Readers made many thought-provoking comments. One reader pointed to research that suggests that talking about a goal can lead to the false feeling of already having achieved that goal. I’ve seen that research — and I’ve also seen research suggesting that talking about a goal can help you stick to that goal, by making you feel more committed, and also more accountable to the people you’ve told. So it seems to go both ways.

From my own experience — a statistically insignificant yet often helpful data point — this is a point on which people differ. Some do better if they don’t talk it up too much; some do better if they tell others what they want to do.

Exhibit A is my former roommate, who told people that she did yoga, and telling them seemed to convince her that she did, in fact, do yoga. Perhaps discussing it undermined her determination actually to do it.

Exhibit B is my friend who is trying to drink less, who says it’s very helpful to her to announce, “I’m cutting back on my drinking, so I’m only having one glass of wine tonight.” For her, telling people adds an important layer of external accountability.

So I’m curious: in your personal experience: Does announcing a resolution make you more likely to keep it, or less likely — or neither?

I don’t think it matters much to me whether I announce it or not.¹  How about you?

I had a great time doing this interview with Eric Barker, for his site Barking Up the Wrong Tree. We covered a lot of happiness territory.

1. I suspect that’s a result of my Upholder nature.

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, you’re drawn to bad boys.

What is it with this attraction? You can’t explain it. You just know you find a certain kind of guy alluring — even when you know (from experience) that the relationship will end badly.

Friends tell you that your new “great guy” is cocky, brash, foolhardy. But you have a different take on it. You view him as sooo masculine, exciting, unconventional — in a good way. He’s such a turn-on. No comparison to other guys. Yes, those other guys are nice, but oh, so boring. Why even be with a guy if the adrenaline isn’t pumping?

So what is the draw of the bad boy?

What makes them so attractive to many women, even addictive to some?

1. The bad boy is exciting.

   Life is never dull when you’re with him. You’re not quite sure what he’ll do or say next. He makes you laugh. He keeps you interested. He’s an instant cure for the ho-hum of everyday life.

2. The bad boy is no run-of-the-mill guy.

   He has a unique way of doing things. His unconventionality turns you on. It feels masculine. It feels powerful. It feels like how guys should be. Not wimpy — like so many other guys. True, his adventures can frighten you. But they also thrill you. And isn’t that what life is all about? Exciting experiences you’ll remember forever!

3. The bad boy is an enticing mix.

   He’s confident (he knows what he wants). He’s independent (he doesn’t care what others think). He’s a sweet talker (he knows how to get what he wants). He’s mysterious (you still can’t figure him out).

To sum it all up, the “bad boy” is a thrill. And the more blah your own life is, the more alluring the bad boy seems.

Only one problem — well, more than one, actually:

1. What happens when you grow up but the bad boy doesn’t?

   He’s still into risky stuff when you’re long past that stage. What used to seem enticing now seems half-baked or just plain out ridiculous. His antics no longer seem unfamiliar and exciting. Indeed, they seem all too familiar and dim-witted.

2. What happens when the bad boy’s pranks begin to feel more menacing than masculine?

   His actions have put you in harm’s way more than once. And these days you’d really prefer to feel safe with him, maybe even protected by him.

3. What happens when your bad boy turns into a bad guy?

   When his shrugging off what others think becomes he doesn’t care what you think? When his lack of respect for rules becomes blowing off rules you consider essential to your relationship? When his unconventional behavior that used to excite you becomes behavior that creates anxiety for you?

Though bad boy antics may be attractive when “boys” are entering adulthood, beware of what happens when bad boys reach maturity and full adulthood.

Spring is also synonymous for the proverbial “spring cleaning” that involves cleaning out the hall closet (also known as the abyss of unused, “not-quite-sure-what to do with” things), the bedroom closet spilling out with clothes you haven’t worn in a year and shoes that you forgot you owned, and in some cases, the entire house or apartment.

This time of year there are numerous articles in magazines and lifestyle segments on the morning talk show circuit featuring professional home organizers espousing spring-cleaning tips to purge the unnecessary things that clutter your physical space.

So this year, why not spring clean your life as well?

Use this time to take stock of your emotional, mental, and physical well-being in an effort to purge the unnecessary, while putting the emphasis on the positive and healthy areas in your life.

Here are some basis steps to start spring-cleaning your life:

• You give your closet or home a once-over to evaluate whether you want to keep, donate, or purge things. Take a look at your life’s emotional, mental, and physical aspects. Begin to write down or mentally list things and people you find to be positive and those you find contribute only negative energy.

  Once you start taking a closer look, you may be surprised to find out which things and people fall into which category. This process may feel both freeing and upsetting at the same time because you may discover things and people have shifted in your life for better or worse.

• Once you have a better overview of what’s in your emotional, mental, and physical “closet,” now it’s time to start figuring out what to do with the “keep, donate, purge” piles you have created. Obviously, you can cannot donate or purge people out of your live per se.

  However, you can start to redefine the role they will play in your life. You can decide how much and what type of energy you wish to expend on certain things and people.

• Redefining your relationships with things and people in your life often involves creating new boundaries with others, changing your habits or way of thinking and doing things, and learning to accept that as you change, your relationships with others and yourself change.

  Remember, any change is frequently bittersweet and the painful part of it often is the primary deterrent to change. However, if you mentally prepare yourself for this side of change you will likely be better equipped to muster your way through the tough stuff as you make your way to the other side.

As with “spring-cleaning” your closet and home, you have some difficult decisions to make about what to do in certain areas of your life. In the end, however, you ultimately feel happier, lighter, and more confident. There is now room in your life for new things, ideas, people, and adventures. Removing the clutter in your life will open the door for a simpler, more fulfilling experience with the world and others.

It could be between yourself and a partner, a parent, a co-worker — even a boss, an adult sibling or an annoying someone you run into every day on your way to work. Likely, it is doing something to temporarily boost yourself or the other person in the mix. Ultimately, however, it is not to anyone’s benefit.

Unspoken bargains, these so-called “arrangements,” are those things that rear their heads in times of challenge, chaos, crisis or just haste. They appear out of nowhere and can be maddening, upon first reflection, demanding us to ask ourselves, “why did I say or do that again to this person?”

They tug at us to examine the contracts we have with others for convenience and to lessen pain. But they are ultimately not self-serving or mutually good -– just codependent traps we put into place to attempt to protect ourselves from perhaps doing the right thing.

A worker discovers an unspoken bargain in play when she realizes she’s allowed her colleague to pull less of the load in order to maintain a friendship with the person everyone in the office likes.

A spouse sees he has one, letting his wife get her way because he’s afraid of upsetting her and bringing out her depression.

Even a parent can look the other way while a child falls into trouble with drugs, just so the parent can pursue self-centered interests uninterrupted by dilemma.

There is nothing pretty about unspoken bargains. Some are certainly more benign; others are profoundly disturbing. But they do demand our attention. They allow us to see who we are, what we present to others, and how we cope in the world.

Next time you find yourself looking at the appearance of some strange contract appearing between yourself and another, don’t look away. Stare at the arrangement keeping genuine relating from happening between you. Face down the unspoken bargain that is presenting itself.

And proactively look ahead of time, as well, for where they may be hiding in your life. Always ask yourself what you are doing in the dance between another person, another entity. If it is forthright, it will not “bargain,” or sacrifice your integrity, that of the other person, or the possibility of real communication between you.

As acclaimed psychologist and author Harriet Lerner so aptly writes in her books The Dance of Anger and The Dance of Intimacy, we must garner the courage to change any detrimental “dance” with another person. And in doing so, we certainly have to look out for counter-moves first. For these habits, odd arrangements and false contracts, these unspoken bargains are challenging to break!. But the steps, the new moves you make for yourself, ultimately will be rewarding.

With social media a major part of teens’ lives, it’s important they have a healthy relationship with the Internet. What does this look like?

According to Udall-Weiner, it resembles any healthy relationship: It has boundaries.

It also shouldn’t have to meet all their needs, including emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual, she said. For instance, sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest should never replace face-to-face interactions, she said. Instead, they should supplement them. That’s because online interactions lack the emotional depth and support of real-time relationships. “…[I]t’s hard to know whether someone is trustworthy, loyal, and invested in your well-being.”

The Internet also lets people keep a comfortable distance from others. Udall-Weiner cited MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who believes the Internet provides “the illusion of companionship, without the demands of friendship,” and “people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people, whom they also keep at bay.”

Fortunately, parents can teach their kids to use the Internet in healthy ways. Below, Udall-Weiner shared five strategies.

What Parents Can Do

In Udall-Weiner’s experience, parents approach Internet use with extremes: “they either prohibit it, or they pretend it doesn’t exist, since they’re quite terrified to find out what their child is really doing online.” Instead, she suggested communicating with your kids and teaching them to be more aware of how they use the Internet.

1. Talk to your teen about their time online.

Talking to your kids about how they use social media and technology helps them break out of autopilot and become more mindful of their actions and reactions, Udall-Weiner said. “[This] is an important skill when it comes to developing emotional competence.” It’s important for teens to understand how being online affects them (such as their mood).

She suggested asking your kids these questions: “Which websites do you often visit?  How do you feel emotionally, both during and after using these sites? Have you ever had any uncomfortable experiences online, or seen anything upsetting? Do you believe that there are any downsides to viewing the sites you regularly visit, or to using the Internet in general?”

2. Teach your teen to be media literate.

A mistake parents often make, according to Udall-Weiner, is that they don’t teach their kids about media literacy. But it’s vital for kids to understand that what they see isn’t what they get online. For instance, “Parents need to actively remind their children that images are not reality—that no one is as thin, perfectly-muscled, unwrinkled, or flawless as that person in the ad.” She suggested visiting Media Smarts for more information.

3. Set time limits on Internet use.

Teens are still developing their executive functions, which include monitoring behavior, organizing information and setting goals, she said. Plus, spending too much time on sites like Facebook can make teens feel worse. “My clients regularly tell me that they become very upset after looking at Facebook, since everyone looks happier, thinner, or more popular than they feel.” So parents might need to set restrictions on Internet use.

4. Surrender all phones before bedtime.

“This is a way to ensure that kids aren’t up late texting or surfing the web, rather than getting precious sleep,” Udall-Weiner said. This rule also applies to parents’ phones, “since kids emulate what they see.”

5. Know the research about Internet use.

Research has suggested that looking at images of thin models — which are splashed all over the Internet — may be associated with various negative consequences. “After seeing these images, people report things like decreased self-esteem, poor body image, depression, guilt, shame, stress, and an urge to engage in eating-disordered behavior, such as restricting food intake,” said Udall-Weiner. She also specializes in body image and eating disorders and founded ED Educate, a website with resources for parents.

Research also has suggested that the Internet makes us feel more disconnected from others, she said. “It’s important for teens to know the research on Internet use.” Talk to your kids about these findings.

Udall-Weiner shares more information and tips on supervising your child’s Internet use in this video.

But do you know what else kids need parents for? Want to guess? Whatever you’re thinking is probably true, but I doubt it’s the answer I’m thinking of.

Kids need parents to restrict their freedom.

What?! That sounds like heresy in a freedom-loving culture.

Shouldn’t we all have freedom to follow our desires? To do what we want? To venture down the road we find most appealing? Isn’t that what our social movements (civil rights, women’s movement, gay liberation) have been about? Remove the restrictions! We want the freedom to indulge in our inclinations!

So why not kids? Why shouldn’t kids participate fully in the freedom movement? And, especially during the teen years, why shouldn’t parents capitulate to their kids’ desires?

Here’s why: To live in a world with few external restrictions, you need to have the ability to say “no” to your momentary impulses and passions. And kids (except for the most conscientious kids) do not have that ability.

Left to their own devices, how many kids do you know who will choose to eat a healthy meal over devouring dessert for dinner? How many do you know who would choose to do homework rather than indulge in video games? How many do you know who would voluntarily say “it’s time for me to go to sleep”?

The dream of “freedom from” works only if you know how to handle the “freedom to” part. You may think you’re really lucky if you have total freedom. But if you’re unable to create a viable balance between freedom and restraint, you’re not lucky at all. Witness all the grossly obese people, the crazy-in-debt people, the chronically sleep-deprived people, the addicted people. And these are adults who should have more control over their impulses than kids.

So what happens when kids are free to do as they please? Do you think their nobler instincts typically triumph over their baser ones? If so, you are a dreamer. For most kids have no idea how to handle an excess of freedom, even though they’re demanding it.

It’s natural for kids to lobby for fewer restrictions. And it’s natural for parents to ease up on restraints as kids get older. But if parents make a wholesale capitulation to endless and insistent demands for more freedom, the results typically are appalling.

Here’s the end result when kids get to run the household: They eat only what they want to eat. They watch an inordinate amount of TV. They play an endless amount of video games. They go to sleep when they damn well please. They cuss out their parents. They don’t take care of their things. They demand that their parents buy them whatever they want. They have no frustration tolerance. Their wants become their needs. Their needs must be met. Their needs supersede everyone else’s.

And that’s just a description of pre-adolescent behavior. Once adolescence hits, teens without restraints command the household, defining their most outrageous activity as acceptable because it could always be worse:

“I can’t get up today; I’m too tired. I’m not going to school. Get out of my room and leave me alone!”

“I’m having a keg party this weekend. I don’t care if I’m underage. You know it’s better if I drink at home than to be out on the street drinking.”

“Yes, I’m hooking up with a lot of girls. That’s good. You always told me not to get serious with any one girl ’til I’m older.”

“It’s only pot. I could be using heroin or cocaine like lots of other kids.”

Kids need parents to restrict their freedom, to narrow their choices and to put pressure on them to meet their obligations. Kids may not appreciate all this restraint. But they need it. And parents need to step up to the plate and provide it, even when it’s so much easier to just give in to the incessant complaining and demanding.

But 11 years after the first insomniac was born, I’m still exhausted, as I am convinced he emerged from my womb with no need of sleep, and then his sister two years later with the same curse. I’m not sure how it happened, being that I’ve always needed eight hours of sleep to stay sane.

The last two months there has been a lot of cussing in our house after 8 p.m., when we begin the rituals. In desperation I headed to my shelf of expert advice to see if any nuggets in there would apply, or at least not nauseate me. I came away empty-handed. Great intentions. Perfect principles. Wise stuff. Just not going to work on my rebels, who defy traditional rules and procedures.

So I’m back to threatening. However, threatening, itself, can be complicated, and deserves its own guidelines.

Here are my two cents on how to threaten effectively. These are not principles that will foster healthy sleep habits. They will merely get you a few days of sleep if you are like me, in the state of emergency. Experts aren’t big on Band-aids. I am.

1. Prep the threat.

My fundamental mistake in releasing a threat is not being totally prepared. In an impatient huff, I might blurt out something stupid like, “If you don’t go to sleep, I’m going to … going to … going to …,” brainstorming about which option is best, at which point my two devious offspring start laughing. The result is that they do not take future threats seriously, and I have lost all negotiating power (which effective parents don’t need because they don’t have to negotiate with their kids) because I didn’t think through the bribe before opening my trap in a premature fit.

2. Specify the threat.

Threats should be like legal documents. Hell, you could get out a piece of paper with all the specifications written down and, instead of them pinky-swearing, you could get a signature. The more detailed the better because kids who don’t sleep tend to be smart and manipulative. So when I take away the family iPad from my daughter, she finds a computer in the house and starts surfing YouTube or making videos of herself. When we take that away, she grabs one of our iPhones and downloads an app where she can try out new hairstyles on stick-skinny chicks. If she can’t find those, she’ll steal her brother’s iPod and start uploading photos to his Instagram. I should have stipulated that ALL electronics are banned, that she has to do something really radical like read a book or use pencil and paper and draw.

3. Time the threat.

Just as important as the content of the threat is the delivery: in particular, when you deliver the threat. I’ve found that when my insomniacs are overly tired and irrational they can’t hear a word I say, even if I’m yelling. Therefore, it’s best to wait until breakfast, when I will say very calmly that they have lost electronics for the day or until they learn how to calm themselves down and go to bed without making visits to our room or to a sibling’s room in the middle of the night, sleepwalking, singing Macklemore’s song lyrics, “I’m gonna pop some tags,” or perfecting Anna Kendrick’s cup act in “Pitch Perfect.”

Threatening is not easy. So hopefully these guidelines assist you in reaching for a wide Band-aid and a few nights’ sleep before you have to come up with an entirely different set of new threats. Good luck!

At one time in my life, this used to bug me. I would look at the clock and think, “oh no, I must get back to sleep or I’ll be so tired in the morning.” And then I’d spend the next hour or two willing myself to go back to sleep: tossing and turning, demanding that I slip back into unconsciousness; huffing and puffing that I wasn’t sleeping. I’d even check the clock every 10 minutes to see if I’d slept.

But the reality was, and still is, the more that I demand something of myself, the less likely I am to achieve that goal — and that really is the principle of living an unhappy life.

Sure I want to go back to sleep. I would even really, really, really, prefer to be sleeping right now, but I’m not. So, instead of lying there, beating myself up for waking when I “absolutely shouldn’t have,” I get up. I grab a drink, get something to eat and power up my laptop.

I realized a while back that, for me, it’s easier to get up and do something I enjoy. Use the extra time I have to write something, read, watch some TV, or just get lost in the weird and wonderful things people upload on YouTube.

This extra quiet time can be a bonus, before the world machine cranks up, and I slip into my lane on the daily highway of life.

Sure, I might be a little tired later, but the reality is that a few hours less sleep every now and then is not going to affect my performance. It will only affect that if I’m constantly telling myself, “I won’t be able to cope with work/life/kids because I woke so early and I’ll get tired.”

If you’re the type of person who uses that snippet of destructive thinking, then you’ll start sabotaging yourself. Sometimes after not sleeping well, people even play the ‘poor me card.’ They tell work colleagues how little sleep they’ve had, and how they won’t be able to do so-and-so job, or how they might need to go home early because of exhaustion.

Thinking and behaving like this can be quite common, and its roots can usually be found in childhood messages such as “You’ve got school tomorrow. You need to get your sleep or you won’t be able to do well.”

Really? How many times did you hear this, yet still stayed up late reading about dinosaurs, and made it through school the next day?

Even scientists don’t know how much sleep people need.

Each person’s sleep patterns and needs are different. You might be somebody like me, who likes around eight hours a night, or you might need fewer, such as four. Trouble is, if you’re the type of person who needs four, but you think you should have eight, that is where your problems will start.

Sleep problems can start if, instead of embracing your pattern and learning to live with it, you start to create your own anxiety around not getting enough sleep. Soon enough, sleeping will start to be a problem because you’ll be worrying about it before you go to bed, and that worry will interfere with your sleep pattern.

Soon you’ll be going to sleep, only to wake yourself so you can check that clock to see if you’ve been sleeping. And as you can tell, that irrational behavior will confirm that you haven’t slept as much as you demand because you woke yourself up!

The next step from there is usually some type of insomnia, because you’ve worked yourself up into such anxiety about sleeping. After a while you will be tired and your cognitive functioning will be impaired. You’ll be worrying during the day whether you’ll even sleep at night; and nearer to sleep time you get, the more anxious you’ll become and the more your body won’t be able to relax, so the more impossible it is to sleep. Catch-22, created by you.

If you do wake early, then make the best of that time. If your sleep pattern is such that you sleep a few hours a night, but need a nap during the day, then do it. Stop telling yourself you “must sleep now or else.”

I’ve found my way with managing my occasional lack of sleep. What about you? Is there a pattern you could change? Are you demanding something of yourself that leads to sleep problems? If so, these need to be addressed. So go do it — go change.

In the context of life of a happy life, something like a crowded coat closet or an overflowing in-box seems trivial — and it is trivial — and yet I find that I get a disproportionate charge of energy and good cheer from clearing clutter. An orderly environment makes me feel more in control of my life, and if this is an illusion, it’s a helpful illusion.

Even people who thrive on a little chaos tend to have a limit, and enjoy orderliness to some degree.

However, there’s a group of people who seem oblivious to clutter. They don’t appear to see it at all.

Now, I’m not talking about people who can stand to see dirty dishes scattered around, because they know if they wait, a spouse will collect the dishes (perhaps complaining all the while; see these facts about shared work).

Very often, people in a couple or in a group have different levels of tolerance for clutter, and the ones with the least tolerance end up doing the most tidying, and the ones with more tolerance end up doing less. However, in most cases, the messier ones would eventually cave and do some clutter-clearing, too. They want to be in environments that are reasonably orderly (though others might disagree by what is “reasonable”).

But what about the people who don’t seem to register clutter, ever?

A friend told me, “My husband never notices anything. As an experiment, when we got back from a trip, I left a suitcase full of his dirty clothes right in front of the front door, so he’d have to step over it to get in the house. I wanted to see how long he’d put up with it. After a month, I called off the experiment and dealt with the suitcase myself.”

If this describes you — I’m curious… Does clutter simply not register, or does it just not bug you? Do you feel there’s any value in creating an orderly environment, even if disorder doesn’t particularly bother you? Or is it not worth the energy and time? Do you have trouble finding things, or do you know exactly where to find your belongings? Is this a source of conflict with other people, or do they accept this aspect of your nature?

If this describes someone you know — how do you deal with this aspect of their personality? Is it possible to cajole folks like this into being more orderly, or is it impossible, because they simply don’t see it? Is this a characteristic that changes as people get older, or not?

Also, I’m not talking about hoarding. Just about mess.

I’m not sure why these questions seem particularly pressing today! And yet I’ve been thinking about them all afternoon.

They may be careless and capricious or outright reckless. They “forget” about appointments. They’re chronically late. They neglect to plan ahead. They’re financially irresponsible. They don’t take care of their stuff. They make rash decisions that get them into trouble. They ignore deadlines. They act as though others should bail them out of whatever trouble they get into.

We all know people like this. And they’re not all adolescents. It could be a friend, a family member or a colleague. We may love them yet we experience them as terribly frustrating. We want to shake them. Yell at them. Knock some sense into their brains. But none of this seems to make a difference to them. They shrug it all off.

Why? Because they have Responsibility Deficit Disorder (RDD), a much-needed diagnostic category that I have just created.

RDD is prevalent in our society and is a growing problem. Those who have it do not “suffer” from it. Quite the contrary. The people who “suffer” are those loved ones who must deal with the rat’s nest that is so often dropped in their laps.

If all this sounds familiar to you, here’s what you must do to save your own sanity.

• Be direct with them.

  Don’t mince words. Not all irresponsible people realize the chaos that they are causing. Be specific about how their actions (or lack of actions) create havoc for you. They may blow you off, or accuse you of nitpicking, or of being judgmental. Think about their responses. They may have a point. But if you know, with your head and your heart, that their irresponsible behavior is what’s causing the difficulty, trust your own judgment.

• Know what you will do the next time you feel dumped on.

  Irresponsible people tend to be irresponsible. Duh! That’s obvious. But sometimes you forget, especially if you’re an incurable optimist. So, make sure that you know what you will do and what you won’t do the next time an RDD person leaves his mess (literally or metaphorically) for you to deal with. Though it may be tough for you, stick to your guns — even if you are called all kinds of reprehensible names.

• Know where your power lies.

  Reflect on where your power lies with this particular person. If you’ve been cleaning up his mess, don’t. Let him suffer the consequences. If you’ve been enabling her behavior by bailing her out – once again, don’t. Sure, you may feel guilty that you are no longer doing what you used to do. But that’s how you change the game. It’s much harder for people to be irresponsible when nobody steps in to make it all OK.

• Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

  Hey, it works for the Mafia. Why not for you? If the person really wants what is in your power to give, use it. I don’t mean that you continue to enable his irresponsible behavior. I mean you offer him a bribe (or reward) if and when he changes his behavior.

• Sidestep the problem by being less involved with your RDD person.

  It may make you feel bad if you are an inclusive person and you begin to exclude. You don’t ask her to go on vacation with you because you don’t trust that she won’t bail out at the last minute. You don’t go out to dinner with him if he will expect you to pick up the bill once again. Excluding is a preemptive survival mechanism. Use it when it feels appropriate.

• Unfortunately, change begins with you.

  Why should you have to change? It’s the RDD person who should change. You don’t want to stop doing what you’re doing. You simply want the other person to be more responsible. Great fantasy! Terrible reality! Dream on that the other person will change. He’s got it good – especially if you’re enabling his dysfunction. Why should he change if you’re always there to rescue him? So, as much as you dislike it, know that the change process begins with you.

This has made me wonder why we struggle to maintain those things in life that we know are good for us. In a world where choice is overwhelming, and access to possibilities via the Internet are creating an obsession with connectedness, it has become harder to stay focused. And it is through this hyper-connection to the external world that we are losing the connection to ourselves.

Meditation offers a way to unplug from the incessant stream of information and noise, whether external or internal, and be reminded that there is a place to reside that is beyond time and beyond needing to be somewhere else. Meditation brings us close to the simple miracle of consciousness without needing a tragic shakeup to get there.

How often do you stop in your day and feel gratitude for the mere fact that you can see? Did you actually taste the last meal you ate? Were you really listening to the last friend who was speaking to you, or were you already thinking about what you wanted to say next?

Why does all this matter?

It matters because losing connection with ourselves and our life purpose creates stress and puts us at risk of depression which, according to the World Health Organization, is predicted to become the second-largest health problem in the world by 2030. Meditation is one way that we can stay anchored to ourselves. It is an antidote to the rocket-like speed of technology, which is a wonderful resource but can also be an insidious distraction from the moment.

There are many myths surrounding meditation. There are also many different forms of meditation. One thing they have in common, no matter which meditation you practice, is that there is no such concept as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ meditator. It is the world of duality, the good and the bad, that meditation helps us transcend, even for a few moments.

Next time you sit to meditate and think you are doing it badly, pose a question: Who is thinking the thought ‘I am doing it badly’? Where did that thought actually come from? Try turning your attention for a moment to the space from which thoughts emerge.

It’s tricky at first. Bring a thought to mind intentionally, such as ‘this is the mind.’ Keep your attention in this space and watch as the thought dissolves back into that space of awareness — a space that is beyond thoughts, but is still you.

This ‘I’ that we so strongly believe to be ourselves, that we so strongly identify with, is like the frothy pollution that floats atop the vast, expansive sea of our consciousness. As meditation deepens, we take a deep dive beyond the superficial mental chitchat and reach a place that is peaceful, still and grounded.

Exhaling as if it were our last breath, we are brought into the miracle of being alive — nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be.

If you’re experiencing some of the common symptoms of stress, such as irritability or anger, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed and changes in sleeping habits, then the physical and mental consequences of stress are all too clear.

And if you have made efforts to improve your stress levels, you’re not alone.  According to a new survey, Stress in America: Missing the Health Care Connection, which was conducted online by Harris Interactive, Americans think it’s important to improve their health and levels of stress.

Over the past five years, 60 percent of adults have tried to reduce their stress and more than half are still trying to meet this goal, according to the survey.

In fact, according to the survey’s findings, Americans are struggling to keep their stress at levels that they believe are healthy.  But how well do we do that?

Average reported stress levels have dropped in recent years, but they are still considered at unhealthy levels, according to those surveyed.  And although overall stress levels dropped, almost three-quarters of respondents say that their stress level has increased or stayed the same over the past five years and 80 percent say their stress level has increased or stayed the same in the past year.

But when it comes to making changes, many people are struggling.  People are reporting exercise as well as sedentary behaviors like listening to music, reading or watching television or movies as strategies for managing stress. 

However, we are are also spending time lying awake, overeating or eating unhealthy foods and skipping meals due to stress.

Despite their interest in making changes for a healthier life, many adults face barriers, such as lack of time, lack of willpower and lack of support, that prevent them from achieving their health and wellness goals.

Millennials (people ages 18 to 33) and people with chronic health conditions seem to be struggling the most when it comes to finding support for making healthy lifestyle changes to reduce stress. Millennials report higher stress levels than other Americans and nearly half report that they are not doing enough to manage their stress. Few report support from their health care provider for stress or behavior management.

And although stress increases your risk of becoming chronically ill and increases the risk that your defenses will be overwhelmed by disease, adults with chronic illness also lack support for managing their stress.  Stress is on the rise for those with chronic illness, but few are getting any support for managing that stress, which, in turn, could have devastating effects on the course of their illness.

So what can you do to better manage your stress? 

The answer is individual and has much to do with your lifestyle and personality.  However, a few tips from the good folks over at the American Psychological Association include: evaluating your lifestyle for stress, focusing on your own physical health and changing one habit at a time.

Need Help Changing Your Stress-Relief Habits?

Check out these articles:

• The Golden Rule of Habit Change

• Changing Our Routines and Habits

It includes the emotional, physical, spiritual and mental realms. Balanced focus, divine empowerment, and confrontational self-examination in all areas will enable all of us to use more of our gifts in full measure. We are each endowed with talents and come as a “complete package” of inherent creative value and worth.

Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Why?

Could it be that there is not value in a life that is floating mindlessly along without concern of its true potential and full health?

To make sure we are not limiting ourselves and to instead experience greater joy and well-being, we need to ask ourselves these questions while traveling on this journey of life.

1. Compassion vs. Judgment

   Do I often think, “why is someone doing or feeling that?” in judgment instead of trying to come from a place of understanding and insight into the big picture? Do I listen for the meaning behind the words when someone is speaking to me? Do I try to hear their heart? Do I check my internal motive before I speak or do I care about just saying the “right” thing? Does my motive reveal a rejection of who the person is or am I really trying to understand them?

2. Passion vs. Practice

   Do I see a value in making marked investments in people and causes that concern me? Do I say yes to people and events coming from an obligation of “should do” or from a desire of “want to”? Do I live out of a sense of purpose and feel fulfilled or am I not sure how to use my time well? Do I confront when I see abuse or do I try to “keep the peace” and not say anything?

3. Protection vs. Abuse

   Do I protect myself by respecting and honoring my boundaries, making sure I give myself time for refreshment and enjoyment? Do I often give in for the sole reason that someone else requires something of me or do I first check my emotional fuel tank to see if I am overcommitted in one or more areas? Do I voice concerns when I feel like I am mistreated or disrespected or do I allow it by stuffing it? Do I find myself saying “it’s fine” a lot when what I really want to say is something else? Do I protect the emotional well-being of a fellow journeyer? Do I keep others’ confidences when required and when safe to do so?

4. Growth vs. Stagnation

   Do I see myself as a victim of circumstance or an agent of change? Am I always working on some internal area in my life where I would like to see victory or have I written it off to “I’m just that way?” Do I give myself a break when I blow it and not give up the fight even though I have lost a battle? Have I identified and have inner healing from all childhood wounds so I can have the capacity to love myself and give love to others?

There was another great thinker, English writer Charles Reade who penned “Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” This has been translated in modern days as “Mind your thoughts for they become your words; mind your words for they become your actions; mind your actions for they become your habits; mind your habits for they become your character; watch your character for they become your destiny.”

There is so much joy to be gained on the journey when we become purposeful travelers instead of accidental tourists! The examined life is very much worth living as it brings joy to us as well as to others.

And women are feeling it more acutely than ever.  After decades of making progress in the work force, many women are feeling less valued than men, according to a recent APA survey on Stress in the Workplace.  They’re feeling they don’t receive adequate monetary compensation for their work and feel that employers offer them fewer opportunities for internal career advancement than men.

Why are women feeling less appreciated than men, when it comes to compensation and why are they stressed by lack of opportunity?

Possibly because they are.

Take a look at the healthcare industry as one example.  Healthcare as a whole is still an overwhelmingly female occupation: 80 percent of all workers in this field are female, according to a report on the healthcare industry by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

But men are still earning more in many healthcare careers.  For example, female doctors earn less than their male counterparts and male nurses earn more than female nurses at every level of education, according to the Georgetown report.

And healthcare isn’t alone.  According to the results of the annual VIDA Women in the Literary Arts survey, male authors were featured 3 to 4 times more often than female authors in many major literary publications, such as The New York Review of Books and Harpers Magazine.

The reality is, in down economic times a wide range of people have good reason to feel stress at work.  Both men and women are often working during paid time off, typically checking email, but sometimes participating in conference calls or using days off to catch up on work.

And exacerbating the realities of the stressors in the job market, women may be more likely to internalize stress, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.  They may hesitate to speak up for themselves or to challenge behavior that they see as unfair.  And, according to the APA survey, men are more likely than women to use flexible work arrangements, although both men and women report that job demands interfere with their ability to fulfill family or home responsibilities.

In the short term, stress isn’t always a bad thing.  It can motivate us to deal with a situation that poses some level of threat.  And the burst of adrenaline and other hormonal changes that occur during a stress response can heighten our senses and give us extra amounts of energy.

But chronically stressful situations that go unaddressed can lead to serious health problems.  Constant job stress can impact eating and exercise habits, which can contribute to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and weight gain.  Stress on the job can also accelerate the onset of heart disease and can lead to burnout, which is often associated with depression.

What can you do?

There are a number of strategies for dealing with workplace stress.  What will work for you may be entirely different than what will work for others.  Some interventions include:

• Learning relaxation and meditation techniques

• Assertiveness training
• Nutrition and exercise counseling
• Time management training
• Structuring breaks into your workday
• Emotion regulation training
• Identifying and setting reasonable standards

Your options for decreasing your stress levels include: making changes to yourself, how take care of yourself and how you think about and respond to stress, and making changing to your work environment by doing things such as asserting your needs and managing your time. 

It’s important to remember that sometimes, despite our best efforts, we are powerless to make changes to our environment.  Some work demands won’t change and sometimes we’re unable to change a hostile work environment.  When that is the case, to reduce your stress, you may have to evaluate your career options.

It may be that you have changed your priorities and are focusing on more important tasks, neglecting items that don’t hold an important value in the bigger scheme of things. You may also be overwhelmed at the enormousness of the task and give up, rather than breaking it into smaller time segments to get it done.

Either way, you will free up much needed mental space once you identify which category your “to-do” list item should fall into. You will also find that you are free from excess mental clutter and open up more time and energy to accomplish the things that you truly value.

Sometimes becoming more organized can do wonders for procrastination. So to help with procrastination, you may find it helpful to address each thing on your to-do list by making an intentional choice to either:

1. Do it: Put it on your calendar and block out time to accomplish the task. Treat the item as you would an actual health appointment because you are gaining healthy progress in your quest to remove it from your list!
2. Delay it: Decide when you will accomplish a specific task and put it on your “to-do list” with a specific time period where you will be able to do it. It may be you need more information or planning before you are able to actually accomplish this task, so don’t worry if you are not able to get to it now.
3. Delete it: Remove it completely from your list of things to do, if you don’t remember why it’s on there to begin with or you don’t see a benefit in having it done. Let it go!

It may not be rocket science, but this simple strategy may help you in your battle against procrastination. Or, at the very least, it may be a start…