Circumstances less often create the person as they reveal who we already are. Certainly, they help shape us over time. But at any particular moment, trying circumstances show us a truer mirror than we may want to peer into. This is why…

If we protect our computer systems with spam filters and virus protection and firewalls and the like, why do we so quickly download such awful garbage into the most important memory storage system we will ever own?

Perhaps you’ve wondered how blogging has affected the lives of bloggers. There are, of course, 6 and 7-figure income bloggers. There are world-traveling bloggers. Blogging has brought notoriety and book-signing deals and public stages for many. But for me, the most obvious reward has been a boost to my personal happiness. Perhaps yours can be enhanced by blogging as well. Click here to see how blogging can improve happiness.

Life has a way of getting in the way of our plans and mixing things up a bit. And that’s okay. What matters most about life’s little sucker punches is the way we deal with them and the lessons we learn because of them. Here are 4 life-lessons I’ve recently been thinking about since a special event in our lives.

Belief is the blanket we wrap ourselves in when life seems cold and dark and harsh. It is the hope that shines in the darkened tunnels of life. It is a framework, a map and a marker on the path we choose to travel. It unlocks doors and oils hinges and greases paths. But it’s only the starting point.

Do you regularly interact with the chronically negative? Is there someone in your life who whines and moans and complains about everything, predicting doom and gloom around every corner, seeing dark clouds brooding in every silver lining? If you do, you don’t need me to tell you how draining it can be. But how can you protect your own happiness around such regular negativity?

As a high school teacher, I send almost 200 kids off into the world every year to try figure out where they fit in the world. But if I’ve merely taught them the finer points of the subjects I teach, I believe I’ve failed them. The following words are a more polished version of what I share with them each year on the last day of class.

When life gets dark and dreary, when the clouds of discontent swell and burst hard upon you with so much utter violence and ferocity you can scarcely take it anymore, let this simple poem inspire you through the toughest parts of your most challenging moments.

Words are the bodies the soul of an idea is born into. The quality of our words attracts others to our cause or repels them from it. Sometimes, the quality of an idea is enough to give it wings. At other times, the words used to convey an idea are the nails in the coffin of its premature death.

Most people think failure is a bad thing to be avoided, to be ran from, hidden, afraid of and discouraged. And frankly, it doesn’t feel good at all. In fact, it feels terrible, sometimes like you’ve been slammed in the face with the shovel. It’s a fall, a step back, evidence you suck! But it’s not that at all.

Too often, our words get drowned in the noise of our own behavior. We tell others to live one way and yet fall woefully short ourselves. This is inevitable because we are all imperfect beings. The problem is less our inconsistency and more our lack of humility.

Why do we start paying so much attention to things like wrinkles and nose lengths and freckles and blemishes and all our perceived imperfections? Why do we look so closely at the so-called blemishes that we miss the beauty that surrounds the “blemish” entirely?