But now summer’s ending and everyone’s back at work, so now you can do that which gives you pleasure, happiness and lots of fun: your job!

Maybe that mindset sounds a bit crazy to you. Maybe you’d like to get to that point, of feeling excited about going to work in the morning. Well, you can, although getting there takes some work.

One good start is to resolve yourself to make some changes. And what better time to make those changes than the transitional time between summer and fall? It’s a “back to work” time that in some ways is like a “new year” for work.

It’s also a good time to look within, to take stock, to figure out what you want, what you need and how to get it. It’s a good time to ask questions like: “Am I doing what I really want to be doing?” and “I’m miserable right now, what will it take to turn things around?”

This sort of self-inquiry is a journey, and that journey can be long and difficult, not to mention daunting. After all it’s not as though you can come to deep realizations with a snap of your fingers, or a few clicks of an iPad app. You need to get motivated!

It can be hard to create the drive it takes to start — and sustain — a new project. Well, we came across this article that has some tips.

There are lots of very useful and interesting points in the article, but here are some of our favourites:

Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought … and write them down. If you have loved ones, and you are doing it for them, that is more powerful than just doing it for self-interest. Doing it for yourself is good too, but you should do it for something that you REALLY REALLY want to happen, for really good reasons.

Get excited. Well, it starts with inspiration from others (see above), but you have to take that excitement and build on it. For me, I’ve learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful (seeing the benefits of the goal in my head), I get excited about a goal. Once I’ve done that, it’s just a matter of carrying that energy forward and keeping it going.

Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success — celebrate the fact that you even started! And then did it for two days! Celebrate every little milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step. Add 2-3 minutes to your exercise routine, for example. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step really, really small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your tiny steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.

Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. When I decided to run my marathon, I had the help of friends and family, and I had a great running community on Guam who encouraged me at 5K races and did long runs with me. When I decided to quit smoking, I joined an online forum and that helped tremendously. And of course, my wife Eva helped every step of the way. I couldn’t have done these goals without her, or without the others who supported me. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.

These are just a few things to think about when looking within. We here at the Right Mountain know how hard it can be to undertake that journey. But we also know how wonderful the final payoff can be!

Caught between caring for children and elderly parents, stressed by jobs that require weekend and evening work, the average person is more likely to turn to the television or the computer for entertainment than to take a walk in the woods or play pick-up hockey.

In short, the hours that Canadians spend refreshing their minds and their bodies through leisure and cultural activities – and moments shared with family – are being condensed and it’s affecting their well-being.

This is really unfortunate. “Leisure time” usually makes people think of “hobbies” and “vacations” and things like that. But perhaps it’s better to view it as “doing things that make us happy.”

Seen in that context, it’s tragic to think of people allowing so little room for happiness. And if you’re not living your life to be happy, just what is it you’re doing?

We know what you’re thinking … people who don’t work from home often have an image of those who do as lying around in their underwear, unshaven and unwashed, watching Oprah and constantly gorging on salty and/or sweet snacks. But it seems there are a lot of benefits to working form home. Indeed, it offers some interesting new twists on the way we traditionally view work.

For instance, people working form home have fewer sick days, simply because they’re less likely to catch the “office plagues” that periodically sweep through so many buildings. Also, it appears that workers are more motivated to work because it’s not just a question of “putting in the hours” but of actually getting things done:

Nicky Wakefield, human capital partner at professional services firm Deloitte agrees a benefit of allowing staff to work from home is that it enables a shift from measuring performance in terms of input – that is, how many hours they spend at work – to measuring employee output, a more informative measure of productivity.

She says “it’s not about how long you spend at work, it’s about what you do with your time when you’re there and achieving targets and metrics.”

Quite an interesting development. It is becoming more and more common for people to work from home. As it grows in popularity, how will it change society? The effects could be powerful.

Well, it turns out, research suggests they actually had a pretty healthy work-life balance:

In a recent chat at the highly literary Hay Festival in Wales, Andrew Simms and David Boyle, authors of The New Economics: A Bigger Picture and both directors of the New Economics Foundation think-tank, argued that for a small farmer in the 12th century to make a sufficient amount to live on for a year, he would be able to (and did) take 170 days’ holiday – almost half a year … “When you dig up 12th-century skeletons you find they are taller than or as tall as skeletons at any other part of history other than our own. That suggests they were getting economics right.”

Quite a remarkable approach to life. Though of course, it’s not just the time off that matters, it’s the work as well. Are you a slave to it? Does it make you frown, grumble and cry? Or is it so much fun you’d miss it if you had six months of holiday?

One should be living to live. Really live.

But it turns out that, according to research, money isn’t a prime motivator in motivating employees. Quite the contrary, using money as a motivator can actually be counter-productive. It seems that what keeps people working hard is a combination of things, including the desire to master a task and/or skill, and a drive to excel.

The moral of the story is, if the only thing keeping you in your current job is the paycheque, it’s worth wondering whether you’re doing work that’s worthy of your ability. Are you excelling? Or just muddling through?

An interesting video, well worth watching.

Actually it could be quite interesting to do one for yourself … would it sound bland and “unsellable,” or would it be riveting and fun?

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano erupting

There are many tales of how people coped (or failed to cope) with this massive upending of one of the busiest transport regions in the world. Exasperated passengers, people running out of money, people trying to get home to family, loved ones, jobs. A lot of difficult stories.

But some people made the most of it. One Canadian woman named Maria who lives in the UK was in Portugal visiting with family when the volcano hit. Unable to fly back to the United Kingdom, she tried to wait it out in Portugal. But as a teacher she needed to get back to Britain to be with her students.

There were reports that the Royal Navy was going to ferry stranded passengers from France to Britain, so she set off by land to get there. But she made a holiday of it, winding through Spain, Southern France, the Rhone Valley, Paris, Normandy and eventually Calais. There she caught a boat across the channel, got home and resumed her work.

For most of these stranded passengers, the volcano was a stressful, exhausting experience. But for Maria, it was an opportunity for an impromptu holiday.

Are you ready to make the most of things? Or are you keeping your head down and just trying to get through life?

It’s always better to keep one’s head up, to be prepared — happiness hides in the most unusual places.

Basically, what a CDO does is look after the employees, making sure they can achieve their dreams — whether it’s furthering their education, taking a dream holiday with their families, or what have you. It’s actually something of a revolutionary concept. Corporations, after all, tend to have their own culture and expect workers to fit into that culture. But the idea behind a Chief Dream Officer is that a corporation can adjust to fit the needs of its workers.

It’s definitely an interesting idea.

But it begs the question: why should this job exist? Shouldn’t people be looking after their OWN dreams?

Which is why you might want to consider appointing yourself your very own Chief Dream Officer. Make it your mission to pursue your dreams. Figure out what they are and what you need to do to make them a reality. Perhaps this means changing careers. Perhaps it means staying where you are and embracing your work with passion and verve. Perhaps it means to change where you live, or how you spend your spare time.

It could mean a million different things. Look within and find out what you need.

After all, who’s going to make your dreams come true but you?

Are you one of those people so afflicted? Well, you’re certainly not alone. The New York times recently started a very interesting blog on insomnia called All Nighters. In it, people ranging from artists to athletes to doctors to just folk talk about insomnia. It’s got interesting news items, personal reflections and more. Well worth a read! If nothing else it’s nice to know one’s not alone.

Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking. – Clifton Fadiman

Of course, insomnia can be a horrible thing. Few things are worse than starting the day exhausted. Perhaps a good starting point for tackling the problem can be to ask what’s keeping you awake at night. Is your mind racing? Are you obsessed about something? Or just tense? Looking within and you may just find the answers.

i dread going to work tomorrow. the zombies will be surrounding me again. their whispers and slitty eyes. their bared teeth and bloody nonsense.

there is no god — pls let me die in my sleep tonite!

That one is amusing, but be warned: it is a website full of extremely dark, profane and often violent imagery. These are truly rants.

It’s hard not to shake one’s head in dismay at this sort of thing. Is it somehow normal to put oneself in a situation that causes great unhappiness, even hatred, and then spread that negativity to all who will listen? That’s supposed to be healthy?

No, it’s not healthy. It’s deeply unhealthy. If you’re in an unhappy situation, change it so that it makes you happy, or find a new situation entirely. Living in negativity, in misery, is toxic. Worse, it’s useless.

Honestly, life is far too short to waste it hating.