Hi, and welcome to my site! It’s a blog about personal finance and careers, told through the lens of my search for happiness and mindfulness in life. Why those things? Well, because most people view them as a necessarily evil to use in their pursuit of happiness in life… and I think they can be more than that!


If you recall my last post about Phoebe, our Havanese, you remember the lessons in humility she taught us as she dragged her own poop across the floor. At the time I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to raise her up into a balanced dog – first we thought we were nailing it, then we thought we might NEVER nail it – but as she comes out of her “teenage years” I’m starting to think we did ok after all.

It’s been a wild ride so far, with more ups and downs than a roller coaster… but it’s been worth it. Here are four of the biggest lessons my wife and I have learned from raising a puppy. (more…)


It’s been a full year since I started this blog, and I can’t believe how quickly time has flown by. The realization dawned on me out of the blue one day, and led to me sitting down with a drink to do a bit of reflecting. I started this blog as a way of organizing and cataloguing my thoughts around life and the pursuit of happiness. So after 365 days and 80 posts, what have I learned? (more…)


These days, we take many activities for granted. We complete tasks absent-mindedly, relegating what could be a really enjoyable thing to the realm of “chore” – a dirty word for many, to be sure.

One of those activities is shaving. All too often, shaving time gets lumped into the same category as sweeping the floor or doing laundry. I already wrote about how shining your shoes can be a relaxing and meditative experience, and shaving is no different… if you do it right. (more…)


This is a continuation of an earlier post on the journey to black belt. The grading felt like it was over as soon as it began. One minute we’re warming up, and the next we’re bowing out. I knew it would go quickly, but not that quickly. I mean geeze, I don’t even remember parts of my grading.

I’m told I threw knees during sparring, yet I have no recollection of that. I thought I performed four katas, when I really did six. What I do remember is that the warm-up was tough, designed to exhaust you before the grading even began. If you didn’t pace yourself, you were in for a world of hurt. So what else happened at our black belt grading? (more…)