Some people work a job to pay the bills. They slog into the office at the prescribed time, maybe even a few minutes late, punch a clock, literally or metaphorically, and sit behind a desk until the clock says it’s time to leave.

Those people complain about their lives.

They lament their situation, they hate their bosses, they spend evenings in front of the TV and wish things were different.

Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they like to complain because complaining is familiar and known and, truth be told, if they were freed from the prison of their lives and could actually choose their situation (which they can you know, they just don’t believe that) - they would freeze up and not know what to do.

And then there are other people. The ones who love what they do because they’ve constructed their lives around their passions, their interests, their skills and their strengths. They’re the ones who’ve made choices about what to spend their days doing.

I’m one of those.

I don’t skip down the golden sidewalk every day singing, “Lucky am I!”, of course, but I do feel an immense gratitude to the universe that I am able to do what I love, select the people and companies I work with, and find meaning in the minutes, hours and days.

Because that’s what it’s all about: MEANING.

My client, Yoga Shelter, helps people find their voice, find their edge, shed their baggage and gain strength.

My client, AskInYourFace.com, is partnering with the Michigan Young Farmers Coalition and the Haven to build a community garden to empower people rebuilding their lives after enduring abuse and feed the people who need good, quality, local produce the most.

The dance students of my client, Joe Cornell Entertainment, raised more than $5,000 for Kids Kicking Cancer.

My client, ORT Michigan, is retraining Michigan residents to find jobs in the worst economy since the Great Depression through the David B. Hermelin ORT Resource Center, and they’re raising money to build schools and educate people in 63 countries.

This is why I am lucky. I get to work with amazing, insightful, inspiring people who are making a difference in the world. Which means I get to make a difference by working with them.

What are you doing in your every-day to make a difference? It doesn’t have to be big. It could even just be listening to someone who has no one to listen or giving a small amount of money each month to help those who need it.

Think about it. You hold the power to your life. Make it about something you can be proud of.

I completely agree with Seth Godin’s blog that business owners shouldn’t worry about the pennies but rather make big-picture decisions.

BUT…how much debt is appropriate to incur for a startup biz? How much are you comfortable with as the business owner? And how much is too much - is indicative of a sure fall?

I’ve always believed that you must stand out from the crowd and TAKE CHANCES. Not a fan of sinking in the mud, though. It’s a tough line to walk.

Post-Script:

I emailed Seth Godin a comment this morning. He responded immediately and personally. Impressive. Here’s the conversation:

LMS: Hi Seth, I’m an avid reader and fan and I went to comment on the Pennies & Dollars blog – but can’t find the place to comment. So I’m emailing you instead.

Here’s the point – it’s easy to say spend the money and the money will flow, but what if there’s limited funding in the first place? I’m a small business owner in doomsday

But the cash flow is not flowing exactly. Sure, I could hire the limo at the trade show – but then what? And how much of the line of credit is appropriate to use before it’s just too much? I’ve had very limited startup costs and remain nimble but I also don’t want to run up a mountain of debt.Thoughts?SG: it’s entirely possible that there’s insufficient demand, that there’s no fish in that lake.

in which case, you need a new lake, no?

LMS: Wow I appreciate the quick and original response. It’s a good point – but the geographical “lake” is one I’m stuck with for various reasons – perhaps it’s the intellectual or professional lake I need to redefine. Thanks.

SG: exactlythe internet is a very very big lake, no?

At Cranbrook Institute of Science recently, the kids and I strolled through a new anthropological exhibit called The Story of Us. Diaramas and displays detailed the tools of life - how we find nourishment, how we warm ourselves, how we build relationships and how we believe.

In the belief section, no typical symbols of mainstream Christianity or Judaism were among the ancient and Eastern icons. So be it. Everyone needs an occasional bite of humble pie.

What caught my eye was the devotion to “Sub sis tence” and its explanation: a source or means of obtaining the necessities of life.

What do we need vs. what do we want?

That is no short answer so I won’t even try. Have you ever written a vision for your life? Merging personal and professional and striving to fulfill it? Finding a way to make your work mesh with your quality of life instead of letting it lead you by the nose, as a pet on a leash?

The range of our interactions is virtually limitless. Relationships are the fabric of our humanity.

Re*la*tion*ships - the connections that bind people and communities together. When you realize that you are really a part of a team.

Who are your players? Do they have your back when you fumble a play? Is the clock ticking down with nothing to show for it?

The sky is white this Wednesday morning and the ground is cold. I can see a perfect icicle from my office window. Last night, I slept soundless and with peace. It’s another day. Another funnel for possibilities. Another opportunity in front of my feet.

A cold Saturday afternoon and I snuggled beneath my dancing bears blanket to watch a Jennifer Aniston movie I’d never heard of, Rumor Has It. I confess - I’m a sucker for chick flicks, especially with hot actors like Aniston and Kevin Costner. (There were so many more - it’s actually not a bad movie.)

And of course, like any suburban sap, I teared up at the end when the gorgeous tanned protagonist has her a-ha! moment and realizes that while she was chasing dreams and yearning to find herself, she knew who she was all along.

So many of us do that. Right here in this blog I’ve waxed and whined in poetic fashion about the laments of my roots, the failings of family. There are many. But in doing so, what have I created? Nothing but a bitchfest.

And so where we are left at mid-life or possibly later is with the supreme and sincere knowledge that all these external factors - the people who create bumps in the road, those who pass judgment on us and our choices, and those who stand in our way as the obstacles they intend to become - none of that matters.

The stronger I am, the less I *need* anyone to approve. I can live this life in sublime love with myself and my children and my sweet man and that is enough. Saturdays in sunlight (oh, how I miss the warm weather!), strolling through the farmer’s market, and evenings with the windows open and fireflies flashing their moments past the windowscreen.

The softest cup of Cline cashmere, and the deer that hop over my fence into my yard just to track along the snow. My 8-year-old boy has asked to see the fairy doors in Ann Arbor and yes, he wants those hours with me in adventurous seeking, and I gobble them up like a starving child.

I just read Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking, and in those pages I found so many tidbits of wisdom, like “the meaning of our lives, and the memories of them, belong to the living…”

Yes - those of us who truly learn how to be present, we are the lucky ones who truly LIVE in the moments we are given. And that is where the meaning is. Not in the yearning to travel more or the wishing-we’d-done-things-differently. Or the I-must-have-answers-NOW.

“We remember because we want to be remembered,” Lynch writes. And it is true for why else would we linger in the already-happeneds and bite our nails in anticipation of the what-comes-next?

So here’s the upshot on a late Saturday in winter. Forty-nine states are blanketed in snow and California has launched a major advertising campaign to lure people to the west coast.

All around me, there are people with issues sprouting out of their skin like spores, and I just don’t care enough to get embroiled in their mishegoss. Day in and day out, I am amazed by the lengths to which people will go to mask their discomfort by dumping on others, including me.

But I have come so far that I no longer care. I do good work, I love deeply and well, and I am a success in my meager life. Every single day, I thank the good lord above for the gems in my midst and I cherish these moments, like little gifts in Tiffany blue, so that I am acutely aware of my living-breathing existence.

To everyone who professes askance at the steps I take and the choices I make, my mouth turns up in compassion and my brow wrinkles. That’s just too bad, I whisper to the wind. And though what they may need most is a hug, it’s no longer my job to break their fall.

Bone up, people. We are the masters of our own destinies, we are the creators of our moments. Take ownership. Live well.

My parents have never been interested in the men I date. When I was in my 20s and single, they never asked about boyfriends, nights out or whether I received flowers on Valentine’s Day.

If I brought someone home, they looked down their noses, waiting to find something wrong. I can’t tell you why and I wish I knew, but it’s a pattern they’ve stuck throughout the past four decades.

The last time my parents took an interest in a boyfriend was Ted, the first guy I dated in college. Mom and I sat for lunch one day at their favorite local diner and she asked about what it would be like if we got married one day. I broke up with Ted, a supremely nice guy, at the end of sophomore year because I just wasn’t ready for forever.

John was next and he was my first heart-pounding love. Like magnets, we chased each other around campus and home for school breaks. For the holidays, my parents bought him a key flashlight to help him see his iced-over car lock on dark winter nights. When I wanted to invite him home for the Passover seder, they said an adamant NO.

They tried to mask their dislike as grounded in the fact that he was not Jewish - but when my brother took up with a high school sweetheart, also outside our tribe, they were enthralled. She is now my sister-in-law and probably my favorite family member - but let’s just say my parents never batted an eye over that pairing.

It came as no surprise, so many years later when I met Avy, that they were not only uninterested - they were downright opposed. This time, it was because he was Orthodox.

And when we married, they had complaints all the way down the aisle. “What do you mean no mixed dancing?” “Why are you wearing a hat over your hair?” “You’re pregnant again? Don’t you want to let Asher be the baby a while longer?” I was already pregnant, and on purpose!!!!

Nothing I did satisfied them so I did everything to try to satisfy myself. And though it took me 37 years, I finally succeeded.

So now I’m dating Dan and at the best I’ve ever been in every part of my life - and it’s the same old tune. I keep telling myself I don’t need their approval and I shouldn’t even want it. But old habits die hard.

When I changed my Facebook status to in a relationship, Dad called immediately, all chatty-happy. He called again later that same day to invite me to breakfast.

And while Mom sat beside him and they were perky and interested in every part of my life, the two times I mentioned his name, they blank-stared. Nothing. Nada.

It’s become a joke between us, this blatant dysfunction. And still I wonder - what’s behind it all? Seriously, Mom and Dad. Isn’t it time to just let the past go?

I created Your People LLC in 2007 as an innovative way to help others build their businesses. My premise was, and it remains, that if you create genuine relationships between a company and its clients, you will generate loyalty, satisfaction and in the process, a burgeoning community.

And what does that do for business? Ideally, it builds the bottom line. Because everyone knows that when you feel a fondness and an allegiance for a person or place, you return there again and again.

I read in the Winter 2010 Michigan Alumnus magazine about Welcome Wednesdays at the Alumni Center in Ann Arbor. Last fall, the University of Michigan Alumni Association started offering free bagels and coffee, Wi-Fi and big flatscreen TVs on Wednesdays starting at 8:30 a.m.

At first, 135 people showed up. Now, more than 2,000 turn up for the casual cafe gathering spot. They’re fed, they’re kept warm, they’re greeted with a friendly grin and a sincere hello - and they create a connection with this place.

Well, the Alumni Association is sure hoping that turns into a lifelong relationship.

Any relationship takes time and effort to build, and nothing good happens overnight. I cringe when a client says, “What results can you guarantee?” Because really, the answer is, “None.”

I can get them out there and I can create exposure in all sorts of mediums. Given enough time, I can build a buzz around their brand. If need be, my team can create the brand they need to make a mark.

Guarantees? There are none, you know. Life is a marathon, not a race. You need endurance to make it to the finish line. And if free bagels, coffee and Wi-Fi don’t do the trick to expand the alumni reach for the University of Michigan, then they’ll try something else. They won’t fall to pieces.

But imagine the possibilities: boy meets girl on a Welcome Wednesday, they fall in love, get married 10 years later and have a lifelong fondness for the Alumni Center in Ann Arbor. Maybe that’s where they host the wedding. Maybe they bring their kids there 20 years later.

Maybe best friends meet there. Maybe two students link up and find they have compatible skills and talents, form a business and take it to Fortune 500. You never know where an idea will lead.

And if you don’t try it, it’ll go nowhere.