Photo by Kevin Collins

Jason’s been out of town a lot lately, so I’ve kicked it into single-mom survival mode.

I was a true single parent for three years, but now when I’m on my own, I get so wimpy! It never ceases to amaze me. Clearly I’ve been spoiled by times of plenty—these past three years with Jason, who cooks and plays games with the kids, who backs me up and gives me that “girl, I so know how you feel right now” and “it’s all going to be OK” looks.

Without Jason’s rich resources at hand, I’ve shifted into lean mode. The girls and I edit down our afternoons and evenings to only what is simple and necessary: food, hygiene and love. We walk the dog together. Q works on a project for school while S helps me make soup. After baths, we snuggle into my bed and I read to them, like I used to when they were younger.

Economic and emotional recessions

I’m no economist, but it strikes me that there’s some economic principals at play here. Do we have emotional economies?

With so much news about the economic recession we’re in, I’ve been thinking about human nature and how we behave during times of plenty versus what we tend to do when times get tough. It really mirrors how I approach my emotions. When Jason is here, for instance, I’m flush with emotional resources for parenting. I can spend with abandon, confident that I won’t run out. We enjoy making more complex dinners, venture out on more outings, follow more whims. For the most part, complexities don’t concern me—I embrace them.

When I’m parenting on my own, I conserve my emotional resources. We keep it simple, trimming away all of the frivolous, unnecessary steps we often work into our days. Instead, I look at the big picture, focus in on the most important emotional expenses, and budget my resources for them. After all, at any minute I might find myself in a really tight spot, and will need to dip into my reserves.

There’s a time to conserve and a time to spend

I don’t know much about the true science of economics—if Jason was here, I’d have him explain it to me, and point out the fallicies in my theory (but then again, if Jason was here, I wouldn’t have thought to write this post!). But does this make some sense, in relation to your life? Have you gone through periods of emotional recessions? Are there times you conserve your emotions, and times you spend with abandon?

OK, it’s time to revive the Love List Project. I’ve been getting nudges from multiple sources and directions, and I’ve decided to stop ignoring them.

Here are four reasons I’ve decided to revive it, (and then I’ll share four ways you can get involved):

1. I need to keep thinking about what I love, and I need to keep pursuing those things because it makes me more the person I’m meant to be. As I’ve drifted away from this practice, I’ve felt myself drifting away from who I am at my core. It’s not a good feeling. The busier I get, the more difficult it seems to remember who I am. Technically, I could make my love list a solitary pursuit, but I’m such an extrovert—I have a hard time continuing practices like this without the support and involvement of others.

2. Other people seem to crave the type of community and structure that’s inherent in the Love List Project. Even though it’s been a couple of months since I last wrote a love list post, people keep asking me about it. Some are people who were actively involved from the beginning, and others are surprising me out of nowhere. Roxanne, a regular commenter here, recently emailed to tell me how much the Love List Project has inspired her, and that she’s started a related group on Flickr. On Twitter, a new follower (@zachtroberts) sent me this message: “been nosing around on your blog. I dig the love list idea. Been doing a similar exercise for the last 6 months.”

3. I’ve been thinking and learning a lot about happiness lately, and I see love lists as a critical piece in that puzzle. Researchers believe a significant percent of our ability to be happy is within our control—in other words, not a matter of genetics or outside circumstances. When it comes to how exactly we can increase our happiness, there are many books and theories, like the gratitude theory. I’ve been trying to keep a gratitude list recently, and while I think it’s an important exercise, it seems like keeping a love list accomplishes many of the same results, with a twist. It feels more proactive, because it involves that second, action-oriented step: First paying attention to what feels most true in your life, and then organizing your life to make room for more of whatever that is.

4. About a month ago, I had this love list tab created. Now that it’s here, I really need to do something with it! (I know, that’s not the most compelling reason, but sometimes life’s banalities and practicalities give us well-deserved kicks in the butt.)

Now, four ways you can get involved:

1. On Facebook: Become a fan of Halfway to Normal here. At the beginning of each week, I will create a new love list post, most likely with a love list item of my own. Then everyone else can share items from their lists in the comments. I will do my best to collect those and share them periodically here.

2. On Twitter: Share your love list items as tweets—don’t forget #thelovelist tag! The tag allows us to see all the tweets gathered together, and to be encouraged and inspired by them. (Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, you can stop by to see what’s going on with #thelovelist tag.) Again, I’ll do my best to collect those and share them periodically here.

3. On Halfway to Normal: My hope is that we’ll all be able to hear as many perspectives and stories as possible. I think it’s important because love lists are organic, and can take so many forms and go in so many directions. I also think it’s important for us to hear as many “success stories” as possible—for people to share the big and little ways making a love list has impacted our lives. Here’s my plan: I’m going to “interview” various people, basing my questions around the ones listed here. I might just send you an email and ask if you’re willing to be “interviewed,” but people should also feel free to volunteer themselves. :) Just send me an email using the “contact” button (see it up there, to the right, above my photo?).

4. In your own creative realm: If you have a blog, write a Love List Project post. I can even send you the graphics to use. If you express yourself through photography or art or hospitality, or any other number of ways, I’d love to figure out a way to share that, too, either here at Halfway to Normal or with a link to your own site. And if you have ideas, like Roxanne did when she started the love list group of Flickr, make them happen!

I’m really looking forward to the Love List Project 2010, and your involvement in it!

Photo by katinalynn

The other day, I got a phone call that seemed to slam a door in my face—a door I thought God was pushing me toward.

My first words with God went something like this (hands on my hips, looking up into the sky): “OK God, what now? Sometimes I just don’t get you.”

My next thought went like this (pacing and frustrated): “Right. I realize that’s the point. I’m not supposed to fully “get” you. Because then you wouldn’t be God, yadda-yadda-yadda. But sometimes, when I’m really trying to listen and trust and obey, I’d like to think that you might be somewhat predictable.”

I don’t want to hear about God opening windows when he closes doors. I don’t like the idea that God is simply “testing” me and “teaching me obedience.” I’m sorry, but if I had been Abraham up on Mount Moriah with Issac, ready to sacrifice my dear son to God (Genesis 22), I would have been pissed when God said “Never mind, I was just testing you.” Relieved, yes, but really angry, too.

It feels mean, like an older sibling who dares a younger brother or sister to do something crazy, to make a public spectacle of themselves, and then refuses to hand over the five dollars they offered as a bribe.

I went out on a limb for you, God! I thought I was going to get a prize of some sort, in return!

Not knowing the details, only the goodness

But I don’t think he is just “testing” me. I think he is always working toward some great goodness.

I’m reminded of another time in my life, when I thought I knew what God was up to. My first marriage was falling apart, and I thought I heard God telling us to move our young family to Central Illinois. My husband wanted to move here, but it was the last thing I wanted to do. I decided to go out on a limb and trust God. I was sure he was going to use the move to save my marriage.

Two years later, my husband and I were separated and I felt like I didn’t have a friend in the world. I was really angry.

Four years after that, I was marrying Jason in the church where we met—a church that helped me understand what it means to be a new creation, to be redeemed.

I’m not going to pretend to know, even in retrospect, how God works or exactly why he told me to move here. I will just say this: I am more fully the person I was created to be than I’ve ever been before, and I don’t think this would be the case if I had ignored God and stayed where I was.

That is all I need to know.

Image by ali edwards

My husband has officially landed on the best birthday gift idea ever. He gave me the gift of free time—do-nothing-but-exactly-what-I-feel-like time.

Of course, technically I could have that kind of me time whenever I want. I could block off a Saturday and decide not to do a lick of work. Jason would be happy to hold down the fort at home. The problem is, that would probably never happen, because I would never make it happen on my own. I might take a few hours off and sit in a cafe to read a book or something, but then I would end up back at home, thinking about the piles of mail I need to sort through and the laundry that needs to be done. I would never be able to devote a whole day, let alone a whole weekend, to me.

So how did Jason make it happen? He invited Jen to come visit for the weekend. It was genius.

Jen and I spent the summer of 1990 living together in a big house on the Jersey shore, with a dozen or so other college kids. (I wrote about our friendship and reconnection here.) When Jason began planning my birthday-weekend party (yes, the big four-oh is tomorrow), he got it in his head that he should invite Jen. She got it in her head that she should make the nine hour drive from Tulsa. That alone makes me feel loved beyond belief—by both Jen and Jason.

Conversation takes time

With Jen here for the weekend, my only responsibility was to spend time with her. After she drove that far to see me, I would certainly feel guilty doing anything else! (Yes, I have a problem with guilt. I’m working through it every day.)

For most of Jen’s visit, we ate and talked. That was the other part of Jason’s genius—he not only knows I love and miss Jen, he knew I needed nothing more than a close friend to talk to.

Jason cooked us a fabulous dinner, while we talked. The three of us sat at the table for a couple of hours and talked. At about 1 am we took a break to get some sleep. Then we got up and talked some more, while Jason made us a yummy breakfast. Then Jen and I went to a cafe and talked, we did some shopping and talked, we ended up back at the house and talked, until it was time to get ready for my party. There, the circle of conversation expanded to more people I love (and stretched into the early hours of morning).

Make new friends, but keep the old

After Jen left on Sunday morning, for her long drive home, I started thinking about our friendship. I especially pondered the different between well-seasoned friendships and new ones. Jason gave me the gift of time through Jen, and Jen also gives me a different gift of time—one that is all about perspective.

That’s what our “old” friends do, after all. Spending time with a friend who knew me 20 years ago helps me step back and see the big picture. It reminds me that I’m still the same person, even though so much has happened in my life, and I’ve changed in so many ways. I often feel so distant from that person I was then, like she’s a stranger, and I simply wasn’t being me. But if Jen and I can go ten years without being in contact, and then instantly love all of the same things about each other that made us friends in the first place, that says something. I was me then, just as she was Jen.

Sure, we have learned and changed and grown over the years, and become enriched in the process, but that’s what growing older is all about, right? By spending time with Jen, I was able to admire a gorgeous vision of that journey into adulthood. I can’t think of a better way to truly celebrate turning forty.

Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Jen.

Photo by Capture Queen

As parents, there are a lot of things we want for our kids. We want them to feel safe and loved and optimistic about life. We want them to succeed in school, have good friends, and to discover something they’re talented at and passionate about.

But if we had to summarize all those hopes into a single word, most of us would probably say we want our kids to be happy.

Of course, “happy” is one of those completely subjective, hard-to-define concepts. Culturally, we tend to dilute the word, and think of happiness as something shallow. If we think of it as “deep happiness” or “true happiness,” it helps, but then it makes my head hurt because it encompasses so many things—in fact, all of those things I mentioned in the first paragraph.

In some ways, happiness almost seems like a silly thing to wish for or strive toward—for ourselves or for our kids. What is happiness, after all? How do we know when we’ve got it? And can we trust that it will stick around? People from every corner of the world, though, have been chasing after happiness for as long as there’s been a way to write about it. Either we’re all extremely dense people who refuse to learn from their futility, or there’s something to the search.

Getting over what we can’t do anything about & focusing on what we can change

Last night I attended the first session in a four-week class called “The How of Happiness.” A variety of classes are being offered at my church during the season of Lent, and this is the one I was drawn to. I have to admit, I didn’t decide to take the class for practical reasons—I’m probably too much a skeptic. I took the class because I’m fascinated with societal and psychological ideas about happiness. The research is compelling, and so are the personal stories I read about or hear from friends and acquaintances. It seems like so many people are actively searching for true happiness, and so few of them are finding it.

By the time I left the first class, though, I felt a personal urgency that pretty much eclipsed the casual observer-style of fascination I had going in. Here’s why: I learned that a significant portion of our ability to be happy is within our control. I would have guessed maybe 20 percent at the most is actually up to each of us, but psychological research indicates that we have the power to impact up to 40 percent of our happiness. The rest is affected by factors mostly out of our control—50 percent by our genetic makeup and only 10 percent by external forces like relationships, material possessions, etc.

I guess this is exciting to me because I see this 40 percent as untapped potential. It’s there, in each of us, and in our kids, too. If we learn how to tap into it, we can significantly alter the way we see and live our lives. But we have to make something of that potential—if we don’t do anything with it, it just sits there, wasted.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say your genetic set-point for happiness is a 25 (out of 50).

And life has dealt you a decent hand of circumstances—maybe a 7 (out of 10).

So far you’re at 32 percent. If you don’t do anything about that 40 percent of untapped potential, you’ll just stay at 32. But if you learn how to make the most of it, you can jump up to 62, or even 72. That’s huge!

I know this is all sort of complex, and maybe I’m not doing a great job of explaining it, but here’s what I’m trying to say: I’m realizing is that maybe wanting my kids to be happy isn’t such a futile wish to have. Sure, their genetics are a done deal, and I can’t protect them from every blow life might deliver. But I can help them make the most of that potential that’s within their grasp.

Does anyone else find that really significant? And hopeful?

(By the way, I’ll report back as soon as I learn more about how to actually make this all happen!)

Photo by fluzo

I have a big birthday looming right around the corner. Let’s just say I’m not turning 30.

Actually, let’s just say what it is: One week from today, I turn 40. There.

For the most part, being this age is ten times better than I ever would have expected. I am very happy with how I feel, look and live at almost-forty. When I was 20, I never imagined life would be this good. And I wouldn’t go back if I could—not even 10 years, let alone 15 or 20. I am more myself and more content with my life than I have ever been.

But still, part of me is dreading this particular day, looming just one short week away. I’ve been trying to parse what exactly it is about turning 40 that bothers me. I realize it has nothing to do with the reality, and everything to do with the perception. I’ve always thought 40 was old. I can clearly remember when my parents were 40, and I thought they were old. That means that everyone who is younger than me also thinks of 40 as old, right? So they’ll think of me as old. That’s what I can hardly bear.

Time to bust some more stereotypes

What can I do about what others’ think, though? All I can do is convince myself not to care, and perhaps to prove them wrong along the way. So much of what I’m about in my life and writing is breaking apart stereotypes: Not all Christians are like that. Not all divorces are like that. Why not add this one to the mix? Not all middle aged people are like that.

For the pep talk I need moving forward, there’s no one better to turn to than the much-loved Anne Lamott, who writes about aging with great grace and humor. In this Salon interview with Joan Walsh, Anne admits that it’s hard to get old—especially as a woman—but there’s also this truth:

…life gets so much easier. Oh my God, life has never been easier for me. The truth is, I get just as lost and anxious and frightened and egotistical and narcissistic as I ever did, but it doesn’t last nearly as long. I mean, it used to last entire years and now I get it and it can last two days. The truth is that you care so much less about most of the stuff you used to care about. It’s like you’ve thrown so much stuff out of the plane that you used to bog down in. I honestly couldn’t name a person I know who would turn back the clock.

It’s so true. I’ve been able to throw so much of what doesn’t matter overboard, leaving more room for more meaningful stuff.

I wouldn’t turn back the clock, and I don’t know a person who would. Ultimately, I think that’s because I am still me—all of the things I have always been, just exposed to more wisdom, grace and beauty as the years pass.

We are all the ages we’ve ever been

Again, Anne Lamott says it best in her book Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith:

I’m very glad to claim the crone who is coming to life within me; I just don’t want her to screech so loudly that she silences the little girl who is still around, drowns out the naughty teenager, or mutes the flirtatious middle-aged woman.

Here is my theory: I am all the ages I’ve ever been. You realize this at some point about your child—even when your kid is sixteen, you can see all the ages in him, the baby wrapped up like a burrito, the one-year-old about to walk, the four-year-old napping, the ten-year-old on a trampoline.

…So how can I be represented by a snapshot, or any one specific aging age? Isn’t the truth that this me is subsumed into all the me’s I already have been, and will be?

Photo by moriza

The other day I was interviewing a Newberry Award-winning author for a freelance article I’m writing. Our conversation covered many topics, but after we concluded the interview, I was left pondering one particular, surprising question: Where and how do I want my children to be learning about religion and faith?

The subject came up because the author, Gary Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy) weaves religious themes into his stories, in tandem with other themes like racism, family, and war.

When I asked Gary about the religious themes, he acknowledged that most authors and publishers of adolescent literature tend to avoid them, mostly for marketing reasons. He didn’t say it, but I imagine school libraries and classrooms can be tricky customers, thanks to church-state issues.

I thought about it more after our interview, and sort of panicked. What if ideas and situations that hinge on religion eventually cease to exist in the best children’s literature? What if, in an effort to respect differences, everything that really matters gets sanitized?

A long and hard search for balance

Personally, I feel like I spend a lot of time and mental energy searching for the perfect balance between the secular and religious. On one hand, I’ve always been a staunch supporter of public schools; the separation of church and state makes sense to me.

But at the same time, I believe God is in everything and everyone, whether we all recognize it or not. While we might think we’re neatly separating things into different compartments, we aren’t and we can’t.

This push and pull is a part of my day-to-day life. Here on my blog, I write about all of the issues that affect my life, whether they’re directly about faith or don’t appear to be about faith at all. I don’t want to write a blog or a book for a specific, well-defined audience. Sending out bits and pieces of real to an ill-defined audience feels more like what being “halfway to normal” is all about.

While I’m sure Gary Schmidt has never considered the phrase “halfway to normal,” I get the sense that he’s made a home as a writer in that neither-here-nor-there place.

What do our kids really need?

Gary told me that he integrates religion in his stories not just because it’s an important issue to him, but also because faith issue are important to adolescents. They’re sorting through and thinking about what they believe, he said, even if no one’s talking to them about it at home, or at a church, temple or mosque. Kids are searching for something to anchor those thoughts and questions to—a core they can use to begin building their own constructs and understandings around.

Literature can serve that role, or certainly supplement it. Recognizing this made me realize something else: I don’t want my daughters to learn about religion and faith only at home and at our church. We can put in place a foundation, but they need to be exposed to other ideas and perspectives if they’re going to end up building anything meaningful on that foundation—something they’ll want to hang on to.

Exposure to people who aren’t like me

Toward the end of my interview with Gary, I asked him what he hopes his young readers walk away with after reading his books. He said that all of his books explore a single, central question—a question that in the end binds all of us together: How do I live next to someone who isn’t like me?

In order to ask that question, and truly explore it, we have to be willing to step outside of our neat, orderly subdivisions, and to let our kids do the same.

Photo by Maja Dumat

I am busy. Too busy. It’s such a cliche that I hesitate to write about it, but the busyness is controlling my life right now. What else can I write about, with any honesty?

Running a one-woman freelance business means getting used to times of feast and famine—taking the good projects when you can get them, and storing away the extra profits like nuts for the winter, for those weeks when work is scarce. You really hate to say no to anything fun and interesting that pays what you charge. You figure you’ll burn the candle at both ends for a couple of weeks, and then be able to relax in the fruits of your labor.

There are definitely things I like about being busy. Being busy is a sign of success. It reminds me that I’m good at what I do, and I can make a living doing what I love. Being busy gives me a certain kind of high—I feel strong, capable, even invincible as I rush through the day, multitasking and making things happen. I’m efficient when I’m busy. I’m on.

Crossing the line between busy and too busy

The problem comes when I’m too busy, for too many weeks in a row. I’ve been riding the line of too-busy since before Christmas, and I hit the too-busy mark a full three weeks ago. I’m avoiding looking ahead, because I know I have another month of this, before I get some relief.

Which brings me to what I don’t like about being too busy.

I don’t like my impatience with projects and activities I usually love. I enjoy knitting, but knowing I have a hat to knit for a nephew that’s about to be born stresses me out. I enjoy volunteering at my kids’ activities, but I deeply regretted signing up to be a parent volunteer at theater rehearsal last night. Suddenly the thought that we have to plan and lead worship at church this Sunday puts me over the edge.

My blog feels like a burden, too. Usually I look forward to writing here—it’s my creative outlet, my therapy sessions and community, all wrapped into one. When life gets too busy, I start to doubt why I’m doing this, if it matters, if anyone cares.

I don’t like that the household begins to fall apart, and I get grouchy with the people I love most. I don’t like putting up a wall around myself, and telling my kids on their snow day that they can only talk to me on the hour. I don’t like telling them I can only help them with essential projects and needs—that I don’t have time to do something that’s just fun or frivolous. (You should have seen me trying to have “fun” doing a jigsaw puzzle with the girls the other night. I simply couldn’t relax.)

I don’t like how much I miss Jason. I miss our evenings together after the kids are in bed. We’re still together, but I’m working, which means we’re not talking. Our conversations have always been the core of our closeness. Yesterday we spent about 30 minutes talking, between the time he came home for work and the time he went to bed. Usually we talk for hours, about everything.

I don’t like how I end up shutting out all kinds of people who are important to me. I don’t make time to check in with a friend, to call and talk to my parents, or even to spend time on Twitter, interacting with the people who typically accompany me through my days. I am a person who feels love most through quality time, so when I can’t give quality time to others, I feel like they can’t sense my love.

Mostly, when I’m too busy, my sense of self begins to slip out of my grasp. All of things that really make life rich and full are put on the back burner, and I push through each day like a machine.

Finally, I’m too busy to proof this. I hope you’ll forgive me. (But I do feel better, now that I’ve written it.)

Above: Baby Amy pulls up a chair while I work.

Ah, Presidents’ Day! Yet another Monday without school—the perfect opportunity for my glass-half-empty and half-full selves to have an all-out squabble. (Keep in mind that I’m a freelancing, work-from-home mama with a crazy amount of deadlines this month. Also, I typically LOVE Mondays. For real.)

The opening arguments usually take place Sunday night. “Empty” has a way of being the one to kick things off:

Empty: Nice. Tomorrow’s Monday, but it’s really not Monday at all. Right when you’re so desperate for some solitude, some uninterrupted work time to kick some deadlines’ butts, you’ll be interrupted every half hour to make snacks, find glue stick, clean up messes and break up sibling arguments.

Full: But just think—no lunches to make tonight! I’ll just start working now (who cares if it’s 10 pm?), and get as much done tonight as I can. Then I’ll be so much more relaxed tomorrow. It will be fine.

Full is usually the first one to pipe up upon waking the school-less morning:

Full: How wonderful that we didn’t have to get up before seven and start scrambling around to get the girls out the door. I think I’ll celebrate by staying in my pajamas for a while!

Empty: Nice. You’ll never get anything meaningful accomplished in your pajamas. You might as well call this day a wash right now.

Full: Making French toast for my husband and children is meaningful. Look how loved and happy they feel! This is why I stayed up past one last night. So we could have a nice morning together.

Empty: If you don’t sit down and get some work done, you’re going to lose your clients. Then you’ll have more relaxing mornings in your pajamas than you ever wanted. So get to work! And good luck ignoring the girls as they go up and down the stairs a dozen times, apparently transferring everything in their bedrooms down to the living room to play.

Full: Oh, but it’s so nice to see them playing together. Look, they’re even getting out some of their oldest, favorite toys. There’s S’s Baby Amy, her constant companion between the ages of two and seven.

Empty: You should just get a real job. Then you either have an excuse to say “I have to go to work today,” and you line up childcare at home, or you can take a paid vacation day and actually enjoy these days without school.

Full: The flexibility that goes with freelancing is one of the very best things about it, and you know it. If I can only do four hours of billable work today rather than six, so be it. At least I can work from home, and I can stay up late again tonight.

Empty: Right, you can try to work at the dining room table in a house that’s littered with toys from the kids playing in every room all day long. And you can give up any semblance of a normal home life, where other people do things like sit on the sofa and relax in the evenings. Awesome.

Full: There’s always tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a new day.

Empty: Yep. Unless a storm rolls through and school gets canceled, of course.

Photo by Art Comments

How is it possible that Jason and I happen to be in New York during Fashion Week? This isn’t the first time, either. As if New York didn’t feel New Yorky enough already. So much beauty and determination. So much power, striving and success. (And in case you’re wondering, even a bad economy can’t take away all of those things. Some of them only seem to intensify.)

Anyway, there seem to be even more beautiful, well-dressed people here than usual, so I might as well have fun observing them, right? One of my favorite pastimes in New York is people watching, and trying to imagine myself living a different life. What would it be like to be that person? To live here, to think about whatever she thinks about and desire whatever she desires most in life?

Sometimes I feel so content with the life I live, that I wonder if perhaps I’m not dreaming big enough. Am I just letting myself off the hook—giving in too easily to the life I have? In the end, I don’t think that’s it at all. I think I’ve just discovered a way to make the most of where I am, and to find contentment in that. (And by the way, it’s a skill I had to work hard to acquire.)

Do you think you know what would make you happy?

This question of what people want—what they think will make them happy and what actually makes them happy—is endlessly fascinating to me. (I can’t wait to read a book Jason has been telling me about, that focuses on exactly these issues: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert).

Earlier this week, Jason forwarded me an article: Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable. The man, Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder, “is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.”

“My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Money is counterproductive—it prevents happiness to come.”

“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now—all this luxury and consumerism—and start your real life’.”

The article goes on to say that Rabeder’s “entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America.”

Listening to your heart and soul

I happen to have plenty of thoughts about excessive wealth, but that isn’t what this post is about. In the end, that wasn’t what it was about for Rabeder, either. He says he’s not trying to offer advice or judge anyone who keeps their wealth, he’s only “listening to the voice of my heart and soul.”

Those are the real question we each need to be asking ourselves: What is my heart and soul telling me? What would “starting my real life” look like?