The beginning of a new year and a new decade will find many of us quietly reflecting about our goals, hopes and challenges for the upcoming year. As our work consumes more and more of our energy, many of us look for new strategies to achieve some degree of balance between our work and our personal lives.

If you haven’t read the book- A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen- she has some rich advice to achieve a more balanced life:

“So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give any one is pretty simple: get a life. A real-life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes, a life in which you stop and watch how a red tailed hawk circles over a pond in a stand of pines. Get a life in which you pay attention to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger. ”

“Turn off your cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep still. Be present.”

“Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and to love you. Always remember that love is not leisure, it is work.”(1)

The book is a short, great read and might give you some food for thought as you juggle the demands of 2011. My best wishes to you for a prosperous, happy 2011 that is well-lived!

Above quoted from:
A Short Guide to a Happy Life
by Anna Quindlen, Random House New York 2000