New Years Resolutions

For several years, I made New Years Resolutions. In fact, my tradition until two years ago was to make twelve New Years Resolutions, a number chosen partially as symbolic of the twelve months of the year but also a number that meant I probably had a shot of achieving at least a couple of them!

I started a series of exercises, somewhat by accident, a couple of years ago that approach assisting me in identifying, defining, and achieving my goals in life in a different way. Now that I approach the first New Year’s Day following the instatement of this new method, I am realizing that New Years Resolutions would not only be somewhat redundant to make, they might also be somewhat detrimental to the process.

I should put the disclaimer in, before we get too far, that I am married. Some of the methodology I have used has marriage, or at least being part of a couple, as a filter. I am confident that there is equal value for singles in the process I have gone through, but there may have to be some adjustment, “tweaking”, in parts to make it fit well for your life if you are reading this and are single. I will try to make suggestions, when applicable, to help that process.

The three main parts to my process are listed below. In the coming days, I will discuss each of them in detail.

Step One: Paint the Big Picture
Step Two: Increase Self Awareness
Step Three: Life is a Beach

I’m going to stop there for today, but I want to say one last thing about New Years Resolutions in general. As you will see in the exercises over the next few days, one of the big take-aways I am trying to suggest is that it is somewhat dangerous to tie resolutions down to just New Years. In fact, it is dangerous to tie goals and resolutions down too much to anything. You want goals to be simultaneously quantifiable and flexible, to give to drive and direction while recognizing that life is always changing and what it important one year may have a totally different level of importance the next, relative to other things in life.

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Every Day Could Be Like Christmas
(Originally written December 22, 2006)

The classic holiday crooner Jon Bon Jovi once suggested that he wished every day could be like Christmas. I have heard people from outside of New Jersey also express a similar notion.

I presume these people aren’t referring to songs about George Michael giving his heart to someone the previous Christmas who proceeded to throw it away. Nor do I suspect they yearn to clash eternally with a thousand soccer moms in the toy aisles while trying to make their way back to the electronics department at Target.

No, I imagine people wanting every day to be like Christmas comes down to some combination of the following:

* receiving kind gifts from people who care about you
* giving gifts to those we appreciate
* sending cards out to people we haven’t communicated with as often as we’d like
* celebrating the birth of Christ (if that’s what you’re in to)
* volunteering or collecting food for the hungry, or giving toys to kids who can’t afford them, etc. – charitable works
* forgiving others (and if need be, yourself)
* spending quality time with family and friends sharing meals, playing games, etc.

I guess my point of all this is… there’s really no reason any of these things should be limited to one day a year.

So enjoy your Christmas, one and all. And have a Merry January 17th too, just for the heck of it.

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Social Media Club - December 2006 Meeting

As you may have seen in the news recently, Time Magazine has named “You” as the Person of the Year. 

“But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.”

I could not have asked for a better summary of what my experience at the Social Media Club Phoenix meeting in December was like.  The primary objective of the club is to continually explore the ways in which new internet technologies, particularly those wrapped up into the “Web 2.0” label, are changing the way we can connect, interact, influence, and inform one another.

If you are in the Phoenix area, or one of the cities where the Social Media Club is meeting, I highly encourage you to attend an event.  Even if you’re not near a meeting though, check out their website and do some research on what is going on in the internet world.  Reality is changing in really interesting ways, and understanding them can be a powerful asset.

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Inspired

“There’s no doubt or worry - it just absolutely feels like the right thing to do.”
- a friend and former colleague

I used to work for a really terrific manager at one of my former employers. She consistently encouraged me, never held back on expressing the potential she thought I had, and always created opportunities to succeed and learn even when her plate was overflowing with work of her own. When I moved on, I made sure to let her know how much I appreciated her as a mentor and a friend, and I remember wanting to do something for her because she seemed… well, perhaps not defeated, but certainly not like what she was doing was in line with her passions.

On Sunday I was at a holiday party one of my old coworkers invited me to, and my old manager showed up. Without getting into details, she shared with me that she was moving on to a new opportunity, and that it was far more in line with what she wanted to do. My wife, who had only briefly met this person a couple of years ago, told her “You look like you’re glowing, like you’re really happy.” And I thought about the last time I had seen this mentor compared to how she radiated at the party, and it was… inspiring. Seeing others follow their passions in life is wonderful anytime, but seeing someone I have built a relationship with heading off on an exciting aventure filled with potential like that brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.

Current Mood: cheerful

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Stop Having Problems

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
- Albert Einstein

Something is often only a problem when you perceive it to be so. Thus, the solution to many problems is not to fret about them or work hard at them. The solution is to stop focusing on them. If you transcend your problem, and get into a peaceful place inside yourself about it instead, two things will occur; you’ll find out if it was a real problem at all, and if it was a problem that needs to be solved, you’ll find much better answers with a calm, clear frame of mind.

Once you’ve eliminated the excess and are left with things that are actual items you wish to solve, the next step is to stop thinking of them using the word “problem”, along with all of the negative connotations that come from thinking of something that way. I’ve spoken before about recognizing opportunities as they come along in your life, and here’s a great tip for an easy way to spot them - look for what most people see as problems! Bad problems and terrific growth opportunities are frequently two sides of the same coin.

There is tremendous strength in beginning to see the world for all of the opportunities it has to offer. There is potential virtually everywhere, surrounding you. It’s waiting for you to harness it.

Current Mood: calm

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A Brief Lesson in Time Management

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
- Homer

“When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’”
- Steven Wright

It’s very late and I have not begun formally writing Friday’s post yet. So this will be brief, because I have many hours to fill with fun, life-enriching activities, and some of them will occur rather early.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine today about the universe and how to fix it. Or really, rather, that it is our perception and perhaps not reality that it is “broken” at all. I believe, you see, that our perception defines our reality. As a Christian, I am sometimes asked what proof I have that my beliefs are true. The best answer I have is, it’s called a “faith” because that’s what you have to have to truly believe in something you can’t physically hand someone or show them. I look at the same evidence around me as everyone else, and I perceive a completely different reality about what makes sense as a base of my spirituality.

Have you ever just “known” something was going to happen, and then it did? When I was going through all of my interviews in my senior year of college, I “knew” which job I’d end up with. Before we ever actually began formally dating, I “knew” that I was going to marry the woman that became my wife. Did a series of my choices, conscious or not, lead to those outcomes in some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy? Did my conviction and absolute certainty in my heart about these things lead me to influence others into believing there is no other possible outcome? I can’t answer those questions with any certainty, but I can say that my best guess is that I had gone through enough deep self-evaluation to know how to recognize the best fit for me in each situation when I came across it, and from there the fact that I kept perceiving my reality to be that getting my top job pick and marrying my wife were foregone conclusions at least probably didn’t hurt the eventual outcomes.

Your mind has the potential to be incredibly powerful, regardless of how you choose to use it. Wielded wisely, it can be an incredibly potent tool for good.

Current Mood: chipper

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Activity Versus Accomplishments

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”
- Jim Rohn

I used to be a sales person for a major clothing retailer back in the nineties. Before I ever took a job there, I was a big fan of their products, and in fact I chose them because I thought I could do a good job selling something I believed so much in. When I began with them, I wasn’t making much more than minimum wage, but I loved my job and my living expenses weren’t too high at that point in my life.

I stood in the front of the store and greeted every customer. I wanted to sell to them, but I wanted to do it in a non-invasive way. I knew that if I could show them why I was so passionate about the way the company treated the customers, and set up its policies around making sure the customer is happy with the quality and value of their purchases, I could have those customers coming back again and again. And I was successful, always finding new ways to communicate with everyone I came in contact with, quickly becoming the top salesperson in the store for several months.

Then a major shift in management and direction took place, both at a high level and locally to my store as well. Without going into details, things rapidly soured and I felt like I could no longer support the customers like I used to, or sell our products to them with the same confidence that they’d have a great experience with them. I began to just go about my daily tasks, doing what was expected and asked but nothing more. I lost my top sales person status, and just remained average. There was nothing wrong with the way I performed - I did what I needed to do to keep things moving and keep my managers satisfied, but it was just going through the motions to earn a paycheck. Eventually, I left, dissatisfied with working in a place I felt that way about.

When I was passionate about my work, I accomplished. When I lost the passion, I was only doing activity. If you’re a sales person and you just say “can I help you”, that customer is going to just shut you down with a “no thanks, just looking”. If you instead introduce yourself, build a relationship, explain how your product can improve their lives, and be genuine and passionate about it, you’ll accomplish great things.

The same translates to all activities. Managers can make sure their people go through the motions and get their work done, but it is leaders that encourage the people they work with have all the tools and opportunities they need to innovate, to feel empowered, and to not be afraid to ask questions that might lead to improvements or opportunities.  We often get so caught up in other things, that the most innocent, inexperienced eyes can see important things we may be missing.

So at the end of the day, I would ask yourself if you have spend your time working towards activities, or working towards accomplishments?  What have you added value to today?  What will you differently tomorrow?

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Thoughts Into Actions

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
- Immanuel Kant

“When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.”
- Colleen C Barrett

Intelligence is knowing it is raining outside. Wisdom is coming in from the rain.

Without possessing the wisdom to do something with knowledge, it really matters very little how much information an individual accumulates. Have you ever known people who could soak up information like a sponge, ace every exam in school they took, but seemed to have so little common sense it was almost pitiable?

In a sense, ideas are like knowledge. Without actions to implement the ideas, there is very limited value to the ideas. I have known for some time that I am an “idea man”. Every day that passes, I get better at seeing the possibilities in something, I see opportunities when they present themselves rather than walk by them blissfully unaware. And even though I have changed significantly in my ability to take action on the ideas, it is still extremely frustrating sometimes to have all these unimplemented ideas inside my skull.

I say that I have changed as far as my will and ability to take action is concerned. At first, I would simply be too lazy to go about trying to get much done with them. I’d have them, then I’d put a plan in place to play a bunch of video games with friends, and leave the idea cold and alone, desperate for a nice cozy scarf or something. Then I got up the gumption to actually take a stab at implementing the ideas, but I wouldn’t have any real order or foresight about how to properly go about it. It would come out half-baked, I’d get frustrated and bored with it, and I’d move on. Finally, I reach the current stage in my life, where I have a pretty high success rate of implementing ideas, but I’m always tempted to take on too much at once, and I either burn out or some of the balls I’m juggling get dropped and fall through the cracks.

So I’m in the process of scaling back my life, and trying to be very aware of my limitations. I’ve learned to just say no, and I’m focusing on just the things I feel the most passionate about, where I can do the most good with the particular strengths I possess. But that doesn’t mean I stop having all these other ideas come my way. I just don’t have the time to take them anywhere near an implementation stage at this particular point in my life.

Stay tuned in the months ahead for tools to help you manage your ideas, take them into action, and recognize what your limits are and when you’ve exceeded them.

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The Duration of a Goal

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
- Michelangelo

I’m going to do a lot of talking about goals in the future, maybe even have a goal month, but for now I wanted to talk about the difference between short term and long term goals. In fact, I’d like to suggest that the difference isn’t as big as we think.

I was telling one of my colleagues the other day about a few long term goals of mine, and he mentioned that he didn’t have a lot of long term goals, that he works more with short term goals. And that really intrigued me, because I would have a really hard time coming up with short term goals if I didn’t have any long term goals. But the more we talked, the more I got the sense that we weren’t so far apart - he did have long term goals, they’re just more generalized than mine. I have a lot of short term goals, but I keep them a bit more fluid so long as they are building towards the long term goals I have set out.

One of his concerns about long term goals was that they’d lock him into something he might find he doesn’t fit with five years down the road, and he might miss out on something bigger, better, or more in line with where his passions and strengths lay because he’s so focused on something he thought he wanted a long time ago. That’s a legitimate concern, and I definitely want to avoid things that stifle the ability to recognize the potential opportunities in life as they come along the path. My answer to this, and how I try to avoid getting bogged down in any goal (short or long) is to review my goals once a year. My wife and I literally take some time during our summer vacation each year, and evaluate where we are in all of our goals (both individually as as a couple). Some goals have been accomplished so we cross them off. Some goals have become less or greater a priority, so we adjust their position on the list and if appropriate the duration we estimate it will take to accomplish them. Perhaps most important to recognize, though, are the new things that have come into your life, and the things you want to take off the list because it just isn’t very important to you anymore to achieve them.

Occasionally, we have to let goals go. Three years ago when I was going to school and we needed to bring more income to the house, I started my own web and graphic design business. I built relationships with clients, created a lot of work that I was proud of, and really took a lot of pride and enjoyment from being self-employed. Recently, I took a job with a corporation, and I am extremely passionate about making the most of the opportunities it represents. The new job fulfilled a lot of my personal needs that the side business had been taking care of, I didn’t need the income, and I really began to dislike the work. But I had built relationships with my clients, and I had emotional attachment to this business I spent a lot of time with for three years, so my heart and my head had some pretty heated debates before I finally felt good about letting it go. It easily made the most sense in terms of what will make me happiest today and, I think, in the long run too. But sometimes giving up a goal can be a very emotional thing, and you just have to keep in mind that what you’re getting in exchange will be so much better.

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Trustworthiness

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you hear the word “trustworthy”, what is the first thing you think of? My guess was it was something along the lines of someone not lying, someone always telling the truth, and someone, well, worth trusting! But gauging “truth” is something that varies from person to person, and what I want to challenge you to do today is to think about the deeper meaning of truth, and what it means to be able to trust someone.

Be careful with your words and be careful with your “word”. Giving your word that you will do something within specific parameters, and then failing to execute, can be forgiven once or twice, but as a pattern it negates ability to build trust with you. Simply stated, don’t make promises you can’t keep, even if you feel pressured to do so. In the long run, everyone is better off for it.

If you don’t know the answer to a question someone asks, don’t let them think you do. Just saying “sorry, I dunno” probably won’t cut it, but if you say “I’m not sure, but I think I know where I can find out or the people I should talk to in order to get the answer, so let me get back with you next week”, you should be in great shape.

A great benefit of setting expectations at a realistic or even underestimated level, is that it provides a bigger opportunity to overdeliver and really shine. If someone asks you to get a task done by Friday of next week, you say you can deliver it by Monday of next week, and you give it to them Wednesday, you just delivered two days late instead of two days early in their mind. What a waste of an opportunity!

Have you ever been asked to do something you weren’t sure you could complete within the constraints they laid out, but you agreed to it anyway? Maybe you were able to deliver it and maybe you weren’t, but regardless of the outcome, you didn’t communicate with complete honesty to that person about what you felt your capabilities were. Setting expectations accurately as soon as possible in any project or relationship is critical to its health and success, and it gives you the freedom to work within what you know to be your own constraints. Everyone expects the same thing, and it doesn’t exceed what you think you are capable of. See how the truth really can set you free?

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Change Your World

“If we have the opportunity to be generous with our hearts, ourselves, we have no idea of the depth and breadth of love’s reach.”
- Margaret Cho

By giving, you’ll make the world better. Maybe not always “the” world every time, but certainly “your” world. And since we’re all connected, that starts becoming one and the same, see?

Leadership is said to be about serving others, so it stands to reason that by giving to others, you are in fact becoming a leader in your community.  The more you give, the more you begin to understand inherently what it means to be a great leader.  The world needs leadership, perhaps today more than ever.

In the book Good to Great, one of the absolute keys to a “Great” leader is that he or she possesses, somehow, near limitless amounts of both confidence and humility, simultaneously.  By learning to go outside of your self and learn ways in which we are all connected, finding what your strengths and interests are and how they can be applied to charitable acts, and activily going out and giving in the ways you are passionate about, chances are you will encounter situations and people who will encourage and hone your confidence and show you reasons to be humble.  Chances are if you are reading this blog post, you’re far better off in life than most of your fellow mankind, and it is hard to truly understand how fortunate you are, how much you have to be thankful for, and not be humbled as a result.

I don’t have unrealistic goals for this blog.  I hope it reaches someone else, but even if it does just reach one someone else and cause a shift inside of them, changing something in them that makes them want to do something nice for some fellow human being, the possibility of that snowballing into a community-changing event is… well, it’s big enough that I’ll keep trying, keep giving.  To you.

How you perceive reality creates your reality.  If you perceive a reality in which you can make positive changes, you’re well on your way to changing the world you live in.

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Giving Strengths

“The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.”
- Charles Dudley Warner

By actively giving, you’ll figure out where your “giving strengths” lie.

As Mark Sanford puts it, “Giving is an art.  That requires practice.” If you don’t feel you have money to give, you can give of your experience, your skills, your time, or other resources you may have.  Experiment with getting involved in different kinds of giving, with different kinds of organization involved in your efforts.  Maybe you’ll go volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity project and find out you excel at bashing your thumb with a hammer but not much else when it comes to home construction.  That’s okay, the next day you can go teach high school kids how to manage their money when they get older.  The day after that, you can read to children at your local public library.  Eventually, you’ll find something that matches your skills and interests with a place you can do the most good with them.

I don’t like to think of people as “tools” or “resources”, but consider the old adage about chopping down a tree with a sledge hammer.  You might get it done, but you’d have a much easier time of it and be able to chop a lot more trees down if you used an axe or a saw.  By finding something you’re a great fit for, where you can thrive and be passionate and use your strengths to accomplish big feats, you’re maximizing your giving potential.

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Connectedness
If you have a chance some day, I encourage you to take the StrengthsFinder exam from Gallup. It is an exam that enables you to identify your strengths, then work on action items to utilize and keep growing those strengths.

I bring it up, because I took the exam, and my number one strength was “Connectedness”. There is a lot of explanation and discussion about what that means, but I think this quote sums up perfectly how someone with this strengths filters the world.

“Sometimes I just look at my bowl of cereal in the morning and think about those hundreds of people who were involved in bringing me my bowl of cereal: the farmers in the field; the biochemists who made the pesticides; the warehouse workers at the food preparation plants; even the marketers who somehow persuaded me to buy this box of cereal and not a different one sitting next to it on a shelf. I know it sounds strange, but I give thanks to these people, and just doing that makes me feel more involved with life, more connected to things, less alone.”
- Rose T., psychologist

Through giving, you can learn to look beyond your own self and begin to see more ways in which we’re all connected. I come back frequently to the idea that giving can be a very small act, or a very large one (or, ideally, some combination of all sizes of giving, intertwined into your daily life). You’re likely giving throughout your day and not realizing it.

Some examples of how I have given today - watch for a few you recognize in yourself:

• placed my empty cardboard cereal box into the recycling bin instead of the garbage
• smiled at the clerk at Target, thanking her and telling her what a great job she did
• turned the lights off in the house before leaving to use less energy resources (thus reducing pollution and my electric bill simultaneously!)
• bought a calendar for a friend because she likes cows
• said hi to my neighbor and asked what he had planned that day

All of these actions helped me to connect with my environment and/or community, all of them took minimal effort relative to the potential benefit, and all of them are examples of giving.

Look around in the world around you as you go about your day. Think about your interactions with people you come in contact with, and how you can improve someone’s day with just a few extra words and/or smiles. When you walk into a store, think about everyone that was involved in making your shopping experience there possible - clerks, managers, shippers, suppliers, manufacturers, and far more. When I was returning an item the other day to a store, I watched as the clerk took care of the transaction with ease, and thought about the people who were involved with creating a system of technology, ideas, and policies that enabled the clerk to so quickly and efficiently take care of me. I thanked her, but as I walked away thinking about some different sorts of experiences I’ve had at return desks, I also said a silent thanks to the establishment that made both my experience and the job of the clerk so easy and painless.

We’re all connected, to our environment and everything that exists in it, in ways we’ll never realize. By giving your time, money, and resources to something you believe in that is bigger than yourself, you extend your awareness of what is beyond your self, and increase your opportunities to learn more about the ways in which you are connected to others.

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A Source of Strength

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

Most giving opportunities involve working your physical muscles, your mental muscles, or both. One way or another, you’ll become stronger.

Giving can be a very small thing.  When you smile at someone who opens the door for you, chances are you put them in a better mood.  You’ve used your muscles in your face and arms in the process.

I recently spent a morning opening about a thousand cans of fruit cocktail for individuals and families that need a charitable source of good meals. I don’t know that there were muscles in my body I didn’t use by the time I was through!

Being a part of a charity walk some weekend doesn’t just provide a good opportunity for physical exercise, it also provides an educational event for you to learn more about whatever cause you are walking for, what research is being done towards a cure or solution, and how you can get more involved if you are interested.

There are museums, libraries, theaters, zoos, schools, and other institutions striving to provide positive learning experiences to the public, and are yearning for people to support their efforts through donations of money, resources, or your time.  Think about the potential knowledge you could take out of working one day a week or month at a museum.  Think of the positive change you could make in a child’s life by talking to them about the animals they’re looking at, or the play they just watched.

My examples focus on helping humans, but there are certainly other causes out there!  Giving to a local animal shelter, working to preserve a historic building or landmark, or somehow improving the environment - the opportunies are out there, and plentiful enough that there is surely something that you could get involved with tied to your particular interests, and make a positive contribution to.

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Good From Giving

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
- Anne Frank

There was a Friends episode in which Joey was determined to show Phoebe that there was no such thing as a truly selfless deed, because when you do good things for others it makes you feel too good to be counted as totally selfless. As you know if you watched the show, Joey was a wise man.

Giving your time, energy, money, and other resources to someone who could benefit from them just about can’t help but make you feel great inside, even if you don’t actually see the eventual outcome of your generosity.  Like the butterfly effect concept, you never know what monumental effect a simple act of kindness can have on an individual, a family, or even a community.

Interestingly, the more you give, the better you’ll get at it.  Giving of your time or money forces you to become a better steward of those resources, increasing your time management skills and your awareness of your finances.  In fact, most leading financial magazines I read have endorsed giving ten percent of your income to a cause you are passionate about, because the increased awareness of your savings and spending habits usually reaps enough personal benefit to offset the ten percent donation in the long run.

Yep. Giving of yourself, however you choose to do it, can be a downright selfish act. So go treat yourself by sending a check to your favorite charity, or indulge yourself by spending the day serving food to the homeless.

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Making A Life

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
- Winston Churchill

Giving your time, energy, and resources to others is a rather magical act, in that you personally will reap huge benefits as well. You might think that working for a day on, for example, a Habitat for Humanity house is just going to help those who will someday live in it. I’d like to suggest that there is a myriad of things you’ll get out of the experience of giving.

• You’ll feel good doing it.
• Most giving opportunities involve working your physical muscles, your mental muscles, or both. One way or another, you’ll become stronger.
• You will learn to look beyond your own self and begin to see more ways in which we’re all connected.
• You’ll figure out where your “giving strengths” lie.
• You’ll make the world better.

I’ll talk about each of these things individually over the next week. In the meantime, I encourage you to spend a little time today thinking about what your strengths are, where your passions lie, and what sort of opportunities might exist in your community to use your strengths and passions in a way that will help others.

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Communication
“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.”
- Anthony Robbins

It is my hope that by communicating with others through this blog, we can all determine the quality of our lives to be improved.

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About the Follow Your Passions Blog
The Follow Your Passions blog is my attempt to spur people into doing what they love and loving what they do. It’s about owning whatever you’re doing with your life and making the most of it. It’s about becoming a leader in the communities you are a part of, however you define those communities for yourself.

Leadership. Mentoring. Giving. Enriching our own lives and the lives of those around us through our choices, our words, and our actions. Living happy, satisfied lives as productive, contributing human beings in the time we’re given to be with one another.

Each month, I’ll be collecting contributions from anyone who wishes to participate, and donating them to an organization that embodies the spirit of following your passions.

Current Mood: chipper

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