Make A Difference Day

                         Saturday, October 26, 2013 was Make A Difference Day.  

For over 20 years, Make A Difference Day has been the largest national day of community service.  Millions of volunteers around the world unite to improve the lives of others.  Were you one of them?  

I saw firefighters collecting money in boots for Muscular Dystrophy.  Others were delivering food to people in need.  One person I heard from bought a homeless person a meal.  There were fathers and mothers coaching soccer or volunteering at the concession stand.  Someone was listening to a distraught individual, giving life saving advice.  A family adopted a pet from the pound. A $7 tip was a nice surprise for friendly servers.

Get the idea?

                            It takes each of us to make a difference for all of us.
                                                                             -Jackie Mucheson

You can make a difference.  

You don't have to wait until next year. 

 Regardless of age, location or resources you can accomplish a lot. 

Make a difference in many lives or one life.

Look around your community.  No matter where you live you can find people who need help. Find a project that makes your heart smile.   City of Modesto, Parks & Recreation says "we do better when we do things together."  LOVE Modesto has special days of community service once or twice a year.  The Kiwanis' largest event is the annual American Graffiti Festival in June.  Get ideas by reading the newspaper, talk to people around you, call a volunteer center, or brainstorm with your friends and family.  Local media and social media are powerful tools for getting the word out about your project. 

There are many ways to make a difference:

• Thank a police officer 
• Smile at a stranger
• Help someone with a heavy load
• Listen to a story someone needs to share
• Play music to cheer others
• Volunteer for a project
• Mow your neighbor's lawn

Make a difference for one person or many.

Do it yourself or with others.  

Do it today or everyday.

Imagine if every single person did this....even just once a year!

The world would be a better place.

Make a difference.. 

TODAY! 

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world.  
For, indeed, that's all who ever have.
-Margaret Mead  

Family Greed! WARNING: Not a regular happiness post!

Warning:  

Do not read this post if you are looking for a positive, light read....

So when I googled "family greed" to see what came up, surprisingly it was a statement from the Pope.
Yes, the Pope.
Here is what he said:

Commenting on the day’s Gospel, in which a man asks Jesus to intervene to resolve a problem of inheritance with his brother, the Pope spoke about the problem of our relationship with money:
“This is a day-to-day problem. How many families have we seen destroyed by the problem of money? Brother against brother, father against son. This is the first result that this attitude of being attached to money does: it destroys! When a person is attached to money, he destroys himself, he destroys the family. Money destroys! It does, doesn’t it? It binds you. Money serves to bring about many good things, so many works for human development, but when your heart is attached in this way, it destroys you.” 

No family is perfect.  We all have our skeletons.  I like to think that family will look out for each other and stand by in times of trouble.  Some families don't do this.  It might begin as a dysfunctional family but can end up like some animals, eating their young to survive.

Money does this a lot.  I have been hearing about many families that are battling because of inheritances and the lying and backbiting that goes on.  It tears relationships apart.  It sends people over the edge with stress and despair about life. It seems kind of common.

I am a Happiness Teacher and I do not understand family greed.  I have personally been witnessing this lately and I am dumbfounded at the treachery and lying.  Why? How can money make people do these things?

Greed is the selfish desire to have it all.
But how much do we need?
Where do we draw the line?
How can we be a family and have greed?
What goes wrong in the family where greed is the bottom line?

As a family we are supposed to watch out for each other.  We want what is best for the other person.  We protect and keep them safe.  We try to make life easier.

I am not saying money is evil or bad and we should not have it.  I am saying that we cannot let it destroy our families.  Let it go.  Be strong.  Live as if the most important thing is the family.  Because it is the most important thing.  Don't get addicted to the greed of money.

I am not feeling very positive this week about happiness.  I know I will bounce back from this low end of the positivity spectrum and see the light again but I feel as if there is a dark cloud hanging over me, waiting to jump out and make things darker.

I am trying my Happiness Whisperer tricks....exercise, distractions and leaning towards optimism but I am very, very tired of the controversy and the lack of integrity in all parties and how most things can be justified.  I wish it were different but it is reality.

I guess my message this week is that sometimes life sucks and we deal with it.  

Looking forward to a brighter week, next week.  

I am going to write three good things that happened today and go to bed early.  

Time

time 

1 the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, 

    and future 

  • time or an amount of time as reckoned by a conventional standard     2 a point of time as measured in hours and minutes 

You will never find time for anything.  

If you want time, you must make it.

-Charles Buxton

How do you spend your time?  

Are you amazed when the day is over?  

Do you have more to-do's than time? 

There are a lot of quotes about time, especially how it flies.

Often we are unaware of how we spend our time. Today keep a "daily" time log. Where are you spending your day?  On the road, at work, standing in line, learning, crying.  Are you engaged, happy, tense, calm?  Take stock of 24 hours in the life of.....you.

Sometimes we squander quite a bit of time, 

doing things we don't want to do, 

with people we don't want to be with, 

for reasons we don't care about. 

Why? 

After looking at your typical day, you may decide there are more worthwhile things you could be spending your time doing, like exercising (to increase your time alive), meditation (to increase your calm, lower blood pressure and get perspective), or maybe finishing the book you started writing (to increase your confidence and a little pocket change too).  This time log may motivate us to make a new life for ourselves.

What can you accomplish today if you have too much to do?  I have an organizational tool I use when I am really overwhelmed with life and to-do lists.  It is a sheet of paper and it says:

Today, I will do one thing.

 _______________________________________________________

(fill in the blank)

    It is amazing when we focus on one thing, how many things really get done.     Multi-tasking robs us of time.      We think we are getting more done.    But are we really?    When we are not living in the now,  life goes by in a blur. 
    Living in the present moment called NOW is an amazing experience.  You see the day flow through your eyes with just what you need, when you need it.  I am not saying it is all positive but if we give our time away by moments and hours each day then our lives are disappearing from us too. 
    In the above definition for time,  it has the word indefinite in it.      That is one of the main points of time.      There are no guarantees for a happy life or even life itself.      There are so many situations that can end our time.      We need to take our lives back.      Be in charge of your time.      Make a decision to spend your time deliberately, not just letting it go by.
We all have the same 24 hours in the day. What are you going to do with yours?Time.Now is all we have.      

Abundance

What is your idea of abundance? 

When do you feel abundant?

Does abundance pertain to only money?

No.

The dictionary definition for abundance is "plentifulness of good things in life."

Abundance is in all parts of our lives.

Some of the things that make me feel abundant:

• extra toilet paper in all the bathrooms
• an unopened laundry soap and softener
• color post it notes
• a lot of sharpened pencils
• $20 emergency stash
• pre cooked food  ready to reheat
• a picked up, clutter free house
• hanging out with daughters doing nothing
• Apple store for training
• patio pondering time

Now it is your turn.  

Make a list of what makes you feel abundant.  

Start with 10. 

Then keep going.

Money is included in the abundance equation but it isn't usually the solution.

Think about what you really, really want.

True love?  Peace of mind?  Happiness?

You probably can't buy what you really want.

True love is not for sale.

Peace of mind is not a commodity.

Real happiness cannot be bought.

Warning...another list....

Make a list of 10 things that are priceless to you and that money cannot buy.

As you read through the list you will see how "rich" your life already is.

NOW is the most abundant time of your life.

Enjoy this abundant moment.

Life is good.

State of Mind

State of mind is the particular condition that someone is in at a specific time. 
It also means your mood or outlook.  

What is your state of mind and what affects it? 

How can you have a better state of mind?

Avoid negative sources, people, places and habits.

Simple as that?
You are at the whim of everything and everyone, if you let it be.  

Avoiding all negativity is not possible.  

How do we accomplish being in the world and avoiding the negative?

Do you have to be a Pleasant Pollyanna all the time to do this?  

No, but you need to know yourself and what affects your state of mind.  

People react differently to situations, people and places.  

What bothers one person does not even affect another.  

Your job is to figure yourself out.

I love the TV show, Criminal Minds.  It was a show our whole family would sit down and watch together.  After a few years of watching this show I noticed that afterwards I felt agitated, unsettled and disturbed.  I worried and became hyper vigilant  about safety.  One example of this is that I would have my daughter talk to me while walking to her car after a night practice.  She couldn't hang up until she was locked in.  I decided to stop watching Criminal Minds because it interfered with a positive state of mind for me, but not anyone else in my family.

What about that Negative Nellie you work with or even live with?  How can you temper how they impact your state of mind?  Learn about negativity bias and how it can reduce your happiness level.  The definition from The Happiness Journey book states, "our inclination to favor negative information over positive information."  

A spoonful of tar can spoil a barrel of honey; but a spoonful of honey does nothing for a barrel of tar.

-Russian Proverb

Our state of mind fluctuates according to our daily influences.  To function in this negative based world we need to retrain our brains.  You can use meditation, reflection, prayer, quiet time or distractions as tools to raise awareness and change how your brain thinks. 

To change your state of mind there are techniques and resources to emphasize positivity:

• Adding up all the things that go right in the day
• Gratitude journal
• Relabel negative events
• Three good things exercise
• Read books in positive psychology field
• Allow good feelings to last
• Reframe the situation
• Lean towards optimism
• Take The Happiness Journey Class  Register for The Happiness Journey class

Be patient.  

Keep depositing into your emotional bank account with love, kindness and patience. Begin...by investing time and energy into yourself and your relationships.  

Learn what affects your state of mind.

The state of mind I try to maintain:

Things are always working out for me.

All is well.

Life is good. 

If you think you can do a thing 

or think you can't do a thing, 

you're right.

-Henry Ford