I’ve started reading a small, yet powerful, book called “Living the Simple Life:  A Guide to Scaling Down and Enjoying More” by Elaine S. James.   I’m not searching for a life in the woods focusing on bare minimums.  Rather, I’m looking for solutions that release my attachments to “must do,” “should,” and any other external beliefs on how to live my life.

This book speaks to creating our lives, choosing what’s important and finding ways to scale back all of the unnecessary distractions and interruptions that clutter our lives.

July 4th is Independence Day in the U.S.   We celebrate our right to be free as a nation. This is a perfect day to ask yourself, since you have the right — “how free am I?”

I’ve been thinking about the word “can’t” lately.   I use it and am listening to others express the same beliefs.  I’m aware when I verbally express the word “can’t” or think it, I put a stop sign up in my life.    

Here’s a simple life lesson:  

Today I’ve just had it…always have too much to do on my list and I keep adding more.  Does this sound familiar to you?    Well, I’ve decided to start cutting.

Because I am busy with several different businesses, I don’t remember everything.  My “To Do” list has all the immediate and long-term reminders for both business and personal.  I do a good job in organizing the list, yet it’s still a long list.

As the day progressed yesterday, my lower back became more tensed and by the end of the day, it was difficult to bend down or get up off the couch.    The pain was speaking to me.

Last night I didn’t sleep that well because every time I turned, my back sent a message to me.  It’s really no fun when you back goes out.   Every day there are so many small actions that I take with my body that uses my back.     It’s amazing how my back just performs without my thinking until the tension in my body heads south to the lower back.  I don’t get back pain often, but any time is too often.

We seem to have a steady diet of stress these days.   Similar to controlling our food intake, we need to find solutions to the stress we ingest into our bodies.

Stress occurs when we have issues with finances, work, relationships or with ourselves. Life can be messy, so there are always opportunities for stress to surface up.    None of us has perfect lives.  Yet we have plenty of opportunities, on a daily basis, to decide whether to increase or decrease the stress in our lives.

I had this great conversation with a friend on Friday night. We are all at the wonderful age where we have raised our children, build our careers and now have time to think about what we want to do. Yet, we have all hit a wall and are not feeling that terribly excited about life these days. What causes this inertia? We have built strong routines and habits and they take over all the daily choices we make.

Lately when I asked someone “what have you been doing,” I’ve received the response “same old, same old.”   I heard that expression many years ago but not in recent years.  Why is this expression resurrecting again?    I’m not sure, but I have a strong reaction to the expression “same old, same old.”    Why would anyone want to acknowledge that everything is the same old stuff.   Sounds depressing to me.

Then I thought whether this expression offers a sense of familiarity and comfort to one’s life, that life is the same and nothing major has occurred to shift it into a negative direction.   

I have successfully build my business – took it from one client to a full-time business in around 4 months.  I felt blessed and full of gratitude, especially since I didn’t have a job, nor was there likelihood that I would get another Human Resources position.  I’m grateful that my business experience was broad so I had the flexibility to use other skills and knowledge that I had acquired over the years.

When I was young, playing hooky was fun…as long as we weren’t caught.  Well, today I want to be caught doing just that…as often as possible.   Playing hooky means I’m stepping out of the normal routine and doing something different.   Just thinking about it makes me smile.

My last sojourn into stepping out of the routine was last Friday.   I normally work a full day with one of my clients in New York City.    While I wasn’t spontaneous with my hooky antics, I did plan for an afternoon play date with my friend.

Today’s hurried world puts relaxing and quality mealtimes at the bottom of many people’s life.   Most families have two working adults so time is limited and kids are scheduled with all sorts of after school activities.  Technology keeps us busy responding 24/7 to outside stimuli.  What about the adult that lives alone…they may not be motivated to make meals special as there is no one to share the bounty.