Breaking Even ... When is enough, enough?Written by Edward B. Toupin
I had most interesting discussion today with a friend of mine. He and I were chatting about economy, his job, families, and life in general. The one point that he kept raising was that of his "needing to do more" to pay bills, be with his family, get promoted at work, fix hot water heater, etc. It's always "need to do more" to better accommodate more.I had to stop and think for a minute --- more for more? That doesn't make sense! If you have to do more, to handle more, yet there is no more time and energy and your quality of life decreases with each "more" you acquire --- that means that somewhere in prior "mores" was a break-even point. There must have been some point in there were "more" was enough and everything was great --- yet we missed peak because we were busily looking at something "more". --- Is less more? --- I always wondered what that meant --- "less is more". Actually, you have to have something to begin with to have less and know what this means. I remember during fires in Colorado --- we went from living in a gorgeous, huge house, on a mountain, to living in a pickup truck and hotel room for two weeks. We had much less --- but at that time we had everything we needed: my wife, myself, and two dogs. We were safe and realized that nothing else mattered --- our peak? Perhaps. But, life went on and we rebuilt our lives around necessities instead of "more". We now have everything we need, and a few things we want, but we looked for that break even point and are now happier than ever before. --- Where is my break even? --- This point is different for everyone, but break even point, I've found, is when you have everything that satisfies your core needs in life and you have opportunity to take time and enjoy them all. Everything beyond that point begins to put stress on your life, love, and career and quality of life begins to decrease because of amount of energy and time involved in maintaining "more".
| | The Power of the New YearWritten by Mark Susnow
THE POWER OF THE NEW YEAREvery year at this same time we all experience same ritual. We assess how we did during year. First we look at our bigger goals and that's easy part. We either hit our goals or we didn't and we all feel differently about our success. The more difficult part is when we look at our subtle or personal goals which include our relationships, our food choices, our spiritual practices and a myriad of other possibilities. And of course this brings us to New Year. In beginning of year we are enthusiastic about beginning anew. There is a power and determination that we only experience once a year. We might implement a healthy body program which includes diet and exercise, or we might renew our business or relationship goals. Whatever it is we usually recommit or expand upon our past goals with new fervor and new power but it's inevitable as weather changing our most noble intentions encounter resistance. For a while we are able to resist resistance but ultimately we falter and give in just like in other years and end up modifying our goals and resolutions. If we approach New Year with same old attitudes, beliefs and patterns is it really a new year? What we're really doing is giving in to our negative mind. We are letting our negative thoughts run our lives and stop us. It's nature of mind that it will always find ways to distract us from our focus. We will not be able to expand what is possible in our lives until we transform our relationship to resistance. Once this occurs way we look at goals and resolutions will also be transformed and possibilities in our lives will be infinite including mastery over our negative thoughts. Let's make this year have a power that you have not previously experienced. Assume there will be resistance, and assume that it doesn't matter if there is because you know what's on other side. You know that not giving in to resistance is gateway to transforming your life. A few years ago my son, Josh, brought home a quote from gym that speaks to me and I think will speak to you. It's about "The Workout" and how a workout is much more than going to gym and getting exercise. When we look at "The Workout" as a metaphor for life, possibilities for transformation are infinite. And then form of workout doesn't matter.
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