Don’t Die Waiting to be Happy

In Don’t Die with Vacation Time on the Books, I used a John Lennon quote:  “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.”  All I can say is, “Yes!”

My plan for the last 60 days was to successful sell our home and move to our new home.  My plan was to get that accomplished in 40 days, have eight blogs written prior to the close so I could continue my once-a-week posts, and to begin August in my new office, ready to work.  Yeah, that did not happen.

The closing took 60 days instead of 40, one blog got written and posted, and I work mostly from local cafes in my area (Samalatte and Cafe Leone’s will soon be charging me rent because I cannot drink that much coffee).

I now live in the middle of a total renovation of our new home, and I will admit that as disruptive as it is — and trust me it is very, very disruptive — I am enjoying observing one of my main teachings in action:  The condition of the home and office will give you hints as to the condition of the psyche.  You can fill in whatever picture of that you wish.  My wish is to keep experiencing the synchronistic  moments such as this:

With all the banging and sawing going on inside our home, I needed to place a note on the front door.  With all the boxes yet to be unpacked in my office, I scrounged around for a piece of paper to write the note.  From who knows where, I found some 8 1/2 x 11 pages with only a little bit of printing on them.  I realized they were pages from my first Don’t Die book.  The page I picked up had the above mentioned John Lennon phrase.  It made me laugh so hard, I decided to use the remaining space on the page to write my door note.

Days into the mass confusion of laying wood floors, one of the young age-appropriately tattooed and pieced workman, John, came to me and said he loved the quote and it was really true for him.  He then went on to  tell me that in sixth grade he wrote a quote that his teacher thought was so good she had it published:

“The journey of life is long.  The path to happiness is as short as you make it.”

I think there must be something in the name John.  They sure know how to sum up the complexity of life with a few simple words.

Thank you John.  And, thank you John!