The Ingridents for Happiness

Love is rare
Life is strange
Nothing lasts
People change

These lines from a wonderful song, "Old Friend" performed by Michael Feinstein, is beautifully melodious and sang as though one friend talks to another.

They're in a bar after one's relationship falls apart and the other is listening to the sad tale.

Everything sung in the chorus is an absolute truth!

Love comes and goes, bursts into brilliance or burns out slowly, sometimes lingering forever or may abruptly leave. You have to "Make Love", meaning it takes two which is tricky because often it's only one working on it while the other takes advantage. One day you wake up and realize you really are in love or ... you've merely been taken advantage of. Love really is rare.

Life is certainly strange. Just when you think you've figured it out you're jerked in another direction. It's chock full of surprises, unexpected opportunities and tragic things. Sometimes it's funny, boring, hurtful, lonely, or shocking though it has a definite ending that catches us all by surprise. None of us know how much life we have so no one's prepared when it stops.

Nothing last! "All things must pass," sang the Major Prophet George Harrison. Sunrises, sunsets, days, weeks, and years all slip away. Friends don't last, marriages end one way or another, churches go out of business, Governments crumble, the binding in books crack and stars and planets eventually die.

For sure, people change. I'm not who I once was though there's a funny quirk that I  think everyone else should stay the same. We don't! The best of us grow and keep at it right up until we die. Others get stuck even as they long for something different. Change takes courage, the ability to throw caution to the wind and a hearty dose of foolishness. The funny thing is even if we work out hardest to keep everything as it is, people still change.

But ... love ... life ... appreciating what we've got ... the friends we have ... those are the ingredients for happiness.

The trick is mixing them in the right proportions.

The other trick is to keep baking new cakes. You've got to always be mixing and remixing your love, life, accepting what and where you're at, and knowing who your friends are ... or unhappiness grows.

Take a moment now and do an inventory. Who do you love? What's strange about your life? What are the things important to you these days? Who are your friends?

Then throw in pinches of yourself and mix your happiness for today.

And do it again tomorrow!
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How will you enjoy today?

Sometimes you simply sit and stare.

Inside but somehow outside of yourself.


Staring through the open sliding glass doors at a glorious sun illuminating the water dripping from the trees, I'm just thinking.

There are no words ... just thoughts and emotions.

I'm focused on people I love.

Sarah tells me I love everybody, meaning it critically and as a warning. You're not supposed to love everybody because they screw you in the end and that's true of lots of people.

And I've certainly been screwed ... and it hurt ... and they left not giving a damn ... blaming me somehow ... and those I thought cared didn't ... and I was shocked at who did!

But the truth of the matter is I'm a Daydream believer.

I imagine and don't think I'm the only one.

I'm a fool, for Christ's sake, but there's wisdom in there somewhere if we really are Daydream believers, meaning we're honored and dishonored in life.

I've certainly been both.

But that's life! It's what you do with it that matters most.

God made life, gave it to us and now it's ours to do with what we want.

Or to not do anything with it.

Sarah's away visiting her parents in New York so everything is a bit out of sorts. The dogs understand somehow because they follow me closely whenever I move. The house is too quiet. It's just a house when she's not here. I'll be glad when she gets home though I'm glad she and the girls are having a good time.

Johnny O interrupts these thoughts with a barrage of text messages. He's asking about my son Jeremy though it quickly dissolves into really bad humor that has me roaring in laughter.

Ah, it's a good day to do good things, as my friend Dicky Trotter says.

I'm going to enjoy it.

I hope you enjoy yours too.
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Life outside of the box

Is the money I make worth the price that I pay? asked Graham Nash.

I vividly remember sitting in the floor in front of the television when The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan with my Dad complaining, "They'll never be Elvis.

"And in the end ..." they were more than Elvis.

Of course there would be no Beatles without Elvis.

He came first.

The only people to come close to them since are Michael Jackson and Bob Marley.

Each were incredible trailblazers leaving massive imprints on the world. Each doing what they wanted, achieving unimagined success, becoming imprisoned by it and killing four of the six before their time.

Their music remains and annually they outsell the newest stars making today's best sounds.

It makes me wonder.

All of them stepped outside of the box, forfeiting societal norms and the expectations of others to do their own thing.

And they did their own things magnificently!

So I wonder why the rest of us aren't doing our own thing?

We spend our days and nights doing other peoples things.

Going to work, taking care of parents, fulfilling the demands of religion, living in a certain place because the schools are better for the kids, working the allotted number of years before retirement ... we become indentured servants waiting on our happiness and freedom to arrive later.

When do happiness and freedom arrive?  We can all tell stories of those who do all the right things, meet each demand, fulfill every obligation, make the sacrifices to retire ... only to die soon afterwards.

I've done my time, gave others everything, met the demands, raised the kids, fulfilled expectations and ... jumped ship.

Sarah jumped too.

We washed up on a beach, tattered, torn, hurting and alone so we did what creatively, desperate people do ... shared sandy kisses. We had Sandy Bottoms & Duct Taped Hearts!

We've made a life outside of the box since then.

We're making a career outside of the box too.

And we're doing it all wrong.

We're too young.

We're investing in us now instead of later.

We're having fun.

Elvis died too young. So did John and George. The King of Pop too. Certainly Bob Marley did.

Who knows how much time we have left?

I just know I not giving mine away anymore except to the things most important to me! Not to anyone else!

Life's better outside of the box.
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You are Great!

The eight year old boy shuffles into the kitchen wiping snot from his nose and crying. He'd been playing in the vacant lot when a fight broke out and he ended up on the wrong side of the bigger boys who knocked him to the ground and kicked him.

"What's wrong?" his mother asks, dropping the dish rag she's holding in front of the kitchen sink. Dropping to one knee, she embraces him at his level, blue eyes blazing into his wet ones.

Eventually, he explains and blames himself for being too small, not smart enough nor quick enough to outrun them.

She picks him up and sets him on the kitchen table, dirty bare feet dangling in the air. Cupping his face in her hands, staring fiercely in his eyes so he has no choice but to stare back, she says, "You are going to be great? Do you understand that? You are the greatest!"

He stops crying, sucks snot back up his nose and nods his head.

"You are going to be great," she repeats before hugging him and cleaning his face.

In the years that follow, she does it again and again. They were always alone and she grabs him setting him on the kitchen table, cups his chin with blue eyes blazing into blue eyes, "You ... are ... going to be ... great!"

After a while, he knew it to be true.

And I went on to do great things having a long career selling homelessness, AIDS, addiction and health care to those who could afford to eradicate such things. I raised millions of dollars from people and Governments who really didn't care about homeless people, people with AIDS, addicts and the uninsured. I became an award winning author, sought after speaker and renown expert.

I also learned to blow my nose without help.

Many people think I've retired and am living the good life at the beach with Sarah my wife.

It's true Sarah and I are living a good life at the beach but we're also working hard doing the things I've always done. Instead of exclusively giving hope and success to the sick and the poor, I'm now helping everyone! I write daily blogs that inspire, books that challenge, online classes transform lives and personally coach helping to meet goals and achieve dreams.

"I would have never left had it not been for you," a retired teacher says. "I'd settled for a life I didn't want with a man I didn't love. Now I'm doing what I want and loving it!"

"One month in your class," a minister writes, "was more productive than paying for years in therapy."

"Thanks for helping me become a speaker and writer," a successful musician explains. "I had to get out the bars! Now I'm playing and speaking throughout the southeast in places I really want to be."

I'm too busy to retire because right now I'm looking you in the eye ... my blue eyes on you ... affirming the things you desire ... and I have something to tell you ... "You're great! Do you understand that? You're the greatest!"
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A Godly Use of One Finger

I was multitasking ... watching Sarah's girls splashing in the ocean, having a conversation with three different people at the same time on my I-phone and working on my tan. There was lots of space around me at low tide though lots of people were strolling in the surf, throwing a Frisbee or sipping beers while they talked.

The phone conversation was pretty intense as I read texts that were flying through cyberspace.

In the distance, a man stood from his beach chair and finished off the cheeseburger he'd bought on the Pier and threw the Styrofoam container in the air. The ocean breeze blew my way and it eventually landed in the ocean where the waves ended their journey on the shore.

He just watched it and shrugged his shoulders before resuming his conversation with his friends.

I couldn't believe it!

Jumping out of my beach chair, I stormed to the surf and retrieved his trash. As I stood, he was watching me. I held up my hands as to ask, "What the hell?"

Laughing, he shrugged his shoulders with a smirk on his face.

So I did what any good Christian who loves the beach and others would do ... I flipped him off and said, "Asshole."

He sat back in his chair not giving a damn.

BUT ... I sure felt better.

It's amazing to me what people are capable of doing to the earth and to themselves. Living at the beach, I care deeply about the environment because daily I watch how people are so cruel to it. Mornings I ride my bicycle down Tybee Island's main drag as City workers blow mountains of cigarette butts, plastic cups, articles of clothing and paper wrappers on to the street. At the same time a platoon of workers are walking the beach picking up the same items that were left behind by yesterday's crowd.

He could be the world's greatest brain surgeon for all I know. Perhaps a generous philanthropist ... minister of a great church ... fabulously rich investor ... or a redneck from the country! He could be all of those things.

What he is at this particular moment is an asshole.

Somebody needed to tell him and I'm glad it was me.

While it was a physical act on my part, it was also an emotional one. I shared my feelings, letting them out rather than stuffing them inside of me which is extremely unhealthy. It's better to let it out.

I figure that God placed me there watching Sarah's girls play in the ocean, texting with friends in real time cyberspace, getting darker by the hour for that moment.

"Asshole," I said again, sitting down with his trash.

Then I returned to the conversation with my friends.