10 Things I Know For Sure

Taking a cue from Oprah's "20 Things I Know For Sure" campaign.

If you read O magazine or keep up with the Oprah website, you might have seen her recent campaign to have different people share 20 things that they know for sure about life. Even though I am not a devout Oprah fan, unlike some of my friends, I have to admit that sometimes she gets it right.

Personally, I think that we all have insight to share and that great advice doesn't have to come from gurus or self help specialists. Sometimes, the person who has been looking for a job for the better part of a year, the college graduate who is just figuring out how to survive in the adult world or the old woman who has been raised kids and grandkids can have unique insight into life.

I was so impressed by this idea, I'd like to share 10 things and invite everyone to add their own 10 things as well.

Here are 10 things I know for sure:

• You can't be open to receive what you need if your hands are full - When you spend your time holding onto things that aren't working, you can't be open to hear or take advantage of anything new. Look at everything as an opportunity and keep yourself open to new ideas.

• Do what you love, the pay check is a bonus - Over the years, I have worked at many different jobs. The truth is that it doesn't matter how much they pay, if you don't love what you do, it's work. Find a way to do what you love because life is too short to spend it doing anything else.

• When you feel useless, give your time to others - When I feel that I am not effective and incompetent (which happens more often than I'd care to admit) I look for ways to volunteer my time and talents to help others. Just being able to give the little bit that I have can give me back so much in return. It helps me to remember that we are all in this together and to feel a part of something bigger than myself.

• If you can't make a decision or you aren't sure, you don't have to choose - Sometimes I just can't decide what to do. Instead of forcing myself to make a choice right away, I sit with it for a little while. The right path always seems to show itself.

• If the voices in your head aren't treating you with compassion, they aren't on your side - This is a hard one. We all have an inner tape that plays and often it's purpose is to beat us up for not living up to its expectations. If your voice isn't treating you with as much compassion as you would give your closest friend then it isn't on your side. Don't listen to it.

• If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't really trying hard - Mistakes aren't failures, they just mean that you are trying. Think about a child learning to walk. Even though they fall down pretty often, those attempts aren't failures, they are just part of the process of learning something new. If you aren't making mistakes then you aren't growing.

• Money isn't the measure of success - Unless you believe that our purpose on this planet is to have as much stuff as possible before we die, having money doesn't make your life successful. Think about what your purpose is and then measure your success.

• Don't do things just because you think you're supposed to, unless they make sense for you - Trust your own judgement. For example, just because teenagers are supposed to go to college doesn't mean that all teens are college material. There is nothing wrong with opting to go to a trade school or take some time to work before deciding on a career path. Do what makes sense for you and your situation.

• Worry is not preparation - Stop worrying, it doesn't help. It just wastes energy you could be using to do something productive. If you've done all that you can, take a rest.

• Be kind - In my home, this is the first and only thing on the list of house rules. Instead of focusing on things being either good or bad, I look to see if they are kind or unkind. Being bad is sometimes fun but being unkind isn't.

What are the 10 things you know for sure? Please share your lists here in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog and Beyond.com, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

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Feeling Rushed? 4 Ways to Streamline Your Morning Routine

Whether or not you are a morning person, getting ready for work in the morning can sometimes be a challenge. In fact, a rushed morning can include unhealthy eating, disorganization, stress and even conflict with family members or roommates. How can you make your morning routine more healthy and peaceful? Well, it is possible to actually enjoy your morning routine – read on to discover some tips that will help to streamline your mornings.

Consider Planning Your Week on the Weekend

In order to avoid unexpected surprises and delays, it may be a good idea to plan your week’s events prior to the actual workweek. You should also record this information in a day planner, Google calendar, your cell phone, your tablet, or other place that you refer to on a regular basis.

Organize Your Wardrobe

In order to make your morning routine more stress-free, it is a good idea to organize the clothes in your closet. For instance, you can group your work pants, tops, and jackets in one place – and even group your clothes by color. This type of organization will save you time in the morning as you will not waste time looking for a particular piece of clothing. Along similar lines, you can also pick out the clothes that you want to wear the evening before you actually have to go to work.

Choose a Hairstyle that Is Simple to Maintain

If you are looking to shave time off of your morning routine, it is vital then that you have an easy to maintain hairstyle. After all, a more high maintenance hairstyle will only slow you down in the mornings. Further, today, since there are many stylish hairstyles that are also remarkably simple to maintain, you do not have to worry about sacrificing style for substance.

Consider Going to Bed Earlier

As many times a lack of proper sleep the night before causes delays and unwanted stress in the morning, it may be wise to consider going to sleep earlier in the evening. Without a doubt, well-rested individuals are more likely to think more clearly than their poorly rested counterparts.

All in all, there are a few simple adjustments you can make to ensure that your morning routine is stress-free and efficient one.

Larisa Redins is a full time writer and editor with degrees in both Arts and Biological Science. She writes about career issues for PhillyJobsBlog.com - and creates/edits resumes for a wide net of clients. She additionally writes about other topics for a variety of international websites and magazines. Please visit her other blogs at PhillyJobsBlog.com and view job postings at Beyond.com.

If Money Can't Buy Happiness, Why Are We Still Chasing After It?

If money can't buy happiness, why are we all so concerned with making more of it?

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, I'm sure that you have heard the expression, “Money can't buy happiness”. Even though this truth, or a variation of it, has been passed around for centuries, we all still behave as though getting more money will solve all of our problems.

When you are working at a low paying job, under-employed or out of work and looking for a job, it's only natural to daydream about that financial windfall that will solve all of your problems. You can close your eyes and see it so clearly. The new car you would buy, the mortgage payments you would get caught up on or just the simple pleasure of being able to spend your time working on projects that you are passionate about (even if that means just laying by the pool).

Even when we have a decent job and earn an income that is sufficient for paying our bills, we still can't seem to help chasing after a larger income. Sociologists and other experts have conducted study after study, all of which support the idea that there really isn't any correlation between how much money a person has and their overall happiness. In fact, some studies suggest that the more money we earn, the less happy we are.

What's even more interesting is that although we really do know that earning more money won't make us happy; we still can't seem to stop working like crazy to acquire more money that we don't even need. The long hours might damage our relationships with our spouses, our children and our mental well-being, but we still keep chasing after the dollars.

Just to set the record straight, here are some reason why having more money won't increase our level of happiness:

• It's all relative – The truth is that it really isn't how much money we earn that makes us happy. What's important is making more money than the people around us. Which makes a lot of sense. It is only natural to compare our status against everyone else, and simply having more than everyone else can actually make us happier. The problem is that when we earn more money than everyone in our neighborhood, we start looking for a better home in a nicer neighborhood and spend more time with affluent people. Suddenly, we have a whole new group of people to try to outdo.
  
  
• Owning shiny, expensive new things won't make us happy either – When we spend a lot of money to have top of the line merchandise, it actually does give us an emotional boost. Where we get into trouble is that the boost is temporary. To make the problem worse, our desire for material goods increases at a rate slightly higher than our income. This means that no matter how much money you make, there will always be material things you want that are slightly out of reach.
  
  
• Once we get rich, we don't relax – This is probably the biggest reason that having more money doesn't impact overall happiness. We imagine that if we joined the ranks of the very rich, we would have more time to enjoy the finer things in life and we fantasize about all of the dream vacations we would take and the lazy days by the pool. It's a very compelling fantasy, but it isn't how it works. Studies have shown, over and over, that once people get rich, they don't slack off and start enjoying themselves. Instead, they work harder than ever and feel an intense amount of pressure to keep succeeding in their jobs. This means that they work harder in order to earn more money so that they can start enjoying their lives. Instead, they just end up spending more of their lives working at a job that probably causes them more stress and tension than they had when they were barely getting by.

So, with all of this information, how can we shake the idea that money will make us happy once and for all? The answer, unfortunately, is not a simple one. We live in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with images urging us to buy more, earn more and generally just have more. The people in commercials are always smiling and seem very happy about their good fortune. The more stuff we have, the more satisfied we are, because we view the acquisition of stuff as a display of status and ability.

So, the odds are good that if you had a job that paid you a very handsome salary, you still wouldn't feel fulfilled. Instead, you would just be left with that feeling that something was missing. That this life looked a whole lot better in the brochure back when you were broke.

And then, after a few years of soul searching and maybe some intensive therapy, you'll discover what was missing. It is so simple, so powerful and so under-rated.

It's simply the feeling of being happy – right now, in this moment. And the best part? It's completely free.

Do you find yourself working extra hard to get ahead? Do you daydream about the life you would have when if you were rich? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.