I recently had an old friend contact me who was wondering about how I’ve managed to stay so upbeat after being divorced twice and losing my baby Dempsey 7-years-ago to a heart defect.  After expressing to her some of my feelings, I realized that there might be others who could benefit from my life philosophy on happiness.

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You can be happy right now, today, wherever you are in your life, inspite of problems with your marriage, your job, or your personal life. Now, that doesnt mean you won’t have challenges and tough decisions, but the point is that happiness doesn’t come from finding the “right type of guy” or a “better job.”  It comes from looking at all of the great things you have in your life right now. Your family, your friends, your experiences and good memories, your life, and possibly your health, and most importantly, all of the little things – the moments you enjoy with the sun warming your face and the grass under your feet. It comes from embracing where you are, right now, in this moment. It comes from finding the beauty in the small, simple details of your daily life.

So before you end your current relationship or quit your day job, do it knowing that none of this has anything to do with your happiness. This has to do with your future family, finding a partner you can trust, pursuing a dream, or making ends meet - but happiness is ready for you to embrace it right now. It’s sitting there in front of you and will be waiting for you, with or without your marriage, your job, your next achievement, or anything else you might be waiting on. 

Please be happy!! 

XOXO  Kevin

Leave People Better Than You Found Them (L.P.B.T.Y.F.T.) – This is a philosophy, or maybe even a creed, that has developed inside me over the years that I thought I’d share with you.  It has brought me peace in times of struggle and has helped me with the difficult decisions of how to react in times of conflict and misunderstanding in my relationships – friends, family, or otherwise.  They say that people enter your life for “a reason, a season, or a lifetime,” but by striving to leave people better then we found them, everyone can enter our lives for one very specific reason – to be positively changed.

If a love affair isn’t going to last, if a friendship is going to end, or if someone leaves this earth tomorrow, I want them to be able to say that they were “left better than I found them” – that for dating me or knowing me they are more loved, more cherished, more educated, more inspired, and more, well… better.  I am sure that not everyone who has ever loved me or known me can say that, but I have really tried to follow this path in all my relationships.

I’m guessing my first wife doubted that she was better off for knowing me – back then I wasn’t very skilled at loving people – but I guarantee that some of the reasons why her 2nd marriage has been so successful was because of lessons that she learned by loving me.  In a lot of ways I know I prepared her for something better.

My 2nd wife was heart-broken and financially upended when I met her in Las Vegas.  When we finally parted, she was a wealthy escrow-officer for one of the fastest growing title companies in Utah and Colorado.  She had been loved, as hard as I could love, for 4 ½ years.  In spite of the painful ending, I wouldn’t change a thing about marrying her.  I would do it all again knowing how it ended, and I know she’d tell you that she was better off for loving me. 

Leaving people better than you’ve found them can be tricky.  It means that you have to gain some thick skin and attempt to be unselfish and altruistic.  It is an idea that is easier said than done.  When someone attempts to hurt you in a relationship, you could retaliate, humiliate, or hurt them back, but what would be the point?  Revenge?  Being able to take pain, without returning pain is difficult, but it is a part of leaving people better.  It’s not always easy.

When one girlfriend I was ending things with started sending me mean text messages telling me how much she was mad at me and how I was an “asshole.”  I didn’t take it personally – I simply apologized.  She was mad and was trying to bait me into a fight.  What would fighting with her accomplish?  How would it leave her better?  Would it simply fill my pride – would I teach her a lesson?  Hopefully she and all of the others will look back on their time with me and feel like it had some meaning, that there were lessons learned that made them better people, better lovers, better communicators, and better friends.