Some of lifes lessons that I’ve been pondering on lately.
1. Its more important to be happy than to have all the material things money can buy.
2. Pick your battles.. You don’t have to fight every battle that comes your way.
3. Have a thankful heart. Even after a tough day..try to find three things that you are thankful for.
4. You won’t always be understood..and its important to be okay with being misunderstood.
5. Love others. Everyone needs to know that they are loved.
6. Follow your heart. Those things/dreams you have: go do them. Often in the past I’d worry what other people would think of me with the decisions that I’d make. But I’ve l earned that its better to follow your heart rather than have regrets cause I’d spent my life doing what was expected of me.
7. Travel. It has helped me to understand myself better. Often I’m in situations that are outside my comfort zone and that a good thing as its far easier to play it safe but to live adventurously you need to be willing to take some risks. And you may be thinking..well what if it doesn’t work out…think more along the lines of what could happen if it did work out.
8. Make time to wind down in the evening before bed. For me this usually means reading.
Oh and I came across this poem the other day and it really sums up how I try to approach life.
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
– Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Sometimes I like to write. 
thank you for this Carole