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Tiny Wisdom: The Joy of Non-Events

By in Happiness, Quotes

“Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!” -Amanda Bradley

In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll coined the term “un-birthday,” which means exactly what you might expect—a day you celebrate that isn’t actually your birthday. You might not feel inclined to send out Evites and buy a helium tank in honor of a non-milestone, but there’s something to this idea.

We often live life waiting for reasons to get excited. We save the good china for special occasions, reserve fancy clothes for yet-to-be-determined big events, and generally wait for …

Career Transitions: How to Cope with the In-Between Stage

By in Blog, happiness & fun, work fulfillment

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

If you’re a passionate person with goals for your life, you’ve probably been at the “in between” stage more than a few times. This is the stage when you’ve identified your goals, broken them down, identified steps to reach them, and started on that plan—but you’re not yet seeing the fruits of your labor.

Ambitious and excited at the goal-setting stage, you embarked on this path with a vision in front of you. Now you’re in the throes of it—or maybe …

Tiny Wisdom: Living in the Now and Planning for Later

By in Quotes

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It’s a common misconception that being fully present means not setting goals. After all, if you’re truly connected to the now, you’re not thinking of building for later. If you’re awake instead of living on autopilot, you’re more concerned with the wonder of what’s in front of you than the wonder of what’s ahead of you.

I’ve spent a lot of time weighing the options, as if I needed to choose one way of being: peaceful or productive. This left me feeling …

Get Started on Your Dream: Clear the 5 Most Daunting Hurdles

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

Man Jumping Over a Hurdle

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” ~Buddha

A decade or so ago, when I was twenty, I was supposed to settle into an “arranged marriage,” a common concept in India. I would never have known what it means to be financially independent, to go after my passions, and to be true to myself.

Until then, I had only wished to have a career—to go to a big city, live independently, and explore my identity. But those were merely daydreams. I had accepted that in my …

Tiny Wisdom: Let Yourself Be As You Are

By in Attitude, Challenges, Mindfulness, Quotes, Sorrow, Stress

“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” ~Buddha

“My brain has been moving slowly all day.” As I told my boyfriend this, I felt each word roll out of my mouth with all the speed of a hill-climbing turtle. Like everything else I’ve done today, I’ve been speaking at a glacial pace.

I’ve retraced my footsteps over these last few days, double-checking how much I’ve eaten and how well I’ve slept. But despite playing low-energy …

Love the Adventure of Life: 3 Ways to Enjoy Everything More

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” ~Helen Keller

Ever since I can remember I liked to travel. It does something to me, something strange and oddly uncharacteristic: I am suddenly very laid back.

When I travel I’ve got the right mind-set. I know I will stand in lines, have to schlep heavy bags, or perhaps have delays. I know that I will be eating at restaurants for the first time, without knowing if I will like them.

At home, when I am stressed out and worried, my mind likes to give me lists of things to do …

5 Simple but Powerful Choices for Pure Peace and Contentment

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.” ~Doris Mortman

Every day I chat with a friend and he always asks, “How are you?” This isn’t the superficial greeting we often give to an acquaintance in passing. He really wants to know, and I usually oblige with an honest snapshot of how my life is at the moment.

I began to notice that my answers contained words like “quiet,” “peaceful,” and “content.” Could this be the elusive happiness that I spend so much energy and time to achieve? And could it …

Giveaway and Review: the 2-Year Anniversary of Tinybuddha.com!

By in Blog, Giveaway, meaning & passion

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. They are:

It seems like just yesterday I wrote, “It’s a pretty exciting week in Tiny Buddha world,” before crafting a massive year-in-review post for the site’s first anniversary.

Yet here we are again, a full year later.

So much has happened in this year, but instead of creating a lengthy year-in-review list, I’m just going to recap the five biggest highlights, for the site and me personally. I’ll also provide a selection of posts from the year that you may enjoy reading if …

Tiny Wisdom: Missing Out Can Be a Good Thing

By in Mindfulness, Quotes

“The next message you need is always right where you are.” -Ram Dass

Everything seems urgent in an always-on world, where we can access each other at any time. When we’re not engaging through emails, @replies, and Skype messages, we frequently check various online portals to keep up with who’s doing what and what’s trending. Even if we manage to tune everything out, we often end up feeling distracted.

There’s a bustling world of instant updates and constant connection that never sleeps, and it lives on our desks, in our purses, in our pockets.

Who knows what we’ll miss if …

When Struggles Keep Reappearing: How to Learn the Lesson and Move On

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

I’ve been self-employed for many years now. This is no accident. I’ve always liked to do things my own way. I like to arrange my diary in exactly the way I want to and make my own mind up about how I do things. I like to work without having to justify anything to a manager.

I’m not always comfortable in working relationships where the other person is “higher up” than me—when they’re in authority. You could say that I’m a teensy bit of …

Tiny Wisdom: Let Your Light Shine Bright

By in Confidence, Greatness, Leadership, Quotes

“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ~Marianne Williamson

We all have it: a little voice inside that tries to hold us back.

It tells us not to say what we feel so we won’t make any waves. It tells us not to define what we want so that things can stay predictably easy. It tells us not to go for our dreams because we may not be good enough.

It may also tell us that it’s selfish to focus on our own desires and goals–that good people are more …

The Power of Change: How Leaving Home Can Bring You Home

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” -Pema Chodron

Seven years ago, I packed everything I owned into my little red Honda Civic and sold, gave away, or tossed whatever didn’t fit. I was 24 years old and I was on my way from Florida to Los Angeles to pursue the American Dream.

I was consumed with swirls of intense emotions—anxieties, excitement, fear, and joy, all mixing together in one little body. I was crossing the country on a new adventure, filled with hopes and dreams, seeking something I …

Tiny Wisdom: Letting Other People Hurt

By in Love, Quotes

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.” -Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday I helped a friend with a project that he’d spent a lot of time, money, and energy planning as a surprise for someone he loves. I knew it meant a lot to him to do this–and do it well.

Things didn’t work out as he had planned, partly due to some misguided advice I gave him. Since he’d been working on it for days, it was an incredible disappointment. I could see the sadness in his face as he saw the final product …

4 Simple Tips for Confronting Someone Who Hurt You

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” -Unknown

For many years I maintained a relationship that I was not happy with. I’m sure a lot of people have been there, or are there right now. I didn’t feel there was equality in the relationship; I always seemed to be the one giving, yet I consistently felt I was getting nothing out of it.

A close friend of mine asked me why I tolerated the behavior of the person in question.

As usual, a few excuses passed through my mind: the other person was …

Tiny Wisdom: Open Your Eyes and See

By in Mindfulness, Quotes

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

This weekend, I devoted an extensive amount of time to writing something I’ve been struggling to complete. I wrote and rewrote so many times that it felt like more like destruction than creation, but I’ve come to realize that chaos is often the path to clarity.

There were times when I knew it could be beneficial to do something else, clear my head, and come back to it with fresh eyes, but a part of me felt this drive to push …

Why Happiness Will Never Come To You

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” ~James Openheim

December 19, 2001: this will forever be written in history as the day I was pitied by a 90 year-old.

I was holiday shopping at the mall, grimacing in pain with each step I took. “One… two… three…” I counted my steps, hoping to distract myself from the painful task before me: reaching the Bath and Body Works store roughly 300 yards ahead.

After several torturous minutes, I looked up. The store was still an oasis in the distance—perhaps a mirage in this …

Tiny Wisdom: Receiving without a Sense of Obligation

By in Gratitude, Quotes

“The best things in life are unexpected, because there were no expectations.” -Eli Khamarov

There was a time when I hesitated to accept unsolicited offers of support. If someone suggested a way they could help me, I assumed they were looking for something specific in return. This made me somewhat defensive, because there were and are a lot of things I don’t want to do.

I don’t want to personally recommend products I haven’t tried myself. I don’t want to tweet promotional links of any kind. I don’t want to send dedicated email blasts about books, or seminars, or teleconferences.…

When (and When Not) to Take Advice

By in Blog, change & challenges

 

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.” ~Erica Jong

I’ve received all kinds of advice in my life, both welcome and unwelcome. Most of this advice is easy to divide into two piles: “good” or “bad.”

“Good” advice: when somebody makes a suggestion and I think, “Oh, of course!” It might be advice about how to improve a poem, or how to peel a mango. This kind of advice is easy to take.

“Bad” advice: when somebody makes a suggestion and I have a clear sense that I don’t agree …

Book Giveaway and Review: A Lamp in the Darkness

By in Blog, Giveaway, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The 5 winners:

“Sometimes we have to go right into the fire in order to find our true healing.” ~Jack Kornfield

No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve accomplished, no matter how well you’ve planned, you will deal with challenges in life. We all will. And many times, they will hit us unexpectedly.

We will all lose things and people we love. We will all make mistakes and …

4 Key Questions to Feel Fully Fulfilled and Content

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“The person who lives life fully, glowing with life’s energy, is the person who lives a successful life.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

More often than not when we want to create something new or different in our lives, our true yearning is not about what we want to do on the outside that will make us feel fulfilled and content, but a certain way we want to feel in ourselves.

That fancy car might give us a feeling of power, or esteem, or pride. That successful business might make us feel like we “arrived” or we are recognized. That trip to Nepal …