If you had told me five years ago that I would be cuddling with my computer on a regular basis I probably would’ve dismissed you as crazy. Sure, I was already making a full-time living off of web writing which meant that I used my computer all of the time but I considered it a tool of the job. I certainly didn’t think of it as something to cuddle up with.

These days I cuddle up with my computer all of the time. What changed? A lot:

• Laptops are more cozy to cuddle up with. The biggest difference between then and now is probably that I use a laptop more often than I use my desktop. Sure, I have a LTR with my desktop computer which is where I save and store everything. But I can pull my laptop into bed with me, take it on vacations, have it there at all times. It’s much easier to cuddle up with it.
• Social media. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on social networking sites five years ago. Sure I was active on a few but not like I am today. These days, social media makes it so that my computer is a friend. Or rather it gives me access to friends which makes it appealing to cuddle up with it. At the start of a new day or the end of a long one, it’s nice to pull my computer into my lap and reach out to the world beyond its screen.
• It’s my main source of entertainment. Five years ago I had a television set and preferred going to the arcade to play video games. These days my computer is my main source of entertainment. I love Internet TV and streaming movies. It’s no longer just a work tool; it’s my companion for an at-home movie date. And it’s not bad for playing video games with either.
• My personal blogging has grown. I used to only blog for clients. These days I blog for myself as well. I certainly prefer to journal in a notebook but I do have to admit that the confessional style of blogs is appealing as well. It gives me more of a connection with my computer than I had years ago.

Tags: change, computers, society, Technology, web 2.0

I’ve been reading a lot lately about Simple Living. I like the idea of living a simpler life. And in some ways, I’ve structured my life to allow for a lot of simplicity. I have a lot of downtime and time to myself. I make a lot of time for creative projects. But I think that I could do more to reduce stress in my life and I’m trying to figure out how to do that.

Despite all of the great tips for simple living out there, I’m finding that moving into a simpler life is really difficult. It’s not that I don’t know what the tips are but rather that I’m not always sure how to figure out the ways in which they apply to my life.

For example, I know that my life would be a lot simpler if my living situation were different. I live in a place that’s too big in a city that’s too expensive and I live there by myself so I have to deal with everything there on my own from the bills to the cleaning. But I’m not sure what the simpler solution is. Getting a roommate comes along with a lot of complicated things. Moving to a cheaper city would make me unhappy in many ways. So I know what the problem is more or less but I don’t know how to fix it.

This is just one example of several areas of life where I’m not sure how to simplify or streamline or find peace in a better way than what I already have. How do you do it? Do you have any suggestions for what to do when you know you want something different from what you have but you’re feeling clueless as to what the next step is?

Tags: change, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, life, simple living, simplicity

I recently wrote an article with 20 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People. What the common denominator for almost all of these tips ended up being was that you really need to deal with difficult people by changing yourself rather than them. This is a firm belief that I have for all situations that are making us unhappy. We can rarely change the circumstances around us and can even more rarely change the others within those circumstances but we can always work to change ourselves.

We like to believe that it is the people around us who are causing trouble for our lives. Although the problems that we face do often come to us in the form of conflict with another person, the solutions lie almost entirely within ourselves. How we opt to take in information, react to situations and deal with our own feelings about things is all up to us and that’s something that can entirely alter the situations that we find ourselves in.

For example, your husband goes on a business trip and doesn’t call you when he arrives even though you think that he should. You get angry. And then you get worried. And then you get anxious because you’re wondering where he is and what he’s really doing and why he hasn’t called and who he’s doing things with and … you make yourself crazy and angry. And when he calls, you express this anger and the two of you get into an argument.

In your mind, this entire thing was caused by the fact that your husband didn’t call. In reality, it was caused by your own belief that he should’ve called and your choice about how you reacted to it. Yes, he could’ve been doing god knows what with god knows who or he could’ve been lying in a ditch somewhere but neither of those things would have been altered by your own over-the-top reaction. You can choose to simply not react in this manner and save yourself a lot of chaos in your mind.

This isn’t to say that your husband shouldn’t call if he said he was going to. It’s to say that you can choose healthier options for your own mind and healthier ways of communicating your feelings. You can wait until your husband gets home to discuss how this made you feel and what you wish could be different next time. And you can give him the room to react accordingly. You can choose to be different if you want your relationships to be different.

Tags: change, communication, dating, friendships, how to improve relationships, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, people, Relationships