Choosing Happiness

Did you know that it’s up to you?

It’s actually your choice.

You can choose to be happy instead of waiting around for it
to suddenly appear out of nowhere one day and land in your
lap. Happiness is called upon and cultivated.

Now keep in mind, this is my personal perspective of
happiness. You might have a different view. Everyone has a
unique view point, especially where emotion is concerned.
But, nonetheless, I like my outlook on happiness. It helps
me to see that I am the creator of my own thoughts and state
of mind. It is my choice what feeling I choose to have on
any given day. This does not mean I don’t go with the flow
of feelings, but that I can choose at any given moment to
change what it is I desire.

For example, if I am having a hectic day, and I do have my
share, I can choose to be breathless with activity or I can
remind myself to stop and choose to be calm. I can go out
for a walk and embrace the beauty that surrounds me and
choose to experience that aesthetic as appreciation,
gratitude, joy or numbness. I can choose to vacate and
disconnect from my feelings, I can space out and be
oblivious, or I can call upon the grace of the moment and be
one with the beauty. These are all options.

I think we as a society, collectively lose sight of how
powerfull we really are. I mean really full of power. We
have the power to choose. It is something we are born with.

No one has the power to take that away from us. It is our
birthright.

The key to owning that power fully, is to accept that you
are a rightful heir to it. Knowing that you are empowered
within to choose your emotion, to choose how you respond or
react to something, is all up to you. It is all choice.

Many times, our childhood experiences and life learning gear
us away from our power. We learned to give it all away, to
quietly accept whatever happens to us, without question,
without standing up and saying ‘No!’ We have become a
passive society of powerless and uninspired automatons,
going along with the crowd. It’s a sad state of affairs
that we have been raised in. Somewhere along the line, a
standard was laid out and we are ‘expected’ to magically
meet this invisible ’standard’ by compromising and living
according to someone else’s perspectives. Where is the
happiness in that?

I guess that leads me back to my original statement.

Choosing happiness is a choice.

Anytime you choose, you are making a decision. You are
engaging your power.

Think about how you are feeling right now. How long has it
been since you chose what you wanted to feel?

I am not suggesting that you go into a state of denial if
you are in trauma, but I am suggesting that you insert a new
option for yourself. Instead of sitting in pain, decide for
10 minutes that you will focus on happiness.

How does it make you feel? Are you lighter? Was a burden
lifted? Even if it was a mere 10 minutes, it was a starting
point. It was a choice. Would you rather go through life
choosing happiness and drawing happy experiences to you, or
by sitting in pain and expecting the worst, thereby feeling
the worst?

It is still a choice.

It is your choice.

I ask only that this stirs a thought within you. It is my
hope that you will look at the power you possess and carpe
diem - seize the day! Make a choice! Choose to experience
happiness in your life.

It’s all up to you.

Enjoy - or not- it’s your choice.

© 2004 Jodie Foster

EzineArticles Expert Author Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster is an Intuitive Counselor who assists clients to create extraordinary transformations in their everyday lives. Her work is uplifting, empowering and success-oriented. You can visit Jodie’s website at http://www.illuminationsnetwork.com for further information and to schedule a private intuitive session. You can also look for weekly updates to her blog at: http://intuitiveinnovations.blogspot.com.

Publisher’s Guidelines: You may freely publish this article online, in email newsletters, or in print so long as the resource box and byline are in tact. Author would appreciate a notification, but that is optional.

Expectations Can Get In Our Way

There are times when we truly look forward to something just as there are times when we totally dread something. What is the difference between anticipation with joy and anticipation with anxiety? Where and how does that expectation actually take place? If we think about it, the expectations take place in our minds. And, what that really means is that we totally make it up. We tend to create ideas and stories about how wonderful or awful something might be.

If we expect things to be positive and then they’re not, we have set ourselves up for a disappointment. If we expect something to be difficult or challenging, and it winds up being easy or fun, we are pleasantly surprised. The things that we expect are things that have not already taken place, so in essence, we can’t possibly know for sure if they will be good or bad. Yet, we THINK they will be one way or another. All the while, the idea of good or bad is going on in our minds even though the actuality hasn’t yet taken place.

I can remember letting every distraction take me away from a project that I was really dreading. In my mind, I ‘expected’ the project to be difficult and time consuming. Clearly, I couldn’t ‘really’ know what it would be like because it hadn’t actually happened. Yet, I was convinced of all the negatives. Eventually, I set aside a block of time and ‘forced’ myself to deal with and finish it. What happened in reality? Once I set the time aside and focused on it, it went smoothly. It wasn’t particularly difficult and the relief I felt when it was complete was enormous. That is not to say that the expectation may have turned out to be true. It may have been difficult, but it’s important to note that either way, a lot of energy went into the expectation phase and could have gone directly into the reality of doing it rather than wasting energy thinking and guessing what it might be like.

Thinking back to a time when my children were quite young, my son, who is older than my daughter, was extremely cautious and conscientious. My daughter was much more of a free spirit who didn’t concern herself about responsibility. My son came home from school without his hand-knit sweater. I went crazy not understanding how a child who is so responsible could do something so irresponsible. Then I caught myself - I thought if this had been my daughter, I would have expected something like that. And from that moment on, I realized how our expectations can get in the way and how our behavior can be based on ideas and thoughts that just aren’t true and may have no relevance. ANY child could have left a sweater behind. The difference occurred only in my expectations.

INVITATION TO EXPERIMENT:
Is there something that you have expectations around? Perhaps, it’s the behavior of another person, something you have put off doing, or maybe it’s realizing that an expectation exists in your mind about something you would like to be different. If you are willing, notice your expectations and see them for what they really are - just ideas around something that may not be true or may not be possible. Also, notice how much time or energy goes into thinking about the ideas running rampant in your mind. Hopefully, you’ll experience freedom and relief when dropping those ideas.

Marion Franklin - is a Professional Certified Life Coach who coaches individuals and groups regarding personal and professional change, focus, human relations, and conflict management. Marion has coached managers at major corporations including PepsiCo, Toys’R'Us, and Reader’s Digest. She conducts and help clients design workshops and presentations, has been a featured presenter at meetings, retreats, and an ongoing Women’s Workshop Series, has been cited in The Journal News and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on local Cable Television.
http://www.lifecoachinggroup.com

What You See Isn’t Always What You Get

When you use a visual HTML editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, they tell you that WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get. This means that, in theory, what you see while you’re editing the page should look just like what you get when you’re done. While word processors have pretty much got the concept working now when it comes to printing (it didn’t used to be as reliable), there are still problems when it comes to HTML editors and web browsers - of course, if you’ve spent more than five minutes using visual HTML editors, then you’ll know that.

The Advantages of WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is quite uncontroversial at this point - its advantages are clear, in that it lets you make your page look exactly the way you want it to while you’re writing it, with no surprises. In the early days, it was sometimes referred to as being like a kind of ‘interactive print preview’. Professional typesetters were at first opposed to its use in publishing, but it’s easy and quick enough that it has come to dominate. The alternative now, though, is to go back to the days of layout commands, which isn’t something most users want to do.

On the web, WYSIWY it can be far more problematic, because what comes out of the other end of the program isn’t a static, printed page - it’s computer code, HTML, that has to be interpreted by a web browser before it becomes anything viewable.

Not Even All Browsers are the Same

The first problem with what you see in an editor being what you get in a browser is that all the different browsers available don’t always make the same page look the same way. How are HTML editors supposed to account for bugs in Internet Explorer? They can’t, really.

Each piece of HTML editing software is forced to either write its own HTML rendering engine (the engine that decides how the code is translated to a visible page), or use one from an existing program. Recently, for example, Dreamweaver moved over to Opera’s engine, which means that it shows pages the way Opera does. FrontPage has always been closest to Internet Explorer. Because Mozilla is open source, there are a lot of HTML editors based on its engine, the most usable of which is Nvu.

That doesn’t exactly help, though, when it comes to things looking the same in every browser - if you use Dreamweaver, for example, what you see will be what you get in Opera, but not necessarily in Internet Explorer. This is a problem that can be partially solved by testing everything in every browser, but doing that doesn’t let you see what your page is going to look like as you’re going along.

Maybe What You See Shouldn’t Be What You Get

While users demand WYSIWYG software, it’s somewhat misguided when it comes to the web, for the simple reason that it expects everyone to be using your site the same way, and designs towards that expected use. In reality, the web was designed to be a document format that was interpreted by the program receiving it, meaning that if a browser wants to leave out all the graphics, or ignore all your tables, then it’s perfectly justified in doing so. This is especially significant when it comes to mobile browsers - they simply don’t have large enough screens to display normal designs, and it’s silly to force them to try.

Realising this is one of the most important differences between being a good designer and being a bad one. Bad designers will be constantly nudging at their designs, doing everything they can think of to get them to look exactly the way they intended in every browser possible, even if it doubles the size and complexity of the code. A good designer will write good code that displays in all browsers, but doesn’t necessarily have to be pixel-perfect.

Do you have the desires to go out and purchase a new boat and postulate 20000 euro

Nowadays you can suss out rates of interest quickly online and discover if there are other possible traps you should be aware of. That’s the reason why now you really need to go out and stick out if you can have a bank loan at a proficient percent rate. You should be shiny today to analyze if you have a nice special offer or if you don’t with the moneylender that offers you a money loan. A lot of the banks wil show you a loan rate that is looking acceptable but feels naughtily or so after some time. 8.6 percent interest rate may appear so middling but will it stay invariant after you have to pay off your money loan. It makes no difference if you live in Bell Gardens California or in Flagstaff Arizona a estimable online investigation will allay you often a lot of disoblige.

Translated in Dutch is says: Woon je in Wageningen of Lansingerland en heeft u BKR codering. Lenen met een BKR notering is nergens zo eenvoudig. Haal snel een nieuwe auto met lening met negatief bkr notering, 248780 euro is geen probleem om te lenen. Van Veendam tot Landsmeer, financieren met zonder BKR is hier geen enkel probleem.

Check out to see if the merchant bank who is willing to give you a loan is estimable. A bank in Boston Massachusetts or so can have a total totally different actual rate of interest for a 15000 dollar loan then a moneylender in Euclid Ohio and that makes a big clear difference in your weekly costs.

Find Public Liability Insurance for Small Business on the Web

With the claims society increasing all throughout the planet, owning public liability cover is becoming ever more & more significant. If you do not have public liability insurance included into your building cover, then now is probably the point in time to look into acquiring better cover. Here is some suggestions about why you need insurance, and what to look out for.

What is public liability insurance: Professional Indemnity insurance is an insurance agreement that protects you from claims that other people could perhaps make against you in the chance of an accident. If somebody damages their possessions or hurts themselves in or around your property or business then the public liability insurance will shelter you for any charges that could possibly occur. Cover generally ranges from two hundred and fifty pounds up to ?1 million.

What are you insured for: Insurance will insure you for accidents or loss that others might suffer in or around your house or business grounds. You are covered against claims from criminals in addition to injury that might possibly occur to anyone from falling objects or people carrying out maintenance. If a mishap takes place on your grounds & somebody claims against you, your cover will assist you to pay any costs.

What’s included A number of contents or property insurance covers contain in-built liability insurance. You ought to check with your insurer if this is the case, and if so what amount of protection you get. Even if the insurance is included, you must ensure that you are suitably covered for any sort of accidents that might arise.

Payment: The premiums that you are expected to have to pay depend on the sort of protection you purchase. If you only cover your house, then the payments are likely to be much lower than if you are covering a business. Although, payments are fairly cheap for the amount of protection that you receive & its therefore crucial for any individual running an organisation. Get professional indemnity today from Insured Risks.

Don’t Let Life Happen to You

Don’t Let Life Happen To You


It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. - Marcus Aurelius (121-80 AD, Roman Emperor, Philosopher)

It’s hard to believe that we are nearing the end of another year. As I write this, snow is falling in Colorado, the makings of a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner are in the kitchen, and our newspapers are filled with holiday ads. The end of the year always tends to be a time of reflection as we look back on the accomplishments of the past year and look forward to a new year. It’s also a time to reflect on our lives and ensure that we are living the life we want.


It’s easy to look at ones life and be content with where you are. You have a good job, a spouse or significant other, children, a nice car, and all of the trappings of success. Clearly you are well on your way to success. But the real question is, are you happy with what you are doing?


No, this is not an article about the spiritual side of your life. Normally these articles focus all of the attention on management and leadership concepts that you can use to shape your career, improve your performance, and move up the ladder of success. But as we enter a new year it is important to take a step back and make sure that the path you are on is the right path for you.


You see life has a way of just happening to people. Your first job tends to be the job that you were first offered, in an industry that may or may not really interest you, doing what you may or may not have a real talent in. Your career then tends to grow from there. You get promoted or change companies, but tend to stay with what you are familiar with and what you have done in the past. Months turn into years and at some point in time you find that you are on a career path that you never really intended to be on at all. It may be a great, wonderful career path doing all of the things that are important to you, or it may be a path where you have had some successes, but don’t find inspiring.


In short, your life has been on autopilot. That is when you know that life has happened to you.


You didn’t plan to be where you are. And while you are not unhappy with where you are, you are not happy with it either. It does not speak to your inner being.


The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. - Richard Leider


As you sit down in the coming weeks to plan your new years resolutions, take a few extra minutes to think about where you are in your life and where you are in your career. If you have not made a life plan in the past, start one now. Identify your core values. Identify what is important to you in life and in your career. Figure out were you want to be in 10 years and make sure your current path will take you there.

Your life is a fairy tale, with the journey unscripted. Take control of your life and write your own script. Understand your desires and passions and build a plan for your life that will be a source of happiness and pride. It may be in management and leadership. It may be in the arts. But whatever it is, make sure that you control your life and that your life does not just happen to you.

David Meyer, owner of Coaching for Tomorrow, has more than 25 years of management and leadership experience, having worked for companies such as Nobil Shoes, McDonough, Allied Stores, MCI and Nextel Communications. His mantra, “You Win With People” is based on the deep-seated belief that hiring, developing, and promoting the right people can lead to organizational and financial success. As a management and leadership coach, David works to instill that same passion in his clients by helping them understand the importance of strong leadership, strong teamwork, and strong players.


David has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Elmhurst College and has been certified by both ACTION International as a Business Coach and the Coach Training Alliance. He also has received his CTM from Toastmasters. He is an Officer in the Denver Coach Federation and a facilitator/trainer for the Coach Training Alliance and ACTION International of Colorado.


Married with two adult daughters, David is active in his local Kiwanis club and Crossroads Community Church. He enjoys reading, golf, scuba diving, and Civil War reenacting.


www.coachingfortomorrow.com

Shoes - Part II

I have another shoe story I’d like to share with you. I found this “bargain” just the other day. The highest quality brand of comfortable shoes that I ever wear at an amazing price. The style and the color were just what I was looking for.

At first when I found them on the shelf I thought there must be some mistake on the price. I put them on (only one because the other had a security tag on it that wouldn’t allow my foot to go in) and took it for a quick spin up and down the aisle. They seemed to be okay and I was in a state of bargain-glee.

I felt rather smug, like I got away “with one”, as I headed to the checkout. With great anticipation I put them on the very next day and headed off to my world of work…I felt like a blessed man.

About two hours into my day, I began to notice something: My feet were sore. I also looked at my shoes more closely and noticed a couple imperfections.

By the end of the day I was questioning my “bargain” (and feeling quite humbled instead of smug). It was at that point that I had an enlightened moment: I had fallen prey to the infamous bargain-impulse purchase. I had not been thorough in my research, and instead, I made a decision based on emotional impulse.

As I have since reviewed this incident (and the shoes are feeling better now that they have broken-in some, but the imperfections are still there), I have been reminded of the following life-lessons:

  1. If you settle for less, you always get less - My emotional “great bargain so go for it” state did not allow me to thoroughly investigate my purchase. I simply did not have enough data and experience with these shoes to make a good decision.
  2. If the shoe (sorta) fits, you still don’t have to wear it (or buy it) - Fulfilling and healthy choices are based on my values, needs and boundaries. When I instead act on emotional impulse, I may in fact be out of alignment with what is really important in my life.
  3. The foundation is the most important part of my every situation - I just happened to be sitting next a chiropractic physician at a meeting yesterday morning and we got talking about shoes. He reminded me that our whole body rests on our feet, and if something is not right at the feet, the whole body can be thrown off. And so it is with life: My personal foundation needs to be of the highest quality so that my life will operate efficiently, effectively and abundantly.

So I learned some great lessons via my (not) shoe bargain…I was reminded not to settle; to be clear about what I really want; and to take care of and cherish the most important aspects of my life… I hope you also had an enlightened moment or two as you read this.

Ken Donaldson - EzineArticles Expert Author

Ken Donaldson has been based in Tampa Bay offering counseling, coaching, and educational programs since 1987. His REALationship Coaching programs empower people to have more successful lives, businesses and relationships by building a powerful relationship with themselves first. Visit his website at http://www.REALationshipCoach.com for more information and sign-up his free e-program Illuminations and Sparks of Brilliance. Ken is also the author of the upcoming book Marry YourSelf First!

Procure Cricket Gear on the Web Today

When you are just about to begin to play cricket it’s not always easy to know what you should buy. If you go into a sports equipment retail store & ask them what you require, you will end up getting a great deal of equipment that you don’t need. Therefore, it’s important to figure out what you will want before you go shopping. That way you are considerably more likely to obtain what you require, as opposed to what the store owner believes you require.

Below, is more or less an exhaustive cricket equipment list, you do not have to get all the items on this list, as various clubs will loan you equipment particularly at junior level:

Cricket whites, cricket bats, balls, helmets, gloves, batting (wicket keeping) inner gloves, wicket keeping gloves, batting pads, wicket keeping pads, box, chest pad, arm guard, inner thigh pad, cricket boots (bowling boots; batting boots), box (groin guard), stumps and bails.

For the majority of sports games you will ever participate in you will require to have your very own set of whites. Cricket whites include white cricket trousers & cricket shirt. Check that you get hold of a proper set of cricket trousers and also a good white cricket shirt and jumper as it can get pretty cold if you are standing out on the field for a great deal of time especially if you intend to play in England (the start and end of the cricket season are the coldest). Get a great deal on cricket equipment from Sportswear-Equipment.com.

If you can not hire gear from your club the other most important items of equipment are a cricket bat and box. A well built cricket bat is essential if you hope to score many runs and is a very individual piece of equipment, therefore spend several hours selecting your bat, in an ideal world you would be advised to go to a sports store & test drive one before you buy in order for you to know how it feels to hit with. (Once you know what you want you can often acquire bats online a great deal cheaper). You need a good box to guard your groin from the ball, as getting hit down below’ is particularly painful, so investing in a good box before you start is a must - you can not play cricket without one.

Related topics of interest include: Formula One Merchandise & Buy Toys.

Health Savings Accounts

Most people with health insurance, especially employer paid health insurance, really don’t know what their health care costs are. Furthermore, in many cases, they are limited in which health providers (doctors, hospitals, pharmacies etc) they can use.

Most people are locked into a network of doctors. They know what the co-pay is, but have no idea what the doctor actually charges.

When insured consumers are hospitalized, they rarely see the bill. They don’t know if the insurance company was overcharged or not. There are firms that audit hospital bills for insurers and self insured companies. They get paid a percentage of what they save on the bill payer by finding overcharges, duplicate charges and the like. The last I heard these firms were still making lots of money.

Overcharging, whether deliberate or not, by doctors and hospitals drive up health care costs for all. (So do malpractice suits, but that’s another story.)

In order to give consumers more direct control not only over their health costs, but in the choice of which doctor they can see or which hospital they can enter, Congress enacted the Health Savings Account Availability Act. As of the beginning of 2004, individuals who are not otherwise insured can have Health Savings Accounts (HSA) , which carry with them some very attractive tax benefits.

An individual can set up an HSA for himself or his family. An employer can add an HSA option to the so-called cafeteria benefit plan it may already offer.

The money put into the plan is before taxes, including Social Security, if part of an employer plan. Otherwise it is a above-the-line deduction, meaning you don’t have to itemize your deductions to get the tax break and that the deduction is not subject to the phase-out rules that make many itemized deductions unavailable to high wage earners.

The plan is set up like an IRA. A trustee approved by the IRS must be used. Money put in the plan grows tax free and funds withdrawn for qualified medical expenses are also tax free. Unlike the older Flexible Savings Accounts offered in employer cafeteria plans, you don’t have to spend the money put into the account by year end or otherwise lose whatever’s left. Money can be rolled over from year to year. This can allow for a nice chunk of money to accumulate that can be withdraw tax free at age 65.

In order to qualify, the individual or family must purchase a high deducible health insurance policy. These are special policies that have a minimum deductible of $1000 to a maximum of $5000 for an individual and $2000 to $10,000 for a family. The higher the deductible, the lower the premium.

Individuals can deduct the lesser of $2250 or the deductible on the policy: for married couples or families it is double that. If over 55, the deduction is $600 higher for individual and $1200 higher for couples and will continue to rise at $100 a year until 2009, where it will be capped at $1000 for individuals and $2000 for families.

The money in the HSA cannot be used to pay the premiums for this policy except in certain circumstances (basically when you’re unemployed). It is meant to meet the deductible, co-pays, drug costs, eyeglasses or any other medical expense that could be itemized on an individual tax return as a medical expense.

Money withdrawn in excess of qualified medical expenses is taxed as income and subject to a 10% penalty, unless the owner is disabled or over 65. Any money in the account at death is added to the taxable estate.

There are no income limits on this plan. If started early, when you are still young and healthy a substantial amount of money could accumulate to either meet higher medical costs as you get older or to use to supplement your income.

It pays to compare the costs of this plan with whatever your insurance you have now. It might turn out that your employer’s plan is still cheaper and you might want to keep it. Or you might want to consider HSA’s for their portability (you carry it from job to job without cost or loss of any contributions) and the tax benefit of having another vehicle to shelter income and capital growth, while giving you more control over the cost and quality of your health care.

Chris Cooper is a retired attorney who has spent several periods of his life deep in debt. At http://www.credit-yourself.com he tries to pass on some of the knowledge he picked up in his journey to become debt free.

Personal Strategic Planning

I have a few questions for you —What if we as individuals adapted and utilized some of the same tried and true processes and methods that have given businesses the edge they need to succeed over their competition? My sense is that understood and implemented correctly professionals would be able to gain the same competitive advantage. Remarkably, this is not anything overly complicated or new and I can’t take credit for developing it. But I can (and will) take credit for suggesting we take it out of the boardroom and adapt it for personal use to achieve greater personal and professional success. This classic business tool is the process of Strategic Planning.

Consider what you could achieve if you had a clear vision of your short and long term objectives, understood where the greatest growth opportunity is now and where it will be in five years and had an effective action plan with measurements for evaluation.. That’s what a strategic plan can do for you. It’s like using a map to understand the best way to get across town knowing that are various options, but some are more direct and efficient then others. Strategic Planning is a deliberate, purposeful thought progression that when implemented will ensure your success.

I have taken the process and broken it into 5 steps. The first is Visioning- meaning you need to know at the beginning where you want to end up. Create a vivid mental picture of your future and list the specific results you want to achieve.

The second piece in the process is Preparing - strategically. To be strategic is to be calculating, deliberate and intentional. We’ve all heard the saying that knowledge is power so this is how you “power-up”! Strategically preparing incorporates research, resources and identifying potential options across a broad range of concerns. As with a corporate plan, an individuals’ plan must include a SWOT analysis. This step is critical as it identifies your “Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats”.

Taking this further, an effective SWOT analysis can not be developed without looking outside yourself (or your company) to consider external conditions such as industry and market conditions, technology advances, available resources, potential opportunities, core competencies and overall fit.

Step three involves creating your action plan. Based on what you now know, what do you need to do and how do you need to do it.

Step four is all about Implementation. As Nike says, “Just Do It”.

Step five requires the ability to Evaluate and Adjust. This will not only help you to keep on track, but will promote continued learning and improvement.

Jeannette Kraar, president of Performance Management International is the Breakthrough Career Coach and a highly-acclaimed trainer, speaker and consultant. Hundreds of PMI clients have succeeded even in the most turbulent times. Jeannette is the author of BREAKTHROUGH, The Hate My Job, Need A Life, Can’t Get No Satisfaction SOLUTION.

Learn more about the book at http://www.breakthroughcareersolutions.com

Email Jeannette at pmi@manageyoursuccess.com or visit her on-line at http://www.manageyoursuccess.com

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