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FEBRUARY, 2010

•  I spoke to a radio on a shelf in the dark this morning because I thought it was a cat.  This is not an unusual occurence.  I've spoken to blankets I thought were dogs . Shoes. Hats. Books. I've talked to them all as well thinking they were cats.  It's quite entertaining.  Maybe I should take up ventriloquism so I can make them talk back. ["Uh, I'm the radio, you idiot."]  Of course, I could always turn on the light.  That would be a simple,direct solution.  But, I kind of enjoy this problem and probably don't really want to solve it.  It's hard to solve a problem that's providing you some benefit,no matter how warped, you don't want to give up: like something to complain about or an excuse to fail.  If you've got an unsolved problem, check to see if it's providing you some "benefit" you haven't been admitting.  Then, directly face whether you want to move beyond that "benefit" or not.
•   "The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it."(Franklin P. Jones)  A friend sent me this quote some time ago and it's priceless.  It hits a bigger theme as well: if you do things in hopes of being appreciated, you're going to be disappointed.  We can't guarantee we'll be honored.  All we can do is be honorable and hope for the best. 
• Each of us is like a freshly spilled pool of gasoline waiting for a torch to ignite us into the person we were made to be. Without the torch, spilled gas is just a stinky mess. But, when you put the torch to it, it explodes into spectacular flame. Ask yourself, what is my torch? What will light me up to reach my potential?  For me, it's fun.  I try to make everything I do fun in at least a small way.  I've accomplished much more since I switched to having fun from being serious. 
• Your whole life story is written moment by moment. Will this moment be worth reading? Make sure each moment advances the plot or enriches the characters.  A story that's not going anywhere is not very interesting to read.  It's even less interesting to live.
•  Being grateful is the foundation of happiness and success.  Build your life on gratitude and it will reach to whatever heights you wish.  When I awake in the morning (or even in the middle of the night) my habit is to thank God for my life and the people and things in it. (In the middle of the night the first thing is "Oh, yeah!  It's not time to get up!")  I just go through and name what I'm grateful for and do it slowly enough to "feel" grateful as well as "think" it.  Practicing gratitude will change you for the better. Forever.  Remember, your aptitude for gratitude determines the state of your attitude. 
•  I made my one and only attempt at roller skating when I was in law school.  A bunch of my fellow students decided it would be fun and I succumbed to peer pressure.  I proved that I was "unbalanced" in more ways than one. I was incapable of moving any direction but down.  I was saved by a blind woman (one of my classmates) who kindly asked if I would skate with her since she couldn't see her way around.  What she was actually doing was offering to hold me up.  It was much appreciated.  We spent the rest of the evening with her skating and me clinging desperately to her.  Maybe I was some help to her.  I don't really remember.  All I remember is her saving me from a long, painful, embarassing and un-fun night.  She probably doesn't remember it at all.  The receiver remembers a kindness long after the giver has forgotten. 
•  "All Mistakes Must Be Paid For"  I saw this sign on a copier at a copy shop and started laughing.  "Man, I've made a lot of mistakes I never had to pay for."  I was thinking "life" not "copies."  Actually, most mistakes can profit us rather than cost us if we let them.  Just realize mistakes are inevitable and try to see them as soon as possilbe and learn from them.  Chances are they'll cost you little and profit you much.
•  I always feel for the players while they are waiting to start the Super Bowl.  They just want to play but all the hoopla has to hoopla before they can.  Waiting to perform can be agonizing.  Are you going to do well or not?  Are you up to the challenge?  The less time you have to think about these questions the better.  It's best to dive in and start rather than stand around wondering what's going to happen after you do.  Unlike the Super Bowl, you don't have to wait for the jet-flyover and the ceremonial coin toss (with the careful explanation of which side of the ceremonial coin is "heads") before you get started on reaching your goals.  You can kickoff whenever you want.  Tee it up and kick it.
• Why wouldn't everyone absolutely love you?  If you had a quick answer to this question, you've probably hit on something about you that needs to change.  Of course, you can't really control whether someone loves you or not.  Love is a choice made by the lover.  But, you can act in ways that make it easier for people to make the choice to love you.  Some people will love you anyway but you shouldn't make them have to be Mother Teresa to do it.
•  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.
•  I was engaged in a conversation with some folks who were commenting on how much less expensive it is to "do it yourself" when it comes to home improvements and repairs.  I always find these conversations amusing because they presume everyone has enough competence to complete the task in an acceptable manner, in an acceptable amount of time, without doing so much damage that it ends up being even more expensive when you ultimately hire somebody who actually knows what they are doing to fix the fixing you attempted.  While this may be a fair assumption for most people, it is clearly not a fair assumption about me.  I've yet to discover a task where I have been able (or willing) to expend enough time to do it in an acceptable manner.  For me, "do it yourself" means "waste your time, get frustrated, and then get somebody else to do it."  Now, I just cut out the first two steps.  I am much happier this way.  Time is a precious commodity.  It's important to use it in a way that's most enriching for you. 
• Are you curious?  Curiosity is something kids have naturally.  It's a fascination with something for its own sake.  Do we take this same curiosity into our grownup lives?  Are we curious about others for their own sake or do we just see them as a means to some end of our own? 
•  I just read that one event in the Olympic biathalon series is the "ten-kilometer sprint."  Like all good Americans, I don't know squat about the metric system but even I know that racing ten kilometers is not a "sprint" unless you're in a motorized vehicle and the biathalon involves cross-country skiing on clearly non-motorized skis.  What's considered a "distance" race in the biathalon? 1000 kilometers? (which probably has its own name in the metric system but as I pointed out before I don't know squat about the metric system)  My hat's off to anyone who can sprint 10k on cross-country skis.  Olympic competitors are wonderful examples of the heights of excellence humans can train themselves to reach.  I hope you can take some time to watch some of them perform and appreciate their display of the greatness we humble creatures can attain, even if "strolling" is the highest speed level you ever reach yourself.
•  Happy Valentine's Day!  Love. Beauty. Chocolate.  My favorite things!  What a great day!  The facts on the life of St. Valentine are sketchy but the truth of his legacy is not.  Love is what life is about.  The love of a man for a woman, a mother for a child, a friend for a friend, God for us all.  We are created for love.  To give it.  To receive it.  Love is my passion, my goal, my calling.  I try to make it true that "to know me is to be loved by me."  By next Valentine's Day, I hope that statement is truer than it is today.  Perfection in anything is rare but love is a good thing to try to perfect.  You may not get to perfection but the attempt will be the most challenging and exhilarating thing you could ever do. 
•  A family was preparing their son for going to kindergarten.  They spent a couple weeks emphasizing how much fun he was going to have at kindergarten: stories, toys, coloring, etc.  The first day arrived.  He happily went in and was very cheery when they picked him up afterward.  "Did you have fun?" "Yes, it was great just like you said.  We played games, read a story, colored pictures.  It was cool!"  "Well, that's wonderful.  You must be looking forward to going back tomorrow."  "What!  I have to go back tomorrow?!!," he said, bursting into tears.  Besides accurately describing my own feelings about going to school, this story illustrates the importance of remembering that just because you know what you're talking about doesn't mean anybody else does.  Failing to put yourself in the other person's shoes when you're trying to persuade them to do something can lead to some very unpleasant experiences when they do it and get a result they didn't expect even if you did and figured it was obvious. 
•  Mardi Gras.  Fat Tuesday.  You've got to love any holiday named "Fat" anything.  It creates a picture of pleasant excess.  Celebration.  We don't celebrate life enough so it's good when an excuse for celebrating takes a foothold in our culture.  The people in New Orleans have seized on the Mardi Gras concept and expanded it from a one day feast to a season-- running from Epiphany to the day before Lent.  The rest of the country hasn't caught up to this but we can all do our part by at least celebrating today.  Make a point of celebrating life today even if only in a small way.  Take some time to be grateful for what's good in your life-- particularly the people.  Have a glass of wine, eat a special meal, indulge in a rich dessert.  These things are reminders of the good things in life.  As we enjoy them we reflect on the other good things.  When we share them with the people we love, we experience joy and true relaxation.  Life is fun.  But, you've got to pay attention to the blessings you've got and take the time to enjoy them in order to really feel the fun.  
•  When I got dressed this morning, I was still able to button my pants.  Does that mean I had a successful Mardi Gras or an unsuccessful one?  I'd say successful.  You can't always control the result only the effort you put into the attempt.  That's why it's good to enjoy the quest for a goal as much as its attainment.  So, on Fat Tuesday, eating to excess was its own reward.  I didn't need a button-pop to validate my effort.  Life is good.  Enjoy the quest.
•  Eulogies are great. The speaker talks about all of "Charlie's" amazing character traits and accomplishments and the wonderful impact he had on people's lives. Too bad "Charlie's" too dead to hear it! Tell people what you admire about them while they can still hear you.  Dead people don't need encouragement but the rest of can use all we can get.
•  What do you think about when you first awaken in the morning?  This is important because it sets the course your day will follow.  You want to be pointed in the right direction.  Toward your favorite ski slope not toward the fifty foot cliff.  I start by thinking of what I'm thankful for.  This starts things off positively and is a great excuse for staying in bed.  ["I'd get up but I'm too busy thanking God for my blessings so I have to stay here for awhile.  It has nothing to do with being lazy."  Who can argue with that?]  This helps make the day something to look forward to.  All those "thankful" things are waiting for you.  You can see there's fun ahead.  If you wake up dreading what you have to do, you're setting yourself up for a rotten day and, worst of all, you won't even enjoy staying in bed thinking about it.  
•  I saw a guy shoveling snow this morning.  As he threw a shovel-full into the air, his dog would attack the flying pile in mid-air with vigor.  He was definitely having fun.  The man seemed to be having fun too-- watching his dog have fun.  I commend them.  They'd made a game of what could otherwise be an unpleasant task.  I'm sure the dog invented the game.  The guy was probably just shoveling till the dog decided to have some fun with it by going after the flying snow.  We can learn from the dog.  Most things go better when you approach them playfully.
•  As I walked into the bathroom, I was admiring the handsome bald guy looking back at me from the mirror, and, therefore, was not looking at the cat on the floor huddled in front of the heating vent.  I found the cat by stepping on her.  She did not like this and let out a "you just stepped on me you idiot" cat sound.  I, in turn, let out my own "you just stepped on the cat you idiot" scream and quickly swung my foot up taking it off the cat and crashing it (my foot not the cat) into the toilet (did I mention I was barefoot) resulting in me letting out a "you just kicked the toilet with your barefoot and it really, really hurts you idiot" scream.  The cat was fine and I was limping.  Fortunately, I didn't break my foot because the people at the emergency room would have been trying to send me to anger management classes for kicking the toilet when what I really need is counselling for misplaced vanity for admiring myself in the mirror-- or maybe just new glasses.  It's good to be me.  Entertainment lurks around every corner. 
•  Spring training is underway in major league baseball.  While the snow outside my window this morning says "winter", the big TV at the gym yesterday said "spring"as it showed pitchers and catchers working out.  Spring training is the time to get ready for the long baseball season ahead.  To practice and develop your skills.  Most of us don't get six weeks of spring training every year.  We have to develop our skills on the fly.  Even if you can't set aside several weeks in Florida or Arizona, you probably can set aside 15 minutes per day to work on improving some aspect of your life.  That 15 minutes will give you the energy and attitude to face the rest of the day with vigor.  You'd be surprised how quickly you can transform yourself in 15 minutes per day. 
•  Can you relax?  Are you capable of it?  Letting your mind wander to pleasant thoughts and taking your body off the treadmill of "doing something"?  We tend to associate "productive" with "busy" but this is not the case.  Great inspirations tend to come from a relaxed, playful mind.  "Busy" may just be locking you into a grind that gets you nowhere.  Like pacing feverishly back and forth.  You might be working hard but you're not going anywhere.  Just digging yourself into a rut.
•  I am on my own subscription list for these emails.  If technical difficulties occur, and the email doesn't get received by my subscribers, I'll know since I didn't get it either.  Here's a "techncial difficulty."  The program I use requires me to compose then save the email.  The title then appears on a list with prior email titles with the word "send" next to it.  I hit "send", the email text reappears with a "send now" button.  I hit the "send now" button and out it goes.  Of course, being me, I sometimes save it and forget to send it.  It sits trapped in the computer, serving no purpose whatsoever, unable to escape because I have kept it bottled up through stupidity.  So also with our talents.  We not only need to nurture them.  We need to let them out where others can benefit from them as well.  Don't save them and never send them.  The world needs your talents. 
•  I need a more fun word.  I gave a presentation the other day where I explained that gratitude is the first key to thinking and living more positively.  If you start your day thinking about the things (big or small) that you're grateful for and take the time to actually feel grateful for them, then you'll be happier and experience the benefits that come with thinking and feeling positive.  I need a more fun word than "key".  "Key," "principle," "step," just aren't that fun.  I was thinking "beer."  "Beer" is a fun word.  "Gratitude is the first beer to living more positively." The problem with "beer" is that you can't have more than a couple or it quits being fun in a big hurry.  You can't have "The Twelve Beers to Success" program.  Guess I'll have to keep thinking.  Got any ideas? 
•  How much of what you do is motivated by what you think other people want from you?  Are your expectations of yourself driven by your perception of other people's expectations of you?  Lincoln said: "You can't fool all the people all the time."  It's also true you can't please all the people all the time.  Some people just don't want to be happy.  It's not your fault.  Don't make your own happiness contingent on making a person who doesn't want to be happy happy.  That's like deciding "I'll be happy when Mark grows hair."  It's just not going to happen no matter what you do.