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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Lu Ann Cahn, a longtime TV reporter in Philadelphia and a longtime cancer survivor believes she has found a way to eliminate the blahs, the depression that hits us when things go wrong.

In 2010, she felt a funk coming on and decided to try a novel change.  She would do something new every day.

She walked across the 8,300-foot span of a bridge one day and although a suspicious police officer stopped her fearing that she was going to jump, she was never more in the moment in a positive way.

Lu Ann Cahn survived three major health problems that began early when she was 33.  She’s now 53 and writes about how she recharges her life by doing something positive every day.

She’s serious about trying new things.

On one January 1^st, Lu Ann jumped into the icy Atlantic Ocean in nothing but a bathing suit.

She can’t skate very well, but she auditioned for being one of The Philly Roller girls.

She slid down the stairs of the art museum after a snowstorm.

But not all her new things were challenging and wild.  Some days she pushed herself to meet new people.

It’s free.  It works.  And it turns a disadvantage into an advantage.

Here is Lu Ann Cahn’s inspirational story.

And a link to her book and blog.

“I dare me” – Lu Ann Cahn

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A co-worker always seems to oppose your ideas and suggestions.

A spouse hates it when you get your way all the time – or so they think.

A child refuses to do that which you ask them and has to be forced to do it.

These things have never happened to you, right?

Of course they have unless you know the formula for winning the enthusiastic cooperation of others.

1.  Create a win-win by responding to ideas and suggestions instead of reacting to them.  Reacting can be more emotional.  Responding is a means of first letting the other party know you’re first listening.  Great with co-workers.

2.  Make the other person think the idea is his or hers.  Believe it or not, when you give up control of “idea” ownership, others buy in to what you are suggesting.  Effective with everybody especially those close to us.

3.  Begin by asking the other person for their ideas and suggestions before asking them to respond to your call to action.  Try this with a child next time you ask them to clean their room or do something for you.

People don’t just hand us their cooperation.  We have to earn it.

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