5 Simple Comebacks For Dealing With Rude People

Rude people really are annoying, but there's no way to get around it: you're going to run into one now and then. Here are 5 great ways to deal with rude people.

1. Tell them you appreciate their perspective.

When someone is being rude to you, they don't expect graciousness, or any kind of positive emotions to come at them. If anything, it'll disarm them and make them realize you appreciate different viewpoints, including theirs.

2. Thank them.

Put on a smile and say "thank you." It's a subtle way to acknowledge their rudeness and opt out of engaging them on it. It shows you're in control of your emotions.

3. Tell them they're right.

Just because someone is rude doesn't make what they have to say incorrect. If someone rudely points something out, tell them they're right. It almost always gives them pause. They expect you to argue, not concede.

4. End the conversation.

There's nothing wrong with saying a conversation with a rude person is over. You're in charge of who you talk to about what. If you're being disrespected, walk away.

5. Laugh.

Because what's funnier than laughing in the face of a rude person?

Stay focused and watch out for more blog post!

6 Insightful Questions to Ask Yourself

Hasn’t Your Hard Work Paid Off (Yet)?

Think back to when you were in school. Do you remember that one person who stood out? That person whom everyone thought would change the world someday? Parents and teachers showered the person with praise for their grades. Wherever you went, you overheard people talk about the things that person would go on to do one day.

Now fast forward a decade or two to the present day. Nobody has seen the person achieve anything spectacular or noteworthy. In fact, nobody has heard anything at all. Maybe you know someone like this. Or maybe, you are that person.

I used to think that the recipe to success was a combination of hard work and intelligence. But it turns out that’s not the case. While they’re important qualities, other factors come into play as well.

Developing Focus and Creating Opportunities for Yourself

Most people go about their lives trying to get through each day. Rather than working towards a long-term goal, they work aimlessly, counting down the hours until they can take a break or catch up on the next episode of their favorite show.

We all have aspirations that we want to achieve someday, but the problem is that they’re often just far-reaching dreams that bear no resemblance to reality. We might even have numerous goals, but we just can’t get around to doing it all.

And as Sylvia Plath once said — “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”

Do you find yourself being pulled in numerous directions? Do you change your mind often about where you want to spend your time and energy?

If you said “yes” to both of these, then you need to figure out what exactly do you want. When you become clear on where you want to go, you can devote all your resources towards heading in that direction. With your destination in mind, you can increase your chances of success by doing the following:

• Connect with others.
• Open yourself up to chance.
• Make the most of your opportunities.
• Commit yourself to your goals.
• Believe in yourself.

When you work on each of these factors, you can combine your intelligence and work ethic into creating something of value.

*

With that in mind, ask yourself these 6 insightful questions on why your hard work hasn’t paid off (yet):

1. Do you reach out to new people?

Let’s face it — it’s easier to hang around old friends than reach out to strangers. When you meet up with the same people, you know what to expect and feel at ease immediately. But it’s just as important to introduce new people into your life as reuniting with old friends. Why? Because you get stuck in a bubble when you always meet the same people over and over again. The group dynamics are static, and people tend to recycle the same ideas. Whenever I meet a new person, I get to hear their story and learn new things. I learn about their experiences, their aspirations, and their perspective on life.

It can be tough to reach out at first, but starting small can help. Aim for a small goal, such as meeting one new person a week. You can reach out by introducing yourself to someone where you frequent or by emailing someone to share ideas or ask for advice. Maybe you’ll only talk once, or maybe you’ll keep in touch and collaborate on a project.

2. Are you taking risks?

There are two types of risks:

- Blind risks, which involve greater downside than upside.

- Calculated risks, where the upside is greater than the downside and it’s potentially life-changing.

 

When you take risks, you have to think about the potential loss and potential gain from it. Unfortunately, a lot of smart people opt out of both and choose the safe route. They follow the same path as their peers or choose a career that’s socially acceptable.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, shared how he decided to quit his secure job at an investment company to create an online bookstore. Here’s how he used what he calls the “regret minimization framework”, in his words:

“So I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘Okay, now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have.’ I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision.”

Eventually, you need to consider what’s best for yourself in the long run. Would you be happier knowing that you took a calculated risk that didn’t pay off, or if you took the safe path?

3. Do you mistakenly assume that credentials lead to success?

“I went to [insert school], so I deserve [X].”

This is a line that I commonly hear from highly intelligent people who have worked hard all their lives and expect to be compensated for it. Sadly, that’s not how things work. High-achieving people tend to have an impressive alma mater, many achievements, and high grades. They’re used to being at the top and receiving praise for whatever they do.

While these things feel nice at the time, they can also lead people who have succeeded in school to believe they can coast on their previous achievements.

As Mark Twain said — “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

So don’t stop learning. Read. Experiment. Talk to people. Use real-life experiences to supplement the knowledge that you already have.

4. Do you go out of your comfort zone?

Being stuck in the same environment for a long time makes it hard to adapt to new situations. You grow complacent and eventually become fearful of anything new, even if the changes are for the better. Embrace discomfort. It’s the only way to grow and get better.

For example, when I needed to contact people for feedback on my work, I was hesitant. But once I reached out to a few people and received a response, I decided to try it again. Now, it’s become a regular habit that doesn’t daunt me anymore.

If you find yourself making excuses and resisting something new, pause for a moment. Ask yourself: Will doing this make me a better person in the long run? Sometimes we don’t say “no” because something is unimportant. We say “no” because it’s the very thing we need to become better.

5. Do you stick to your decisions?

Smart, hardworking people are frequently told that they’re smart, they’re capable, and most of all, that they can do anything they want. This is where the problem lies.

You see, being smart and hardworking means that people tell you that you can achieve anything if you just put your mind to it. You’re told that there are all sorts of possibilities. The world is your oyster.

But having all sorts of opportunities can be just as crippling as not having enough of them. Being overabundant in choices makes it difficult to know what to do. As a result, it’s easy to dabble in different things and “see what suits you”. Before you know it, a decade has passed and you haven’t achieved much.

So if you’re thinking of pursuing a route, talk to different people and learn more about it. That way, you’ll get a better feeling for what suits you instead of diving straight in. Focusing your efforts on one goal yields much better results than dividing your attention among many goals.

6. Do you believe in your capabilities?

Smart people can be self-critical...and I am very bad for that myself. We look at the work we create and always find something wrong with it. While I believe this attitude can help people push themselves to do more, it can also keep them from getting started in the first place. Perfectionism causes to overthink, to doubt, and to do anything except take action.

When you use negative phrases to describe yourself, you eventually start believing that they’re true. If you have a tendency to do this, rephrase those sentences in your head. For instance, if you think “I’m not a good runner,” your actions will start to reflect this and you’ll give up. Instead, here’s a better phrase to use: “It’s not that I’m a bad runner. I simply need to train more often to become a better runner.”

See how the belief changes from something innate to something that’s within your control?

Everyone was a beginner at some point. But when you change the words you use to describe yourself and your work, it becomes easier to keep practicing and finding ways to get around setbacks.

Create Consistency to Succeed

Yes, intelligence and work ethic are important qualities for success in any field. But what we often overlook is consistency. Consistency means doing what’s required of you to reach your goal, regardless of what happens. It means putting in the effort even when the work feels mundane, when you’re tired, and when the results seem uncertain.

Believe in yourself, in what you do and in what you dream for!

13 Symptoms of depression we never talk about

Living with depression can give us a whole range of symptoms. Some are quite well known, such as low mood, sleep difficulties, and limited energy. Other symptoms are less well-known, or less talked about. Our depression may bring symptoms that we find embarrassing. Because of the silence around them, we might feel as though we’re the only people in the world to experience them. However the truth is many of us share the same symptoms – we just don’t talk about them. Drawing on the lived experience of our community, we’ve identified 13 less-talked about symptoms of depression.

1. CRYING OVER NOTHING

We can cry over things that appear like nothing. It can be something as small as not being able to match up all the socks in our load of washing. We can feel permanently tearful. Absolutely anything can set us off.

2. FEELING ‘NOT THERE’

Sometimes we find ourselves losing time. We realise we have been staring into space for minutes or hours on end. Sometimes we feel detached from our environment. At times it can feel like there is a space, or an invisible wall between us and other people.

3. FORGETFULNESS

We forget where we left our keys, what time an appointment was, that we were supposed to pick the dog up from the vet. We have to write everything down. If it’s not written down, we will forget it (and sometimes we forget it even if it is written down).

4. GUILT

We feel guilty for letting our family and friends down, for using up professionals time, for just not being enough. Guilt gets us about pretty much everything and it can completely swallow us up.

5. IRRITABILITY

We spend so much time trying to cope, that if anything goes a little bit wrong, or alters our plans, it can make us snap. We feel irritable and little things that happen, that wouldn’t normally wind us up, can tip us over the edge.

6. INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS

We can be trying to go about our day when intrusive thoughts make an unwelcome appearance. Sometimes we can be cooking tea, and thoughts will appear with different ways we should hurt ourselves. We can walk down the street and intrusive thoughts will pop up, telling us to harm ourselves. They can seem to enter our brains with little or no warning and they can be completely overwhelming.

7. LIMBS MADE OF LEAD

It can feel as though our limbs are made of lead. We make a cup of tea, but lifting it to our lips feels impossible – our arms are too heavy. We want to walk to the shop over the road, but too heavy to move. Doing anything at all feels like wading against a strong current with rocks weighing us down.

8. LOSING OUR LIBIDO

Depression can cause us to lose our libido. Sometimes the medication we take for our depression can also cause loss of libido, or can make it worse.

9. PERSONAL HYGIENE

We often struggle with personal hygiene. We don’t care about ourselves enough to keep up with it. Because we’re low on energy, we don’t do it unless we prioritise it. We stop cleaning our teeth as often as we should, if at all. We stop washing our hair – we stop washing full stop. Hairbrushes go out of the window, as do visits to the hairdressers. Our PJs stay on for days on end. We don’t shave. We become embarrassed by the way we smell, the knots on our hair and the dirtiness of our hands. However uncomfortable and embarrassed we feel about it, we still struggle to motivate ourselves to fix it.

10. PROBLEMS WITH FOOD AND DRINK

Depression can destroy our appetite which can cause us to lose weight. It can also cause us to comfort eat, or to try and eat away the empty feelings which can cause us to gain a lot of weight. We sometimes rely on takeaways and ready meals because we don’t have the energy, motivation, or brain space to cook. That can lead to an unbalanced diet. Many of us struggle to drink enough which can result in headaches, tiredness, and feeling sick. We can also experience digestive problems such as acid reflux.

11. STRUGGLING TO LOOK AFTER THE HOUSE

General household tasks can feel like insurmountable obstacles. We end up leaving our sheets for months on end. Brushing the crumbs from the table to the floor instead of getting a cloth out. Resorting to crockery we haven’t seen in ten years instead of washing up (or giving up on crockery entirely and eating out of the packet). We don’t invite people over because we’re embarrassed by the mess we live in. Our houses stop feeling like homes but we don’t have the energy to fix it.

12. TOILETING TROUBLES

Depression can cause our bowels to do different things. It can lead to wind problems which can be incredibly uncomfortable. It can cause our bowels to work too well or not well enough. Sometimes it can affect how well we are able to wee. Depression doesn’t just affect our mind, it affects our bodies, too.

13. USING NEGATIVE COPING MECHANISMS

Sometimes we self-harm. Some of us use alcohol to cope with our feelings. Others will use cigarettes or non-prescription drugs. Some people might use different behaviours around food. Others may develop problems around shopping, or gambling, or sex. Resorting to these behaviours can feel shameful. It can make us feel hopeless, but we are not alone.

How Cellphone Use Can Damage Your Relationship

A study from 2015 found already serious potential for damage in conflicts over phone use.

Do you feel neglected when your partner is on their phone? Does your time together get disrupted by texts, emails, or games? Has technology intruded on your romantic relationship?

You're hardly alone.

A new study from Brigham Young University examined how technology interferes with relationships. The researchers concluded that "technoference” can be damaging not just to a relationship but to your psychological health as well.

While the big 3 disputes for couples' arguments used to be sex, money, and kids, it seems smartphones are rapidly rising up that list. 

The study included 143 married or cohabiting women, the majority of whom reported that phones, computers and other technology devices were significantly disruptive in their relationships, couplehood and family lives. Specifically, higher levels of technoference were associated with greater relationship conflict and lower relationship satisfaction. Further, it seems greater levels of smartphone and other relationship technoference makes people more depressed and lowers their overall life satisfaction.

While few would be surprised to discover technology can be a source of annoyance and conflict for couples, this study is one of the first to report that a person’s engagement with technology can actually make their partner depressed.

Why does a person’s phone use (as a primary culprit of technoference) have such an impact on the mental health of their partner? After all, cars are also sources of conflict as many couples tend to become tense and argue when driving (about directions, speeding, music choice, etc…) but they generally don’t lead to the person in the passenger seat getting depressed.

What is it about phones?

The answer? When your partner attends to a phone instead of to you, it feels like rejection—it hurts. Feeling ignored when your partner is on their phone can feel as bad as being shunned.

When a conversation, meal, or romantic moment is disrupted because of a text, email, or any other task, the message is, “What I’m doing on my phone is more important than you right now,” or, “I’m more interested in my phone than in you,” or, in some cases, “you’re not worthy of my attention.”

It is because the other person is likely to experience such moments as rejections that technoference can literally impact their psychological health. Rejections, even small ones, tend to be extremely painful, as your brainresponds the same way it does to physical pain. Even mini-rejections, such as a partner turning to the phone in the middle of a conversation, can elicit the common reactions rejections cause—hurt feelings, a drop in mood and self-esteem, and a surge of anger and resentment. Over time, these small wounds can fester and increase conflict, lower relationship satisfaction, and lead to a drop in life satisfaction and an increase in symptoms of depression.

5 Tips for Resolving Technoference Conflicts

If you think technoference might be causing problems in your relationship, consider working with your partner to address the issue through these 5 steps:

1. Assess the extent of the problem. Once you and your partner become more mindful of the issue you will be able to assess together whether and to what extent screen usage is actually disruptive to your interactions and your time together (as opposed to when it is non-conflictual, not disruptive, essential, or mutual).
2. Acknowledge usage that is valid. Technology is often a necessary or unavoidable part of someone’s job or responsibilities (like a physician on call). It is therefore important to recognize the demands of jobs, social or parenting obligations, or other situations that necessitate screen time.
3. Agree on fair expectations. Discuss with your partner ways you can find a better balance between being responsive to obligations and demands and minimizing intrusions into your relationship or your family life.
4. Create technology free zones. Try to agree on places (like the bedroom) and times (mealtimes or after 9:30 PM) that you can both set your phones or tablets aside to spend time together without having to worry about technoference.
5. Define exceptions and resolve future hurdles. Make sure to cover potential exceptions or future problems that might arise (like a crucial forgotten work task) and how best you could handle them without interrupting whatever you are doing together in that moment (like making a note to remind yourself to do it later).

Time for changes before our relationships take over our human feelings! Wake up before it is too late!

The Lure of the Comfortable Job

The most dangerous job you can have is a comfortable one.

Comfortable is a quicksand — the job you never wanted becoming the job you can’t escape. Worse than no-job, frustrating job or a demanding job, is a job that demands nothing. Like taking basket weaving your senior year. Sure you’ll get an easy A, but what did you lose in return? There is a stark cost for time wasted on comfortable. Because you don’t grow with comfortable. You don’t learn. You don’t refine who you are or what you’re capable of. 

No, comfortable is the leading cause for R.E.A.S – Rapidly Expanding Ass Syndrome. Your body, mind, and soul turning to goo. Because challenges refine. Remove challenges, remove growth. The crux of your life is not how much you make, but how much you learn, grow, and change. Those of us who refuse to change, as Professor Robert Quinn writes in Deep Change, will enter into a “slow death”. 

3 Signs Your Job is Too Comfortable (...and it’s probably time to leave) 

 

1. Culture of Complacency 

Need to know if your office suffers from complacency? Pretty simple. How are new ideas received? Are they explored or instantly exploded with a shotgun of “that’s not possible.” 

Are the unspoken rules of the office to keep your mouth shut and not rock the boat? Are you allowed to tackle projects outside your “job description?” Does your boss want to work there? Does your boss’s boss want to be there? 

"Complacency is a disease. Extremely contagious. Easily passed from one employee to another." 

If your office permeates with a culture of complacency, especially from the top down – game over. Pack your bags. Time to leave. I’m serious as a heart attack. Because you are the one who comes in with new energy and ideas and therefore you will be crushed over and over by tsunami waves of complacency. Until you shut your mouth, settle in, and catch the disease yourself. In a culture of complacency there is a sick, perverted love affair with status-quo. And honestly, you’re probably not going to change it. 

2. You Feel Drained By Doing Nothing 

If you come home absolutely drained from work. If you need to watch 2-4 hours of TV a night to escape. Then you think back to your day and realize you really did nothing at work. You’re really just drained because your mind wasn’t stimulated. 

"You’re drained because you spread one hour of actual work over a span of eight." 

Being drained by comfortable is a scary way to start living. Because it’s incredibly hard to escape. Like a carousel ride that never stops spinning. Jump and roll. Now.

3. “We Want to Promote You” is the Phrase you Fear Most. 

If the idea of being promoted makes you more nauseous than the time you ate cotton candy and three churros before jumping on the spinning teacups ride, then why are you freaking working there? Simple as that. I can hear lots of  “but Pierre you don’t understand…” No, I do understand. Comfortable is the drug.

Comfortable Will Kill You.

Comfortable is like smoking — addictive and killing you with every puff. Better to quit before it’s too late. 

What do you think — is a comfortable job as dangerous as I’ve made it out to be?

I would be interested what experience you made within your uncomfortable environment.

Slàinte mhath!

Changes in the Rearview

Since quite a while I am looking around and speak with several people coming from different backgrounds. Wondering if everyone else is suffering from the same I came alway across the same question: How do I change my life? 

Let me highlight a story from Joshua to you, told from his own perspective, which inspires me quite a lot: 

"I spoke with a man in dire straits recently. This man, let’s call him John, laid before me many of his problems: A crumbling marriage. Massive debt. Low income. An unhealthy lifestyle. Peter was unhappy, depressed, and frustrated with where he was in life, so he asked me for my advice: he wanted to know how I had changed so many things in such a short period of time.

I explained to Peter that I didn’t have any advice for him. I told him he knew his situation better than I ever could, and he likely knew what to do. Then I asked what advice he’d give himself if he were in my shoes.

John spent the next fifteen minutes explaining, detail after detail, exactly what he would say to himself to fix his marriage, get out of debt, increase his income, and regain control of his health.

I smiled and said, “All that sounds like great advice! Too bad our own advice is the hardest pill to swallow.”

But, of course, he didn’t like his own advice because it was too gradual. Plus, his advice wasn’t easy: he had recommended only small, incremental changes that wouldn’t likely make a huge difference right away.

Instead, he wanted the magic pill—something that would radically change his life immediately. He wanted instant gratification, but his advice seemed so basic—so intuitive—that it couldn’t be what I did to change my life. And I obviously had the short cut with this whole minimalism thing, and he wanted my secret.

I told John that while I had no advice for him, I could tell him how I changed my life, and he could see whether any of those changes were applicable to his situation, and if they were, he could use my life as recipe, tweezing out the relevant ingredients to apply them to his own recipe for living. Then, for the next fifteen minutes, I simply echoed his advice back to him, changing a few details to make them fit my life.

You see, I didn’t have a magic strategy, either. It took me two long years to change my life—one small change at a time.

Two years ago, I was also unhappy, in debt, out of shape, and stuck.

It took me two years to pay off most of my debt and establish a minimalist budget. I focused on paying off one creditor at a time. I allocated every extra dollar to pay off my car. I sold my house and moved into an apartment. I got rid of any superfluous bills like cable TV Internet, and satalite radio.

It took me two years to get into the best shape of my life, exercising every day and completely changing my diet over time.

It took me two years to give less meaning to my physical possessions, focusing instead on important relationships, personal growth, and contribution.

It took me two years to get away from Corporate Life and pursue my passions. None of it happened over night. And it certainly wasn’t easy, but a lot can change in a year or two. I changed my life by focusing on small changes each day. I focused on those small changes one at a time, not on everything I wanted to change. And then, one day, I looked in the rearview mirror and everything was different."

You want to change? Let's get changes done, once a time.

Read also my last blog post about "The Things We Are Prepared to Walk Away From"

Cheerio & Slàinte mhath 

The Things We Are Prepared to Walk Away From

The year just started and I am usually not a big fan of these "New Year Solutions". However, for me 2018 is the year of changes. Happiness, success and satisfaction should become more focus rather letting stress, disappointments, depression, fear and anger overtake my life. As a business owner, partner and father of two kids it is most importantly to stay focused and let negative energies go.

After I wrote my last blog I started thinking what I was hoping to achieve in 2017 and what I actually approached. Many things have been successful Then I thought about the "WHY?" which I usually do when I have to analyze something. 

Note: Sakichi Toyoda, one of the fathers of the Japanese industrial revolution, developed the technique in the 1930s. He was an industrialist, inventor and founder of Toyota Industries. His method became popular in the 1970s, and Toyota still uses it to solve problems today. Toyota has a "go and see" philosophy. This means that its decision making is based on an in-depth understanding of what's actually happening on the shop floor, rather than on what someone in a boardroom thinks might be happening. The 5 Whys technique is true to this tradition, and it is most effective when the answers come from people who have hands-on experience of the process being examined. It is remarkably simple: when a problem occurs, you drill down to its root cause by asking "why?" five times. Then, when a counter-measure becomes apparent, you follow it through to prevent the issue from recurring.

 

But then I thought "What are you prepared to walk away from?" This oft-unasked question shapes one of the most important principles in my life. We are all familiar with the age-old theoretical situation in which our home is burning and we must grab only the things that’re most important to us. Of course, most of us would not dash into the inferno and reach for material things first—we’d ensure the safety of our loved ones and pets. Then, once they were safe, we’d grab only the irreplaceable things—photo albums, computer hard drives, family heirlooms. Everything else would be lost in the conflagration.

I tend to look at this situation a tad differently, though, taking the hypothetical a bit further:

There is a scene in Heat in which Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) says, “Allow nothing in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat.” Although my life isn’t anything like McCauley’s (he’s the movie’s bad guy), I share his sentiment. Almost everything I bring into my life—material possessions, ideas, habits, and even relationships—I must be able to walk away from at a moment’s notice. Many of you will disagree with me because this ideology might sound crass or insensitive, but I’d like to posit that it is actually the opposite: our preparedness to walk away is the ultimate form of caring.

If I purchase new possessions, I need to make certain I don’t assign them too much meaning. Being able to walk away means I won’t ever get too attached to my belongings, and being unattached to stuff makes our lives tremendously flexible—filled with opportunity.

If I take on a new idea or habit, I do so because it has the potential to add value to my life. New ideas shape the future Me. Same goes for new habits. Over time my ideas change, improve, and expand, and my current habits get replaced by new habits that continue to help me grow. Our readiness to walk away from ideas or habits means we’re willing to grow—we’re willing to constantly pursue a better version of ourselves.

If I bring a new relationship into my world, I know I must earn their love, respect, and kindness. I also expect they, too, are willing to walk away should I not provide the support and understanding they require. This means we must both work hard to contribute to the relationship. We must communicate and remain cognizant of each other’s needs. And, above all, we must care. These fundaments—love, understanding, caring, communication—build trust, which builds stronger relationships in the long run. It sounds paradoxical, but our willingness to walk away actually strengthens our bond with others. And the opposite stance—being chained by obligation to a relationship — is disingenuous, a false loyalty birthed from pious placation.

There are obvious exceptions to this rule. There are certain things we cannot easily walk away from: a marriage, a business partnership, a job that pays the rent, a passion. The key is to have as few exceptions as possible.

Naturally, even these exceptions aren’t exceptions for everyone. Marriages often end, as do businesses. People get laid off, and passions change over time. Even though we might not be able to walk away from these things in “30 seconds flat,” we can ultimately walk away when these situations no longer add value to our lives (or worse, when they drain value from our lives).

Everything I allow into my life enters it deliberately. If my home was aflame, there’s nothing I own that can’t be replaced: All my photos are scanned. All my important files are backed up. And all my stuff has no real meaning. Similarly, I’m prepared to walk away from nearly anything—even my website, managing events, or planning tours — if need be. Doing so safeguards my continued growth and improves my relationships with others, both of which contribute to a fulfilling life, a life of meaning.

It was C.S. Lewis who, 50 years ago, eloquently said, “Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” In today’s material world, a world of fear-fueled clinging, his words seem more apropos than ever.

Bring on 2018, positive energy and also HAPPINESS