Have you ever happened to be part of a conversation or only listen to one, during which someone says something that makes you feel as if that person has totally and completely read your mind? It happened to me recently. I have sort of eavesdropped on a conversation between three people (two men and a woman) who seemed to be either in law school or already lawyers. The conversation was centered around womens’ right to opt for abortion. Out of my memory I will try to quote what one of the guys said:

You know, it’s hard for me to take an official position on the issue. I personally believe it is morally wrong for a woman to have an abortion. But, the truth of the matter is that I’ve never been in the position of a 16-17 years old girl who is pregnant, the father of the child is nowhere to be found and she is incapable of financially taking care of herself, not to mention a child. Or in the position of a woman who already has a child or two (or even more) and who is already having difficulties providing for them. Honestly, it would be outright wrong for me to tell that girl/woman, because I personally believe abortion is morally wrong, you have to have that child and deal with him/her. And that is why I believe the women should be given the freedom to choose.
Bottom line is that, as I said, I personally find abortion a morally wrong thing, however, I don’t believe the Government has any right to tell a woman what she may or may not do in this matter.
To draw a parallel, capital punishment is another thing I can’t really have an official position on. I don’t think any man has the right to take the life of another human being. But then, again, I have never been in the situation of having my mother or sister raped or any member of my family killed by someone. I don’t know exactly what my position would be in that case, but chances are it would be the opposite.

There you have it folks. I feel like this guy read my mind and spoke the words for me. I feel the exact same way. My own opinion is that abortion and capital punishment are morally wrong. However, I can’t really get involved into any kind of debate on those two topics before I have some direct personal experience with any of them. Abortion is out of question (I’m a guy) and I certainly hope and pray to God that the other will never happen.

I am by no means a life coach or anything like that. However I can write about a couple of things that made me realize why I used to never be happy.

I was born and raised in an area where I was able to enjoy all of the four seasons. Then I lived in Florida for 4 years. One of the reasons I personally didn’t like it was the fact that there’s one season and one season only: summer. I normally love summer. However, for those entire four years I hated it. I was craving winter. And craving it badly.

Eventually, last year I moved to Chicago. Needless to say, I was quite excited about the upcoming winter. And what a winter we had! I just loved it. To the point where all my friends started making jokes that everyone hates winter around here, except for me. Little do they know that after the first month or so, it started bugging me. I was talking on the phone with friends from Florida, they were telling me how nice and warm it was there and I started wanting summer again. (But just so you know, I didn’t tell anyone.)

Then, all of sudden, one day I started thinking about my situation: I craved winter so badly, and now that I have it, I don’t want it anymore.

Whacked out as I am, I began making all kind of associations.

For example, how many kids do you know that drive their parents nuts about a toy they want, but once they have it they play with it for a few days and then off to bugging the parents for another one.

Has it ever happened to you to want to quit a job really badly, only to want to go back once you’re out of it?

Is the grass really greener on the other side?

While sometimes it is, most of the times is just an illusion.

I decided to fight it. And I started by trying to figure out when I’m dealing with just pure saturation, when it’s human nature and when it’s just my awfully unstable personality (to the point where I think I have ADD).

I can’t tell you how to do that. Each of us has to figure it out on their own.

What I can tell you is the approach for those situations when it’s human nature that keeps me from being happy: be happy with what I have.

Before you yell at me that this is how the rich people want us to think to keep us poor so they can stay rich, let me explain.

First of all, I am trying to make a better financial life for myself. So far I got myself out of debt. From now on comes investment for the future.

Then I’m going to say something probably even more awkward: learning to be happy with what you have, might actually help you in the battle for a better life. It calms you down and it gives you the clarity to see things from an objective point of view. To realize what dreams have a chance to become reality and to make a plan and which ones are just out of the question (for example, no matter how badly I would like to, I could never ever become a singer - I just don’t have the voice for it).

And once you have used the peace given to you by your ability to be happy with what you have to plan for your big break, until that happens, you can actually enjoy life. None of my personal achievements which put me through hell brought me any happiness. They became rather something I was glad I was done with. On the other, once I learned my lesson, I was able to take the necessary steps for accomplishing my goals and, at the same time, free myself of all the worries and the stress, and enjoy my life while waiting for the results.

Learning to be happy with what you have also gives you better tools to decide whether you really want the greener grass from the other side or not. Do you? If you do, we go back to being able to build and put into action a plan to get it.

But how can I learn to be happy with what I have?

Again, I can only tell you how I do it.

For that, let me ask you this: do you find yourself many times wanting to have what your friends have? Even if it’s not many times, it’s the place to start. To make my advice easier to understand I’m going to use examples.

When I moved to Chicago, a friend of mine and his girlfriend had just bought their own place. I was all excited for them and all I could think about was how badly I wished I had a place of my own. Because at the time I was deep in debt, it was just out of the question. In the mean time, I got to spend a lot of time at their place and realized it’s just another house. And that it’s what you make out of it that makes it home. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an awesome place and I love it. But since they became my best friends here in Chicago, I get to spend a lot of time over there. And they are the first ones who gave me the chance to see exactly what it means to own a house. I saw their own excitement go down a little bit. It’s not such a big deal for them anymore either. In the mean time I tried to get my own place, but for various reasons it didn’t work out. And to be honest with you, I’m happy. Why? The frenzy went away. Owning a house doesn’t impress me anymore. I’m happy with the apartment I share with my roommate for $300 a month (my share). I know what many think: why pay that rent to someone else and not yourself? Because if you add the taxes, maintenance (assessment) and interest paid to the bank, it’s over $300 which, as far as I’m concerned is wasted money. Add to that the monthly payment for the principal and I just don’t have the money for that. (Actually I do have it, but I would rather use it to plant the seeds for some other type of investments.) Again, the $300 is wasted money anyway. Put that together with the real estate market we’re having here in Chicago right now and it’s just not the time. This is one example of how I learned to be happy with what I have and how that, further on, cooled me down and helped me realize buying my own place is not what I really want YET. Yet, I repeat. I am a believer of “own your own house” current. I just realized it’s not for me yet. I don’t even want to think about the trouble I would have been through if I would have gotten my hands on the greener grass.

Here’s another example. I just love BMW cars. It’s the one kind of car I truly hope to own one day. I could probably buy one today. But I’m not willing to. Financial reasons again. However, that’s not the whole story. I am quite happy with my 2004 Chevy Cavalier. You want to know why? Because I had the chance to ride in a BMW. Even drive one. After all, IT’S JUST A CAR. What drive their prices up a lot and make them luxury are features I don’t necessarily need and the name. What I need right now is an affordable car. I don’t need a luxury. I’m not in that place (hopefully, YET). I cooled off after I drove it and I learned to be happy with my car. Learning this taught me that, while I will one day own a BMW, it’s just not the time yet.

As you can see, in both cases, having the chance to experience (even if only to some degree) the greener grass on the other side, helped me learn to be happy with the one that I have on my side. It helped me think straight, figure out what exactly I want and make plans for getting there while being happy on the way. It also helped as an exercise to learn that just because someone has something that seems nice and interesting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that having the same thing will make me happy.

I suggest you start in the same place. Look at little things some of your friends have which you would like to have. Ask them to let you “play” with them and get that virus out of you. After a while you’ll learn to do it on your own. And you’ll see that you’ll enjoy life much more.

I just love it how ‘coincidences’ work out in life. At the beginning of July I wrote a post in which I was whining about the wasted paper from financial institutions. It’s almost the end of the month and while doing my every-other-day blogs browsing I found through ProBlogger a post called 7 Ways Writers Can Help Stop Global Warming. With the exception of point 7 (because not everyone writes), they apply to all of us.

Since at the end of the post we are encouraged to bring our own contribution to the topic and since there are a couple of things I see around me every day that just drive me nuts (which I was going to write about anyway) I decided to use the opportunity and do it today.

Reduce Your Own Waste.

In any possible way and whenever you get the chance. I’m going to come with a couple of examples that might sound pure awkward and out of line. But before you decide to leave this page, I want to ask you to do me one huge favor: just imagine what would happen if everyone would follow my advice. As a matter of fact it’s not even necessary to have everyone do it. Even a mere few million people would make a difference.

So here we go…

Before you decide to throw away that sheet of paper on which you printed something two weeks ago and which you don’t need anymore, stop for a second and think if you could use it for anything else. For example: have you used both sides or just one? Since you don’t need the information printed on it anymore, don’t you think you could just cross it out and use the other side on another occasion when you only need something for a limited period of time (until you gather all the information you need and your report is ready to be handed to your boss, just to give a simple example). Or lets say you printed out a map to help you get somewhere. Once you’re done with it I’m quite positive you’ll throw the paper away. Don’t you think you could use the other side to print out another map some other time? Not only will you help the environment, but you will reduce your expenses. Your paper for your printer will run out a lot later. I can already hear you: “Who cares about a few extra bucks?” Why not use those extra couple of dollars to buy your kid a chocolate or yourself an extra cappuccino? And, depending on how much paper you use (for personal or business related reasons) these dollars can really add up.

I want to make something clear. I don’t expect you to use such “recycled” paper for a contract or for the report you have to give to your boss. I do understand there are situations which require nice clean paper. I’m suggesting you follow my advice for personal reasons or sketches which do not necessitate a certain “formal” look.

And again I ask you to not look at the effects of just you doing so, but try to imagine how things would be if millions and millions of people would do so. Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t believe it could make a difference for the future of our planet.

Another thing I would like to suggest is stop throwing away your clothes. Unless you have some real skin diseases which can’t be killed by boiling your clothes (and as far as I’m concerned, there’s not really that many folks with such problems), try giving them away to charities. I don’t think I need to point out that you’re not only helping the environment, but also doing a good deed. You could even deduct these. However, unless you have a bunch of growing kids for which you have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of clothes each year, the amount you could deduct it’s probably not worth the trouble of figuring out the thing. But that’s not the point. The point is that, again, if millions and millions of folks would be doing the same, it would make a huge difference in the world.

From the way I’ve seen people think about such issues, I admit one more time that I may have sounded out of line. You might think I have serious issues and that you should stop wasting your time here.

And I say that I am just a guy who believes in the idea that every single little thing each of us does for the environment counts as it adds up and on the whole makes a difference.

If you just get a little more open minded you will see that there’s so many things around you that you could do to join those of us who really care about the environment. And given my personal experience, once you start doing so, it might make you feel better. Knowing that you’re putting away your comfort and selfishness and give a little out of you for the benefit of us all and of our planet, should give you a sense of usefulness and content.

If you wonder what you could do, I want to point you back to my words from above: Reduce Your Own Waste. Keep that in mind and get yourself to the point where thinking about ways to do so becomes a habit (pretty much like going to bed) and you’ll see how many things you’ll find around you that you could do to bring your own little contribution to the preservation of our environment. It won’t happen at once, but if you really want to, it will happen.

Lets all of us be a little less ignorant and we can change the future of our planet.

P.S. Anne, I love your 2nd point: turn off everything you can.

P.P.S. This post is not encouraging clutter. Things that need to be disposed of need to be disposed of. Period. How you do that, it’s a different story. I’m just encouraging a recycling system on a personal level.

This is probably one of my favorite metaphor of all times: life is like the four seasons of the year.

Just think about it.