Two cents (or more, depending on the interest rate)

There’s a lot of good advice out there.

Be all that you can be:  Be productive,  maximize profits,  work hard and play hard.   Twitter can help you market yourself.  Start a blog. Volunteer more, accomplish more, earn more, know more, be more skillful, buy more, network more.  Be available on a mobile device, multi-task,  have a can-do attitude, no matter the job or the circumstances.

Who would think, with so much good advice in the world, so many books and articles, so much twitter, any one of us could be troubled, depressed, lonely, mistaken, or – horrifyingly – achieving less than our full potential?

While I’m busy focusing on the 10 things I’m told matter most, all of the fluid is leaking out of my brain.

This is because the key to my happiness, and I know this, is self love  (Not self indulgence, which is easily confused with self love).  If I could honor those feelings and hunches I have, even when my brain is telling me another path forward makes more sense or has more potential;  if I could calmly seek situations that don’t compromise me;  if I could be unfailingly polite and kind, treating others as I would wish to be treated; if I could remember to share myself with the people who love and need me,  and know better than to open myself to people who don’t or can’t; if I can do those things – be self loving,  not compromise my sanity, consistently – for one whole day, that will be a really good, profitable day.  And it would be a million dollar day if I could do all of that with some silent time thrown in for good measure.  I might hear birds sing or the wind blow.  I might catch the spring peepers.

I know, that’s been done.  It’s passe.  But just the thought of conjuring happiness so simply makes me, well, happy.

No twittering, no self marketing necessary.