Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Shelley Kim

“It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” -Unknown

My son has chickenpox.

It started a few days ago and today is his third day at home.

As a work at home mom who is her own boss, I’m fortunate that I can be at home with my son instead of having to ask my employer for time off work.

I have been working from home for the past five years with three young children, and it was only just a few weeks ago that my youngest child started school full-time.

I felt that I had reached some sort of milestone, having all three children at school full-time now. But I must say, I was also looking forward to having uninterrupted time at home.

Ever since I was laid off five years ago, I have been struggling to find a good balance with spending time on my home business and raising three children.

Now with my youngest finally off at school, it felt as though I had finally crossed that threshold where I was reclaiming my time back.

Not to become a lady of leisure. Not to go to the gym. Not to go shopping in search of retail therapy.

But, I finally felt as though I had the time, free from the demands of children, to spend on my own business.  I had finally reached that point that I was always trying to get to: being able to work non-stop and to gain the momentum that would hopefully let me move forward in my business.

On discovering that my son had chickenpox a few days ago, I knew I’d have to keep him at home for the rest of this week. It would—temporarily—be a return back to juggling work and childcare for a few days.

Today trying to snatch snippets of time to myself to work, I was reminded only too well how I’d really struggled, especially when the three of my children were at home during the long, long summer break. I would barely sit down at my computer only to have to go and break up a fight or find something or help them with something within thirty minutes.

After lunch today I told my four-year-old son that I had to go upstairs to work for a while and could he please watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for a little while until I got back.

My four-year-old son then said, “I wish I was you Mommy and you were me.” Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~Buddha

“Big flud strikes Revere!”

That was the headline of the newspaper I made with my sister when I was six. I hadn’t yet honed my skills as an editor, but I knew a good fake story when I heard it.

Eight years later, while wading through my anger toward several people who’d hurt me, I wrote a short book called The Line of the Virtues about the grey area between good and bad. An older coworker at my afterschool job asked, “Are all kids this deep these days?”

Somewhere between six and fourteen, I’d found my calling: I was a writer who liked to tackle weighty topics. Though I took a lot of detours between realizing that and pursuing writing as a career, ultimately, it brought me to Tiny Buddha—my sweet spot for personal and professional fulfillment.

Looking back, I realize I took those detours solely because I was scared. I thought writing was one of those careers that only a few people get to do. I figured it was better not to try than to try and fail, because then I could pretend I wasn’t writing by choice.

I remember the first time I realized I was hiding from my passion. I was 26 years old, and part of a marketing team that was walking across the country to promote a number of fitness products.

A coworker and I got into a ridiculous fight over the meaning of a word. She’d formerly worked as a comedy writer for radio shows—and, for the record, she was right about the meaning. Defending her stance, she shouted, “Don’t you think I’d know? I’m a writer!”

I responded, “Me too!”

Then she argued, “Not really!” Further drilling the point home, she continued, “Just wait ‘til you move to San Francisco and call yourself a writer there. Your MySpace blogs just aren’t going to cut it!”

Since I’d held nothing back from Tom, this hurt—until later when I realized she’d given me a gift. She’d smothered me with the truth, and I had no choice but to acknowledge she was right yet again.

I got a writing job the second day after I arrived in San Francisco. I was writing about senior care, a topic that interested me about as much as the mating habits of ants. But it was a decision to step onto a new path, knowing full well that, at that point, I had no idea where I was going.

This is true for all of us whenever we start doing something new. There are never any guarantees about where it will lead, and that can be a scary thing, particularly if your current situation allows you to comfortably meet your responsibilities.

There simply isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula for discovering what you’re passionate about and then transitioning to a new career. That being said, I’ve learned a few things about doing what you love for work—and I’ve learned that a lot of what I previously believed simply is not true. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Susie Amundson

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” ~ African proverb

Hitchen’s Kitchen. It sounds like a diner straight out of a romance novel. But there I was standing in yes, the kitchen, getting my first dressing down at my first paying job.

At 16, I had screwed up waiting tables. I got the special of the day, swiss steak, mixed up with sirloin. And so I kept putting in tickets ordering sirloins and the cook kept on grilling them.

And then it struck. The customers were happily eating sirloin while paying the “special of the day” prices. The owner’s profits were tanking.

By the end of the revelation, the only thing that was sizzling louder than the sirloins was Mr. Hitchen, the owner of the diner.

And he was scolding me—loudly. Harshly.

I stood there absorbing his tirade. I was shocked and silent while that warm wash came over my torso. My stomach felt sick. Then came the hollowness in my chest, up to my neck where the lump in my throat sat.

How could I shrink away? How could I get away from this feeling? I’m drowning, I’m drowning. Save me, someone. I want to disappear.

Shame.

The Kingpin of Destructive Emotions

Anger. Resentment. Hurt. Fear. Sadness. None of them feels good in our body. None of them are we racing to replicate.

However, shame is worse. It is debilitating. Immobilizing. It makes us viscerally sick. It feels like we are wearing a cloak of badness. And it shakes our soul’s foundation.

Shame doesn’t deliver just once either. The assault is made and the shame rushes in. For me, I replay searing scenes of shame in my mind and all the sensations come acutely pouring back into my body.

As if the first showing wasn’t enough. No, we get the sequel of shame, too.  Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Linda Formichelli

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

I’ve been mentoring writers for years, and one problem many of them run into is that they have so many ideas and projects that they don’t know where to start. They may want to write for big-name magazines, draft a novel, sell a nonfiction book, start a blog, and write an e-book.

Each of these projects has dozens of to-do items associated with it. Where to start? They’re so confused that they do nothing at all.

I sometimes have the same problem myself: I’ve been a freelance health writer since 1997, but recently I’ve been studying to add certified personal trainer and wellness coach to my repertoire. So my task list is long and varied, from stocking my personal training studio to pitching article ideas to creating motivational handouts for my new clients.

When I think about all I have to do—and everything seems to have equal priority—I can’t decide which task to get started on, so I do nothing.

When you’re confronted with an arm-length to-do list, ask yourself these questions:

How Much Time Do I Have?

Figure out how much time you have to spend right now, and slot in the item you think you can get done in that time—even if you’re working on the project “out of order.”

If you have 10 minutes, use that time to read a chapter in a personal development book, meditate, or read a few blog posts in your industry to keep up with the news. If you have an hour, you can get your exercise in, do prep work for tonight’s dinner, write a blog post, or call that friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Shannon Kaiser

“It’s not who you are that holds you back. It’s who you think you’re not.” ~Unknown

Over the past four years, I followed a career path that felt soulless.

As I moved from city to city, climbing the corporate ladder, I noticed that, ironically, the bigger my paycheck, the emptier I felt. Something about advertising felt lifeless, cold, and desperate to me.

But I ignored this feeling and worked over it, drank over it—binged, exercised, and ate over it.

I pressed forward like a steel freight train on a mission to find my happiness. When I got to that new level, the thing I thought would make me happy was still just a few more achievements off, just a couple more dollars away. I was always looking “out there” to find my peace.

I had convinced myself that this was the best way to live my life. It became normal to cry in the bathroom at work. It wasn’t until I got laid off one year ago, from my big marketing job in Chicago that I recognized miracles do exist.

I picked up my depression and moved to the west coast. I bought my dream car, adopted a dog, and landed a perfect boyfriend—and then I took another job in marketing.

It was only a few weeks until the fear-ridden depression started to nudge up against me. The cry festivals picked up again, and I walked around like a shell of a human being.

I would arrive to work lifeless, cold, and afraid to listen to my inner voice. I would say to myself, “I went to graduate school for a marketing degree, so I better stick to this.” But it just wasn’t what I wanted.

I was pretending to be the corporate climber. The more achievements, awards, cities, clients, and money I could get, the more I could say I was worthy. It was all a big circus, as I quietly hid myself behind the illusion of success and fulfillment.

I secretly longed for freedom. Every day I would sit under the fluorescent lights and cry inside.

I felt like a caged animal that wanted nothing more then to break free. But fear, and fear alone, was holding me back. Then one day I arrived to work, and the cage doors propped open. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jennifer Wright

“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” ~Unknown

My parents passed down their values which I imagine is the same for a lot of parents who are fighting the good fight for their kids.

They taught me that material possessions weren’t going to make me happy, that I didn’t need to try to “fit in” to be happy, and last but not least, I was beautiful just the way I was.

That was great and it made sense to me until I started interacting with other kids. Particularly with kids who came from wealthy families.  Then it seemed that my parents had lied to me all along.

The messages I was receiving all around me were that I wasn’t pretty enough, that I had to change a lot about myself to be cool, and that I needed to start spending a significant amount of money on clothes.

I can only imagine it pained my parents to see me start to transfer closer and closer to my peer group. In college, I dyed my hair blond, started spending all of my spending money on clothes, and obsessed about what I weighed and who I was seen with.

I wanted to make sure everyone “saw” that I was fitting in.

After college, fitting in became secondary to the goal of proving that no longer was I just like everyone else. I was actually better. I would come home during holidays and cast judgment on my parents who continued to live a modest life, preaching the same values. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Tory Syracuse

“I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Every weekday morning, I set off from my back gate on my bicycle, pushing away from the safe shore of home and entering the unpredictable current of urban life. Every morning, I look forward to the adventure.

Over the course of the ride to work, I watch the city wake up. I feel the particular nuances of the day’s weather—perhaps humid, with a storm building over the mountains, or maybe a faintly warm breeze crosscuts the morning chill, carrying a hint of spring.

I know as I ride east that the rising sun is slightly higher than it was at this time last week. I smell coffee roasting and last night’s fried food dissipating as I pedal through the commercial district at the edge of the university campus. I see birds and runners and dog-walkers, and people doing yard work before the heat of the day sets in.

By the time I get to work, I’m ready to engage in my day. My bike ride serves as a transition from my habit of early morning solitude to a socially engaging workplace, where I need to be “on” most of the time.

Likewise, the ride home is a chance to release the day’s stress, to create a buffer between my work and personal lives.

Like many people, I struggle to keep work “in its place”: not to continue to obsess about it in my free time, to let it go until the next work day. Driving home so often contributes to stress. But when I arrive home by bike, it’s as if I’ve gradually released my work day with each circular swipe of my pedals.

There are many reasons to commute by bike. Simply put, it’s good for you and good for the planet. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“Life is actually really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~Confucius

While I have always piled a lot on my plate professionally, I’ve recently introduced more varied elements. Formerly, I may have devoted a long workweek to freelance writing, but I’m now juggling writing, consulting, speaking, editing my upcoming book, and promoting my recent eBook.

I’ve noticed that the biggest complication to my life isn’t necessarily the full, varied schedule; it’s how I think about that busy schedule.

Sometimes I let my to-do list overwhelm me, carrying the weight of the whole through all of the parts.

So instead of just answering an email, I’m responding, thinking about the blog post I want to write later, worrying about the magazine deadline I might not make, and planning to be more effective so that I can get everything done without having to worry so much.

That’s something I sometimes do.

But on other days, I remind myself that I can’t worry my way out of worrying, and that the most effective use of any moment is to fully do whatever it is I’m doing. The rest will get done later. That, I’m learning, is the most important part of simplifying.

The first step in simplifying anything starts with how we think about it.

Of course there’s a lot more to simplifying work than that (which I realize is ironic given that the subject matter is simplification.) Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

The vast majority of people I know have two different types of work: the kind that pays the bills, and the kind they wrap their heart around.

For some people, those are one and the same, but often that takes time, dedication, and a willingness to blur the traditional boundaries that separate work and social life.

Because let’s face it: It’s not always easy to make a living doing something you love.

The first challenge is to figure out what that is; and it’s often complicated by what we think we should do based on what other people think and what we’ve done up until now.

The next step is to figure out how to do it smart. It’s all good and well to decide to you want to run an online fitness, beauty, or personal development empire, but unless you have a unique value proposition and a solid idea of who needs your services and why, you could end up just spinning your wheels.

And then there’s the easiest part, which is simultaneously the hardest: the choice to work on your dream every day, knowing there are no guarantees, and that it may take a long time to make the kind of progress that allows you to devote your full-time energy to your passion.

This has been my experience with Tiny Buddha, and it’s the same with people who have contacted me for help with their blogs. Everyone wants the freedom to do more of what they enjoy and less of what they don’t.

What makes this kind of complicated is that turning a passion into work can sometimes strip the joy out of it, particularly when you give up freedom now in the pursuit of freedom tomorrow.

Really, that’s what we’re doing when cram our hours full of tasks that leave little time for play and decompression: We’re deciding tomorrow’s possibilities are more important than today’s.

So what’s the balance, then?

How do you allow yourself sufficient time to create that thing you visualize—whatever it may be—while also allowing space for relaxation, spontaneity, connection, and the simple act of being?

I recently asked on the Tiny Buddha Facebook page, “How do you create work/life balance?” I’ve chosen the responses that resonated the most strongly with me and used them in shaping this post: Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” ~John Lennon

I am someone who enjoys doing a lot of different things, and yet I don’t always enjoy being busy. Sometimes when my schedule gets full, I feel almost as if I’ve lost a part of me.

Just like some people become codependent in relationships, I can be codependent with work. When it has my attention, everything else can easily fall to the wayside—my social life, my hobbies, you name it.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in a riptide of doing without ever evaluating what you’re sacrificing, why, and if it’s actually in your best interest.

Sometimes it is worth it, though you might need to make minor adjustments to enjoy the journey more. Other times you need to make major changes to experience the happiness you might think you’re chasing.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to ensure my busy-ness doesn’t compromise my happiness:

1. Assess just how busy you’re willing to be.

New research indicates that a key indicator of happiness is the distance between the hours you’d like to work and the hours you actually do. If you don’t want to work more than 40 hours per week because you have a hobby you’re passionate about, but you’re working over three hours more than that, you will inevitably feel dissatisfied.

In some cases, this may be beyond your control. If you just can’t afford your mortgage unless you push yourself, that’s one thing. But sometimes you do have a choice; you just think it’s too difficult to make it. Downsizing or moving into a new place may seem like an unnecessary hassle, but it’s worth the uncomfortable transition if it allows you to do with your time as you’d like. Click Here to Read More…

by John Anyasor

“Life is a choice.” ~Unknown

I’m virtually broke. Yet, I’m still enjoying life. How is this possible, you ask?

True happiness comes from having much less than you think. Growing up, I wouldn’t say that I had an abundance of toys. By normal standards, my family was just getting by with what we had. The bills weren’t just going to disappear, and there were three other young mouths to feed. It was either use my imagination to escape my reality or die of boredom. Which choice do you think I made?

When you separate from your stuff

In escaping my reality, I found myself taking on a whole new one.

No longer was the day boring because the toys I had were old and worn. Suddenly, the little apartment we lived in turned into a massive playground where my siblings and I could play hide and seek. We could build forts. We had water fights using plastic cups and the kitchen sink. Through this I learned that life didn’t have to involve boredom, and did it have to include suffering.

It could be exactly how I wanted it to be. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” ~Proverb

I couldn’t drive, drink, vote, or stay out after 9:00, and yet I had two jobs.

I started working just before I turned 12. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so I knew early on I’d need to work if I wanted to do fun things, like go to music camp.

After school, I went to a program for kids where I led them in creative activities, like singing and arts and crafts. On the weekends, I ran the dozen counter at my family friends’ bagel shop.

All I had to do was bag the bagels and hit the “dozen” button on the register. If I stuck to my core responsibilities, I wouldn’t have made 108 cups of coffee instead of 36, overflowing decaf all over the beverage island. But that’s beside the point.

I haven’t stopped working since I was 12, and at times I’ve held more than three jobs at once. To some extent, it’s because I’m resourceful and ambitious.

But it’s partly because I’m one of those people who refuses to spend 40 hours a week doing something I don’t love. So I end up spending 60 hours doing a combination of things, some I adore and some that allows me to do those other projects.

I have a lot of friends who work jobs they loathe, some in corporate environments, some in retail, and others at start-up companies. Though the atmosphere and job descriptions vary, they all involve 8+ hours a day, work that doesn’t satisfy them, and steady paychecks that justify it.

When I chose to study writing and acting in college, I assumed it would all work out when I graduated–that I’d instantly make the right connections and fall into the perfect life.

Once I was in the real world, my confidence started to falter. I felt overwhelmed when I realized I’d have to struggle, and I began talking myself out of my dreams. Click Here to Read More…

by Aaron Jacobsen & Michelle Santos

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” ~Charles Swindoll

Unemployment is up almost 10 percent and job opportunities are not necessarily speeding to catch up. It’s not always easy to stay positive when you’re dealing with uncertainty, particularly if you fell out of a comfortable situation and now have to adapt.

But if you’re willing to see the experience as a challenge, and possibly even an opportunity, you can find a sense of peace and fulfillment—not just once you find work, but while you’re in the process of looking. It’s not just cliché advice that sounds good on paper. It’s actually possible. Here’s how.

Click Here to Read More…