Finding Contentment with
an Open and Grateful Heart

There is a close relative who appears – to the casual observer – to have most things our modern culture tells us we should aspire to. He has a beautiful home with a pool and a view, a lucrative retirement after a highly
successful business career, an intelligent wife with her own professional career, and a life mostly of leisure …

And yet I know he is not content.In fact, he is one of the least content people I know.

He’s not alone. Many people feel that there is something missing from their lives. Despite having everything they need they aren’t happy, aren’t content, cannot find satisfaction.Personally, I have been through several stages of discontentment in my life … and in fact, I’m in one now as I experience the frustration and fear of searching for a job in our tough economy.

Read more at:makethedayscount.com/2010/02/13/finding-contentment-with-an-open-and-grateful-heart/#more-2295

Is Your Life Meaningful?

Something which motivates me a great deal is growing old with
regret.  I don’t want to look back on my life wishing I had done more … things with meaning … wishing I hadn’t hurt this or that person … or rebuilding relationships with those I did.

Regret can be scary.

And the only way to live without regret is to find a way to make
life truly meaningful.  So how do we do that?  How do we make each moment count?  Here are some thoughts.

Make life about others

One of the most important things any of us can do is to make our
life about other people.  So much of our world is self-centered.
 We’re brought up to believe that we’re more important than everyone else, and that we need to take care of our own needs and wants first.

But after a while – some people sooner than later – we realize
that we feel empty.  That’s, by the way, when many of us have a midlife crisis … because we realize we’ve spent so much of our lives working to make
ourselves happy … and we aren’t.

The Humbling Advantages of Helping Others
Over the past several years, the trend in our society is for people to be separated from one another … allowing us to be alone – and lonely – in the midst of a crowd. And in doing so to be dehumanized, or perhaps desensitized, a little bit more with each step. Front porches and time spent with our neighbors have given way to the hectic pace of our individual lives and high walls or fences … separating neighbor from neighbor to the point where many times we don’t even know the names of our neighbors. Similarly, cars have taken us off the streets, where we used to greet each other and stop to chat. Cubicles have taken away a bit of the humanity in working, as have even computers to some extent. Television has planted us firmly in our living rooms, instead of out with other people. Even still, I’m not suggesting we rip out our fences, give up our cars, or toss our computers and TVs.  Read more at www.MakeTheDaysCount.com

Slowing down ... On purposeMost of us always seem to be in a hurry … rushing to get everything before the day is done.  And every so often, we see someone who never seems to be in a rush, is usually relaxed and not stressed … and yet always seems to accomplish all the things they need to do throughout the day. This presents a question – Is it possible to never hurry, but to get everything done? It seems at odds with our modern world, where everything is a rush, where we try to insert as much into every minute of the day as possible, where if we are not busy, we feel unproductive and guilty. As a matter of fact, the busier we are, the more we tend to wear it as a badge of honor.  I have a five hundred resumes to review!  Really?  I have 2,000!  The winner is the person who has the most insane schedule, who rushes from one thing to the next … because obviously that means he’s the most successful or important. Right? Not necessarily.  Perhaps we’re emphasizing the wrong point.  We’ve been conditioned to believe