Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Money

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Michael Kane

Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Money

The lack of money is the root of all evil. ~ Mark Twain

 

money

Hello my friends, so a new year has started and many of us have resolved to make some changes in the coming new year.  We are addressing each of top ten resolutions and hopefully helping you be more successful.  Tonight, we talk about two common resolutions together managing money better and getting a new job.

Money is one topic that always sends my stress levels through the roof, perhaps it’s because I didn’t have a lot growing up, I’m not sure.  I do know that money issues are one of my major triggers.  So many people talk about managing money better and the better you do with this, the happier you will likely be.  So tonight our first piece is a piece about how to manage your finances better, it’s a simple piece but I really like it, Four tips on how to better manage your money. 

Finding a new job in the new year.  First, do you really want/need a new job.  I think it’s important to carefully figure out why you are unhappy at your current job?  Is there a change you can make in your current position to make you happier?  If there isn’t, then you have to decide is what you need to be at a new company or to be in a new career.  So first a piece on finding a new career, Seven Steps to Breaking in a new Career. 

Next a piece on finding happiness in your current job, because very often we can’t make a drastic change given the responsibilities in our lives, here is Five Ways to Finding Happiness at Work. 

Enjoy, hopefully this will give you a starting point on your resolutions and help you have a happier day at work ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Exercise More

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Michael Kane

Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Exercise More

Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them. ~ Lee Haney

exercise

Hello my friends, so a new year has started and many of us have resolved to make some changes in the coming new year.  We are addressing each of top ten resolutions and hopefully helping you be more successful.  Tonight, the second most common resolution, this year I’m going to exercise more.

I think the thing that holds back most people from starting an exercise program or exercising more, is the word exercise itself.  It sounds so daunting and part of the problem are gyms themselves, they can be intimidating places.  You go in and there is all of this machinery you don’t know how to use, you feel like everyone is watching you and of course the really fit people just make you ill.

So there are two bits of wisdom I can share, the first is to change the wording, don’t call it exercising, don’t go to the gym, just resolve to move more than you already do.  You can do this a lot of ways, park further away from the work and store.  Take a short work on lunch every day, the real goal is just to move more.  Get a pedometer and count your steps everyday and just resolve to increase it by one step a day.  Yes, you read that correctly, one step a day, really want to crank, resolve to double the number of steps you increase everyday.  So do 1 more step tomorrow, 2 more the day after, 4 the day after that, etc…  You can use the same approach with any exercise sit ups, push ups, pull ups, just endeavor to do one more tomorrow than you did today and start with just 1.  What is really important here is that you do something and keep increasing what you do.  The big thing is to turn what you are doing into a habit.

A habit takes time and effort to become ingrained into your pattern, so tonight not a piece on exercising, but a piece on creating positive habits.  So create some positive exercise habits and have a good day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Weight Loss

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Michael Kane

Happiness & New Year Resolutions: Weight Loss

Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels ~ Elizabeth Berg

scale

Hello my friends, so a new year has started and many of us have resolved to make some changes in the coming new year.  We are addressing each of top ten resolutions  and hopefully helping you be more successful.  Tonight, the most common resolution, wanting to lose weight in the new year.

There is a word I seldom here when people talk about weight loss and that is patience.  It’s a process, it actually is best when it occurs slowly, at least from the perspective that if you lose weight at a rate of 2 pounds or less per week, you are more likely to keep the weight off.  I’m in this boat with you friends, I’ve promised myself I’ll lose 20 pounds by my birthday in August.  So tonight a piece on some good sensible advice on how best to lose weight for all of us. 

So take your time, be patient, lose some weight and have a happy day my friends                ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness is waiting for Yogi

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Michael Kane

Happiness is waiting for Yogi

Making the decision to have a child—it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body ~ Elizabeth Stone

yogababy

So for the next couple of days my family is on baby watch, my brother’s wife has reached her due date and we are all awaiting the birth of my newest nephew, their first child, who we affectionately refer to as Yogi.  We call the little guy Yogi because on one of the early ultrasounds he looked like he was doing in utero Yoga poses.  Anybody already doing Yoga poses pre-birth must be a Yogi.

This is going to be a special birth to me, my brother is significantly younger than I am and I helped raise him.  As such he is to me more than a brother, nearly a son, so little Yogi is almost like a nephew and a grandson all wrapped up in one.  So I’m really excited, waiting for Yogi and having a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness and New Year Resolutions

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Michael Kane

Happiness and New Year Resolutions

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other ~ Abraham Lincoln

calvin

Hello my friends, so a new year has started and many of us have resolved to make some changes in the coming new year.  Below is a list of the 10 most common resolutions people make each year and over the next couple of weeks we’ll address each of them in their own separate piece and hopefully help you be more successful.  For tonight, here’s a piece on the overall strategy for being successful with resolutions.  So give it a read, stay focused and successful and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

1.  Weight-loss

2.  Exercise

3.  Budget money better

4.  Get a new/better job

5.  Eat more healthfully

6.  Manage stress better

7.  Quite smoking or another bad habit

8.  Improve a relationship

9.  Stop Procrastinating

10.  Take some time for myself

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Happy New Year – 2014

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Michael Kane

Happy New year – 2014!!!

New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  ~ Mark Twain

2014

Happy New Year 2014 my friends, may it be a wonderful year full of wonder and magic, to start your year off some words from Deng Ming-Dao on beginnings.  Have a happy day every day all year my friends ~ Rev Kane

Beginning

This is the moment of embarking
All auspicious signs are in place

In the beginning, all things are hopeful. We prepare ourselves to start anew. Though we may be intent on the magnificent journey ahead, all things are contained in this first moment: our optimism, our faith, our resolutions, our innocence.

In order to start, we must make a decision. This decision is a commitment to daily self-cultivation. We must make a strong connection to our inner selves. Outside matters are superfluous. Alone and naked, we negotiate all of life’s travails. Therefore, we alone must make something of ourselves, transforming ourselves into the instruments for experiencing the deepest spiritual essence of life.

Once we make our decision, all things will come to us. Auspicious signs are not a superstition, but a confirmation. They are a response. It is said that if one chooses to pray to a rock with enough devotion, even that rock will come alive. In the same way, once we choose to commit ourselves to spiritual practice, even the mountains and valleys will reverberate to the sound of our purpose.

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Happiness is Amateur Night: New Year’s Eve

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Amateur Night:  New Year’s Eve

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.  ~Brooks Atkinson

2014

Happy New Year’s Eve my friends, tonight we celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of the next.  We hope to put behind us the things that went wrong this year, the bad news, bad memories.  We look forward to the morning and the New Year, the resolutions we will surely keep, the changes we’ll make, all the good things that are coming.  At least for tonight all of that is true and certain.

A long time ago a family friend, Jack Wrigley, was the first to refer to New Year’s Eve as amateur night.  I didn’t quite fully comprehend until I was older and started attending New Year’s Eve parties.  Once I did I got it, a night for people who don’t normally drink to get drunk and out of control.   Inevitably it seemed some drunk always wanted to take a swing, there were drunks all over the road and quite honesty those parties were rarely fun.  So I adopted a habit of either ignoring or quietly celebrating New Year’s Eve off the beaten path, lots of bonfires in the mountains or on the coast.  I nice quiet way to bring in the New Year and avoid the hangover the next day.

So if you are going out to celebrate tonight take care, be careful and watch out for those who are not, and have a happy New Year’s Eve my friends  ~ Rev Kane

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Looking forward to Happiness in 2014

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Michael Kane

Looking forward to Happiness in 2014

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

forward

Here comes a new year, a chance for new opportunities, to erase the mistakes we made, to do better than we did last year.  A chance to set goals, dream dreams and find ways to make the impossible possible.  The beauty of a new year is the beauty of new possibilities.  The fact is however, that a new year is not special, it’s just a trick of the calendar that we play on ourselves.  Every day is a new day and just like a new year, a new start, a new opportunity to set and achieve goals, to do a little bit better than we did the day before.

So look forward to the next year and make our plans but remember that the plans and successes of a year, are accomplished piece by piece each day of the year.  To help you get ready here’s a piece on setting and achieving goals from our friends at Zen Habits, and please have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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Looking Back at Happiness in 2013 & Thank You

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Michael Kane

Looking Back at Happiness in 2013 & Thank You

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve. ~ Jane Austen

angel fix

Hello friends, tonight a look back at last year, I really hate all of the year-end top 10 lists but I think the exercise of looking back is a useful one, it’s good to know how far you have come.

For me personally this year has been a bit of a roller coaster, but I have some goals to achieve in the upcoming year and I feel that I made some progress towards what I need to do to achieve those goals.  How about you friends?  How far did you come toward your goals?  I can say with confidence that I am happier today than I was a year ago, a lot of that has to do with the work I do here with the Church of Abnormal Acceptance and the Ministry of Happiness.

On that front we have had a great year, we’ve more than doubled the number of followers, we are over 1500 now through the various social media and blog outlets.  We broke 20,000 views and have had our fourth consecutive year of increasing readership.  I thank you all very much for your attention here, your feedback and comments are always welcome and if we’ve helped you be a happier person please spread the word.  Most importantly I hope we’ve helped you have happier days.

Thanks for a wonderful 2013 ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness is Santa Claus

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Santa Claus

By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up tests to build a child’s faith and imagination ~ Chuck Palahniuk

santa-claus3

Hello friends, tonight a little piece on the jolly fat man of the North Pole.  Honestly I’ve always struggled with the idea that we lie to our kids, this was of course before I had kids in my life.  Watching my little nieces and nephews loose their minds over Santa Claus, the pure unbridled joy in their eyes makes it a no brainer.  I think it’s good to let them believe there is still magic in the world and now I feel bad when they lose that ability.

So ramp the little ones up, take them to the mall santa, throw tennis balls on the roof and let them think they are reindeer hooves, find a heavy set friend and have him bring some presents into the house and ho ho ho around a bit.  Let the little one’s imagination run wild so they can have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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