Edwene Gaines:  Most of my coaching clients are moms in their 40s and 50s. One of the things they often say is that it’s too late for them to find their purpose or do the thing that would make them happy; they’re just too old.

“It is only with one’s heart that one can see clearly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

They look back and they see all these “missed” opportunities—steps that, if they had taken them would have put them on a different path and made all the difference in knowing their purpose and feeling happy.

There’s only one problem with that kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking: It’s rare for people in their 20s and 30s to know their purpose. Sure, there are some—and they stand out and make it really easy for us to feel bad about ourselves.

But there are also plenty of examples of people who found their purpose later in life. And I want them to be our models.

You’ve heard me talk a lot about Louise Hay—she was in her 40s when she wrote You Can Heal Your Life—and now, at 85 she is still rocking her purpose.

Edwene Gaines was in her 50s when she embarked on her purpose. She’s also in her 80s now—and wrote her best-selling book, The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, five years ago.

So are you really going to let your age or some “missed” opportunities be your excuse for not discovering and LIVING your purpose now and being happy?

Because I’m here to tell you that happiness is a choice and we all could choose to be happy, or at least peaceful, right now, no matter what.

Getting happy, though, comes hard for some people. Actually, depending on the situation we’re facing, it can come hard for us all. So I like to offer lots of shortcuts. One of my favorites is to tell a better-feeling story. Another is to do things that bring you delight.

And when you’re feeling things are really hard, and you just wish someone would give you a break, do what I do and take a page from the (for me) life-changing book, A New Earth, by Echkart Tolle. In his book, Tolle writes, “Whatever you think people are withholding from you—praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on—give it to them.”

I know it seems like a strange approach. But trust me, when you feel that someone—or something, like the Universe—is holding back something crucial for your happiness, you need to remember that, as Zig Ziglar once put it, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

But what do most people want more of? And what does almost everyone who’s trying to discover their purpose think would make the process of discovery easier? Money.

Right? Money. But finding the money to fund their dream—especially when they’re counting on their dream to make them money—well, that particular dilemma gets a lot of people stuck. (Or is it just me?)

At any rate, Edwene Gaine’s book, The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity really helped me reframe the idea that I don’t have enough money and I just need a little bit more before I can have the freedom to do what I really want to do.

And in her book, one thing Gaines does is expand Tolle’s and Ziglar’s ideas—or at least their way of thinking—so that they include m-o-n-e-y.

How does she do that? Gaines suggests that people tithe.

Tithing is an ancient spiritual practice; usually it involves giving 10% of everything you receive back to God.

In The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, Gaines advocates a revival of tithing. For her, it’s so important that she makes it her first law. But she doesn’t confine the targets of her giving to her church.

What she does—and what I do now, having read her book, is tithe to sources that feed us spiritually. So my husband and I do make monthly contributions to our church—and spread around the rest of our tithe among other people and institutions who inspire our spirits.

We call it a Spiritual Food Offering. We keep tabs on our income, including unexpected sources, and every two weeks we tally it up. We then take names from a running list of inspirations, put those names in a hat and pull out three. Then we send one third of whatever amount we have to give away to each of them.

I love this practice! And I have to say that it works in our experience. The first month we decided to tithe only from unexpected sources of income (not our work income because that felt too big at the time)—and we got a check for $1500!

Our first recipient (back then we only identified one source, it was later we decided it was even more fun to include more) was Scott Noelle, a wonderful parenting coach who sends daily free emails called the Daily Groove.

My husband and I have benefitted so much from his wisdom—wisdom he graciously shares for free—that we wanted to honor him first. He was obviously delighted when I sent him the check for $150 and signed his response to me, “In Gratitude and Abundance.” He truly understood what it was all about.

My husband really likes to give to political bloggers, community activists and other organizations that provide services he appreciates—just last week we sent money to the Wikipedia Foundation, the free online encyclopedia, because he uses it all the time.

I like to include artists, parents who model joyful connection with their children, Zen Buddhist centers and basically anyone who inspires me—which means we have a lot of names in our hat!

It’s not that I’ve seen a huge increase in our income as a result of tithing (although many who engage in the practice find this happens), but I can tell you, without a doubt, that I feel much more abundant now that I’m tithing—like I have so much and there is plenty to give.

Edwene Gaines says that you must tithe 10% of your gross income, and every penny you might happen to find on the ground in order to fulfill the law that will “open the windows of heaven for us.”

As I said, I’m simply asking you to make a practice of giving thanks for the spiritual food you receive. Think about making an offering of your own.