The Secret to Being Liz

I have this friend who is an accupuncturist. She's always going to India, does triathlons, spends every weekend at her boyfriend's house in the country, which is a remodeled barn with solar panels, is doing a Buddhist chaplaincy program, and does lots of volunteer work. She has the freedom and flexibility to follow her dreams. It seems like she's always having fun and knows everyone and she has a big heart. I've always said, "I want to be Liz in my next life."

I was trapped in my high stress, endless work lifestyle and death was the only way out.

There are millions of impoverished people around the world who are, indeed, trapped in poverty and misery. They work all day and still it's not enough so they need to have children and send them to work too so collectively they can earn enough money to house and feed themselves.

Generally, though, as Americans, we're not one of those millions. We have choices.

We choose a lifestyle of overconsumption which traps us in the golden cage of our jobs.

We choose to occupy ourselves with projects in the hope that it will improve our situation but just robs us of time and money.

We choose complexity over simplicity to keep ourselves busy so that we don't have to look at our inner selves and follow our secret dreams.

Now, I'm Liz too. I just had to choose to be Liz. It was as simple as that. Everything I needed to be Liz was there all my life.

The Buddha said, "He who loves himself would never harm another."

So forget about your goals and follow your dreams, be the real you, and be happy.

Don't be afraid to dream big, as in helping half a billion people out of poverty in one fell swoop and making a profit while doing it. Here's an inspiring (long) video of Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems and now a venture capitalist, talking about microfinance.