Enjoy Monday

If you go into your work week feeling like a slave, you will continue to feel like a slave.
If you go into your work week grateful that you have a job, you will realize your value and may even start to enjoy what you do. When this happens, your whole life changes. You find new ways to do it faster, smarter and more efficiently, and work days actually become easier. At that point, you may really enjoy your work! Everything starts with your attitude. The better your attitude, the better your life!

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Take a break from pain.

Physical pain is your body’s way of telling you not to do what you were doing.

People tend to think that the brain is the person but we are far more. The sick feeling you get in your stomach when you see a car accident, and the chills that run up your spine when you read a really good novel are indicators that your body is part of the process. You can think of your body and mind as partners but they are one complicated being. When one hurts, so does the other.

When you are in pain, your mind’s stress level goes up. To function better, when your feet hurt, sit down. When your wrists hurt, stop typing. If you can’t sit down, take breaks, if you can’t stop typing get an ergonomic wrist pad.

If the pain doesn’t go away after rest, seek help!

This goes for your mind as well.

When you are world weary, you get headaches or an upset stomach. To function better, get away from your routine for a few days.If you can’t get away, take breaks in nature or art galleries to sooth your mind, if you can’t take a break from a friend or spouse, ask for some ‘silent time’.

Emotional pain is also your body’s way of telling you not to do what you were doing!

Living in pain is not an option. If you can’t change things, seek help!

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When you break a promise to a child, you immediately see the results: tears,tantrums and sad eyes that will break your heart. Don’t break promises to children. It’s never a good idea. Don’t do it.

There is another person you should never break a promise to and you see that person every morning when you brush your teeth.

When you plan to do something and don’t follow through for a bad reason, the reaction in your soul is much the same as it is with a child. You feel lousy. Subsequently you interact with others in a lousy way.

Want to change that? Think of something you have promised yourself you would do and do it even if that something is as simple as donating to a charity, or taking your kid to a ballgame.

Each time you keep a promise to yourself, you build your potential and your confidence, just as each time you keep a promise to a child you boost his potential and give her a little more confidence.

Try it this weekend, you’ll see!

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Let companies know what you need.

Customer service used to be a point of pride for many companies, and for the best ones it still is. (Thank you, Costco!)
But today, as corporations buy up smaller customer-oriented companies or price them out of business and work more for their stockholders than their customers they are less likely to hire anyone to see to the needs of the people that make them wealthy. (I will NOT thank you, GoDaddy.com / Media Temple)

That is the truth, but it is not the only truth.

It is also true that WE continue to make those companies wealthy.
We give our money to them feeling as if we have no choice and take grudgingly what little they choose to give us in return.
More often than not, the only feedback they get is the high turnover rate of their underpaid, overburdened overseas staff.

There are two easy ways in which you personally can help to change the current life-draining way our society is changing.

One is to pay attention to the companies from which you buy your products, choose companies that listen to your needs.
And the other is to SPEAK UP.

If you are dissatisfied with a product, write to the company and politely tell them why.
Nothing will ever change if we continue to accept things the way they are.

You may have to wait on hold, or you may never get a reply to your email, but don’t let that stop you.

Let what they are doing to you find it’s way back to them and hope that somewhere in the giant mass of information that bounces around from machine to machine in big corporations, someone might be listening, and that someone might be able to change one little thing.

If I do it, and you do it and he does it and she does it, all those little things may make a big impact!

In the very least you will get the good feeling that you are not just sitting back and watching the world collapse around you.

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Write to older people.

It may seem bizarre that there are still people in the world that cannot use a computer, but there are far more than you would think and many of them are in your own family. Older generations reached the age where most people don’t feel the need to take classes just when computers were exploding into the world. Many of them have no idea how to use one beyond pressing the power button.

If you have a little extra time or a little money to make your grandparents happier, buy a used computer for them and teach them how to use it. (You may have to subscribe to and set up their ISP for them as well.)

But if you can’t afford the time and money or if you don’t think they would use it, (as is often the case) you can make a huge difference in someone’s life by simply writing to them regularly. That generation thrived on letters and they are so rare today that getting a letter is often like getting a birthday card or Christmas gift.

Providing someone with happiness adds a little more joy to a sometimes weary world. Make an older person happy. Write!

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Welcome each season of life.

Spring seems to be the beginning of life in the world. New babies are born, dormant plants wake up and seeds sprout.
Summer is fun time. Vacations allow us to explore new settings, and the longer days allow us to take in more life.
Autumn is a time to slow down and pack away for the future, a time to reflect and show gratitude for the harvests we enjoy.
Winter is a time of intimacy as we curl up with our loved ones to stay warm and tell the stories of our past.

Each season of the year brings it’s own gifts.

The same is true of the seasons of our life. Advertisers have made us acutely aware of youth as the ideal as they fight to prolong the summer season. It’s because it’s the market that doesn’t have the restraint NOT to consume rabidly for social status. They glamorize the summer of life for the sake of profit and want us to forget that we all have three more.

Think about the joys of early youth. It’s the season of new: discovering bicycles, crafts and video games, making new friends and learning seed skills like finger painting and baseball that will lead us to find our true talents later.

The youth years were meant to be a season for finding first love, discovering your passions, and late nights cementing lifelong bonds with people from other homes. (Seriously it’s not about having the trendiest phone.)

Our Autumn years are spent reaping what we have sown from friendships and the actions we have taken in our youth. We reflect and give thanks for the life experiences that make us who we are.

In the winter of life we again draw close to our families and relate stories to the next generation as our days get shorter.

Each season of the year and each season of your life has a purpose and a value. To revel in only one season is to miss 3/4 of what life has to offer!

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Reject shame.

There is not one adult person on the planet that has not done something they should not have done.
Not one.
Nobody but a liar can say, “I’ve never done anything regrettable.”
Knowing this, knowing that EVERYBODY messes up, don’t you think it’s time to let go of your own mistakes? The past is only valuable in that it teaches us how to behave now.

You used to do drugs/drink, it made you feel horrible, today you won’t do drugs. You broke someone’s heart, it haunts you. Today you will be kind.

This goes just as well for the big things. If you did something heinous in your past, you can sooth the pain of that by letting go and doing wonderful things today.

You must not live your life in shame. Shame is an anchor that ties you to the past and will not let you move forward. Drop the feeling. It’s wasted time. It does not serve you. Recognize that today is what you have to work with and use your past only to make today part of a healthy loving life.

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Unplug

Americans are becoming addicted to the internet far more deeply than we ever did with television and it is doing damage to our very souls.

To understand it’s effect on you, take at least one day every week to unplug from screens of all kinds. One day with no texts, no calls, no email, no tweets, no tv shows, no movies, no mp3s…just the natural world. If that makes you uncomfortable, and you immediately find five reasons not to, you are probably addicted.

Turning off all media is a radical idea but it shouldn’t be. Before Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, blogs like this one, television, radio and phones, people LIVED. They invented things, shopped, gardened, hung out with friends, and got their housework done.

We are so connected that it’s not easy to do.
Others won’t understand and will try to stop you.

To actually clear a day for the natural world, start now. Make it clear for the rest of the week to associates, employees, employers, partners and clients that on Sunday you are unreachable. On Sunday, turn it all off and spend time with your family, friends or animals.
If you like, spend the entire day alone moving through nature on your bike walking in your neighborhood or hiking.

Experience THIS world for just one day a week and you will be surprised how it starts to change your life for the better.

You will have time to think, time to plan, time to dream uninterrupted by the thoughts of others. When you rejoin the digital world on Monday, you will have clarity and energy that you didn’t know the electronic world has been draining from you. You might find you want to make it a habit.

Take time to enjoy the real world. Take time to experience your real life.

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Make a list.

Looking at a pile of dirty dishes, two baskets of laundry, unsigned contracts, loan applications, class schedules, your matted smelly dog, and a pile of bills makes you want to leave and go get a drink instead of wading into the mess.

Unfortunately, when you come back, things will still be a mess, and now you’ll have a hangover and an empty wallet.

When chaos reigns and you don’t seem to be moving forward. I suggest wrangling your life back into your control by making a simple list every day in your first five productive minutes.

Shower, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, dress, then sit down and plan out your tasks at home. (You can do the same when you get to work.)
When you are fresh and not already frustrated by the day, make a to do list! (If you have a sweetheart, children, roommates, or other people in your home, make a little list for them too!)
Write important tasks in capital letters, underline them or use red ink.

If there are several easy things that need done, put them in a separate category and get them all out of the way quickly.
If there are a few difficult ones that are very important, be sure that if you do only one thing on the list, it’s that one.
(A friend had a leaky faucet on her garden hose, She knew it was important but she put off fixing it. When it burst it caused a sinkhole in her back yard AND her water bill was almost as much as her mortgage payment!)

Think of your “To Do List” as a map to a happier life.
Just like any trip is easier with directions, so is any day.

Clarify.
Classify.
Conquer.

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Eat fruits and veggies.

There is a reason your mother told you to finish your vegetables. There is no other place in nature to get such a rich source of vitamins, minerals and fiber than fruits and vegetables. You simply can not function as a happy healthy adult on burgers and fries.
When you feel ill, you spend a lot of energy just getting through the day.
When you feel good you have more energy for kindness and clear thinking. (As a bonus, your skin gets clearer and you can look years younger!)

Eat an apple or an orange every day, steam some broccoli or saute some cabbage for dinner tonight, in the very least ask for extra lettuce and tomato on your burger.

Fruits and vegetables are the easy way to healthy, and healthy people are happier!

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