The in betweens

In the freelance world, there are all types of people and personalities. Most noticeably, there are the ones who shouldn't be freelancers. They simply don't have the finely honed skills to deal with what I like to call the in betweens.

Those periods of time - sometimes long, sometimes short - between gigs where you've finished one job and have no idea where the next one is coming from.

Some call it limbo or purgatory. I call it heaven.

I just finished up working on a national car account at one of my favorite agencies to freelance at. I liked the people I worked with, I enjoyed the work I did and I love the creative services person who brings me in whenever they can.

Here's the thing: that gig is up, and I have no idea what's waiting on deck. But I do know from experience and faith that something is, and it'll get here eventually.

This is the skill I have people who aren't cut out for this don't: I don't go crazy when I'm not working. I don't climb walls or stress out. I learned long ago if all I think about is working when I'm not working, and wanting time off when I am, then it's a lose-lose proposition and I'm not going to be happy either way.

Maybe it's a gift, but I take my in between time off for exactly what it is. Time off. I catch up with things around the house and things I've wanted to do but don't have the time when I'm employed. The garage gets cleaned. Books get read. Screenplays get worked on. Posts get written. Shows on the DVR get watched (I'm particularly good at this one). Dogs get walked. Kids get picked up. Lunches get taken. Laundry gets done (I love doing laundry - one of the long list of reasons I'm a catch).

Sure it's always nice to know where the next check is coming from, but if I don't know now I will when I'm supposed to.

Don't get me wrong, I don't just leave it all up to chance and the universe - I would never be that cavalier with my career (trying to stop laughing cause I used the word "career"). I do make the effort. I send out emails, check in with friends and find out what's going on around town. Like all freelancers, I play dialing for dollars on a regular basis. But I don't play it all day every day. And it's not the only game I know. Besides, a watched pot, well, you get my drift.

Anyway, as much as I'd like to talk more about this, I really have to get going.

After all, Breaking Bad isn't going to binge watch itself.

Got happy?

I thought it was a skill. Come to find out it's an art.

I was looking around Barnes & Noble the other day. It's not normally the bookstore I go to, but the Borders near me has gone away, so there I was.

I'll be the first to admit it - I wasn't feeling as happy as I could. But just as I was getting sadder about the fact I wasn't happy, I stumbled into this section. And really, if this couldn't make me happy then what could?

Apparently I should've been happier since there are a lot of things to be happy about. But then I started thinking - in a world this big, 14,000 didn't seem like very many things to be happy about. I couldn't help think there should've been more. And that made me sad. Because even with thousands of reasons in front of me, at that moment I couldn't think of one.

Fortunately, thanks to Marci Shimoff, I realized I didn't need one. I could just do it. I could just force myself to be happy for the sake of it. The problem with that approach was even if it felt like real happiness, how would I know if it was?

Here's how. Authentic Happiness would tell me by showing me how to put the New Positive Psychology to work. To realize my potential for lasting fulfillment. Truth be told, it didn't need to be that lasting. I'd settle for a couple hours. Or at least enough to last while I was browsing the store. But since I wasn't going to be there that much longer, would I have enough time to find out everything I needed to know to be happy?

Turns out I would, thanks to A Short Guide To A Happy Life. I liked the idea of this one, because first of all I really didn't want to spend a lot of time reading about a happy life - I wanted to get to it. The shorter the guide, the more time for me to get to work on my happiness project. But where should I start?

I'll start here. The Happiness Project will be like a go-to manual for my happiness project. I love it when life works out.

The one thing all this browsing of happiness books made me realize is how many freakin' depressed people there are walking around bookstores.

Frankly, I was happy to get out of there.