No two people are the same when it comes to organizing your life. Some people need a clean, organized and sanitary life style to be happy while others may be their happiest in a well lived in and somewhat cluttered environment. I don’t think it matters how straight the books are on the shelve, rather what environment best meets your desired lifestyle. It is about finding a place where your creativity happens and where you find the most peace and joy.

I have one good friend who is an attorney in California. Away from his office you have never seen a more organized and well put together man. He always has on the best suit and every hair is in place and when he is meeting with investors or clients he is a perfectionist. I went to his office one day expecting to find his office clean, straight and orderly. I walked into the door and had to ask if I was in the correct office. Every flat surface had stacks upon stacks of paper running in all directions and sitting haphazardly. There were old coffee stains on many of the files and the actual place he did his writing was covered in 6 layers of old files and various court documents. I truly don’t know how he found anything but he was sitting behind his desk just as happy as pig in the sunshine.

My point is everyone needs to find their own balance and their own method of living that makes them happy.

There is a story about Abraham Lincoln that fits well with what I am saying. He was a very detailed oriented man. Almost obsessively so. There is a story told about him that happened early in his presidency where in those days people could just walk up to the white house and wait to see the president. There were always a long line of people waiting to see him. Can you imagine that? Well, the story goes that he was in his office working on a project when his assistant brought in the next person to see him. The assistant had the man go ahead and take a seat in the president’s office. The story is the President Lincoln didn’t acknowledged the man until he was complete with the project he was working on. He never looked up and never said “I will be with you shortly.” He was totally focused on the project he was working on. After what was a long uncomfortable period of quietness while he signed the documents he was working on and put them away, did he look up and acknowledge the man in his office. That is an example of the focus of Abraham Lincoln. He was methodical, intense, quiet, brilliant, organized and very deliberate in his actions.

Everyone had their own system of keep up with things and it is not a one size fits all. I have worked with some people with great minds that are the most unorganized people I know. The truth is that they excel in the clutter. I have worked with other people that have a file for everything and everything in its file. One person I used to work with had a vacuum cleaner and wood polish in his office. Every day he would shine his desk and vacuum the office floor. The funny thing is I have seen both organized and unorganized people succeed and fail. How you organize your life has very little to do your success.

I think it is about finding the balance that works for you. I read a lot and there are some people that like to read several books at the same time and will go from one to the other. They will read one for a while and set it aside and read a while in the other books. This approach would not work for me, but to them, it is how they like it.

There are very few things in life where there are absolutes. It can be education, health, diet, work, exercise, parenting, marriage and the list could go on for pages. Some people think they have the perfect system and get angry when everyone else doesn’t agree with them. My advice is to find the way you want to live and then enjoy it. KT

Today’s moments will never happen again. Hopefully you will have tomorrow’s moments but the ones you experience today will never be repeated exactly same.

We were with all our children last night for dinner and there were moments with my daughters, granddaughters, son in-laws and my wife that I will never have again. Sometimes we get so caught up in what is going on in our life that we can miss the moments because we are thinking about something else. My oldest granddaughter was sitting beside me asking questions about this puzzle she was working on. I could have brushed it over and hurried through it. I didn’t. We took that time to read the instructions and work the puzzle and to fully focus on that moment. My youngest granddaughter came and crawled into my lap and was looking at me and talking to me. I could have just given her a kiss and set her back down and hurried through that moment. I didn’t. I looked at that little face and our eyes connected and we had us a little moment that will be a memory for me.

What am I saying? I am saying that the pressures of life can make us hurry through moments that we will never get back. If the thing you are thinking about causes you to miss the things in front of you, I would advocate that we need to pull back and reassess.

When my daughters were little we were broke and in debt. That pressure weighs heavy on a dad and can and does cloud the thought process. I know I was engaged in many moments when my girls were little but I also know that I missed many moments because of debt and financial stress that was on my mind.

Once you have done all you can do, that really is all you can do. Hearing someone tell you to not worry sounds good in theory but very hard to do in the real world. We all as adults carry with us emotions, events and baggage that make it hard to let go and be in the moment.

Forgetting life’s baggage and always focusing on the “now” moments is probably not practical but we could make the conscious effort to be aware of what is going on around us and to make a real push to be in today’s moments. When that son or daughter is looking at you and wanting to talk, God help us all to be alert, aware and fully engaged. In my experience we don’t get many of those chances. Also we never get to pick the perfect moment for us when we have everything in perfect order before we start into that moment. That is why it is called a moment instead of an appointment.

Choose well, choose today, choose the important things and choose today’s moments. KT

Teddy Roosevelt said: if you could kick the person in the pants that is responsible for most of your trouble, you couldn’t sit down for a month.

Do I need to add anything else here? Probably not but I will. Ha

If I look at most of the issues of my life that caused stress, anger, anxiety, fear, financial loss and other negative emotions, I have to say that the one that caused the problem was yours truly. Me.

I remember in the mid 90’s, I bought some stock in a hotel company because I just knew I was going to triple my money. The company had been trading for $28 dollars a share and dropped to $5 dollars. I knew the breakup value of the company was at least $16 dollars a share, so I just bought some of that great stock at $5 dollars. Well about 2 months later the stock dropped to about .75 cents a share. Today I keep those stock certificates in a special file that doesn’t have a name on it. If it did have a name on it, the title would be “Doofus.”

I could go on all day with similar examples of issues in my life that are totally because of me. It is my guess that if you were honest, you might be able to name a few as well in your own life.

So I guess the real question is what you do after you have caused some issue in your life. Well take my stock investment story for example, the money was gone, no way to get it back and I could get mad and cast blame but the problem is, the blame was on me. Ha. So the next best thing to do is commit to not making the same mistake again. Fortunately this mistake was only about money and not about something life changing like causing a car accident that injured my family. Sometimes we can learn a great lesson from failure without that failure being life changing.

Rocky Balboa said “it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

Since I have all five of the Rocky movies on CD, I think I am going to go home right now and watch one. KT

In the past week we have lost 2 people we knew that were both well younger than me. I also saw a young man at the grocery store who I have known for some years and he is paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair.

One of the friends we lost was riding a motorcycle over the weekend and sitting still at a red light when he was hit from behind by a drunk driver. He was 53 years old and was full of life. The other gentleman was late 40’s and passed away due to illness. The young man at the grocery store is probably mid 30’s and has been in a wheelchair for the 8-10 years I have known him.

These are just a few recent examples and I am sure you know some as well.

At some point in all of our lives we need to stop, pause, keel and say a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving for how blessed we are to be alive and in health. KT

For all Christians, I believe the lord talks to you through your heart. I am not talking about the beating heart, rather the spiritual heart. When you are moving too fast in a certain direction, I believe you will get this “check” or “hitch” in your spirit. It tells you something is unsettled in the direction you are going. The bible tells us that one of the definitions of God’s wisdom is that it is peaceable. That means it is easy to welcome. When the wisdom is uneasy or you feel unsettled, it is best to back away from the direction you are going.

I have made some big business blunders (like the fast food restaurants) when I felt this “hitch” in my spirit and still moved forward. That little restaurant decision costs me eight years of financial hardship and almost forced me into bankruptcy back in the early 1990’s. If I had stopped and pulled back and asked God for his wisdom, it would have kept me from a lot of heartache.

If we are honest with ourselves, I believe we know deep in our spirit if we have a green light, red light or a yellow light. Green means go, red means stop and the every elusive yellow light means caution and to be alert and be very careful. These handing lights we see in intersections across America were not meant to be spiritual, but I believe they represent a good example of the three answers we receive from God. Stop, go and be careful. KT