Tag: life

When you walk into your favorite coffee place in the morning, I doubt that the first thing on your mind is, "How are the coffee bean plantations doing today?" If you are a true coffee aficionado, you may know that your preferred beans come from Columbia or Nicaragua, but you probably don’t worry much about the well-being of the coffee growers.

But companies such as Starbucks, Keurig Green Mountain, Illycaffe and others who rely on coffee beans for their very existence and continued growth, do. Coffee plantations world-wide have been experiencing unusual fluctuations in heat, rain and other environmental factors, which impact the available supply of beans for—guess what—your cup of joe! And those companies are investing boots-on-the-ground, as well as substantial funds, to help local coffee-growers find solutions to their issues.

In 1965 I was 9 years old when my grandfather was moved to a nursing home. The massive wooden door of the old mansion-turned-institutional care facility always opened with a soiled sense of despair. While visiting her father over the years, my mother would softly sob: "Promise never to put me in a nursing home."

As a young child eager to please her mother, I promised.

Recently I came across the Dalai Lama’s "18 Rules of Living,” which he shared with the world at the beginning of the new millennium. Here, 18 years later, it seemed relevant to revisit them.

In particular, I was struck by his rule: "Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it." At first I thought, "What?” As women, for example, many of us had been told umpteen times that we couldn’t have both a thriving family life and a successful career. Fortunately, that has been changing (although I still wonder why men were exempt from that contradiction!).

“One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one’s perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them.”  ~ Tom Robbins

It is odd how we take for granted the most basic of our sensory capacities until life teaches us otherwise. Losing our sight is one that is common to most of us as we age. Although both my parents wore corrective lenses, I boasted perfect vision until suddenly as I approached 50, small print became illegible. Suddenly I started to pay attention to what I could see, but even more attention to what I could no longer see. I noticed that just by looking differently, colors became more vivid, the subtle textures of fabrics and plants had more depth, and the subtle tones of a gray overcast sky more defined.

Many of my coaching clients lack energy and motivation because they are overworked and overwhelmed. This is burnout.

These clients say things like, "I can’t figure out what I want anymore."

My goal was to move them from this point to feeling adrenalized and excited about life. "Adrenalized" living is about feeling fulfilled, motivated, and confident. It’s a reminder that you have the choice to live the way you want. In every situation you can choose your adrenalized life.

Do you find yourself feeling empty despite all the cookies, cakes, and fun of life?

Maybe you feel like a failure because baking cookies with the kids is annoying, shopping leads to debt guilt, and shame from that work party due to things said after one too many mimosas. The things that break up our day-to-day life that are meant to bring us fun, often bring their share of downsides with them.

There is always much debate as to whether life itself is pre-destined. Does everything happen for a reason, or are we in fact in control of our own destiny?

I like to believe that we have a certain amount of control, but what sort of control do we actually have over our own lives? We can all dream, but unless we put those dreams into action, they will forever remain dreams.

First, there is the element of choice. While Shakespeare says, "To be or not to be," if we change his words to: "To do or not to do," this gives us choice.