Life on the Lakefront
I hate to admit it but I have not always been a very good orange. This may come as quite a shock, but for about a week now I have been contemplating my orangeness and I am afraid that I just did not measure up; perhaps I have even been more of a grapefruit recently. One of the things that happen to people over time is that they are squeezed by some of the events of their lives and what comes out of them depends solely on what is inside. I admit it is a difficult concept to get, it has taken me years.
A few years ago I heard a speaker named Wayne Dyer, make an analogy of people to oranges. He basically said that when you squeeze an orange you get orange juice out because that is what is inside. When people are squeezed by stress, what comes out whether it is love, hate, or anger depends greatly on what is inside them.
At the time I thought, cool analogy, but I did not really personalize it. This is partly because I have been somewhat unhappy with what was inside me when things got a bit “squeezy.” I know squeezy is not a real word but it is how I describe it when life circumstances gets a bit tight.
It struck me last week that while I had gained knowledge of this and other valuable coping strategies over the years, I had yet to really apply them to my life, and well, I had not developed into the kind of orange I wanted to be. The need for insight hit me about 30 seconds after I sent an email that Al Gore might have described as “snippy” in response to an email that I had received. I was unhappy with that insight.
This started me on a journey through the Wayback Machine, kind of like Mr. Peabody and Sherman from the old Saturday morning cartoons, to try to achieve some sort of self-discovery. Over the years I have drifted far away from where I hoped to be. This is inexcusable because my educational goal was always to become an educator and a counselor focused on how to help people to deal with stress, but knowledge does not always translate to actions. So I have begun to backtrack, retracing my steps.
I have adopted a motto from the movie Harvey, a movie that you may remember starred Jimmy Stewart as a lovable fellow named Edward P. Dowd who befriends a giant white rabbit that just happened to be invisible. Great movie, I recommend it if you have never seen it, but that’s not the point. During the course of the film, Mr. Dowd made the statement that his mother once told him, “You can be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”
I began combing through other philosophies I had reviewed over the years and I came up with what I call the six rules for happiness, and if you will indulge me I am so happy with them I would like to share them.
First rule is: Free your heart from hatred. This should also include anger, jealousy and the other negative emotions. You see these emotions make no one suffer but yourself. If I could but live again all the moments I wasted with anger, I would be a much younger man now.
Second rule is: Free your mind from worries. Worry is the happiness thief, it steals it from your life and it is the biggest waste of all. Most of the things that I worried about in my life, never happened, and it was not because I worried about them, they just never happened.
The third rule is: Live simply, or simply live, they are interchangeable. A way to restate it is get rid of the disease of more. A better car, a bigger house, or the other trappings of wealth do not make you happy. If anything they are more likely to prevent happiness because after you get more, you still want even more, that is the disease.
Give more. This is the fourth rule, maybe the most important, but the give does not mean money, it means effort, action, and service. One day I was driving down the tollway and did not have a toll tag. I pulled in the booth to pay the toll. The attendant told me the guy in front of me paid mine and waved me on through. I had never seen that guy before and never have since but I spend the rest of the day thinking about it which led me to this rule, give more. If nothing else when you do something nice for people you don’t know it will drive them crazy.
Expect less. Don’t expect to get everything back that you give. My experience is you do, but sometimes it takes a while and does not come as you might expect. If you wait in expectation, it ruins the effect and the watched pot never boil rules comes into effect.
Finally, get rid of the stuff that drains you. I use to listen to talk shows on the radio during my commute, and I found myself always tense by the time I got home. I started listening to music, my music, the stuff my kids hate on the way home, and it helps. I am no longer concerned with the predicted gloom and doom. I figure I’ll let it surprise me.
So, first let me apologize to all whom I have been snippy with over the years. I promise to do my best not to do so again, but I cannot guarantee it, but if I do, just throw an orange at me, virtually of course.
