I have known for sometime that I am not quite where I want to be. I visualize a path… my path, and I can see it so perfectly in my mind. It is beautiful, harmonious, peaceful and full of joy. I am not on that path. I have somehow deviated from it, and so while I see it just to the left of me, I am trudging my way through thick brush, mud, and ducking out of the way of low hanging branches. I think everyone has a path… a flow of life that is in harmony with their soul. I believe that if you are on that path, life is a wonderful journey. Will there be the inevitable “downed tree” or pot hole on your path, of course, but that’s a lot better than tree bashing and fighting through the whole journey. Some people are fortunate and find their way early in life. Other people don’t find it until they’ve been on the wrong one long enough to realize where they are. Sadly, I have known people who appear as though they’ll never find what they’re looking for. It’s easy to get distracted and caught up and busy and ___ and pretty soon you don’t even know how you got to where you are. Think about a college degree. How many people do you know who work in their chosen degree field? I don’t know very many. I think it’s difficult to know what your path is when you’re 18, 19, or 20. I mean, my priority at that point in my life was making it to the weekend so I could party, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t my life path.

I work in the environmental industry, and it happens to be my chosen field. However, my intentions for using my degree are not even close to what I’m actually doing with them. I had this grandiose plan to be a field research scientist, studying rivers and fresh water systems, improving ways to utilize technology that would help to preserve this precious resource. Really, I wanted to wake up everyday and feel like I was doing something to better the world; something that went beyond boosting the economy. My job, which I will say that I am grateful for (it’s really a good job), does not leave me with the feeling that I’ve produced something meaningful. The most meaningful thing that is produced by my current employment is a paycheck. To me, that’s just uninspiring.

So how do you know if you’ve lost your way? Well, besides the resounding “off” feeling that you might carry around with you,

1. The snooze bar is your best friend. Think about it, have you ever in your life overslept on a Saturday when you were going to leave for vacation, or heading up for a day of surfing or snowboarding? Probably not. When we are excited and passionate about what we’re doing, nothing will keep us from beginning each day.
2. Your input is questionable. How many of you say you give your current career 100%- day in and day out? I can honestly say that while often I am assigned a project that lights a fire under me, there are other times when I am just skating through the day, trying to make it to the end so I can go home. Again, if we are passionate about what we’re doing, we give it everything we’ve got.
3. You do it for the money. In today’s money-focused world, it’s difficult for anyone to say they don’t work for the money. Still, there are people out there who do what they do because they love it, and they would do it regardless of what it paid them.
4. You question your purpose. Have you ever looked at the function of your job on a larger scale… the worldly scale? Can you look at your job, a job you devote a precious 250 days out of each year and say that what you provide to the world is worth that much of your life? It’s kind of a scary way to look at it, but it is the reality of a career. Shouldn’t it be worth giving that much of your life to?
5. You don’t need no stinking path. Otherwise known as denial. Sometimes I think we can get so far astray that it becomes easier to tell ourselves that the current situation is fine. Maybe it’s not exactly what we have envisioned for our life, but it provides a paycheck and allows time for shopping and football. It’s good enough… forget the path and just make the best of this one. If you find yourself feeling this way, you’re making excuses and therefore avoiding the necessary change to bring yourself full circle.

Why is this important? Beyond the joy of doing something everyday that inspires you (whether it’s helping the world or not), finding your path can increase your success. I truly believe that the most successful people in life are where they are because they’re following their path… their path has the least resistance to happiness, income, love and everything else.

I think we often find our path again during times of great hardship. When things are ok… when the status quo is functioning, it’s much harder to put yourself out there and decide to turn your life upsidedown. Whether it’s a job or a relationship, it’s easier to just get by with the way things are because what’s familiar seems safe and easy. But, when things have already gone haywire, readjusting your direction to get back on the right path doesn’t seem like such a stretch. This week, I was warned that lay offs are a possibility in the near future. I was so scared earlier this week, but as days have passed I’ve realized that if I were to get laid off, I would utilize it as an opportunity to discover something new. Just the idea has made me rethink some things about life. I came to realize that much of what I’m doing every day is just fulfilling the status quo, and that’s not exactly what I had in mind. I’m not talking about leaving my job per se, but I am talking about spending some time to reflect on what aspects of my life can be improved so that I can begin to travel the path of least resistance again.

If you find yourself relating to the 5 tips, it might be time to examine what you want our of your life, and whether you’ve somehow ended up off-track. Only you know where your path is in relation to your current direction; it’s up to you change course.

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If I Were President, I would:

1. Fire Everyone in the White House.
2. Find an American who has spent his/her entire life helping people worldwide, and I would put him in charge of foreign affairs. It would be even better if that person hated oil.
3. Locate some truly grateful and joyful people who love what our country should stand for and want to make a difference to become the domestic policy and public affairs department.
4. Hire a pacifist to head up the defense department.
5. Hire an environmentalist to run the energy department.
6. Hire Jon Stewart to be my Press Secretary.
7. Ask Maya Angelou to help me write my speeches.
8. Put together a cabinet consisting of kids ranging in age from 7-17. They still remember what life is all about.
9. Find the wealthiest person in America who also gives the highest percentage of that wealth away to help others; he/she would be my economic adviser.
10. I would require lobbyists to prove they are lobbying for things they are truly passionate about by working for less than a teacher’s salary. And maybe on that note, pass some kind of amendment that gives teacher’s the salary of oil and gas lobbyists…. hmmm.
11. Remind people of the reason for separation of church and state.
12. Ask every American to read the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence at least twice a year, rather than one time in Junior High School.
13. Get a jump plane and set up a landing area for the White House lawn so I could skydive into work everyday (just kidding. It would be cool though).

The way I see it, anything is an improvement over the current situation, although it’s probably a good thing I’m not leading the country! What would you do if you were President? My son answered this question when he was 5, and you know what his answer was? “I would make all the people eat Broccoli”… Just an example of how you should impose NO limits on answering this question for yourself. Your answers could very well help you make a proper decision come election time for who you feel would best function as our President.

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Have you ever had a goal that, despite your best efforts, has not come into realization? This can be the most frustrating thing, and it seems like the more times you fail, the harder it gets to succeed. Many people struggle in this way with dieting. They say, “today will be the day that I’m finally going to get my diet on the right track”, and then someone brings in a birthday cake to work and the diet goes out the window. “Well, I’ll start tomorrow”; Ever heard that one before? I’ve used that excuse many times for many things. I struggle with this often in trying to get myself up early in the morning. I can see such benefit in getting up a couple hours before I have to leave for work. I could work out, take my dog for an extra walk, work on my blog posts… the possibilities are endless. Still, no matter how often I set my alarm early, my brain wakes me up at a certain time (I sleep through all alarms) and I find I have just enough time to get ready and head out the door. Maybe its weight loss, or finding the right person. It doesn’t matter. Once you’ve lost faith in yourself and no longer believe that you can do it, accomplishing that goal becomes more difficult.

SO, how do you get out of that rut? In my mind I always believe it takes a mental shift. At this point, it is entirely your perspective that is setting up the situation for failure. For progress to be achieved, you must change your thinking- not just about the goal, but about yourself. Here are some ways to get yourself back on track.

• Take some time to re-evaluate the goal. What is it you want to achieve? What are the benefits of achieving this goal? What will it take to accomplish? Journal this stuff so that you can return to it if you find yourself off-track again later.
• Meditate, go for a walk or a hike, or go to your sacred space, and discuss with yourself if this goal is truly important to you. Often times our goals are not our own. Maybe you’re trying to lose weight for a significant other. I contend that if the end result of the goal is to please someone other than yourself, it’s not worth it. You’ll have a much harder time succeeding if you aren’t 100% behind it.
• If the goal is in fact something for you, and you are still certain that you want to achieve it, begin setting yourself a time line. It’s important to outline where you’re trying to get to so that you know when you’ve succeeding in completing the goal. For me, the end point would be successfully waking two hours early for 30 days straight and no longer sleeping through my alarm. Sometimes though, the end point might be too far off, making it harder to stay focused and motivated. This is where a time line can come in handy. Create some milestones for success. For instance, my first milestone would be to successfully get up one hour early for the first two weeks. This technique is really helpful for losing weight. Maybe you want to lose 40 pounds in the next 6 months. Setting up “mini-goals” to achieve each of the 10 pounds can really help keep you motivated because you find success along the way.
• Finally, do whatever you need to do to remember your worth and your abilities. Remind yourself that you are capable of doing whatever you choose, and that you can in fact succeed in this. Again, meditation and walks are good for this. I for one find a lot of motivation in going for long walk with my dog. I bring some music that inspires me to want to change, and I just walk.
• If you find yourself having an “off day”, don’t let that dampen your spirit! Everyone has good and bad days. Achievement takes perseverance and patience. Don’t give up on yourself; instead, pick yourself back up and start again (don’t wait until tomorrow either)!

Believing in yourself and your ability is the first step to accomplishing any goal. When you have faith in yourself, you can achieve anything you can dream up.

** Photo by Alice Russell

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The green movement is a wonderful thing. I have been an environmentally conscious person since I was a kid. My first real taste of it was reading a small book about what was happening to the Earth because of our misuse. I was so moved by the book, my friend and I used our allowance money to make our own pamphlets and distribute them around the neighborhood. I’m not sure I made a difference in any of those lives, but I did change the lives of my parents. From that day on, they have recycled everything that they can.

I have always been particularly concerned with water, and as such, received a degree in Hydrology. I have been a water chemist, a research chemist (developing technologies to remove arsenic from drinking water in places such as Bangladesh), and now I am a researcher. Not the kind you would think though. I research environmental cleanups in America. The things I see astonish me… horrify me. Industry in past years did not concern themselves with the environment. Plants would often utilize large holes in the ground to dump not just solid wastes, but liquid wastes as well. Industry has historically been set up near sources of water, and it was for good reason initially. People believed that dumping into a water body would “wash” it away. They believed it was a safe choice. Obviously they were wrong. I’ve studies rivers so toxic, they flowed a different color each day depending on what was being dumped. I’ve seen landfills dug up where thousands of metal drums of toxic chemicals have been found damaged and leaking. I’ve seen sites where contamination is so bad it has adversely affected the health of the surrounding neighborhood (think Erin Brokovich). That movie is an amazing story, but it is so much more common than you would think. To say that we have learned from our mistakes would be to lie.

Many industries have simply moved away from America. Not just to cut costs of labor, but to avoid strict environmental regulation that increases the cost of their production. I remember a story in college about some companies that moved just across the border of Texas into Mexico so they could avoid such regulation. In the end, a small town in Texas felt the affects. There were stillbirths, and babies born with such horrific defects, they didn’t survive more than a few hours (born without brains). The waste coming from these plants ran through a drainage channel right through the center of a small village in Mexico. I can’t say for certain, but it’s likely that waste channel transported the waste into a pond or larger stream, which in turn delivered it to the groundwater.

Other companies just flat out disregard the environmental regulations. A friend of mine works as an air inspector in Kentucky. She talked to me about the frustration in going from plant to plant to inspect their emissions equipment. Basically, the industry considers the fines and penalty’s of having improper emissions to be a small price to pay when compared to buying expensive upgrades and operating business in an environmental way. The fines were affordable, so rather than do the right thing, they just take the quarterly fines. Her job felt meaningless to her, because no company would come into compliance when they could afford to pay to be non-compliant. And the state doesn’t want to increase the fine, for fear they’ll drive business away to another more forgiving state or worse yet, another country.

We all need to commit to living green in our own lives. Driving a hybrid- I’m sorry but a ginormous truck hybrid that only gets 20 mpg doesn’t count in my book- is a great start, and in the long run it’ll save you tons of money. Recycling, upgrading your house to eco-friendly lighting, and purchasing environmentally friendly products such as toilet paper and laundry soap are all great ways to make a difference in your life. Even still, we have a long road ahead of us if we truly want to see change. Industry is in the business of making money, and as we can see from our own lives, living green typically costs a little more. Unless it is financially advantageous for companies to start operating green, we will be fighting an uphill battle. The amount of wastes generated by production of goods as well as the pollution they emit into the air is of great consequence. We alone cannot reverse the effects of what is happening to our world. Industry must change with us. As individuals, we do not have the power to force a company to keep their plant in a country where they must pay to operate under environmental regulations. We do not have the ability to convince them that cutting into their profits to help the Earth is worth it to them. BUT… we have the power to buy and not to buy. I think that if numbers large enough committed to only buying from industries which were proven to be operating “green”, then suddenly it would matter to businesses. They can’t make money if we don’t buy, right? This is very much like trying to boycott Nike for moving their plants to a location where they could hire labor for pennies on the dollar. Not that the boycott was 100% successful, but we need to do the same thing to companies who refuse to operate in an environmentally friendly and conscious way. If nothing else, you owe to yourself to become aware of the companies that you buy from. There’s a good chance you can get an item for less money from a company who cuts corners, but if you’re committed to living green, than it is worth it to you to spend a few dollars more to buy from a company who is doing their part to help.

Here are some good resources to check out if you’re interested in learning more about industry’s role in our environmental problems.

For those of us in America:

• The Environmental Working Group has tons of great information about many different topics. Here’s one that is near and dear to my hear about MTBE. Learn how oil companies knew the dangers of MTBE, joked about it, lied about it, put it into our gasoline and what it has done to our groundwater.
• This is an EPA site that allows you to search for superfund sites in your state. A superfund site is a site where contamination is so bad, it receives special attention and funding. Do a search for you state (or even just your city). You might be surprised at how many there are. This is another EPA site that reports industries who utilize toxic chemicals in their operation. You can search by location, and even find out if they have any environmental violations.
• Maybe you’re not big industry, but if you own your own company, here are some tips on helping your company go green.
• Check out Co-op America. They “focus on economic strategies—economic action to solve social and environmental problems”. This site is also filled with good tips for your own home.
• Want to start shopping green? Check out the Eco Mall! You can shop by product or by company. This is a great way to start supporting the right companies, and to stop promoting industries that aren’t green.

For those of you not in America:

• find your country’s environmental regulatory agency. That’s the best place to start. Not only will you find information regarding hazardous waste problems where you live, but chances are there will be links to information on eco-friendly tips, businesses and organizations that you can help.

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For Friday, I thought I would post on the lighter side. A little “food for thought” to work on over the weekend! I wanted to share with you some of my favorite quotes about life. Quotes can be the most profound way to see something from a new perspective, and that I think, is part of what personal development is all about.

The people who are attributed to these quotes are people whom I consider to be my examples of how I want to live my life, and so their quotes have more meaning to me than just the words they speak. Enjoy!

True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness. ~Albert Einstein

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. ~Buddha

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. ~Elbert Hubbard

Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, respect for others and responsibility for all your actions. ~Dali Lama

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ~Henry David Thoreau

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves. ~Mahatma Gandhi

The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible without brush, hammer, clay, or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt. Their medium is their being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive. ~J. Stone

I think sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do in our lives is just to be aware of the moment; Aware of ourselves and of others. I love these quotes because they reflect how I feel about life and what I strive to achieve everyday in my constant “work in progress”.

Happy Friday!

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