Happy New Year! In the spirit of not spending more time than necessary in front of a screen, I'm going to get right to it with news and my annual new year's musing.
As usual, the new schedule for my Panic-free Estate Planning Workshops is posted on my website. Workshops are scheduled through the end of April, 2014. After this set is complete, I won't have scheduled Workshops again until September, so act now. Pick a date, sign up online, and get this good work done if you haven't already.
If you happen to have a Revocable Trust in place, this is a great time to check in, especially with respect to trust funding - transferring ownership of your assets from your own name to the name of your Revocable Trust. This can be a time-consuming task, I know, but you can break it up into manageable amounts of work. Like so much in life, trust funding is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Pick one account, and follow up with that. Just start there. If you have questions about what any of this means, or want my help, just call or email.
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Early in our relationship, my husband and I were young, broke, recently post-vegetarian, and beginning to find the great joy in making and eating good food together. We mostly ate beyond our means; both of us worked in restaurants and had friends who cooked professionally. At some point we began thinking of ourselves as "Opportunivores", eating that which we had the opportunity to eat and was either necessary or delicious. It was clear that we had many more options for delicious food by not committing in advance to a particular eating philosophy. If life gives you lamb chops . . . well, maybe you should just eat them, especially if someone else is serving them to you.
Its been a lasting moniker, being an Opportunivore, and has actually become one of my central philosophical tenets: to look at life by asking the question, "what about this moment presents a unique opportunity?" It is a guiding principle when I travel, when I order at a restaurant, and when I make my family take a relatively small detour for something I think will be stupendously amazing. Lately, I've been thinking about an Opportunivorian approach to life as I wonder what is ahead this year. The specifics of what might happen in 2014 are unknowable, but this seems like a good time to have ready the lens of opportunity, so we can hold it up to our minds' eyes and see the world through its filter.
All around us, life presents invitations to have an experience, make a decision, take an action that will make life (yours and/or others) better, richer, and more filled with love and happiness and good health, or one that is simply particular to the here-and-now. You might change jobs or commit to a relationship or have the chance to travel with a food writer. You might take it upon yourself to help or share or give back or give forward because you have the means. You might let down your defenses and accept help because someone is offering. You might end that job or relationship, or cancel those plans. You might take a walk because your able body is an incredible gift. You might look up from your iPhone and see cosmic arrows pointing the way. You might eat that special something because you are at the spot for it. You might get up early, get to yoga class, forgo a second coffee even though you want one, and make yourself fold your laundry because boy-oh-boy does it feel better when you do. Or you might sit and read even though the sink is full of dirty dishes because that is health care, too, and no one is coming over for days anyway.
As we look to the year ahead, remember, from time to time, to pick up that lens and look through it. See the opportunities present and let that information guide you, or help you make your decision, or at least orient you in space. There can be something very freeing, especially in retrospect, of letting life set its own course for you a bit. Flowing like the seaweed and the river and the freight train hopper, you can move with life, which will rush and flow and keep rolling no matter what.
Best wishes, Amy
As usual, the new schedule for my Panic-free Estate Planning Workshops is posted on my website. Workshops are scheduled through the end of April, 2014. After this set is complete, I won't have scheduled Workshops again until September, so act now. Pick a date, sign up online, and get this good work done if you haven't already.
If you happen to have a Revocable Trust in place, this is a great time to check in, especially with respect to trust funding - transferring ownership of your assets from your own name to the name of your Revocable Trust. This can be a time-consuming task, I know, but you can break it up into manageable amounts of work. Like so much in life, trust funding is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Pick one account, and follow up with that. Just start there. If you have questions about what any of this means, or want my help, just call or email.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Early in our relationship, my husband and I were young, broke, recently post-vegetarian, and beginning to find the great joy in making and eating good food together. We mostly ate beyond our means; both of us worked in restaurants and had friends who cooked professionally. At some point we began thinking of ourselves as "Opportunivores", eating that which we had the opportunity to eat and was either necessary or delicious. It was clear that we had many more options for delicious food by not committing in advance to a particular eating philosophy. If life gives you lamb chops . . . well, maybe you should just eat them, especially if someone else is serving them to you.
Its been a lasting moniker, being an Opportunivore, and has actually become one of my central philosophical tenets: to look at life by asking the question, "what about this moment presents a unique opportunity?" It is a guiding principle when I travel, when I order at a restaurant, and when I make my family take a relatively small detour for something I think will be stupendously amazing. Lately, I've been thinking about an Opportunivorian approach to life as I wonder what is ahead this year. The specifics of what might happen in 2014 are unknowable, but this seems like a good time to have ready the lens of opportunity, so we can hold it up to our minds' eyes and see the world through its filter.
All around us, life presents invitations to have an experience, make a decision, take an action that will make life (yours and/or others) better, richer, and more filled with love and happiness and good health, or one that is simply particular to the here-and-now. You might change jobs or commit to a relationship or have the chance to travel with a food writer. You might take it upon yourself to help or share or give back or give forward because you have the means. You might let down your defenses and accept help because someone is offering. You might end that job or relationship, or cancel those plans. You might take a walk because your able body is an incredible gift. You might look up from your iPhone and see cosmic arrows pointing the way. You might eat that special something because you are at the spot for it. You might get up early, get to yoga class, forgo a second coffee even though you want one, and make yourself fold your laundry because boy-oh-boy does it feel better when you do. Or you might sit and read even though the sink is full of dirty dishes because that is health care, too, and no one is coming over for days anyway.
As we look to the year ahead, remember, from time to time, to pick up that lens and look through it. See the opportunities present and let that information guide you, or help you make your decision, or at least orient you in space. There can be something very freeing, especially in retrospect, of letting life set its own course for you a bit. Flowing like the seaweed and the river and the freight train hopper, you can move with life, which will rush and flow and keep rolling no matter what.
Best wishes, Amy
