Let’s try this another way. Here’s how to be, happy — my formula, anyway. If you’re interested in other formulae, I’m sure there’s someone out there who can fill you in.
WORK
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
– Colossians 3:23-24
Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.
– Proverbs 22:29
Find out how God has gifted you, and do that thing with your whole being while you’re at your job. Honor God by honoring your employer — work hard; be honest and ethical about what you do.
Honor your co-workers, give credit where its due, don’t step on other people to get to the top — get there by being the best you can at what you do.
To the best of my ability this has been my goal, and at 27 I am respected as an equal by professionals who are 15 years older than me. My job is not perfect, and some days it downright sucks, but I am happy and successful at work.
MONEY
On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.
– 1 Corinthians 16:2
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
– 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
Let no debt remain outstanding
– Romans 13:8
Show me a wealthy Christian, and I will show you a person who gives faithfully and generously to ministry.
This has always been a struggle for us — some months are easier than others. Some months are downright difficult. The Old Testament says 10% is a minimum, and its our earnest goal to be tithing at least there.
The Bible also says that if you give faithfully, God will take care of you. He has proven that promise to us again and again. Each financial growth point in our marriage can be correlated with our giving. The better we get at giving God back a portion of what He gives us, the more He blesses us with.
I’m not going to discuss specifics, but we have financial goals we’re working toward (also based on Biblical principles) and we’re on track to get them. My wife can work if she wants, but she’ll never feel like she has to work just for us to get by. For as long as we’ve been tithing regularly, my income has been more than enough for us to live comfortably.
The second principle to financial success is to eliminate debt. Aside from our house, we’ll have no debt by the time we’re 30 — the same time I’ll hit another financial goal I’m working toward. Its our plan to never carry credit card debt again after that point.
We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working hard, the reward is increasing exponentially, and we are happy.
TIME
I will show you my faith by my works. . . . For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
– James 2:18, 26
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
– Galatians 6:9-10
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
– Mark 16:15-16
A reader of this blog once posted in a comment: Love God, family, world. Serve in that order.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
No matter what your job is, or how good you are at it, you need to be giving your time and energy to the body of Christ. One way we’ve found to serve God is to serve in our church humbly. If your church isn’t geared for that, serve in your community as a Christian (and consider finding a new church.)
Serve your family. This means being with them and investing in them. Doing things together, challenging each other. Not missing an opportunity to play with your kids, or date your mate.
Serve your world. For some people the world is a very small place. Perhaps some disability prevents you from traveling too far from home, and your “world” is just a few blocks surrounding your house. That’s fine. The rest of us have no excuse. Get off your comfortable seat and go see what else God made. Serve people in places you’re not comfortable with! Share your blessings with people who can only dream of what you have. The reward is more incredible than you can imagine.
OPPORTUNITY?
Here’s the great thing about this plan: you don’t have to do anything you weren’t built to do. God made you for these things — they are in your nature. Maybe you don’t feel them all the time, but when you’re in the center of His will, you’ll know happiness.
Of course there’s more to life than just money, work and time… but those are pretty big categories. And really the intent is just to rebut the popular religion — the belief that we are each the center of our own worlds. The original plan for happiness and success came from your maker, who knows better than you do what will make you happy, and who made you creatively as a small but important part of a greater work of art

Here it is… heavily Photoshopped, of course, to remove most identifying markers.
4.4 is now shipping and it is good… and I was a part of it.

I’m proud of this release — and I should be, I’ve been working on it a long time. I did good work, the team did good work, and its a product to be proud of. That its shipping out around the same time we’re shipping out of New York is a nice bit of closure on some of what we poured ourselves into here.
In appreciation, the company is taking us all to Six Flags in June. If we can arrange Abi’s doctor’s appointment around that date, we may even get to go!

Had we been unable to have children… I would have settled for one of these instead.
Make sure you watch the video, its very drool-worthy!

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
You know that scene in the Matrix where Neo needs to learn Kung Fu, so they load in a disk, hit a button, and within a few moments Kung Fu is loaded into his brain via the Matrix?
Maybe that’s science-fiction, but its not that far off from reality. The other day I needed to strip some wallpaper, but I didn’t know how. So I pulled up Google, typed “how to strip wallpaper” and within a few moments, I was happily stripping wallpaper.
That’s what the Internet is. It’s the Matrix, and I am Neo, see?
OK, maybe that last statement is going a little too far, but the point is: the Internet is good… and I don’t have it.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.
Last night the cable modem died. I called up tech support, and they confirmed it. My options were to wait for a technician to come by my place on Saturday (doesn’t work because I’ll be on my way to Canada) or bring the modem in to be replaced. Since I’m bringing the modem in to cancel our service in two weeks anyway, I decided to just cancel it now. No Internet for me…
I really could only use it on weekends anyway, since I don’t have a computer at home now. But at least during the week I could play games on XBox Live, or download shows to watch from the Marketplace. And now there’ll be no Skyping my wife and kids on weekends when I do have a computer around.
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
Of course I still have the iPhone, in case I need to download any apartment repair information into my brain, but the Edge network is oh so slow.
To top all that off, the I.T. folks at work have decided to block Facebook and Digg, on even the most tolerant of proxies. I had a carefully constructed PAC file that redirected my browser to the right proxy, based on what site I was after, bouncing around the internal network to get me what I wanted, but apparently they’ve caught on, because none of the proxies work this morning.
Blocking Facebook is understandable — there’s really no business purpose for it. But blocking Digg… that’s just mean. Not only is there occasionally some good tech tips there, but now what am I supposed to do on my lunch hour?!
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
So now not only am I living on my own, separated by hundreds of miles from my family, but now I’m mostly disconnected from the online world. I am like Neo — all of my powers only work inside the Matrix! And people keep pulling the plugs!
I feel very alone. I think I’ll go to Walmart and pretend I have a reason to be there, other than to be around people…