parents coming back home or a pile of candy), and now must carefully hide our emotions for fear that we’d be laughed at.

Worrying so much about what others think about us? Way uncool.

Your Life, As It Is Right Now, Forever. Do You Take This Deal?

by MomGrind

happy womanEver since I can remember, I was trying to figure out if I am happy. It’s stupid, really – this insistence on determining if I am happy in general, as opposed to experiencing moments of happiness.

The older I grew, the less I preoccupied myself with the “Happiness” question, simply because I became way too busy.

Yesterday I met with a dear friend, and thanks to him, I now have the best gauge I have ever had for answering the Happiness question. That friend is unhappy with his life and feels that he needs to make changes.

As he was trying to explain how he feels, he said something that made his misery very clear. He told me, “When I look at my life now, and I try to imagine myself living the same life forever, day after day, until I die, I shudder. I can’t handle the thought that this is it – that this is as good as it gets.”

After he had left, I started thinking about my own life. I asked myself the same question that he had taught me to ask: “If this is my life from now on, if this is my reality for the rest of my life, how do I feel about it?”

My answer? I WISH this could go on forever. I’m afraid it won’t, because of aging and illness and the kids growing and detaching and leaving. But if I could somehow make a deal with someone and freeze my current life and make it last until the day I die – I would make that deal in a heartbeat.

So at least according to this “test,” I am happy.

Do you agree that this is a good way to measure happiness? Or is it simply fear of the unknown and a desire to stick with what I know?

How do you feel about the “Happiness” question? Do you think about it often? Are you too busy? Do you think it’s a waste of time and energy, or is it an important question to ask ourselves?

Why Do You Like Me?

by MomGrind

friendshipA few weeks ago, one of the people I enjoy the most on the Internet, Wesley Smith, posted a message on his Facebook Wall saying: “If you ‘like’ this status, I’ll post on your wall something that I like about you.”

And he did! He got 13 “likes” and while I’m not sure what he wrote on other people’s walls, I know what he wrote on mine: “I absolutely love your writing style, and I love that you think about things and live your life actively rather than passively. I also love that you care a lot about your kids.”

Despite thinking about myself as a little cynical, not very emotional, a person who prefers thinking to feeling, I not only blushed profusely upon reading his words, but also felt all warm and fuzzy inside – in a very, very good way.

It got me thinking, that we really don’t do this often enough – say something nice to another person – and really, when I think about it, you can find something that you like about most people, certainly about the people in your social network. Wesley obviously felt confident that he would be able to find something – at least one thing – that he likes about anyone who would “like” his post. And really, why not?

Now, this is not the type of blog that does a lot of “inspirational” stuff. I actually don’t feel very comfortable with too much warm and fuzzy, but that evening, reading Wesley’s words, I liked the warm and fuzzy, and I want more people to feel it.

Will you play a little game with me? How about each of you pick one person from your online network – a blogger, someone on Twitter or on Facebook etc., and say one thing that you like about them? Here in the comments, or on your own blog if you have a blog, or on your favorite social network if you prefer – but then come back and tell us about it. I want to read all the nice things that we have to say about each other.

I’ll start. The obvious choice would have been for me to say something nice about Wesley, but I already did that via Facebook. So I’m going to pick Jannie, and I’m going to say this:

Jannie, you are one of the warmest, most genuine people I have met online. I love that you are so real and down to earth. I love your sense of humor and the way you don’t take yourself too seriously. I also love your kindness and generosity – I still can’t believe you were willing to work so hard to improve that photo of mine.

Your turn.

Come on, people, you know you want to. ;)

Photo credit: Gunna

Work-Life Balance

by MomGrind

I found this Twitter account today when searching for accounts to follow for a client. Loved it. What a smart guy.

work life balance

 

Fat People Not Welcome

by MomGrind

beuatiful people

The dating site “Beautiful People,” where members can “guarantee their dates will always be beautiful” has recently expelled thousands of members for gaining too much weight during the holidays, explaining that “letting fatties roam the site” is against the company’s business model.

Even when taking into account this was no more than a sleazy publicity stunt, which of course worked beautifully, the very concept of sites that help members surround themselves with “good looking people” and weed out “unattractive” people from their life is fascinating.

The obvious criticism is that these are shallow people who focus on the wrong thing – on short-term physical beauty instead of on the person as a whole. But I think it’s more than that.

Who exactly decides what “attractive” is? I had a wonderful friend, who unfortunately died of cancer at a very young age (before she turned 40). She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense of the word, but she had the most amazing, lively, energetic personality and huge dark eyes. When I met her for the first time, I thought she was rather ordinary-looking, but years later, after I got to know her, I remember looking at her as she was sitting across from me talking, and becoming mesmerized by those huge, expressive, thoughtful eyes, thinking to myself she must be the most beautiful person on this planet.

Was she beautiful? would she be accepted to one of those dating sites? Likely not. But was her husband and we, her friends, incredibly lucky to have her in our lives? Of course we were. She was a beautiful person and a loyal friend. I miss her terribly.

Beauty is not just about a person’s looks or their measurements. We all have stories of people whom we considered as “plain” until we got to know them and realized they were incredibly beautiful. Anyone who intentionally limits their choice of dates or relationships to physically beautiful people deserves all the humiliation they can get.

Loved this Comment: “How sad does your life have to be that this club would be something to aspire to?” Jannie Funster

Do You Make New Year’s Resolutions?

by MomGrind

New_Years_2010

Did you know that the top New Year’s resolution for most people in the U.S, year after year, is “lose weight?”

Some people make New Year’s resolutions, other laugh at them. If you search online, you can find lots of jokes about New Year’s resolutions. But I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making them.

Critics say they’re empty and useless – that most people make them, but never follow through, which ultimately makes them feel even worse than before.

I disagree. I think that New Year’s resolutions CAN be useless and often are. I also think that when New Year’s resolutions are done in a meaningful way, they can be a wonderful self-improvement tool.

To make New Year’s resolutions that stick, I usually try to make just one resolution each year, then break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks, and follow up every couple of months to see how I’m doing. So, if my goal is to complain less, I might start with “limit my nagging and complaining to no more than once a day,” then once I accomplish that goal, move on to the next of, say, whining just once a week! (My husband must be feeling hopeful right now).

Back to the most popular New Year’s resolution of losing weight. Of course people don’t stick with it! It’s far too vague. By breaking it down into smaller chunks and focusing on just this resolution instead of on five others, you stand a much better chance of accomplishing your goal.

You could start by specifying how much exactly you want to lose (2 pounds per month or 24 pounds in 2010); decide on specific monthly goals such as limiting your soda intake or taking the stairs at work. Whatever you do, by breaking it down and focusing on just this one goal, you’re seriously increasing your chances of making it a reality.

I’m not a self-development expert and usually stay away from self-help-type posts. But this is something that has worked for me over the past few years. I hope it will work for you too.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Do you keep them?

Loved this Comment: “I think the key to sticky resolutions is having a compelling ‘why’ and an effective ‘how’ to go along with the ‘what.’” J.D. Meier, Sources of Insight.

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