Mid Life Celebration » Choice

The Harder You Work…

jeff noel — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:13:38 +0000

A clue to the surprise….

You’ve heard this before, “The harder you work, the luckier you get“.

Hope you’re Saturday goes well with all you have planned. Our days, in large part, go as we direct them.

We can’t control the cards we’re dealt, only the way we play the hand.

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Unhappiness Is Our Fault

jeff noel — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:00:35 +0000

“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.” — Edward de Bono

There are many ways to start talking about this. And initially, I was simply going to let the quote “speak for itself”, without any additional dialogue.

However, me being me, well, that obviously didn’t happen.

But compromise is in order and I will end this Mid Life Celebration blog post with a top-of-mind thought.

Once I started writing, consistently, back in March, a transformation began. As if something inside me was awakened and began to grow. And then suddenly realized, I hadn’t even begun to discover what was possible.

Talk about a joyful experience. Undiscovered joy, newly found, was remarkably humbling. And humility brings incredible joy.

Oh, and by the way….

“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.”

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Joy Is A Choice

jeff noel — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:00:18 +0000

Joy is a choice I get to make every moment of every day. Same with you, even if it doesn’t seem so.

Did I mention that I have a pile of emotional baggage as big as many of you?

Did I mention that my wife and I are disabled?

Did I mention we spent our life savings to become parents?

Did I mention our son has an incurable disease?

Did I mention that I’ve overcome addiction?

The list goes on and on. So please, please don’t say, “But you’ve got it made. You are living the dream. You are so fortunate.”

This would generally be considered an insult, and completely disrespectful. And maybe the beginning of an excuse.

But forgiveness rushes in and all that’s left is joy. Almost unspeakable joy.

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Hardest Thing

jeff noel — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:43:32 +0000

“It’s the hardest thing in the world to accept a little success and leave it that way”. — Marlon Brando

More is better, right?

I’m pretty much an over-achiever. Hard to have a 25-year career within a Fortune 100 company and not have excellence rub off on you.

What has rubbed off on us is what we carry into mid-life. This is why it’s a crisis. Along the way, we weren’t paying attention to common sense.

Midlife provides a second look at common sense. Midlife does not provide an easy choice. But it does provide one.

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