Meet Lori Deschene, the founder of TinyBuddha.com, a website with simple wisdom for complex lives. Lori started out as a writer four years ago, working full-time for various start-up companies. She now freelances for magazines and websites, and also runs Tiny Buddha. In addition, she’s currently writing her first book, based on the wisdom from tinybuddha.com, which will be in stores next fall.
Lori grew up in Massachusetts, where she learned early on that success and busy-ness were the most important things in life. She was an overachiever all through adolescence. A straight-A, perfectionist, spread-too-thin stress case who needed to be the best at everything. She wanted approval. She wanted to do everything right. She wanted to feel valuable. Most of all she wanted to be happy.
After two decades of standing in her own way, she decided to get out of it.
So she ran away from everything. She spent months wandering all over this country like a feather in the wind. She held dozens of jobs on both the east and west coast, giving herself the perfect excuse to avoid forming relationships. She called herself evolved when really she was just afraid. She didn’t want to challenge herself; she wanted to escape herself.
Then she realized: all her problems started in her thoughts and beliefs. Her attitude created pain in everything she experienced. Nothing felt as joyful as it could because no matter where she went, she took herself with her.
It was then that she accepted:
-She will never know everything, but she can learn something new every day.
-She will never do everything perfectly, but she can be proud of her willingness to improve.
-Life will never be perfect, but she can still be happy now.
-She won’t always feel happy now, but she can work to increase the ratio of happy to unhappy moments.
These four ideas are the foundation for everything Lori does, and they are what built Tiny Buddha.