Does contentment lead to complacency?
Last week when I posted a few quotes about contentment, there was a little discussion in the comments about how contentment can lead to complacency. …
Motivation
What do you do when things are tough?
A little while ago a reader asked me what I do when I hit hard spots in my life, and I thought for sure I’d …
Reality – Expectations = Happiness (or does it?)
When I wrote about tips for used car shopping, I mentioned this equation: Reality – Expectations ___________ Happiness The idea here is that …
Forget the mistake, remember the lesson
Last week we were at an ice cream shop that encourages customers to write/draw on post-it notes and then stick them up on the walls. …
On being content with a teeny bathroom
We live in a two-level house, and there’s a bathroom on each level. Upstairs, by the kids’ bedrooms, is the bathroom I painted gray this …
We are all making choices with our money.
Responses to a few recent posts got me ruminating on this topic, so I thought I’d throw some thoughts into a blog post. Let’s jump …
I’m feeling kind of crabby.
I have only 20 minutes, but I think that leaves enough time for a little something that almost always helps me feel less crabby: a …
Some things that are making me happy
Mondays always seem like a good time to make a list of things you’re grateful for, right? Like all of you, I could effortlessly make …
Some things that are making me happy
It’s Monday, and I thought you and I could both benefit from a little looking-at-the-bright-side time to combat the Monday blues. Ok, well, I know …
Nothing is all good. And nothing is all bad.
(As a rule. There are probably exceptions.) I’m not sure exactly why, but this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot of late. For …
More on Money and Happiness (and Bob Marley)
A while back, I posted a quote from Bob Marley about money and happiness. “Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money …
Five Thankful Things
Sometimes when I’m feeling discouraged, it’s super helpful for me to write down some things I’m thankful for. Even though nothing in my circumstances changes …
My thoughts on the Atlantic middle class article
The May issue of The Atlantic contained an article about middle-class Americans, and it’s getting a fair bit of notice. These types of articles tend …
“Looking at the bright side is so unrealistic!”
I’ve written about contentment a lot in the 8 years I’ve been blogging, and whenever I write about or talk about contentment/optimism/looking at the bright …
How to be a frugal moderator (aka Why I Don’t Do Challenges)
Gretchen Rubin (of Happiness Project fame) has written frequently about the differences between people who are abstainers and people who are moderators. Basically, moderators are …