The Friendship Boost

Last week I talked about the importance of reminding yourself to keep doing the good and healthy things that elevate your life. Having a good, active social life is a big one. It’s not only me that believes keeping up friendships can boost your health and the quality of life either. Some years back, I read an article on the Mayo Clinic website about just how important it is to maintain your friends and social circle.

According to this article friendships can:

• Increase your sense of belonging and purpose.
• Boost your happiness.
• Reduce stress.
• Improve your self-worth.
• Help you cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss or the death of a loved one.
• Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise.

Now, that’s a lot of benefits for something most of us would like to have more of anyways, at least we think we would. But we don’t always keep up those relationships, which is strange. Why don’t we?

It seems that life just gets in the way, and we always don’t prioritize our social life. We are constantly drawn away by things such as work, caring for children or elderly parents, or trying to make a dent in that long to-do list that is always hanging over our heads. We also move around a lot these days so even well-established friendships start to fade with the distance between us all. And then it’s hard to find the time and even motivation to go out and make new friends. But it would seem, we can’t really afford not to.

It’s not that we need to have a lot of friends to get these benefits, but rather, according to the Mayo clinic article, it’s the quality of the friendships. You want to have friendships that fulfill your individual need for a certain kind of closeness, comfort, and availability. This is different for everyone but the important thing is that they are friendships you value.

So, take time to call, visit, write or whatever else is appropriate for the relationship you have with your friends. Don’t let time and distance get in the way of acquiring all the great benefits friendships bring you. And, remember, you’re also giving those same benefits to others so you’re helping to boost their health as well as yours.

If you’d like to read the Mayo clinic article, you can find it at: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/friendships/MH00125

You Are What You Think You Are

Too many of us stumble through life on one consistently low plane. We see ourselves as failures in the things that really matter. When it comes to high stakes, “Count me out,” we say. “I can succeed at little things, but when the big times come along, I’m a total failure.”

And amazingly, we are right many times. We are what we think we are. We’re much like the fictional character in the novel by Harry Leon Wilson called Bunker Bean. Bunker Bean had a lot of potential locked up inside him, but because it was locked so deep, he didn’t know about it. But then something happened to make Bunker believe in himself, and despite his humble beginnings, he went on to make a fortune, overcoming his fears and weaknesses and becoming a giant of a leader.

Many, if not most people live and die with too small an estimate of their own abilities. As a result, they spend their strength on small tasks and never put their real powers to the test.

So it was with Bunker Bean, at least in the beginning. When Bunker was very young, both his parents died, leaving him alone and friendless in a cold world. As he roamed through his years in rags, living timidly through various terrors, he developed fears of all kinds. He also began to feel inferior because he couldn’t do anything right and his acquaintances made fun of him.

Bunker Bean’s life was one of misery. He was afraid of almost everything—policemen, elevators, streets, social and business situations. He was afraid to make decisions. He was afraid of the future. He was even afraid of himself.

Eventually, Bunker moved into a cheap, rundown boarding house on the unhappy side of town where he met a man who claimed to be a spiritualist medium. This new friend told Bunker that just as we cast off our old shoes and clothes, so we cast off our old bodies when we die; in fact, we are reincarnated as a new person.

The spiritualist was pretty convincing. He was so convincing, in fact, that when he said he had supernatural powers given to him from another world, Bunker believed him and paid his new friend to find out who he was in his previous life. When Bunker was told he had been Napoleon, he totally believed the fake spiritualist. Thinking he had been this great, confident leader in his previous life, he changed to match the image of his prior self which lifted him to a huge and higher life.

I think it’s absolutely incredible how our brains can work to lift us to a much, much higher level of living. Next week I will finish the story of where and how Bunker Bean lifted his life!

The Power of Book Notes

When I read books, I almost always write notes on the blank pages. I jot down a quote that strikes me or I write my own thoughts that were stimulated by what the author wrote. This week, I’d like to share some of my notes from a couple of great books. I hope they strike and motivate you the way they did me.

In Patrice Jenkins PhD’s great little book What Will I Do ALL DAY?, I wrote down a number of thoughts. Here are a few:

1. Structure can be and should be a very important part of our lives and now that I’m retired, I must push myself for more structure.

2. Set more deadlines and make more commitments and goals and always write them down with a time deadline.

3. Set my alarm and schedule time for working out and stretching.

4. Make a big deal out of small things in my life.

5. Remind myself often that, now that I am retired, I have time to turn molehills into mountains.

6. Remember that it’s very important when retired to find work for yourself.

7. Make a list of new places, cities and countries to visit — at least 6 more countries to add to my 94 already visited.

8. Write down my intentions for each and every day.

9. Take time to make a list of those things I love to do and push myself to concentrate on those items.

And here are a few gems I scribbled down when reading the book Write it Down and Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser.

1. Don’t forget that writing down my intentions works better than just speaking them.

2. Remind myself that I can’t have what I want most until I know what it is.

3. Writing is a good way to force my negative emotional reactions into words and not stomach churning.

4. I need to write down my intentions, my passions, my talents, then write down what actions I should, and can, take.

5. I need to take time to write down things that are not working for me in my life and let them go. Klauser ‘s suggested that you make that list then ceremoniously dispose of that paper, as in burn it or bury it.

Do these notes inspire you to make a few of your own now? Taking down notes as you read a book makes it a much more active and, ultimately, more productive read!

Before We Lose It

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had no idea how important the social aspect of my life was until the pandemic hit. That made me realize just how much I valued my face-to-face conversations and hanging out with my friends. It also hurt that our annual trip to Europe and other counties was gone. We’ve met so many wonderful people and made so many new friends on those trips as well.

Most of us take way too much for granted and don’t take the time to be as grateful as we should be for what we have. But when one of those great things in our lives is suddenly taken away… wow, we certainly notice how much we appreciate those things when they are gone. 

Something that I took for granted for far too long was my daily long walk and comparing my daily steps total to my previous daily steps. As I’ve written before, I have given myself a minimum goal of 20,000 steps a day, although I usually go well over that. I use a super great gift my wife gave me years ago, a Fitbit, that counts each step I take and gives me weekly totals. That little device enhanced and lifted my life. It’s helped me stay fit, even now as the ripe age of 80 approaches, less than 3 years away.

Well, that little device that pushed me to regularly walk my 20,000 plus steps a day was a big deal and I totally took for granted what it was pushing me to do until recently. I got hit in the head several months back, which laid me up for a while. 

Then, just this last week, I had a big trip and fall at 2:30 in the morning. I hit my right knee so hard that I could hardly walk the next day and for many days to follow. The few steps I did try to take were too painful, so I would find myself in bed or sitting in a chair all day long. Ugh. Even taking a pain pill didn’t help much. Double ugh! 

That is when it hit me like a brick that I’ve taken the ability to walk without pain totally for granted. I know this happens to many of us when we get injured, but shouldn’t we start to appreciate what we have before we lose it?

I think all of us should take time to consider all the great things in our lives that we are just taking for granted. I talked about that here on my blog before. Back then, I made a list of the many things that I was taking for granted, but perhaps it’s time for an update.

I suggest now, as I did then, that all of us consider making or updating a list of that kind so we have time to enjoy and appreciate what we have while we have it. Doing so has the potential to make us more content as we begin to truly recognize all the great things we have in our lives. 

You can look at my prior list to help you start building your own. It’s in my post from 4/16/2020. You might also want to read or re-read what I posted on 11/29/2020 for an additional reminder. 

Feed the Good Dog

No doubt we’ve all heard that we can’t love and appreciate others until we truly love and appreciate ourselves. But most of us have some deep dark doubts about ourselves. In fact, if we are brutally honest, we probably feel guilty (at least some of the time) because we’ve done things we are not proud of. We think, “If the world really knew everything about me, it wouldn’t think I was a very good person.”

If you’re like most people, you’ve had those thoughts before. Rabbi Harold F. Kushner, in his book, Living a Life That Matters, makes that point very strongly by simply stating that, “Good people do bad things.”

However, he goes on to say, “If they weren’t mightily tempted by their ‘yetzer hara’ (evil inclination) they might not be capable of the mightily good things they do.”

Kushner gives us yet another way to look at it:

“Good people will do good things—lots of them—because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are human.”

He also quotes a Native American tribal leader who described his own inner struggles with a canine metaphor:

“There are two dogs inside me. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”

When someone asked the tribal leader which dog usually wins, he answered after a moment’s reflection, “The one I feed the most.”

I think if you can focus on all the good you’ve done and recognize all the good that you’ll do on whatever journey you are on or are about to embark on, it will help feed that good dog inside of you.

So, the bottom line is that even if you know you are not perfect, it’s important to take time to be grateful for the good things you’ve accomplished and those tough goals you’ve reached.

No one’s perfect—not you and not me — and it can be hard to forgive yourself, but ditch the humility for a while and do that now. Choose gratitude for what you’ve done and toast yourself, putting all that guilt behind you.

Remember this from the Dalai Lama’s book, The Compassionate Life, where he wrote, “Everyone’s real enemy is within themselves—enemies are not on the outside.”

So, why not celebrate, appreciate, and love yourself now and every day?

Time to Appreciate

As I was walking down our very long driveway to pick up the garbage cans, I looked up at the same sky I see every day, but this time I focused in on the absolutely beautiful blueness and the great billowy white clouds. It almost took my breath away. 

Probably the biggest reason that I was so moved is because for the last few days we’ve had thick, ugly, smoke-filled air caused by the huge fires in the western part of Utah and from all the way over on the west coast. Seeing the beautiful blue sky I had missed over the previous days just made me really appreciate it.

While I admired our clear skies, the thought hit me that there are so many times in our lives that we just take things for granted. The truth is, we often don’t really appreciate them until they are taken away from us.

That was certainly the case for me when the pandemic restrictions started to be pulled back. The lock downs took away my social life and, as I wrote several posts back, the pandemic restrictions made me realize how very important my social life and friends are in my life.

So, up until the day all that dirty air and smoke hit our city and state, I took all that good clean air for granted. Ugh! But now, wow, I notice and totally appreciate our beautiful sky and clear air. 

After this mental breakthrough, I started making a list of the many things I love but don’t always take time to appreciate. Here’s part of that list. The first 6 are all good “F” words:

1. Family, especially my wife

2. Friends

3. Freedom

4. Finances

5. Fun

6. Future

7. Health

8. A brain that works fairly well. (Okay, my wife may dispute that one!)

9. Home

10. Country

11. Nature

12. Kindness

I think I need to make more and more lists and review those lists and on a regular basis. I am sure that will lift my spirts and my life. I would encourage and challenge you to do the same!

Focusing on the Kids

Kids, kids, kids! Don’t you love them? Maybe not all of them, all the time, but for the most part. When I watch kids play, I can’t help but smile and chuckle a bit, especially watching the toddlers or a newborn.

Last week I was overwhelmed and thrilled that my daughter Cammy gave birth to her 2nd child — an absolutely darling and beautiful baby girl weighing 5 pounds 13 ounces. That brings my grandchildren count to 20! As I held the little girl in my arms and looked into her face, I shed a few tears. Tears of joy.

When I look at kids and how fun, playful, and darling they are, I am stunned and sickened by the thought of those adults that physically or sexually abuse these wonderful, innocent kids. I’m always appalled when I see or read about this kind of thing. It motivates me to go out of my way to do more kind and good things for kids.

I really need to spend more time with my own children and grandkids as well as go out of my way to help kids that have suffered abuse or neglect. Those are some of my new goals. I also would challenge my readers to go out of their way to protect kids and be on the lookout for adults who may be hurting kids either physically or mentally. Let’s all be more aware of this kind of thing and take action when we see or hear of such questionable activity.

I’ve set a few more goals for myself as it relates to my children and grandkids and even their friends:

1. Take them hiking

2. For those who can ride, take them biking.

3. Give those that are old enough tennis lessons.

4. Read to them.

And that’s just the beginning of my list. Assisting kids and giving them a bit of direction on what to do with their lives is something else I’d like to help them with. I think helping kids can help change the world for the better, not just for them, but for all of us.

Quality Living is in the Moment

With age, and the experience of achieving great success, it has become glaringly clear that wealth, power, status, fame, possessions, etc. do not, by themselves, add anything significant to the actual quality of our lives. Yes, I find having wealth is nice and allows me to do many wonderful things like travel a great deal. I do thoroughly enjoy many of my physical possessions, like my house and all the bits and pieces my wife has brought in to make it a home. These things, however, are not how I measure how well I live.

Most of what makes a life worth living cannot be bought or collected. They can only be found in the experiences you have, what you give to others, what you accept, and how you choose to look at the world. It’s those many small steps that make up the journey that determine the true importance of the destination, not the destination itself.

If your ‘destination’ is great wealth, gaining that wealth will only be important if you’ve lived well, struggled often, and celebrated your small successes along the way. This is why lottery winners almost always end up unhappy. There is no journey, no sense of success, and no memories that make up the path to their wealth. The money just becomes a condition of their life, not something that engages their sense of personal achievement.

This idea brings together much of what I’ve been talking about these past few weeks — that your quality of life is made up of what you experience in the great right now. You want to live in the moment and choose to be happy or your life will be made of many disappointing moments, making the whole of your life disappointing as well.

Also, don’t forget to look for joy in the wonderful act of giving to others. Generous, kind acts will infuse your life with the kind of treasures that you could never buy or fabricate — they can only be given. When you give, you’ll often find that even more is given back to you.

Go ahead. Go for the wealth and the status and whatever else you dream of. Just remember to live a quality life along the way, and keep up your passion for living, not just for the future life you’re after.

Beautiful Mindfulness

Recently, I re-read Pema Chödrön’s great book, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change. It got me thinking again about the human mind and how our thinking can be super helpful or just terrible for us.

It’s so very, very important that we try to “live in the now” as much as we can. It’s not easy but we do need to keep working at it because it really can lift our life and happiness.

In last week’s blog, I talked about meditation and how important and helpful it can be for our lives. Pema says in Living Beautifully that, “Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness–fully present wakefulness.”

I totally agree with her.

She goes on to say that, “The specific details of our lives will, of course, differ, but for all of us, wakefulness concerns everything from how we make dinner to how we speak to one another to how we take care of our clothes, our floors, our forks and spoons. Just with other aspects of this commitment, we’re either present when putting on our sweater or tying our shoes or brushing our teeth, or we’re not. We’re either awake or asleep, conscious or distracted.”

Later she says, in reference to creating a comfortable life that this, “means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty”. Those things and thoughts are so very important to our happiness. We all need to put a lot of effort into really living in the present moment. Doing that can lift our mood and our life tremendously.

To help me with this, I’ve made a list of what I call My 10 Natural Mood Boosters:

1. Get into a routine

2. Set goals

3. Exercise

4. Eat healthy

5. Get enough sleep

6. Take on responsibilities

7. Challenge negative thoughts

8. Take good supplements

9. Do something new

10. Try to have fun

I’d like to add one extra thing that has always worked for me when I am feeling down. It’s so simple — just go outside and take a walk to anywhere, although a place that’s new for you is best. And yes, it’s very important to live in the now as much as you can—you will be glad and much happier if you do this as often as possible!

The Joy in the Journey

Would you agree that most of us, at one time or another, especially when we were young, had thoughts of being rich and or famous? And maybe those thoughts were followed by, “If I was rich and famous, my life would be perfect or darn near perfect!”

If you were at all like me, you certainly had those thoughts. Most people I’ve talked with over the years had those thoughts run through their mind at some point. But I’m here to tell you that a near-perfect life does not necessarily follow fame or wealth.

Yes, wealth can make a lot of things in your life an easier, but if you think that tons of money and fame will automatically bring you happiness and contentment, you’re dead wrong. In fact, I think you will find a higher early death rate and more addiction in the rich and famous than in the middle class. That is saying something about how imperfect a life with wealth and fame can be.

Riches and fame can give you a lot more choices, but you do need to be extremely careful with the choices you make. For example, gifting your wealth to charitable causes can bring far greater and longer lasting satisfaction than feeding a cocaine or alcohol addiction with all that money.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that money and fame, or going after great and lofty financial glory, are not worthy goals. Those are energizing, lots of fun, and can be very satisfying. Just be sure you enjoy each hour and day of your pursuit and be aware that whatever the end results of your journey, it won’t make your life perfect.

The thing is, nobody’s life is perfect and when you realize that and accept that fact, your satisfaction and contentment can really begin to soar. Trust me on that. I’ve been there, done that, and learned it. I have to remind myself that life is never perfect on an almost daily basis, pushing myself to concentrate on the big multi-year goals while, at the same time, remembering to “live in the now” and have tons of joy while on the journey.

Money can do great things for you, your family, and your life, but it is simply not everything. It is not the key to a happy, fulfilled life. Look beyond the wealth to what you can do to make things better for others as well as exploring and enjoying life. You don’t want your life to just be about making money. You want it to be about what that money can do for you and others. That’s where you will find the joy.

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