Lesson from the Life of Billy Crystal

I want to continue discussing the theme we had last week on writing your thoughts, ideas and life into a journal. I have strong and passionate feelings about this process of making a record of your life, about having the ability to read over all those ups and downs and the lessons we learn along the way.

This past week, I read about the fascinating life and thoughts of Billy Crystal in his incredible autobiography Still Foolin’ ‘Em. He wrote the book when he was turning 65 and it’s really a great read. It’s packed full of very funny stuff but I was quite a bit more impressed by his deep thoughts and feelings on everything from his family including his wonderful wife, kids and grand-kids plus the big impact his father, mother and grandmother had on him, to his numerous famous friends and not so famous friends and business associates.  I’ll tell you, if you read his book you will quickly grow to love and admire this man. He inspires you and gives you some great insights into the human mind and behavior.

He and his famous friends certainly lived the philosophy of “feel the fear and do it anyway”. That is something we all need to remind ourselves to believe in and practice. I think most of us look at famous and really successful people and think that they don’t have great fears like us but nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone has fears, but the key to success and a great life is to plow right through those fears and “do it anyway”.

The other great lesson I learned from Billy Crystal, or I should say I re-learned and reminded myself to do more of, was the huge value of people networking. I was astounded at how many friends and business contacts Billy had. Even though Billy is super talented I don’t believe he would have soared nearly as high as he did without his people networking. I’m talking hundreds of incredibly influential people he got to know who helped him on his path to such tremendous success. And did he ever soar! His success was not only as a stand-up comedian but as an actor in all those wonderful movies, TV shows and even on the Broadway stage. He made us laugh which is so very good for our minds and souls plus he gave us so many hours of movie and TV entertainment. Now through his book, he is giving even more.

I certainly don’t think Billy is even close to being finished as he approaches his 67th birthday on March 14^th of this year. The biggest lesson I think we should take away from Mr. Billy Chrystal is that all of us need to record our life, our activities and, most importantly, our thinking. This can be not only helpful to ourselves when we re-read what our thoughts were at different stages of our lives but also that your autobiography will be equally helpful to others. So keep making those journal entries and leave a legacy for your family, friends and everyone to enjoy as well as learning some great lessons from your own life.

Accepting the Moment

I noticed that myself, my wife and a number of other people are having a hard time with life events this past week. We will all have difficult times to deal with but how events affect us now and impact us in the long run depends on how we deal with them. If you’ve followed this blog for a while then you’ve probably read my thoughts on living in the now and how it affects your health, stress level, and just enjoyment of life. Well, the same kind of thing is key for dealing with hard times—awareness and acceptance of the present experience.

When we find ourselves in an emotional or difficult moment—whether it’s a deadline you’ve missed at work, a bad injury or the loss of a loved one—one of the first things that comes to mind is wanting or wishing we could change what has happened. There’s no point in doing this but we all do it just the same. If you hold onto those thoughts, you’ll just be torturing yourself which does you and those around you no good at all and can be harmful in the long run.

Now some situations can be changed for the better but not always and sometimes changing it is going to be a losing battle or just make something else worse. The first thing you need to do with any situation is to accept what has already happened. The past cannot be changed. If you missed that deadline, well, you can’t go back and get the work done on time any more but you can move forward and get the job done as soon as possible or put it aside and pick up the next most important task. If someone has passed away, celebrate who they have been and how they have enriched your life while accepting that everyone will pass on and that it’s okay, that it is just part of this wonderful miracle that is living.

Accepting and living in the moment won’t make the stress or pain of what has happened go away completely and that’s okay too. Disappointment, pain, and sorrow are normal when things get rough but they should only be momentary, a reaction to the circumstance. Feel your emotions and accept those as well. But let go of any attempts to control what has already happened. This will make it so much easier to accept difficult circumstances which will reduce the emotional and physical problems you’ll have when dealing with the situation.

So live in the now, accept the moment. Don’t spend time wishing things had been different and don’t try to change the present in an attempt to change the past and its effect on you and your loved ones. The only thing that can change how a difficult situation will affect you, is in how you deal with it.

Live in the Now: Be Free of the Past and the Future

I hope you had a chance to read last week’s blog and have been practicing keeping aware of every moment and accepting it for what it is. Now here are a few hints that can help anyone to live in the moment or in the right now more readily and constantly. At least they have helped me and I hope they can do the same thing for you.

1. Be free of unease. Make a conscious effort to monitor your thoughts and feelings by constantly asking “What is going on in my mind right now?” Halt any worrying questions about the past or the future.

2. See if in those monitored moments you can catch yourself complaining in speech or thought. If so, you are probably “playing the victim”. Calmly silence that kind of chatter.

3. Always remember that to complain is not accepting of “what is” and it’s usually something that is in the past or something you anticipate that will happen in the future. Either do something about your complaint or accept it.

4. As you move, as you play or as you work, do it totally in the great “right now” as if this one moment is all there is and all you want.

It’s interesting to note that many times, even when a person is engaged in an activity that is meant to be fun and enjoyable, it can be ruined or at least diminished by what the brain is doing or not doing. I’ve noticed for example, that many times when I am playing a tennis match–especially in a tournament–that the more I think about a bad shot that I just made or wonder if I might be able to win this particular game or set I find myself not enjoying this game that I play in order to have fun. Plus I notice that when I am having thoughts about the recent past (the bad shot) or the future (if I can win this game, set, or match) I usually don’t play near as well as I know that I can. So I am losing in two ways—first, I am no longer having fun and second, I end up losing the match. That’s pretty dumb, don’t you agree? And it doesn’t have to be that way, not if I just work on training my brain to live “in the now” and I mean that “right this moment now”!

It’s certainly ok and even fun to recall and reminisce over good and fun times of the past and it’s quite necessary to do some planning and goal setting for the future but the key is, don’t spend the majority of your time in those two places. For maximum peace of mind, pleasure, and feeling of fulfillment, spends most of your life in the great “right now”. Make “the now” the primary focus of your life.