‘Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.’ ~Walt Whitman

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.
I’m a pretty positive person — I consider it one of the keys to the modest success I’ve had in creating new habits and achieving things in the last few years.

With holiday stress and holiday season food approaching on the horizon, there might be an increase in emotional eating, overeating, and less-healthy diets. But fear not, my readers, you now have a secret weapon: mindful eating! This eating strategy helps you to really savor your food, and thus be less likely to mindlessly munch or overeat. It can even help you to say, 'No' to that second serving! Read more about that--plus some really great news about dark chocolate--below, and have an wonderful week!

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Lori Deschene of Tiny Buddha.
If there’s one thing we all have in common it’s that we want to feel happy; and on the other side of that coin, we want to avoid hurting. Yet we consistently put ourselves in situations that set us up for pain.

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” ~Lao Tzu
Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.
One of the best things I did when I decided to simplify my life was to simplify my workday — first at my day job and later, by quitting my day job, in the work I do now as a writer and entrepreneur.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Alleviate world poverty? Isn’t that impossible?

There is so much grinding poverty in the world – how could just one of us possibly make a difference? The reason it seems so impossible is that we tend to focus on the immense number of people suffering from poverty – and on how little we can do individually. So we give up trying.

But there are two points to remember when we think about global problems:

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Tammy Strobel of Rowdy Kittens.
Our culture celebrates workaholism. We hear stories of people who “burn the mid-night oil” at the office, or about individuals who never take vacations. Working a lot doesn’t mean you deserve a gold star or a raise.

‘Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.’ ~Shunryu Suzuki

I think that the relationship between money and happiness is one of the most interesting, most complicated, and most sensitive questions in the study of happiness.
Studies show, unsurprisingly, that money’s impact on happiness is greatest when you have the least amount of money.
But if you’re one of the lucky people who has enough money to [...]

[source : http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/article.html?article_id=42993 ]A coworker responds with anger whenever
someone disagrees with him. A husband retreats into silence whenever hegets into an argument with his wife. An employee buries her boss inpiles of irrelevant information whenever she is asked a question.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may already know that I'm a big fan of chocolate. It's my favorite 'shortcut to serenity'; even my kids know that if Mommy is stressed, bringing me a few M&Ms usually means an immediate smile.
So I was really happy to see some promising new 'chocolate news' the other day: more evidence that chocolate cravings are perhaps not so bad after all!