We are obsessed with the future.

What will happen when we get out of college, our next job, who will be the love of our life even what new features will be on the next iPhone one day after the latest one is introduced.

With all this pressure to think ahead, we have taught ourselves to make it difficult to live in the moment.

Everything we live for is here today – now.

What we want for the future is just conjecture until it happens in real-time.

Being stuck in the future is not so easy to change.  There isn’t one thought or action that will make us flip a switch and all of a sudden become Eckhart Tolle, the author of books on living in the now.

But there is hope and it’s very simple.

Look for things in the present to inhale, to become lost in – one thing a day, 365 a year. 

It’s probably something right in front of us that is getting lost as we continually look ahead.

What is the one thing occurring in your life that you want to focus on as it happens?

As D.H. Lawrence wrote, “The living moment is everything”.

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There is something in all of us that wants to get our way.

But when the desire to impose your desire on someone else becomes a compulsion, it ruins relationships and damages critical self-esteem.

Bosses do it when they abuse power and force everyone to think as they do. 

Power figures and parents often cross the line between being helpful and hurtful when they must have their way at all costs.

A friend of mine used to half jokingly say that what a wonderful world this would be if we could choose our parents.

For good outcomes in dealing with control freaks, consider this:

1. When someone intimates or states that they know what is best for you, best to not believe it even if you are forced to carry out their will (from an employer, for example).
2. Never let anyone program what gets recorded in that “digital chip” we call our brain.  Even a compliment.  When we allow others to say, “You must do it this way” or worse yet, say hurtful critical things if you resist, then do not let it into your mind.  When getting a compliment, you add it to your mind by using it to reiterate how you already feel about yourself or else risk being co-dependent to the person offering the compliment.
3. Our brains tend to replay criticism rather than positive things, fill your head with positive statements that can be repeated all day.
4. Never try to control a controller.  Be assertive but don’t let them turn you into what you don’t like about them.
5. Say, “I appreciate hearing your thoughts, I’d like to share mine” for those close enough to appreciate your position because sometimes others may not be aware that they are as domineering. 
6. Set boundaries.  Defend them respectfully.  If you get nowhere, refuse to discuss the topic further.
7. Trying to control a controller at work makes life more stressful and will get you fired.  Make suggestions but defer to the boss until you can find other employment.

One more thing.

Sometimes we become the control freaks, but the solution is more readily treated by taking a dose of the following medicine:

“The best way to gain control is to give up control”.

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Potions and lotions and Botox exist to make us eternally younger but as one of my readers wrote, “Do you have any suggestions for making our world more livable as we age?”

It seems as if we live in a world created for young people, but every generation has said that.

I used to tell my USC music students that they would get so old that they will not like music younger people like.  They were shocked to hear me say that day would come before their 30^th birthday.

So much for chronological aging.

Good health goes a long way but aging really is terminal unless you adopt a more positive attitude.

1. Living in the past relegates us to aging more quickly.  Visit the past for happy recollection not as a retreat from contemporary living.
2. A future with no new ideas, routines or challenges accelerates the aging process.  Think like a teenager, it’s okay.  Force yourself to try new things and no one will care or even notice your numerical age.  You may have to kick yourself to get started but you’ll love the way it makes you feel.
3. Every attempt to live in the present transcends the march of time.
4. Avoid using the word “old”.  And the word “young” is not useful.  Substitute “enthusiastic” instead.
5. Even many doctors stop learning when they get in their productive earning years, the first sign of aging is an unwillingness to commit to learning new things about your profession, life and interests.

Life is not fair.

Babies die, men live until 100 and suffer the ravages of aging for decades until they pass.

In this economy it has been noted that if you lose a job today and you’re older than 50 it may be your last full-time career position.  Depressing?  No.  It means, take a different path instead.

Lots of 20-year olds are old and 70-year olds young.

The best advice for remaining “young”:  never outgrow your zest for enthusiasm.

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We know that when things go bad, dig down and find more gratitude.

But one way to endure rough spots in life is to take an inventory of your strengths.

In a Veterans Affairs psychiatric rehabilitation program, patients were given an opportunity to take a 240-question survey to determine strengths and virtues and receive a printout of their five best strengths. 

The participants reported pride in their discoveries, improved mood and a sense of accomplishment by doing nothing more than reflecting on their strengths and virtues.

And this had a carryover effect in which many veterans referred to their strengths as they continued therapy and planned for their future.

We spend too much time ruminating about what is wrong.

For most of us, making a conscious effort to recall and remember our strengths and virtues can be the best help for getting through tough times.

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I read a fascinating article from the doctors at Harvard Medical School that happiness in part depends on choices but more choices don’t necessarily mean more happiness.

Actually, fewer choices can help you appreciate what you have – the opposite of what many of us think.  After all, today we’re all about options. 

Having fewer choices can also be freeing.

The University of Minnesota conducted a mall survey in 2008 that showed making more shopping choices made people less able to pay attention.  They were tested on simple arithmetic problems and were less able to complete them.

Research from Swarthmore College and Columbia University showed college students who had the most choices for employment made on average 20% more but a year after being hired reported being less happy with their new jobs than classmates who looked for the best options instead of going for volume.

It turns out once again that more is not automatically better.

If you’re like me, you crave the most options, but the research that I am sharing today is making me take a second look.

Action Step:  “To keep the burden of choice from robbing you of pleasure, go on a choice diet.  For choices of no great consequence, limit the amount of time or number of options you’ll consider.  Just say “no” to too many choices” – Harvard Medical School “Positive Psychology”.

If you liked today’s thought, tell a friend and I’ll keep them coming

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I’ve liked myself the best when I have been true to myself.

When I think with my head.

Feel with my heart.

And not the other way around.

When my life is not the “overnight Nielsen ratings” in an attempt to make more friends, curry more favor to ingratiate myself to others, make more money and accrue more power by being someone who I am not.

I start each day in front of the mirror while shaving by being grateful for the people in my life, looking deep into my own eyes to remind myself of who I really am and who I want to be and by dreaming of what my life could be with the day ahead that I am fortunate enough to have.

Sometimes it is difficult to be yourself.  God knows, there are pressures all around to be the employee the boss wants, the partner your spouse wants and the “success” society expects.

Everything we do to be a better person should be directly tied to everything we do to be the fine person we already are.

It takes courage to become the person you really are.  When we make it part of our daily routine, it is not only possible, but probable.

“Do your thing and don’t care if they don’t like it” – Tina Fey

Let’s face it.  People are often funny about saying those three words.

But there is no need to let that stop you from expressing love to a spouse, a friend, a child or a parent. 

Maybe we just don’t do soap opera I love you’s very well.

Not a problem from now on.

The words are nice but the deeds are nicer.

A dinner with a card that says it for you is just as much a winner as the words without dinner.

A USC student told me that most of his friends have credit cards from mom and pop and to him that meant spend anything but don’t ask me to come visit.  So, when it comes to expressing love, actions do speak louder than words.  Money isn’t love.

Consider this as a father Paul Harvey once talked about on his radio show how he slipped a note into the glove compartment of his daughter’s car in case of an accident.  Well, she had that accident and read the note which said something like don’t worry about the car, you are safe and that is all that matters.

And remember, even people where I love you’s freely roll off of their lips have no advantage over the rest of us.

Food is love.

The gift of time is love.

Funny thing.

Sometimes when the action speaks louder than the words, the words find a way of coming out more easily – in that order.

Let’s get lovin’.

If you liked this thought, tell a friend and I’ll keep them coming

When I was a Dale Carnegie instructor, I once heard a student who, as part of her speaking assignment about a childhood experience, told the class that her father removed all doors from their house including the bathroom.

What a dramatic reminder of the power of shame.

But shame isn’t limited to bizarre situations like removing the doors in a house.  Shame happens every day even in subtle ways.

Sometimes we are the shamers who tell another: “you should be ashamed of yourself” and sometimes we are the recipients of shame.

Marilyn Sorenson, author of Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem says “unlike guilt – which is the feeling of doing something wrong, shame is the feeling of being something wrong”.

There are four effective ways to deal with shame:

1. Accept your faults as long as you can name an equal number of good virtues.  The French poet Jean de La Fontaine said:  “Everyone has the faults which he continually repeats, neither fear nor shame can cure them”.  We are less vulnerable to shame when we feel good about ourselves.
2. Avoid becoming codependent to another person because codependent people rely on others to validate them and they are subject to shameful feelings.
3. No one – like in no one – gets your permission to act in an abusive way.
4. Love in self is the antidote for shame. 

Shame kills self-esteem.

But love of self kills shame.

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The brilliant underground artist Lou Reed who died over the weekend at the age of 71 pleased audiences and performers alike.

But perhaps his best contribution was to remind us that our lives have a certain order – a type of continuity – that should be on our minds throughout our lives.

Reed told Rolling Stone in a 1987 interview that he considered all of his albums as chapters of a book in his life:

“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter … They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”

Life with a purpose, not an accident.

The chapters are things that we actively dream, plan and accomplish using our God-given gifts.

You never complete it, nor do you stop writing new chapters until the day you die.

Reed pioneered lyrical honesty and paved the way for punk and alternative rock with his life’s work.

How is your very own Great American Novel shaping up – now is a great time to plan and write the next chapter.

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Look at it like this.

When you start your car, you can’t use your house key.

When you open your office, you can’t gain entrance with your desk key.

What lets you into a safe deposit box doesn’t open your luggage.

But somehow we miss the most valuable tool we could ever use to bring the best out of others – it takes a different key for everyone to unlock their value.

Bosses have one set of rules – but why?  Everyone is not the same.  This doesn’t mean every employee gets to make their own rules, it means not everyone responds the same way to one approach.

Why email memos to “the staff” or “the team” are a waste of time.

And “rules” will increasingly get you no cooperation in a world that hates rules.

The best new management skill is to create a mental key for everyone you deal with – by the way, this works at home as well.  From now on, one key doesn’t fit all. 

The key to unlocking the talents of Megan is not necessarily the same key that unlocks the skills of Josh.  Know this and you will increase your effectiveness as long as you do it.

Be prepared to carry around a mental keychain with all the knowledge you have of dealing for each individual in your life.

The greatest achievers already have this in their DNA. 

We can add it today.

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Thank you is two powerful words.

If you ask people what is eating them, a lack of appreciation is near the top of the list.  In fact, for decades, workplace studies confirm that the number one thing employee’s want in their career is appreciation.

Even above money!

Money often ranks fourth or lower.

Appreciation is free – we humans have the capability of manufacturing as much appreciation as we need every day.  And yet, too frequently we don’t do it.

Everyone knows how to show appreciation – a word, a note, a handshake, a compliment in front of others – the ways are endless.

But first we must make generating constant appreciation a more significant part of our daily routine.

May I share with you what got my attention the very first time I heard it?

Even a seal is thrown a fish for listening to its trainer.

What an image.

What a great way to remember to walk around and hand out the “food” that makes people happy, cooperative and motivated – sincere and honest appreciation.

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You don’t have to be a monk to meditate.

Sometimes life is too intense.  Too much going on.  Not enough ah ha moments.

Brain scans done on people who meditate prove that the body pushes more blood to the brain creating more happiness and calm.

For those having difficulty mediating, here’s the workaround:

1. Ten minutes a day – set an alarm.
2. Phone off.
3. Find a place to be undisturbed but it can be done anywhere
4. One deep breath through the nose and out through the mouth, close your eyes, feel the weight of your body and mentally scan down from the head to foot to discover how your body feels.

For some reason we think we have to take meditation classes to get the proven medical benefits of just 10 minutes of stress relief per day.

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A friend of mine named Wynn Etter used to pay the bridge toll for the car behind him when he crossed from New Jersey into Pennsylvania.

He loved to do it and to watch the reaction of many grateful drivers over the years who sped up to try to pull up beside his car and wave a gesture of thanks.

In Sunday’s New York Times, the journalist Kate Murphy wrote that Americans are being spontaneously generous these days – perhaps due to the discouraging things that are happening in our nation right now.

So in many cities in the U.S. and Canada fast food drive-thrus are seeing an unprecedented number of customers who are paying for the person’s meal in the car behind them.  There have been “pay it forward” incidents involving between 4 and 24 cars at Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Del Taco, Taco Bell, KFC and Dunkin’ Donuts in many states according to the author.

The payer pulls away before the person behind gets a chance to say thanks.  And because it is anonymous it’s not creepy because nothing is asked for in return.

Imagine if this “pay it forward” movement expanded to helping people get ahead in life with the understanding that they, too, would then one day have to give a helping hand to others.

“Pay It Forward” is not a government program, it’s not mandated, and it’s all about doing good during troubling times.

They say one person can’t change the world, but they can buy them a burger. 

“For it is in giving that we receive”  — St. Francis of Assisi

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Why waste the energy to hate a person who is at odds with us?

That includes people who are evil, selfish, hurtful or ignorant.

Expending positive energy on disliking people who are not nice is tantamount to a boomerang coming right back at us.

But forgiving is not forgetting.

We must find a way to forgive our enemies as difficult as it can be.  Sometimes they are family and often they are people we know well so it can be very difficult.

We don’t have to expose ourselves to continued hurt and disappointment.  Cut it off and move on.

But no one has ever found justice by doing the exact same thing to others who wish hurt onto them.

Let it go, move on and rid yourself of the negative energy of others.

“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don’t like” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Almost no one can remain unhappy if you do this.

Try to say yes.

Among the things that make people angry and upset is when they feel no one is listening.  Worse yet, not responding to them in a positive way.

On a recent flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix a US Airways gate agent seemed to look for ways to say “no”. 

To be fair, these airline employees are often hamstrung by company policy.  Can’t find you a seat.  Can’t sell you an upgrade so you can sit together until just before boarding.  Can’t stand in line an hour in advance to be first to board. 

Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.

The airlines are famous for this but unfortunately in today’s world, no is the new yes.

Let’s get beyond no.

1.  Find ways – and that means really look for them – to say yes to others at work, at home and even in occasional contact with people you don’t know or see very often.  Even if policy prohibits you from doing exactly what others want, we can often find another way to say yes and deliver the message we’re listening and responding.

2.  In personal relationships – you can do this one today if you want – give a spouse, child or friend your say in making a choice or decision if you can be comfortable with it.  Stand back and watch happiness like you’ve never seen.

3.  Be sincere.  Nothing is worse than an insincere attempt to manipulate another person by fooling them into thinking you’re listening and responding.

There are lots of things we cannot control in life, but saying, “yes” to others is not one of them.

Say yes to impress.

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Advocates of the mind/body connection say you don’t have to go to church to practice gratitude. 

And adopting an attitude of gratitude has been proven to make those willing to do it happier.

What I thought was useful was the term “Intention Deficit Disorder” that I heard Dr. Oz use – that is, the ability to start each day with a positive intention as opposed to rehashing or ruminating on the negative things in our lives.

What is your intention to be happier today? 

To be blunt, if we start the day without a specific intention to be happy then we are at the mercy of luck to find happiness.  Those are bad odds.  We can do better.

1. On your phone or iPad or on a simple piece of paper, wake up, take a moment and isolate one positive specific thing you intend to do to be happier today.
2. You will have 365 of them for each year – 366 in a Leap Year.
3. You may repeat the same intention on purpose or not because this simple log will tell you a lot about your intentions.
4. Before closing out the note or putting away the paper, rate how yesterday’s intention worked.  Did you have a good day or bad – rate from 1-10 (10 being a spectacularly happy day).

Most of us want to be happier and only need to make a positive daily affirmation part of our routine to rid our minds of negative thoughts that haunt us so we have a chance for happiness.

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When I graduated from college, call me stupid, but I never once said I wanted to make a lot of money.

Yes, I wanted a nice car and a house some day – and that takes money.  But money as a goal is something I have never pursued.

Many of my classmates took a more direct path seeking riches over even happiness.  And a half-time report would indicate that those of us who sought to work in jobs that made us happy instead of rich actually did pretty well in both ways.

Millennials care more about happiness than money and their older friends and family often think they are misguided.

But …

1.  Psychologist and psychiatrist offices are filled with not just the poor but the rich which helps explain why so many rich people have shrinks.

2.  Nothing is worth working in a job that doesn’t make you happy no matter what the price.  Note how Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was recruited from Google for her high-powered job that is built around her new child and family.  She got what she wanted because she knew what she wanted.

3.  Money doesn’t buy friends, it buys the illusion of friends.

4.  Now, when our friends are happy or sad it influences us.  When people do things that make them happy, it spreads instantly through social media and picks up momentum.

5.  Choose who you work fore carefully.  Millennials are not easily pushed around and they know what they want.  A 2010 poll showed they actually like their bosses more than Baby Boomers.

6.  Dreams and optimism are mood enhancers.  Dreamers are really happier.  We all have dreams, but we must give ourselves permission to pursue them in our personal and family lives and at work.

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” -Adam Smith

As long as we don’t give up, we can never, ever fail.

Think of that.

Do everything wrong, get every bad break, have everyone turn against you, compete against the more talented, get beaten down every day and it is still impossible to fail if you absolutely refuse to give up.

The one thing about giving up is that it is for losers.

Winners never give up no matter how bad things get.

When England was bombed night after night by Nazi planes in World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill could not afford to mince words to his beleaguered people.

Remember, by day the British had to walk over the rubble, tend to the injured and dead and then prepare to get battered again at night.

It doesn’t get any worse than that.

Keep that in mind and repeat the powerful phrase Churchill told his people:

“Never, never, never give up”.

It’s in our power to will our way to success because you can’t fail unless you stop trying.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight” – Japanese proverb

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This is valuable advice for anyone and particularly for young people in the developmental stages.

You can have more people like you today by being authentic.

Advertising used to be accepted for being cute or cutting edge and now it seems like lying.  Facebook and social media make people say and do things that seem hard to believe or at best disingenuous.  We try too hard to be perfect when being real would do just fine.  The standards are set high in a society that boasts the number of friends it has in social media.

Here is a short course on being well liked:

1. The more you try, the more you stand for nothing or as Margaret Thatcher said, “If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing”.
2. Work hard at pleasing others.  That’s saying a lot in the current climate of self-absorption.  Steve Martin made the point:  “Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I’d do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled”.
3. Be an original not a copy.  If you try to be someone else who is great, you will still only be an imitation.
4. Be open to all kinds of people.  As I used to tell my USC students, as we age we largely rely on our established network of friends and acquaintances.  Engage different cliques.
5. Be approachable.  A smile or a kind word let’s others know you are available to be a friend.

Being authentic means being real – admitting to making mistakes and not being perfect and always be willing to cherish your new found ability to be happy with yourself as you are.

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The most exciting times are when we leave the past and try something new.

Do new things. 

Find new careers. 

Meet new people. 

Discover new things.

But too often we have to be forced into starting over.  It is a residue of something unfortunate that compels us to take action.  We eventually buck up and tackle the job of starting over because we have to.  And the results are almost always the best of times that follow no matter how things started.

What would happen if we didn’t wait for misfortune to descend upon us before starting over again?

Sports teams somehow need to hit rock bottom before they really shake things up to compete again.  In corporate America companies cling to their traditional streams of profit even if their revenue is consistently heading down.  Even in our personal lives we frequently overstay relationships that are without feeling due to fear of having nothing in its place.

The next time you’re ready to change the status quo and start over, let this inspire you:

1. Live in the future not the past.  As Carl Bard says, “Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
2. Welcome failure because it is going to take a few failures to arrive at success.  There is no way around it.  Lee Iacocca saved Chrysler Corporation by trying things (and yes, failing) and he says, “So what do we do?  Anything.  Something.  So long as we just don’t sit there.  If we screw it up, start over.  Try something else.  If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”
3. Use a new canvass every day.  When we paint a picture you don’t keep throwing paint on the same canvas.  We actually get a new canvass every single day.  Think of it like that.  How many empty canvasses do you have?
4. It’s never too late to start over.  If that’s our excuse, what we’re really saying is I’m not ready.  Today – even now – is a good time to start especially if you remember that the sooner we begin, the sooner things get better.  Guaranteed.

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