FUN FIRST!

Daily Encouragement for Better Living

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NOVEMBER, 2008

Freddy Krueger came to my door last night. He had a problem. His razor-like extenders on his hand made it difficult for him to open his trick-or-treat bag. Pretending to be someone else can be a problem. It can keep you from enjoying your life. You may never be able to get the bag open to enjoy your treat.
I just returned from a walk in the woods. It's a beautiful day. There was a colorful mixture of leaves in the trees and on the ground. The ones on the ground obscured the paths so it was difficult to see which way to go. It slowed me down. That was ok. Following the path to your destination is important but the things that appear on the path are important as well. Enjoying the walk, including the things that interrupt it or slow it down, is as important as getting where you're going.
It's Election Day and I have good news for you! [Not that the election is finally over though that is pretty good news as well.] Whether your team wins or not doesn't make any meaningful difference in your life at all. Isn't that great? No matter who wins you still get to live your own life. You get to make your own mistakes. You get to make your own successes. While we can get caught up in the hoopla of national elections, the most important election is what you elect to do today with the life you've been given. Choose wisely. You can't be impeached. You have to live under your own administration forever.
Congratulations to Lisa Fabiano, one of my beloved readers, who was elected judge yesterday. [Barack Obama somehow managed to win without being one of my subscribers-- maybe he's signed up under a pseudonym!!] Entering the race, Lisa was probably viewed by most as an underdog. But, she didn't quit in advance. She had a positive attitude. She had a plan. She persevered. She met a lot of her constituents and prevailed on election day. Positive attitude, planning, and perseverance don't guarantee success, particularly in politics, but they do make success a lot more likely. This is an important lesson to remember.
It's good to praise your family, friends, and co-workers. Give them a little positive feedback. It's nice to have someone notice something good about you and tell you that they noticed. So, pick somebody and honestly praise them for one of their good qualities today. If you're feeling ambitious, do it for more than one person. It can become a pleasing addiction.
"Working Out, Without the Beautiful People." This was a headline for a Wall Street Journal article concerning a gym franchise targeted at "average" people. I am not [in case you have not seen my picture on the FunFirstliving.com website] a beautiful person. But, it strikes me as odd that there is a market for working out some place where you can avoid seeing attractive people. Beauty is a good thing. Why would you want to avoid it? No one would market "Average Books-- Books Without the Smart People." ["Come to Average Books where you'll never have to deal with anyone who actually thinks!"] Would you refuse to watch a sunset at the beach because sunset at your apartment is obscured by neighboring buildings? No. You'd enjoy the beach sunset and be grateful you had the opportunity to witness it. Why take a different approach to a beautiful person? Beautiful humans are wonderful things. Don't let your jealousies or perceived inadequacies keep you from enjoying them. Hey, you might even be one and just not recognize it. Maybe that's why people avoid me at the gym!!
Veterans' Day. My dad served on a submarine in the Second World War. He never really talked about it when I was a kid. Once, after I was an adult, we were with a bunch of other guys and he started talking about the times he almost died during the war. Getting stuck in the mud on the ocean floor. Being depth charged with no avenue of escape-- just sitting there as the depth charges exploded closer and closer to the sub-- waiting to die. Very harrowing. Listening to my dad tell these stories made me contemplate for the first time the fact that I might never have existed. My life, my childrens' lives, their future childrens' lives, could have all ended before they started on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with my dad. A lot of futures did end there and in other nasty places throughout the world, and, unfortunately, continue to end in military conflicts. Today, as we honor all who served in the armed forces, let's pray for the day we are no longer producing any more war veterans.
Winston Churchill is supposed to have said after the Second World War: "We shall not make the same mistakes our predecessors made after the First World War. We shall make newer and bigger ones." Churchill probably never said most of the things attributed to him, but I like this one whether he said it or not. Mistakes are the inevitable result of action. Pretending you won't or haven't made any is delusional. Better to acknowledge their inevitability and concentrate on identifying and learning from them than wasting your time convincing yourself you couldn't possibly be wrong.
At the gym last night, I saw on one of the big screen TVs, the talking heads discussing the question "Is Sarah Palin qualified to be president now?" At first, I thought it was a re-run from two weeks ago. But it wasn't. I had to laugh. Who cares? The election's over. She is not going to be the president "now" under any imaginable scenario. I guess the TV people are enjoying living in the past. It's an easy trap to fall into. We know the past and have a certain comfort with it. If we dwell in it, we don't have to face any new challenges. Of course, the new challenges are there, we're just choosing to ignore them. The past is over. We have to live in the current moment. Life will go a lot better if you focus on the moment you're living now rather than the one's you lived last week.
When my eldest son was 5, he and I started studying martial arts. Shortly thereafter he took up attacking me without warning when I came home from work. He'd hide in the coat closet and jump me when I opened the door or lurk around a corner and attack when I walked by. It got so I would come in the back door and immediately press my back against the wall and inch my way along till I spotted him-- or he pounced. Of course, half the time he wasn't even there but I was always expecting him. It was a fun ritual-- based on our common interest and a kid's natural desire to get the best of his dad at something. It's good for your kids when they can excel at something and whip you at it. It gives them confidence they can be successful in life even when they're beyond your protective shadow. At least that's the spin I put on it so I can live with the fact all of my kids can beat me at most anything!
Forbes magazine recently published The 400 Richest People in America. I was surprised not to be on the list. Then I figured it out. It was really a list of the 400 people with the most financial assets not the richest people. Richness extends way beyond money. A rich life comes from our relationships. I can't imgaine Bill Gates has anything on me in this regard. I wonder how many people on the Forbes list would also be on the list of the world's happiest people. Probably not all of them. Money is a like a car. You can use it to get places but it won't guarantee you'll like where you end up. If you want to be rich, make friends before money. The other way around probably won't work.
As I was driving this morning, a car made a left turn in front of me causing me to slam on the brakes. Everything on the seat next to me (briefcase, hat, gloves) went flying forward landing on the floor. It was a little too exciting but there was no collision so I'm grateful. When I reached my destination, I retrieved my hat from the floor and put it on. It was toasty warm. A few minutes on the floor under the heat vent had preheated it nicely for noggin warming. My hat may ride on the floor all winter. I'm not recommending near misses but useful information can appear in the most bizarre circumstances.
"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." "Generals are always fighting the last war." Are these two truisms conflicting? It's certainly good to remember the past. Making mistakes is fine but it is better not to keep making the same ones over and over. History is important. But, it's also true that repeating actions that were previously successful is no guarantee of current success. Why? For the same reason I no longer use a blow dryer. Circumstances change and we need to recognize the changes and adapt. The two truisms work together. Recognize past mistakes but don't stop there. See how things are changing now and adapt your strategy accordingly. That's why I now use a razor rather than a blow dryer.
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."(Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19,1863) Lincoln was wrong. His speech is remembered as one of the greatest of all time and is oft quoted. Sadly, the men who died at the Battle of Gettysburg are mostly forgotten. Never underestimate the power of what you say. [Rerun from 11/19/2006]
I saw a group of people running in formation last evening in a strip mall parking lot. They were either coming from the Armed Forces Recruiting Center or the Chinese Buffet. They didn't have any plates so I'm guessing they were from the Recruiting Center. Also, you seldom see people running away from a Chinese Buffet. Chinese Buffets may actually make running impossible. The circumstantial evidence is pretty strong for the Recruiting Center. You seldom have all the information you need to be certain you're making the right choice. But, you usually have enough to be pretty sure. Don't fail to act because you're waiting for the last duck to get in the row. You'll always be looking for one more duck.
I'm totally infatuated with my wife. I don't think I've always been this way though I can't really remember when I wasn't. I think I just began being more grateful for her and it got out of control. Gratitude is a powerful thing. The more you see the good in someone or something the more good you see everywhere. Once you start being grateful it's a habit you won't be able to break and won't want to. You'll be amazed how bright your life becomes. My wife probably wishes I'd ease up a bit but I can't. She's stuck with me being stuck on her.
I switched website host companies last week and during the process incoming email was not delivered for several days. It was not corrected till today. If you sent me an email and have not received a reply from me, that means I did not receive it. Please try again. It should go through now. Thanks. I'm sorry for this glitch and any problems it may have caused you.
At the Mongolian barbeque, you'd assemble the raw ingredients for your lunch and they'd cook them for you in your desired sauce. Unless your name was Milo. Milo likes hot sauce but there was a glitch in the system. When you submitted your food to be cooked you wrote your name, along with your sauce selection, on a piece of paper so they could keep track of whose was whose. You'd think having a name like Milo would be an advantage. What are the chances someone else named Milo would be there and end up with your food? Unfortunately, "Milo" looks a lot like "Mild". He never got his hot sauce. He solved this by changing his name to Dave for Mongolian barbeque purposes. He could have tried to educate the cooks on the difference between his name and his sauce selection but sometimes its better to go with the flow. If someone is on a certain track, it's hard to get them off. It might be easier to put what you want onto their track and let them find it by their own method. It worked for Dave.
Thanksgiving Day: Today is the day to let people know you are thankful to have them in your life. Thanking God for His many blessings is important but He already knows what's in your heart. Mere mortals are not so fortunate. If you don't tell people you're thankful for them, they'll never know. Make a point to tell people how much they enrich your life and commit yourself to enriching theirs.
I am a constant source of amusement to my children. They were in hysterics yesterday. My daughter was using my cellphone and discovered I'd taken over 300 pictures of the inside of my pocket [and of one random table lamp]. No wonder the memory was always full. I guess I was aware you could take pictures with the darn thing but didn't realize I'd figured out how. I'm so clever I don't even know what I know. I was thinking I should print them all and put together a photography exhibit. Nothing but photos of pitch darkness with one lighted lamp. I could pretend I intended to convey some deep meaning about being a light in the darkness to the lost. My kids would rat me out though. They're like that. It's good to have them in case I ever forget to laugh at myself. They've always got laughing at me covered.
I finally bought a television. I went 50 plus years before I finally coughed up the cash to buy one. For most of my adult life, I've been living on hand me down TVs. The last one finally reached the stage where the signals blurred together so you'd be watching both the CBS and the FOX NFL games simultaneously. It looked like there were four teams on the field instead of two. Or one team might be kicking off to a bunch of guys in a Taco Bell commercial on the other channel. I, of course, found this all quite entertaining but other members of my family were not nearly as amused by it. I actually would have bought a TV a long time ago but I didn't want to deprive my children. Every kid needs stories to tell their kids about how mean/cheap/unreasonable their parents were. It's like historical backup when you need to say "no" to your kids about something. You can haul out the stories about how much meaner/cheaper/more unreasonable your own parents were to you. I was really doing my kids a favor. [Well, mostly I was being lazy and cheap. The favor part was more of an afterthought.] Like my dad. He wouldn't let me order a pulley from the Sears & Roebuck catalog to pull up the well bucket even if I could run down the Pony Express rider to place the order.