Category: happiness

There’s something magickal about a new year that lets you symbolically wipe the slate clean and start all over again. However, we cannot only look forward without first looking back over the year that was for as Julia Alvarez famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I started off recapping the year that was, but then I realized that I was doing a repeat of our Christmas letter so I erased it all and started over to focus more on the lessons I’ve learned this year than on the events themselves. There are lots of lessons to be learned in life and sometimes it’s the painful ones that teach you the most. Here’s my roundup of the lessons I’ve learned this year, in no particular order:

Karma Works–I’ve always believed intellectually in Karma, but struggled to see the real world results until this year. I spent 15 months of my life working with a consulting firm that was struggling in every sense of the word. They had some tremendous consultants, but they could not deliver from a corporate perspective and their management was incompetent. Toward the middle of the year, this company ended up going belly up. I’m in a situation right now where I’m waiting for Karma to work and I have to keep reminding myself to take deep breaths because it will work out eventually, which leads me to my next lesson.

You can’t force Karma–No matter how much time I spend bitching and whining about the people who deserve to have karma smack them upside the head, I can’t make Karma happen any faster and all my bitching and whining does is come back and bite me. I have to take deep breaths and let Karma work in its own time.

Bad bosses can make your life a living hell–I’ve been fortunate in my 40+ years on the planet to have had incredibly awesome bosses who have nurtured me and supported me and helped me grow and develop. I’ve written and deleted about three paragraphs about the boss from hell, because I have to be careful what I write. Suffice to say that bosses who are jealous of you, who want you to be a suckup, and who are incompetent do exist and if you are unfortunate enough to work for one your life will be a living hell until you escape.

People will support and take care of competent people–Despite having the boss from hell, I was incredibly fortunate this year that several people who do appreciate my talents and abilities helped me to escape into a better position.

Eating and Exercise really do matter–John’s heart attack was a wake up call for all of us and we’ve been all working very hard to change our diets and start exercising more. It’s really hard to make some of the changes we’ve been making, but we’re persevering.

Being Self Possessed is one of the hardest traits to acquire–I’ve always admired people who are calm, cool, collected and in control of their emotions. I admire them because they seem to glide along on top of things and not let the little things bother them. I, on the other hand, tend to go into spirals where I let little things get to me and I obsess over them even when obsessing over them is like hitting my head against a brick wall. I guess I think if I keep hitting the wall, things will eventually change. I’m not sure how to become self possessed and not let myself be controlled by my emotions.

Companies are all about what have you done for me lately–I have always delivered on every project I’ve undertaken and I’ve sacrificed and done what needed to be done to get the work done, but companies don’t appreciate it. It is all about how much more you can do.

Corporate America Really SUCKS–Okay, I’ve known this one for most of my life, but I let myself get suckered in by the dollars and the supposed camaraderie. It isn’t for real and it’s all about how much the company can bleed you dry. The term companies have coined for this is “churn ’em and burn ’em” and that’s what it’s all about: working people until they burn out.

I put way too much energy into stuff that’s not important–You would have thought that by now I would have learned my lesson about not working extra hours and not giving up family time for a job, but no I’m still doing it. I need to figure out how to accept that a job is just a job and all I owe them is 40 hours and not my heart and soul.

Life Goes On–My life changed when my dad died last year, but life went on. The sun rose every morning and set every evening. Life changed, but it went on.

My real passion is empowering people–That’s the thing that makes me excited and I need to figure out how to take my passion and turn it into an income.

Those are the big lessons I learned this year. My next challenge is figuring out how to put those to work for me to change my life for the better.

The economies in the toilet, people are losing jobs all over the place, and every indication is that it will be a long while before the economy recovers and companies start hiring again. A lot of my good friends have lost jobs due to the economic downturn and several of them are looking at it as a blessing instead of a curse.

One of my very best work friends was let go in August from a job he’d had for about 18 months. He’d spent the last several months in a situation that was uncomfortably close to mine: a younger boss who was clueless who felt threatened by his talents and his ability to build relationships. It seemed that nothing he did was right and every time he turned around he was getting dinged for some minor infraction of the unspoken rules (i.e. his boss didn’t like him and was out to get him). After the hell his boss put him through he was feeling relieved when the ax finally dropped and he was let go. He was also fortunate in that he’d just come into an inheritance that would sustain him and his family for a while.

I saw him for lunch a few weeks ago and rather than being upset and depressed about being out of work, he was choosing to see it as a positive and was investing time in his family, volunteering at his church, and working on his investments. The turn around in his bliss level in just three months was amazing. He was relaxed, confident, and back to the old joking self that I’d come to appreciate.

Another friend of mine works in the Miami office of my company and she’s been notified that her last day with the company is 3/31/09. I was amazed when I saw her this week and found that she was amazingly happy and up beat. She’s making plans for a future that doesn’t include corporate America. She’s been prototyping jewelry for the last few months and is working on creating a web-based business selling her designs. The happiness flowed off of her as we talked and I felt happier just being around her and listening to her plans for the future. She told me that she was looking at her release from her current position as a sign that she should follow her bliss (okay, my word and not hers) and work on creating her own reality. Like my other friend, she’s fortunate in that she has the financial resources to live without a “real” job for a while.

Basking in my friends happiness, I almost wished that I’d get laid off so that I could work full time on creating my own bliss instead of spending 40 to 50 hours a week working for the benefit of a company. Unfortunately, I’m not in the position to do that, but the lessons in bliss I’ve learned from my friends is that happiness comes from following your dreams and being master of your own time and not slaving for someone else. Applying that to my own life means that I need to draw boundaries around my work life and home life and spend my own time working on the things that are important to me.