Happier Made Simple

Throwing Out Fifty Things

Randye Kaye — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:47:54 +0000

I love summer. Love it, love it, love it. Love wearing only shorts and a tank top, or a bathing suit and cover. Adore flip-flops. No jacket. Few layers (layers require too many decisions). Mmmm.

July, though, has been so relentlessly hot and humid that I’ve felt stuck, unmotivated. And so many clients seem to be on vacation…so. Today is cool and fresh – well, under 90 degrees at least. I feel compelled to get unstuck, and clear the decks to make room for new possibility, new success.

So – gonna throw out fifty things a la the book and website by Gail Blanke. Something that has held me back: indecision! The root of all clutter. Couldn’t decide whether to make the list online at the website (www.throwoutfiftythings.com), on my computer in the workbook she provides, or just in my journal, where I’ll talk more to myself and less to potential readers.

Or – oh, yeah – to blog about it.

So – the journal (woefully untouched since I got married last year and have an actual husband to talk to instead) wins, with an abbreviated version here. I think.

Blanke says to go room by room, so today is for the bedroom. And – oh yeah – items of a kind (say, 17 pairs of worn underwear) count as ONE item. So I can’t throw out 50 expired aspirin pills and call it a day. Sigh.

Bedroom tally:

1. (OK, I did this a few weeks ago): Gold jewelry I no longer wear. I had kept it forever, because it was engraved. Mostly a big charm bracelet, my class rings from HS and College, and some yellow gold necklaces. This was a huge step for me. My grandparents gave me some of those charms! but – I will never wear it. My daughter will never wear it. My grandparents live on in my heart, not on a bracelet. So I kissed the pieces goodbye at the jewelers, and walked out with a check for: $918! This will help pay for my daughter’s upcoming wedding. My grandparents are smiling somewhere.

Oh yeah – and also sold my old wedding ring. I have a new one now…and was only using the old one as a stage prop while single and playing a married woman – or a nun.

Cool Lifequote of the Week

Randye Kaye — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:00:58 +0000

just a few words to get ya thinking: Nobody’s perfect!

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

-Leonard Cohen

One Small Step…

Randye Kaye — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:07:39 +0000

In Anna Karenina (I’m listening to the audiobook – 38 CDs!),happiness is nicely summed up as “good health and a clear conscience.” OK, so maybe it isn’t that simple, but…nothing is more stressful than reading all the titles in Amazon’s self-help section. Help! Another way for our lives to fall short.

Makes me want to write one called Shut Up Already, My Life is Just Fine!

This much I know: it would be a very short book. Does it really take 400 pages to explain happiness?

Chapter One: Spend More Time With People. yeah, real ones. In this world of virtual friends, online courses, and 2 million e-mails sent every second, how about a small pot-luck dinner party? that’s what I’m talking about. Always makes me feel happy!

Life: “Easy or Hard?”

Randye Kaye — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:17:26 +0000

By randyekaye

When did happiness get so complicated? If you want to get thoroughly confused, just peruse the self-help bookshelves at Barnes and Noble, or the online selections at Amazon. Set Goals. Live Goal-Free….Live for the Moment. Plan for the Future…Treasure Ordinary Moments. There Are No Ordinary Moments. All kinds of contradictory advice – 300+ pages of it in each book. Who has the time to read all that anyway, even if it weren’t so confusing? Last summer my friend Rikki asked me this question: “Do you think life is easy or hard?” I had no answer for her, and later I realized why: I don’t think that’s for us to decide. It’s for us to learn what we can, love all we can, do our best. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes incredibly joyful, and – yes – sometimes very very difficult. We all have our stories of challenge and triumph, and yet we are not our stories. We are, perhaps, the way we react to our stories. I’m no expert. I have no graduate degree in Happiness. But I do know this: my story so far, like yours, includes both heartbreak and healing. Friends discovered – and lost. Dreams that came true, and many more that did not. And we learn. My story includes chapters that others say make them see me as a survivor: An alcoholic husband who disapperared without a trace, leaving me to raise two young children alone; a son who developed a major mental illness that put our family through crisis after crisis; the uncertainty of a work life that places little value on wisdom and too much on youth; the loss of my broadcasting job and the years of income loss afterwards. Blah, blah, blah. There are worse – much worse – stories; there are others that seem, on the surface, much more charmed. I am a happy person. I’m a happy person because I choose what I tell myself about the stuff that happens. I can’t focus on a yoga class. I’ve never made it through half an hour of meditation. But I can take a breath when things get tough, and find a phrase that helps. That’s what this blog is about – partly. Simple choices that make happier – well, simpler. thanks for being part of this.