Don’t forget to be happy now.

“Joy and happiness.  If you can feel that all the time, who cares what happens on the outside?” – Michael Singer

The point of everything you do is to be happy.

But if you keep thinking that you need to accomplish/do/experience things you haven’t yet to be happy, then you will suspend your own happiness.

You can feel happiness and joy now, if you just allow it.

Don’t suspend it.  This is it.

Be happy now.

Now is YOUR time.

“In the long run, we’re all dead.” – John Maynard Keynes

Before you leave this place forever…..notice – isn’t it beautiful?

Don’t you have something you must do while you have the chance?

Suffering is self-made

Pain is a part of life, but suffering often comes by what we think about it.

When something bad happens, it’s pretty hard to suffer without thinking about it – how much it hurts, how it’s not what you wanted, how it’s unfair, how you didn’t deserve it, and how justice was not served to someone else.

The story you tell yourself, over and over for days, months or years becomes the source of your suffering over the (often one-time) event.

Sometimes, you repress the story, and pushing it back because it hurts.  Now the story is just waiting until you are vulnerable to come forward and take control.

Instead, you could let go of the story.  Face it, feel it, look it square in the eye, and let it go right through and past you.

Even better, you can make a new story about what happened.  You can see how it empowered you, made you stronger, and opened the door to something new and better.  Use what happened to make you better.  Use what happened and share it with others who are struggling with the same kind of thing.

What happened and what we do with it are two completely different things. 

One is over with.  The other is always up to us.

The best way to get what you want…

“The best way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.” – Charlie Munger

What do you want?

Do you deserve it?  

Do you want it bad enough to change so that you do deserve it?

Poor learning, poor earning.

“The acquisition of wisdom is a moral duty.  If you aren’t a lifetime learner, you aren’t going to do very well.” – Charlie Munger

The way to win is to learn faster than everyone else.

“But I don’t have time”, you say?  Here’s how to learn while having a busy schedule – 

First, stop doing unproductive things that waste time, like scrolling social media, news, and watching TV.  That’s frees up hours a day for the average American.  Now you have time.

Then turn your car into a mobile university.  Do the same for the time running, shopping, on airplanes, getting ready in the morning, time before bed, eating time, workout time, when gardening, doing chores, and many other times in the margins of your day.  Listen to audiobooks, podcasts, audio tracks from YouTube, iTunes University, Masterclass, Ted Talks, free courses from colleges, or a thousand other free and valuable things available today, in 2025, for free to anyone with one of those supercomputers in your pocket.  You can even have conversations with an AI assistant who answers your questions by drawing on all the world’s information in seconds.

This is how I learned what I know.  I listened while driving for 40 years.  It used to be cassette tapes.  Now it’s so easy.

These days, it’s not the “haves and the have-nots”.  It’s the “wills and the will-nots”.

Will you? 

Your test can become your testimony

Whatever bad things happened to you can be helpful to you or someone else.

No event is wasted. 

You can experience “post-traumatic growth” if you don’t try to hide and bury what happened.

It can be your poison or your fuel.

You are not the only one.  Your story can help others avoid a crisis or get through one themselves.

You are not damaged goods.  You are more valuable, more experienced, stronger and wiser.

Learn.  Understand.  Talk.  Share.  

When your heart is alive, your body keeps up.

When you aren’t turned-on, don’t have a purpose or a goal, your body has no energy, and injuries and illnesses step forward and occupy your mind.

When you are filled with a passion or an idea that excites you, your body responds with energy and ability.

What idea/mission energizes you?

Let’s go!

Grow toward the sun

Life is one crossroads after another.  

One decision after another.

Some small, some big.

Let each decision, whether it comes after something good or something bad, take you and the people around you to a better place, a better situation, a better version.

No matter what happens, good or bad, you can control your attitude, thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

Grow toward the sun.

Intuition – a voice guiding you.

Intuition is part of wisdom.

The basis of intuition is memory. 

You instinctively draw on your experiences – the ones that are fresh and the ones that are distant and faded.

If you recall a certain behavior from someone to be a red flag, you will proceed with caution.  That’s probably a good thing.

The problem is if you had an experience where you were embarrassed, didn’t perform well, or didn’t get good results, and told yourself the wrong story as the lesson – then your intuition can send you a signal, with the wrong advice.  

If it says “don’t take that chance, you’ll look stupid”, (or get your heart broken, or be betrayed, or won’t win, etc.) because these things happened in the past, then your intuition becomes a voice to limit you.

Let’s say you didn’t win in the past because you weren’t good enough – yet.  Was the story “I won’t win”? or, “I need to get better if I want to win – and I can”.  If you got your heart broken, was the lesson “I am not worthy”, or “Love is pain”, or “That was just the wrong person and I can see why now”?

We need to pay attention to the stories we tell ourselves about the experiences we have had.  All experiences are training for the next ones.  

Seek the valuable and useful lesson.  That’s what your mind will draw on in the future.

This will bring out the best in you…

Unless you have a clear and strong purpose, your mind wanders.

Anything will do.  You waste time. You wander.  You can’t decide.

You settle for very low-value activities to pass the time away.

I can tell you unless I have one or more big goals, passion projects or burning reasons, I am not the same person.

Imagine that…the same you, but completely different versions; one a bland wandering generality, and one on a mission, super focused and productive.

All because of a purpose.

What is your purpose? 

Is it big enough to bring out the best in you?