The Economic Outlook for 2009

How did the economy end up in such turmoil? Fear. That’s right. Plain and simple,

Clutter, Clutter, Everywhere….

I’ve never liked clutter, but it seems that it likes me. I find myself blaming my family for the clutter in my home because surely I couldn’t produce such a horrific sight. Then I look at my office, which is always a disaster, and no one else works in here but me. How could they? There’s no room. So, I’m on a mission to eliminate the clutter in both my home and office.

Clutter does more than just make my environment look messy and disorganized. It also affects my ability to think, act and be clear. Practitioners of Feng Shui believe that the location of your clutter has a dramatic effect on the area of your life that location represents. Although I’m not a practitioner of Feng Shui, I have certainly found that clearing clutter in my home and office in the areas that relate to money and relationships has had a profound effect on those areas of my life. Whether that occurred because I imagined it would or if there is really something behind the practice is immaterial. The results were tangible.

When I have clutter in my house, it makes me feel heavy, encumbered and even lethargic or depressed. Clutter in my office can be distracting — both to me and anyone who visits me here — and it definitely slows productivity.

To help me get rid of clutter, I went on a mission I call “A Bag A Day”. I used a 12-gallon kitchen trash bag and forced myself to fill it with trash or with items to donate. I committed to filling one bag and remove it from the house each day. At first this didn’t seem to make much of a difference, but after 2 weeks, I was amazed at how much less cluttered the house appeared. In fact it inspired me to take on the garage and then the den. It feels good to clear the place of the unnecessary stuff that was only serving to bog me down. Granted, the clutter always threatens to invade again, but I’m now armed with a 12-gallon bag and a desire to fight back.

The Gift Dilemma

A female friend of mine received a gift from a young man she works with and has only known a short time. The gift wasn’t overly extravagant, but it was more than you’d expect to receive from a co-worker. Because she was uncomfortable about it, she tried to give it back — several times. Each time it would just reappear, placed quietly on her desk. The young man knows she has a boyfriend and has given gifts to a few other people in the same workplace. When my friend reported the gift to one of the managers, the reply was that he did that all the time.

Did the young man give the gift because it brought him joy or because he holds out hope that somewhere down the road, if she is single again, that she will remember him. Thus the dilemma — should she have kept the gift? When someone is as persistent as this man was it makes it extremely difficult to stick with the choice to not accept the gift — especially since it just kept showing back up even when returned to him.

My feeling is that because the bottom line motivation is really not known (is this just his way of doing “random acts of kindness” or is he hoping for a deeper relationship?), that accepting the gift is okay. Had her manager reacted differently then she could have been supported in returning the gift. Taking it any further could just result in giving the man more attention (which may be what he’s after) or creating a scene at work that would reflect badly on my friend. However, I do believe that if another gift shows up, she will need to resolve the issue once and for all. Your thoughts?

Pumping out 2.5 kids

It is so dang tough to be an entrepreneur! Many people give up their dreams because they know they are expected to get a good job, buy a big house, marry, and pump out 2.5 children. I know I fell for it. Twenty-three years later I finally got up enough courage to walk away from a successful career at a major corporation. My heart was not willing to continue to live (literally, based on the physical symptoms I was manifesting) without its passion being pursued, so I made the choice to go after my heart’s desire. However, working outside the machine means lots of lonely hours, tons of financial worries, and no guarantees. Yet I still wouldn’t trade my fear for my old job! To all you entrepreneurs out there: What did you do to keep faith over fear? Oh, by the way…I never did pump out the 2.5 kids.

The cause of our circumstances

Each of us comes into this life in order to learn and, therefore, evolve. When we are in our greatest depths of despair we must remember that we chose the circumstances that have put us there. There is a wonderful African proverb, “Where you fall, there your God pushed you down.” It nicely sums up the fact that we are sometimes placed in hard situations to facilitate our growth. When we can step back and look at our state of affairs in that light, it often allows us to take off the guilt we are wearing and maybe even some of the pain we are feeling. It does not make our situation less real, but it does open up the possibility for us to learn. However, this does not mean that lessons have to be learned in hard or difficult ways.

Choices in life

There are no such things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choices. There are just choices we make in order to learn and evolve. Regardless of the choices you have made up to this moment, it only takes making a different choice to change your entire life. The tiniest choice can put your life on a whole different course. Has it happened for you?

Choices in life

Our lives are full of choices so that we can learn and evolve