Law and Disorder

Not a day passes when we don’t judge good from bad, better from best or worse. Concisely, we are in the zone of comparing our life (mis)fortunes with others we admire or seek superiority over.

Comparison is a disease because it leads us to try to one-up anyone who has a possession we want or one we have that seems inferior or superior to theirs.

When we are in this envy or smugness state, our life game plan is put on the back burner in order to compete and hold the best jewels in our treasure trove at the expense of our moral solvency.

Enough is always enough – that is the measure of success, not the dollar value of our possessions. To understand what enough is means to evaluate what is important to us before purchasing superfluous or overly-extravagant items meant to impress others rather than to serve a necessary function in moving our lives up to the next level.

Several times in our life we must ask ourselves: Who am I and what do I stand for? The more clarity you get about those baffling questions, the less likely you are to go astray by buying crap that doesn’t solidify your philosophic and moral foundation.

Chinese Taoist philosopher, Lao Tzu, put it this way: “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” That is great advice for those of us who unconsciously go astray and drift toward moral bankruptcy.

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”
~Mark Twain~

It's time to debunk the notion that there are good lies.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to put on airs and keep a stiff upper lip every waking hour. Japanese and Brits are often similar at that level.

When someone asks: “What do you do?” and you haven’t worked a flyspeck in six months in your given profession, mechanical engineering, do you respond: “I’m a freelance engineer”?

When someone asks: “Do you like your job?” and you have been complaining about it to everyone in sight for the last few years, do you respond: “Oh yes, I just got a promotion. My work is very interesting and challenging”?
When someone comments: “You have a beautiful family. You must be so proud of them all!” yet you are a few heartbeats from divorce, do you respond: “Oh yes, I guess I’m quite fortunate”?

A lie is a lie. The difference between a white and a black lie is minimal because the effect is the same. It is meant to deceive or distort reality in order to put yourself or another in a better light or avoid conflict.

If we are hungry and decline food from a donor simply because we don’t want to be impolite or disturb the person offering, then we will likely starve to death. Food is basic and absolutely essential for our survival. Good form would be totally foolhardy in such a case.

We must somehow learn to be comfortable in our skin, no matter how embarrassing a situation or admission may seem. To sweep our true emotions under the rug and concoct a story to fool others is like drinking a slow-acting poison.

If you have no job, keep asking and looking. Don’t look like a dog with its tail between its legs. The greater shame is living in a state of denial.

When someone asks whether you like your job, why not respond, “It’s paying my bills, but I’m looking for something I can be more passionate about”?

And if asked about your “ideal” family life, why not avoid dishonesty by at least commenting, “There have been some good moments”?

Good form usually – no, ALWAYS! – detaches you from your true emotions. And over time, this detachment desensitizes you from who you are in essence and what you have to do to find a modicum of true happiness in your life.

If you are a druggie, a nicotine addict, an over- or under-eater, a kitchen drinker, or work out until you bleed from blisters…then you are your own worst enemy.

I am not saying you should confess to every person you come in contact with; what I am saying is that the energy you waste putting on airs and juggling lies could be put to better use becoming a person of credible character.

Why not decide to be absolutely genuine from this moment forward. It won’t happen over night, but it can happen.

Let your hair down.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” ~Kris Kristofferson~

If you go for broke, then you'll bring poverty to yourself. Go for wealth instead!

Throughout our lives we hear and blindly believe many non sequiturs.  These nonsensical emphasizers’ of speech can actually be destructive to our psyche at times, and often move us from a panic to a shipwrecked state in a flash.

One such phrase is “Go for broke,” and its kissing cousin, “There’s nothing to lose.” Think about it this way.  I want you not to think about pink elephants wearing yellow brassieres.  Your mind can’t help but focus on what you are not supposed to think about: pink elephants with yellow brassieres.

In the same vein, when you say “Go for broke” or “There’s nothing to lose,” the dominant thought in your mind is “I’m broke” or “I’m losing” or “I have lost.”

If you say, “I don’t want to be fat,” your mind chews on the idea that you are fat, fat, fat! which makes you charge to the refrigerator to console yourself with a triple-layered pastrami and six cheeses sandwich, a quarter-pound of German potato salad, and Diet Coke to slosh it all down before going beddy bye.

Do not allow bubblegum, nonsensical, negative thoughts to reach the gate to your mind unopposed.  Be careful everyday of who and what you listen to.  That news report that tells you many people are being laid off can undoubtedly plant the seed which will lead to your firing.

Be aware every waking hour, and focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want to come into your life.

Your Final Breakthrough uses the latest discoveries in the sciences of sound, psychology, and superlearning to create a completely new, totally safe, and thoroughly effective “psychotechnology” that reprograms your subconscious in positive ways to achieve the goals you seek. Its natural approach avoids subliminals to guarantee a pleasant, life-changing experience.

In a perfect world, that is. Yet that reality is no excuse for creating laws which create wrong-doers rather than protect us from the bazaar crazies out there. The former would do better, if they were educated better. The latter would do wrong anyway just to spit in the eyes of authority figures.

Yes, I am a minimalist. I judge according to need rather than desire. It is not my job or yours to create traps that turn non-violent human nature violators – that includes us all – into jailbirds. In jail it is the law of the jungle, and to survive one must become street smart like the hardened criminal.

Many who go into jail for drug usage, fraud or other non-violent crimes come out of that system a real criminal.

We must not let legislators – in an attempt to to coddle the voters’ prejudices and ignorant beliefs – to pass gotcha laws. We must allow the world to have a large portion of untidiness and disorderliness if we wish to keep our freedoms and avoid a police state.

Today’s New York Times featured an article about the new Draconian laws in Arizona to keep illegal wetbacks out of their state. Many people claim that those people are loiterers, burglars and steal jobs from the locals.

To the contrary, I see those people as being a reflection of misplaced priorities. In return we create two phantom criminal classes: the Mexicans are non-violent people wanting to escape poverty in their own land and the enforcers (with voters on their side) are also being victimized and criminalized for hiring such illegals.

On both sides of a divisive issue are being created jailbirds rather than social issue solutions. All laws should be only for the temporary address of non-violent malfeasances, and not for getting tough on phantom criminals.

From the IRS to Interpol to armies’ of liberation, we are creating enemies and criminals that do not and need not exist. Shoot first and ask questions later is great for a Dirty Harry movie – fiction – but is criminal in ninety-five percent of life’s daily issues.

The age has arrived when we should commence the dismantling of laws and dictates which create enemies and criminals out of thin air.

The late Rev. Martin Luther King sums up my argument when he says,
“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

Unjust laws kill and destroy lives of many who err just once. No God nor judge should wield such power. Laws are, for the most part, a Gestapo tactic used by those in power. The first step in trashing these excesses to develop an awareness of them. Hopefully, I have done my part.

“I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Though vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.”
~Richard Wagner~

Acting like your above the crowd makes you into a human doormat for scorn and derision.

If you have ever walked into a room, saw someone you didn’t like (for some ungodly reason), and immediately carried that feeling through your eyes and body language…you know the formula for defeat in human interactions.

Japanese are often labeled as being serious, humorless and silent because of shyness.  Some (or many) may show that superficial side in business in the same manner as a poker-faced gambler conceals a good hand, but most of the results in our life are a direct reflection of our thoughts before exchanging greetings and business cards.

In my humble estimation, there is not a single, non-brain-dead soul on this planet who doesn’t hunger for love and acceptance.

Though many of us humans may put on airs to try to impress others or repel all but those sexually attractive to us, truly we waste a ton of energy not connecting because of fear of the unknown and unknowing eyes scanning us from head to toe.

Just the other day, I discovered something.  Even (or especially) a robotic cashier or waitress in a fast food establishment tires of looking at her cash register or of pouring coffee with no personality.  Each yearns to somehow be noticed while on the job.

One such young lady was pouring my coffee and I noticed her jade ring.  I said to her that jade is my favorite too and that jade makes me feel happy.  I smiled and said, “How about you?”  She smiled back and her soul lit up beside mine.

It’s those small acts of kindness that can turn around a person’s day.  And when their day is turned around, other people’s days can be turned around as well.  And the ball of good vibration rolls on and on.

Most impressions we have of people are right simply because other people feel and begin to react to our vibrations well before we utter a syllable.

A genuine smile – it takes practice for some of us – or a gesture of appreciation to another can instantaneously turn a snob from your viewpoint into an adoring, genial fan.

Give this theory a whirl and see whether your life isn’t percolating within an hour.

Thinking in the present moment is not optional for achievers.

Stand up eight times.  I came across this old Japanese proverb in a karate blog.  It caught my attention because I can relate to it…and probably you can too.

Nothing under the sun is perfect, but we do have a choice to either accept things for what they are and move forward or grumble about every petty and not-so-petty challenge or unfairness in our lives.

The former will allow us to run to daylight; the latter will stir us into a stew of perpetual failure and unhappiness.

The next time you reminisce about youthful heartbreak and despair, remember one point — You survived!   And nobody in this present moment (you should be living in) cares an amoeba turd about what your misfortune may have been.

In fact, if you incessantly tell people about the good old days or the bad old days, they will label you a sad relic incapable of being resurrected.  They will naturally move away from you and move toward people and ideas cherishing life.

Living in the present moment is exhilarating because it is within our grasp.  It is a time zone that challenges us to take action to make this world – through our unique presence – a bigger and better place because we passed through.

Times are tough, we hear over and over again.  But the truth is that character is not built when everything is going hunky-dory.

Sometimes Japanese stoicism makes me feel that their citizens are indifferent to and enamored from experiencing pain.  It makes me feel that maybe they never ponder anything philosophical, yet do live more in the present moment than many of their westerner counterparts.  In other words, maybe they are racially superior.

But then there is the dark side of giggling indifference and vapid pursuit of material things here.  I’m talking about the more than thirty thousand suicides in Japan each year.  They scream of a society that is constipated with worry and stress unspoken and uncorrected.

Stepping back from the rush of events threatening to swallow us up is essential for sanity.  That’s why professors with tenure get a sabbatical.  In that time off they can explore new avenues which can help them better define who they are in the scheme of things and how they can best contribute to humankind.

We all deserve and must demand time to reflect.  Once we have done that, we can stand for the eighth time and never look back again.

“Shallow men believe in luck.  Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

I often have heard and have often said myself:  “How lucky can you/I get?”  These are the words of a person who believes that fortune is a happenstance event unrelated to our thoughts and actions.

Luck really turns on whether you are willing to fail often enough in order to carve out your success.

Buying an established franchise or marketing a product that is hot in the marketplace, for instance, does not insure your success.

Nor does thinking positive thoughts and having boatloads’ of capital to spend on a “Can’t miss!” business.

The real determinant is whether you are willing to fail most of the time in order to hit pay dirt.

A major league baseball player is unlikely to get a hit more than one out of three chances (and usually somewhat less), yet still makes a cool million dollars or more per season.

But they are swinging.  They know the odds.  They play the odds.  And they get paid because they stay in the game even though they keep striking out until that magic moment when they get their inevitable one hit out of three or four at bats.

In the game of life we must shoot and then aim.  A famous Internet marketer, Mike Litman, says it eloquently:  “Don’t get it right, just get it going.”

The competitive world we live in requires us to keep plugging away while others wave a flag of surrender and encourage us to do likewise.

Put your ear to the huge locust tree and hear the gentle grating of a bore worm. Just an insignificant worm, you say?  What can that measly worm hope to do with that monster tree?

Grate, grate, grate! For years that almost imperceptible grating goes on, while the mighty locust lifts its towering branches in fancied security.

Finally, a storm comes and the locust hopes to brave it as he has many others; but behold, its strength is undermined.  Its vitals are eaten away, and it falls — victim to the tiny worm.

Thus is the spirit of a success warrior when he steps to the plate one more time to get his one out of three hits.  His or her determination can and will steadily eat away the sturdiest and most formidable of locust trees standing between us and our dreams.

Ready?  Batter up.

“If you ask the wrong question, of course, you get the wrong answer. We find in design it’s much more important and difficult to ask the right question. Once you do that, the right answer becomes obvious.”
~Amory Lovins~

Are you ready to stand out by standing up?

Deep thinking is often serious business, but it is worth the effort.  To design your life requires conscious and subconscious synchronicity.

In Japan, self-deprecating behavior is the norm.  Compliments are met with denial or false modesty because that is the Japanese way.  The nail that sticks up here must be hammered down.

Modesty does have its place in business and private circles alike, but nobody can speak for you or about you better than YOU.

Success mentor, the late Jim Rohn, points out:

“Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”

But what exactly is your job?  Some people will define themselves by a title:  banker, baker, geophysicist, etc.  Others will identify with their company:  GM, IBM, Toyota, NTT, etc.  Still others will be brutally honest by saying:  “Work is whatever puts the food on the table.  I’ll do anything.”

There is a potential problem with all three descriptions.  Each person sees there work and their life as being an external affair when in stark reality you are more than your present job, present company and present existence.

Your potential is based on how big you become inside.

Do you handle stress or does stress manhandle you?

Do you lead and take initiative or do you plead for responsibility?

Do you read the book or attend the seminar to make you a more valuable person or do you make a million silent excuses why you shouldn’t and can’t?

Isn’t it about time that you take inventory of who you are and what you can best do to serve?  This idea isn’t a luxury reserved for the idle rich, but a necessity for all folks wishing to maximize their worth and earning potential.

Start right now by focusing in on you.  For a little assistance in doing so, I have included a link to a truly free analysis to get you on the highest path possible for you.

Find Your Perfect Business!

“The possibilities for mobilizing the experience, imaginations, and intelligence of workers, both employed and unemployed, are limitless.”
~Emlyn Williams~

For most of my youth (and maybe yours) when you went into a job interview you would give the interviewer the answers you believed he or she was looking for.

Quite often those answers were lies, distortions, or lined with self-doubt.  After all, you wanted to get to work and begin holding your proper place in society.

If it took a few distortions or naive assertions such as “I want to help your organization develop the next Game Boy,” or  “I want to lead the effort to develop cars that run on meglevs”….so be it.

It was a means to an end, right?

Fast forward to the winter of ‘09.  Many of those people who clawed their way into the system with self-deceit and lies and were then able to endure its chains during good times, are as easy to spot as a stripper heroin addict in a room of Born Again Christians.  They are unemployed or hanging onto their job by a nose hair because they never followed their dreams and their fraud was finally sussed out (slang for discovered).

Call it karma , if you must.

Japan is deeply effected by the recent dark clouds circling the economic planet.  “As GM goes, so goes America,” and as Toyota goes, so goes Japan.”   Many people have bought into this mindset, and have caused a run on the mind bank.   People and governments are gasping for air and a fresh approach.

Rewind to those first job interviews.  Isn’t what you really wanted and what you finally settled for vastly different?  You settled for a salary, and promised your employer in return that you would be a good boy or girl, follow orders, and sell your soul to the boss-devil as long as they could pay your bills plus a little alpha.

You wanted independence, but chose the wrong vehicle – others to lead you.

I recently watched a microcosmic view of “bread line” mentality in a New York Times video.

(Watch it!)

All the people in the video are hungry to work and many seem to have good skills and abilities.  But they are standing in line with many thousands of others at a job fair hoping against hope that they will win the job lottery for less than 40 positions offered by the boss-wo(man) inside.

You and I don’t need to stand in line.  You need to evaluate who you are:  your passions, your abilities, and your dreams…and then take action.

You and I have infinitely more worth than the salary a boss wo(man) can offer you.  Let’s stop chasing crumbs when we can have the pie.  It’s all a matter of attitude and follow through.    Believing is seeing.

“Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition.”
~George Clason~

During the bubble keizai (economic boom) in Japan, I was fortunate enough to have won a government lottery enabling me to buy NTT stock when it was privatized.  That deal yielded me a cool one million yen in profits before I unloaded it three days after the purchase.

I wasn’t skillful in stocks, just plain lucky to have been in the right place at the right time with some cash to invest.  Since that windfall, I have stayed clear of investment brokers and stocks.  They don’t give a damn about you or me.

A fool and his money are soon parted, said a wise farmer some 500 years ago before stock markets, sub-primes, and derivatives were even on the horizon.

Through no fault of my own, I knew less about financial markets and the science of getting rich when I graduated from college than a slum resident in Bombay.

How could one know?  Nobody ever teaches fundamental finances.  Most of us grow up believing that getting rich or becoming financially secure is the result of working your way up the corporate ladder or flipping real estate or winning a lottery.  While others of us get brainwashed into believing that being financially secure is unholy or sinful or a surefire path to Hell.

There has always seemed to be a conspiracy among the rich to make the struggling middle class and the poorest of societies dependent upon the educated gentry to control our money in return for a  very modest return – commonly called table scraps.

Ignorance is the nightmare of most people rushing to the workplace at 9 AM sharp for umpteen years and others who trust governments and financial institutions to act in the citizen’s best interest.

What we didn’t learn in school or from our parents and loved ones about finance has left us in the dark about how money works and how it could and should work for us, even in recession or depression.

My go-to mentor, the late Jim Rohn, summed up what differentiates the rich from the strugglers and stragglers:

“The philosophy of the rich versus the poor is this: The rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left.”  A slight nuance is the difference between millions in the bank and bankruptcy in the courts.

Earl Nightingale discusses this same dilemma in his phenomenal audio series The Strangest Secret. He came from a poor family in Chicago during the Great Depression.  Being naively confused about why people were so poor at that time, he asked many relatives and neighbors an innocent question:  Why are we so poor and how can we become rich?  These poor people hadn’t a clue, of course.  So he went to the librarian and asked her:  Are there any good books on how to get rich?   The librarian shrugged her shoulders and said she hadn’t heard of such a book.  So adolescent Earl combed the library for weeks before he found the bible of getting rich called Think and Grow Rich.

It is never too late for us to learn how money works, so that we can be at the controls.  Making more of it seldom makes one independently wealthy.  Money management has little to do with how much you make.

Moreover, knowing how and why to invest can allow us to breathe easier in these uncertain times.  Our newfangled knowledge will also make it possible to teach our children how to be financially independent, even without a regular job.  And subsequently our children can proudly pass on this legacy to future generations everywhere.

Let’s help each other out of the dark ages and into the age of enlightenment.

If you think you’re a winner, you’ll win.
If you dare to step out you’ll succeed.
Believe in your heart, have a purpose to start.
Aim to help fellow man in his need.

Thoughts of faith must replace every doubt.
Words of courage and you cannot fail.
If you stumble and fall, rise and stand ten feet tall,
You determine the course that you sail.

For in life as in death, don’t you see,
It’s the man who has nothing to fear,
Who approaches the gates, stands for a moment and waits,
Feels the presence of God oh so near.

You’ve been give the power to see,
What it takes to be a real man,
Let your thinking be pure, it will make you secure,
If you want to, you know that you can.
~Anon.~

“No matter what your product is, you are ultimately in the education business. Your customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with you, trained to use your products more effectively, and taught how to make never-ending improvement in their lives.”
~Robert Allen~

In Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret, he mentions a swank department store in downtown Chicago that did swimmingly well a half-century ago.

That store had many mink stoles and the affluent clientele would regularly rummage through the very expensive furs just to find that perfect one suitable for a glamorous evening out on the town with their hubby.

They would buy the coat on credit and then the very next day after the glamorous event would return to the store and demand a refund.

One of the store clerks was on to these thieves, and went to the store manager and barked, “Mr. Green, are you blind to what these conniving women are doing? Can’t you see that they are using us?”

At that point, Mr. Green pulled out the client’s record file, flipped it onto the desk, and told the nonplussed employee to take a look. The employee reluctantly did so and was astonished to learn that that very lady he was complaining about had spent (without return) nearly $10,000 on apparel and accessories that year.

Then the manager stared at the employee with an amused grin and said, “That lady plops down a lot of cash here each year. She more than pays for your salary every year. If she wants to borrow a stole for an evening gala, so be it.”

In today’s highly competitive markets online and offline, you need an edge. You need to develop mutual trust with the people whom you want to buy your goods and services. In some cases, that might figuratively mean giving away half the store as an ethical bribe.

If all you have is all you ever intend to produce and deliver to hungry buyers, then sadly your days as a marketer or an entrepreneur are numbered.

Japanese have often played it safe. They look for the path of least resistance and greatest security. But in the modern world, the play-it- safers are going to be left behind in the planetary dumpster. The mom-and-pop shop may be quaint and sometimes can be profitable, but only if the owners have a plan rather than a “I just wanna get by” attitude.

The enemy of Excellence is always Good Enough. Give with pride, passion and excellence and know you will receive your fair share in return.

“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.”
~ Orison Swett Marden~

It is called “Being in the flow.”  You know you are there when everything and everyone that enters your life makes you happier and more energized.  More money, more love, more understanding, more breakthroughs take place effortlessly in this zone.

Moreover, those in that flow seem blessed with an abundance that is incomprehensible to most mortals.  The naturals of the world make up less than  three percent of the population of any given society, and while others struggle to make ends meet, they flourish beyond comprehension.  They seem to have the Midas Touch.

If you have ever attended a motivational conference or an entrepreneurial workshop put on by successful people, what you see in the audience are people hungry for success and looking to the charismatic millionaires on stage for guidance in removing the one unknown obstacle that separates them from the rich speaker.

Many in the audience know the content of the presentation even better than the speaker does, yet the results of the listeners remain meager indeed.

Some of those leaders look like chiseled movie stars, but interestingly some do not.  Some speak like finely-tuned politicians on message, while others seem to be halting and idiosyncratic.

Ask these leaders why they have results which have made them millionaires while others spend tens’ of thousands of dollars filling their pin heads with high-sounding notions which don’t seem to work for the masses, and they will say:  “Just do it.”

Here’s the problem:  Successful people have a divine ability to focus on what they want and filter out what could hold them back.  They can’t explain how they do it because they don’t know how they do it.  They just do it.

To learn from such people the system for success is a valuable investment worth making.  But unless you understand how to break out of the loser’s mindset by learning from people who first teach you to ask the right questions to yourself to break out from the ninety-seven percent crowd, the money you invest in such seminars will inevitably be flushed down the toilet.

Systems for obtaining wealth mean cockroach crap without first being spiritually grounded.  Making money and enjoying abundance cannot be discovered in the next great opportunity or hot business system.  It’s an inside job that will take some time and effort.

A great book on this subject is written by a man who understands the ninety-seven percent of us, Noah St. John.  Read The Secret Code of Success: 7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness before chasing any more rainbows.

“The coward regards himself as cautious, the miser as thrifty.”
~ Publilius Syrus~

I’m as guilty as the rest of the mob.  When a relative stranger approaches me, gains my ear, and ultimately convinces me that they have a real solution to my personal or financial problems…well, I still hesitate and reach back to make sure my wallet is still stewing in the rump pocket.

Let me get in your face and mine.  Life is not a saintly adventure.  It is full of cataclysmic choices.  When you have weighed the pros and cons of doing or buying something, make a choice.  NEVER pocket veto a chance to be right and to move your life forward one notch or a hundred.

In these dismal economic times, when most people are licking their FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real), resolve to be decisive.

The alternative is to find your fame and fortune in a soup line with all the losers shaking with fear and unwilling to invest in anything or anyone that could possibly improve their lot.  Get out of that line.

Think about the moments when you say, “If only I could afford to get help with XXXX, I’m sure I could succeed.”  Most likely you have been saying the same thing for ages, hoping against hope that God might intervene with oodles’ of money or a knight on a white horse who will sweep you off your feet and gallop you away to the castle of your dreams.

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Find Your Perfect Business!

Let’s say a financially-secure relative takes his precious time and explains to you a formula to get a job by the end of the month, though you have been on the dole for six months.  It all sounds logical, but when your friend says it will cost you $200 in envelopes, paper and stamps and  another $100 in phone bills…you balk.  “I can’t spend money,” or “My spouse wouldn’t let me do that,” or “That sounds good, but you’re different than me.”

So you keep your dwindling cash in the rear pocket and continue to pray for divine intervention.  Of course, you don’t receive it, unless you consider one meal a day at McDonald’s to be divine.

That friend then gives you tough love and tells you that you are the most moronic piece of cockroach feces on the planet.  He tells your wife that she’s a disabler, and then shrugs his shoulders and walks away saying, “It’s your life, fool.”

Husband and wife look at each other in flashes of rage and utter despair.  Finally the husband says, “I’m going to invest in that stationary and stamps and send out hundreds of resumes.”  He does so and, lo and behold, three weeks later he’s back at work.

The lesson?  Find good advice from successful, ethical people and then follow it to the letter.  Going cheap is very costly and stupid indeed.  Think always of what your Return On Investment (ROI) may be, if you act.  There are no guarantees of success when you step to the plate, but the soup line crowd will most definitely keep you treading water forever.

“Praises for our past triumphs are as feathers to a dead bird.”

~Paul Eldridge

Have you ever attended a party of people over 30?  A few are fit.  A few are rich.  A few are ebullient and confident.  A majority are full of hot-air stories of unproven and improvable glory years.

Fast forward to a party of people over 45, and now nine out of ten are full of bluster about the way they used to be.  Their stories are so incredible, that even (or maybe especially) their wives’ – usually the male specie does this -  eyes roll.

“I used to be a scratch golfer, says one.  “I used to date the most beautiful girls on campus,” boasts another.  “I used to be Barrack Obama’s buddy in his Chicago days,” blinks a third distortionist.  “I ran a four-minute mile when I was 19,” claims another boaster with a potbelly gut.

The used-to-be crowd remember the good old days as remarkable, but that’s usually because they tend to forget or brush over uncomfortable failures and setbacks which lessen their achievements.  If only the cameras had been rolling to record real history, maybe the braggarts would talk much less boastfully about their past.

“No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life,” Bertrand Russell mused, “as not to receive new information from age and experience.”

Stop trying to impress people with the old, unreal you that may occasionally make you feel good or impress those unfamiliar with your past.  To ruminate about the used-to-be’s of life will surely paralyze you in the here and now.  They never ever produce a a drop of honey.

The best of your life is in front of you, whether tomorrow or 50 years remain in store.  If age and ability seem to be draining you of your life force, then learn to make lemonade from the lemons you have been given.  The happiest people always do so.