#89 Live with Less

Why have a set of antique China dinnerware that you never use?   Why have fourteen pairs of shoes?  Why buy or build a 4,000 square foot house if the two or four or six of you with the kids can live contently and sufficiently in a 3,000 sq. ft or even a 2,000 sq.ft.?  What's the motivation behind buying or building a big house?    Why go shopping for more clothes if your closet is about to burst with dozens of clothing and what not?   Why go on a shopping spree on things you don't need?

Longing for happiness, joy, peace, and a rich and satisfying life is normal.  But those things aren't found in stuff.  Some people try to find fulfillment in new adventures, new hobbies, new friends, vacations, purchases, keeping up with the Joneses, but there's no ultimate fulfillment in stuff.  A new toy or a new experience may give you a temporary high in this illusion of fulfillment, but within days or weeks, you'll be left with that sense that something's still missing.

The more stuff you purchase and collect, the more time, energy, money, stress, it will take for you to maintain or repair or secure those things.   What's the difference between a family of four roughing it in a tent or camper for a week vs. the same family of four living in a big house?   Going camping requires to bring only the essentials, allowing you to actually spend more time with each other -- the important stuff.  Living in a big home makes each person to live more isolated from one another, with more responsibilities to maintain and repair things such as garage, sink, security system, computers, floor, heating or A/C, lawncare, and tons more.  More stuff means you have to work more to afford the lifestyle that was unnecessary to begin with.  People brought on their own stress.

Here's a few ideas.  What about giving away just a third of your closet, a third of your utensils, a third of your whatever, to other people?   Start with your bedroom or kitchen first.  Grab a big box, fill it up.  It's actually nice to have a closet with plenty of room.  It's much nicer to give those things away.  What about investing more?   If instead of buying a 3,000 sq.ft house, you instead live in a 2,000 sq.ft house, the difference in your monthly payment, in 25-35 years will be about one million dollars when invested. So, would you rather live in a simple sufficient home and have a million dollars to retire on, or would you rather spend more to show off to others people (who most likely don't give a darn or worth a darn) and have nothing to retire on?   A few people have asked us why we still drive our 2003 little Toyota Echo with 150K+ miles on it instead of getting and driving a much luxurious vehicle.  Well, for one, it's still working just fine with 35-38 miles per friggin gallon.  Two, ... why?   For what purpose?  To impress others?  Hah  :)   Dave Ramsey wrote, "People buy things they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like."  LOL.

There's nothing inherently wrong with stuff, with having a big house, nice toys and gears, etc, but exactly, what's your focus on earth?  Can you imagine Jesus having to stress out about dozens of clothing items or the latest toys or what people think?   

Ecclesiastes 4:4 - "Most people are motivated for success because they envy their neighbors.  But this, too, is meaningless --like chasing the wind."

I Timothy 6:6,8 - "So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.  True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth."

#88 Delegate

When you have the courage and faith in delegating tasks to others, then you are a hundred steps ahead of everyone else.  If you ask your mom, she'll tell you that I'm a perfectionist by nature.  I'd spend hours and days on a project to make sure everything was right and perfect.   I would then review the final project over and over again until it's perfect.  When I worked on any patient, I would make sure every little detail got fixed just right, then double and triple checked, which often made me spent extra time with patients, which was a good thing, but made other patients waited longer than necessary.    Thankfully your dad learned about delegating tasks early on (a few years into it :) in his career, from the coaches we hired.

See, in my mind I always thought that "I can do it better myself, no one else will do it right, or I don't want to inconvenient others, or it’s faster to just do it myself."  I painfully learned that these were all just myths.  If you carefully select and hire the right person, train them well, empower them and trust them, and train them again, and then train them again, it will also save you time, spare you a great deal of stress, allow you to spend your time on other more important things, boost the overall productivity, allowing you to reach and exceed your goals in less time, with less effort, and with much less stress.

Aside from work, we also delegate "mundane" things that will help us to focus on the main things in our life: raising you, serving God, serving others, and fulfilling the bucket list together.   We delegate cleaning the bedrooms, the living room, the bathrooms, vacuuming the floor, dusting,  etc. to a housekeeper.  See, it would probably take a few hours to do all these, especially the dreaded and least fun one of all: cleaning the shower stall and toilets.  Sharon, our housekeeper comes just once or twice a month.  When she comes and does her magic, it's an amazing space to live in again.  In between her visits, we do our own mini cleaning of vacuuming, etc.  It greatly reduces the stress level in the house.  We have more time to spend with you  and time to do other fun things we enjoy doing together.

We also delegate lawncare, ironing of clothes, and a few other things to other people.  These people were very grateful that we're using their services.  We were even more grateful.  See, when you delegate, you employ people.  You make more time for more productivity in exchange for your resources (money) to people.

#87 People can't read your mind

So you gotta tell them.  This applies to workplace, career, relationships, and simple daily encounters even with strangers.   That's why they made turn signals in cars.  The safest way to change lane or to make a left or right turn is to tell others by turning on these left or right signal ahead of time.  People who don't do turn signals are the ones most likely get involved in accidents.  You can't assume other people know what you want or how you feel.  Tell that special person how much you love him/her.  Tell your teacher that you appreciate and enjoy her classes.   Tell your supervisor that you want a raise or promotion.   Tell us if something bothers you and you need somebody to talk to.  This is the one part of communication.  The other part is listening.  An effective relationship involves two-way communication.

#86 You Are Either Early

or Late.   Always choose the first one.  Being early is ten times better than being on time.  A former college professor Dr. Lynn from Union College always said, "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable." 

Be early.  Everytime.

#85 Clean Up and Give Away

Once a year, usually springtime, your mom and dad get a few boxes, and we sorted out clothing items that we haven't worn for the past year or two and divided them into two piles.  The first pile will go to the local charity or Goodwill.  The second pile will be given away to relatives or friends.  Sometimes we've even posted certain items on Craigslist or eBay and they'll get picked up real fast :).

After we are done with the closet, we move to the kitchen and bathrooms.  We get rid of towels, utensils and kitchen appliances that were given to us as gifts or we bought but rarely used, and give them away.  At the end of the day, the closet has much more space, neater, and the kitchen and bathrooms drawers have lot less items we don't really use or need.  We have a dozen of spoons, a dozen of forks, a dozen of knives, a dozen of plastic containers of all sizes with their lids, a dozen of towels, etc.  We actually have thought about reducing that number to six of each.  We'll see when that happens.

Want more blessings?  Create a vacuum in your life.  Give and share your blessings to others who really need it.  The more you give, the more you receive.

#84 Happiness is A Choice

As you go through life, you'll likely to encounter people who are doom and gloomy, negative-minded, and will suck the energy out of you.  They will whine about how miserable their lives are ("I was,...I can't .... I'm too....) or attempt to make you worry about things you can't control, like the weather, death, etc. ("OMG, did you hear what they say on the weather radio?  It's gonna rain a lot tomorrow and there's a chance it might flood our county!!")

It is true that whatever you put into your mind will affect your output, your actions, behaviors, mindset.  Input = Output.  If you listen to trashy songs all the time and hangs out with people who cuss 24x7, there's a good chance you will start following and producing the same behaviors and actions.

We wish we can say, "Avoid those people like plagues," but the fact of the matter is, you have never been in their shoes so you can't judge them.  Also, if you remember in the Bible, Jesus spends His time with the outcasts, alcoholics, prostitutes, lepers, criminals, disabled people, and so forth.  He did not share their doom and gloomy attitude but because He prayed every morning before sunrise and was in constant communication with His heavenly Father daily, He was able to bring happiness to these people.  Which brings to another advice: "Don’t add to people’s burdens, or take away from their happiness."

But the main message we want you to hear is that happiness is a choice.  People may criticize you, talk behind your back, ruin your career, frame you, etc. but in the end, when you wake up every morning or at every hour of the day, it is up to you to show up as the best you ever or as the worst version of you ever.  Here's a simple example.   Say you are in middle of a heated argument with your friend or significant other, and the telephone rings.  You saw the caller ID and it's your boss or pastor or a good family friend that you respect.  Unless you've lost a few marbles, most likely you will change your entire demeanor and tone of voice in less than a few seconds to that of a chirpy happy voice as you greet the other person on the phone.


Remember, you choose to be happy.  It's an inside out process that ignores external circumstances.  A child runs to her father because she's so excited to see him, while she's running she falls down and hurt her knees, she cried for a minute or two because of the pain, but she smiles again because mommy and daddy are now tending her scraped up knee and she's getting tons of kisses.  Instead of choosing to whine and pout all day and all week long, she chose to be happy and enjoy the blessings of each moment.

#83 You Don't Choose Your Family

Yes, that's right.  Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu said that.  "You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."  You can look at it as a blessing, as an opportunity, or a curse.  Either way, you've got to make the best out of it.  So, instead of going through lives whining about certain family members or making enemies out of family members and let their actions control your lives, put on a different lens to look your lives through.  We are God's children and regardless of what we've done, if we come to Him in humbleness asking for forgiveness and mercy, He will always forgive us of our sins and as it is written in Micah 7:19, "He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea."

Most likely when you are growing up you won't get along as well with your sibling(s) and that's common.  Daddy and Mommy didn't have "awesome sibling days" all the time when growing up.  We practiced karate on each other, hurt each other's feelings with words or actions that we didn't mean or regret, etc.  But as grow up older, we realize that we have each other and we love each other and we love our parents and grandparents and so forth.   Remember, they are God's gifts to you, as you are to them.