Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation.

Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates

Where do you find happiness?

For far too long I’ve looked, occasionally finding it, but often lost in the perpetual search.

Like the song, Looking for love in all the wrong places, my search for happiness had me searching for a place, a thing, a possession, an object, a job that would make me happy. Once I found these things, my happiness slowely waned.

I’ve come to realize it was the journey, not the goal, that makes one happy. The wanting of something, and the search to get it can be more fulfilling than having it.

Too many people never search for happiness. They are trapped in the cycle of simple EXISTENCE. The same cycle I have been trapped in for so long.

Far, far, to long I simply went from work to home to work to home, completely missing the point of living: to LIVE. To EXPERIENCE.

I agree with tealtan at Walking Through Glass when he says “…it’s annoying to see people whose PENTULTIMATE GOAL IN LIFE is to lead “as normal a life as possible”.”

Normalcy is not living. Normal is that boring sidewalk that leads, not to where to want to go, but the path that convinces you: This is where you need to be.

To fight normality and find happiness requires you to step off that path. To politely ignore when your friends and family tell you to get back on the path like everyone else. It requires risk! For only those who take risks “… shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

• Carpe Diem – sieze the day. The only thing in life you can be absolutely certain of, is that it will end. Use this day to LIVE.
• Make a list those things you want to accomplish. Then start checking them off. Don’t be afraid to add to it or delete from it when needed, but always strive to have a list of accomplishments that you can look back on one day and say “This was my life”.
• Forget petty differences. You are who you are and so is the guy next to you. Forget the little things that set you apart from him. Hold out your hand, introduce yourself and learn his story. Build a friendship with a great many people.
• Do you have a purpose? If not, find it. (A topic for another post). Do that which you where meant to do.
• Live with the end in mind. No one wants to think about their final journey being a six foot drop in a wooden box. Instead of ignoring it, accept it. We each have only a limited number of hours. How many of them do you want to waste waiting for the end. USE THEM!

The field of existentialism says your life is the way it is because of the choices you have made. The movie and book, “The Secret” says the same thing: You have made choices that led you to the life you are living.

In other words, your internal pattern of thinking, your core beliefs, caused you to create your lifestyle.

Here’s an example: Pretend its your birthday. Pretend someone has given you a very, very, VERY expensive gift. The gift costs $500,000. What is your first reaction? Are you thankful? Do you happily accept it? Are you embarrassed? Are you ashamed? Do you try to give it back to the giver? Do you think you are not worthy of it? Picture it in your mind and really try to feel how you would react.

How did you do? If you reacted any other way than being thankful and happily accepting it, then you have shown that one of your core beliefs is that you were not worthy of that expensive gift. It shows deep down you don’t think you deserve the good things life has to offer. Even though you may consciously say you want money or good things or a better life, your subconscious does it’s best to thwart those things from coming into your life.

Some would say it’s not the subconscious, but the Law of Attraction, or Infinite Intelligence, or the Law of the Universe, or even God. What you call it is unimportant. The fact remains that there is SOMETHING that causes your core beliefs to affect your reality. I prefer to think of it as the subconscious mind, rather than an invisible FORCE that just makes things happen.

Many of us need to change our core beliefs and expectations of the world around us. We need a Life Makeover. This can be done is several steps:1. Identification – Identify what you want in life. Do you want money, a better job, a mate, a life of travel and adventure? Identify what you want and write it down.

2. Visualize – Visualize yourself having or doing that thing you identified. If it’s money, then SEE yourself with money. Visualize how your life would be different if you had money. If it’s doing something like traveling the world, then visualize yourself at the world’s most remote lands. See yourself visiting the wonders of the world.

3. Affirm it – Tell yourself you have these things. Don’t tell yourself you want them, tell yourself you already have them. They are yours. Look in the mirror while you are visualizing yourself driving an expensive car, and tell yourself, “that’s my car. It’s mine. I am driving that car as soon as I go outside.” Create an affirmation tailored to your desires and visualizations.

4. Be Aware – Notice what is going on around you. Be aware of how you feel and think throughout the day to identify those little things you are doing that keeps you from getting the things you want. In the expensive gift example from earlier, if you were embarrassed, then notice your embarrassment and use your affimations to change that core beliefe.

5. Take action – This is the most important step. DO SOMETHING! Do something to make your desires come true. Otherwise it’s only wishful thinking. If what you want is a better job, then go get that better job! It won’t fall in your lap. You have to go out and get it. Visualize it. Affirm that it is yours. Take action to get it.

Conducting a life makeover is not an overnight process. It is a process you must conduct every day.

By the way, please check out the 6-Week Extreme Life Makeover for more tips on this subject.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain-

When I read that, I thought to myself how well that statement goes with what I wrote yesterday.

Already I am disappointed with what I haven’t done. Why haven’t I traveled more? Why haven’t I seen more sights? Why haven’t I invested in business?

I’ve made my decision. Have you made yours?

1. Find out what you really want to do.
For the moment, forget about money and a job. If income was not a factor, what would you want to do? Make a list of all the things you would want to do with your time. Mark them in order of importance and desire.

2. Choose the top item. What is stopping you from doing that?

For example, if your top item is to live in Europe, why not start packing your bags and move to Europe? Granted, there are road blocks like a work permit. So get started on it. If it takes a year to get a work permit to work in Europe, then use that year to save for the trip, plan where you will live, what you will do. Maybe find a way to work online.

3. Take action. Or as Nike likes to say, Just Do It.
At this point, your plans are just wishful thinking. You must take action to make them a reality.

Which one are you?

For a long time, I never saw the roses, the garden, the trees… I was stuck in a rut. Now, I am trying to live consciously.

Whether you know it or not, we are all traveling to the same destination: a six-foot drop in a wooden box.  I am in no hurry to race to THAT finish line.

Life is about enjoying the Journey. It’s not a race to the finish line.