So we have a plus size model as one of the three finalists for this years Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue – Ashley Graham.

And while there has been a lot of positive feedback that finally, skinny didn’t dictate the winner, there are some troubling things we should be aware of.

Former model Cheryl Tiegs has come out to say that being a large model is unhealthy in essence fat shaming (here)

Health is important but skinny people sometimes have high blood pressure that you would expect of bigger body types.

The traditional body-type model Tanya Mityushina, one of the three along with boxer Ronda Rousey, has also complained that she might not win the most admiration because of the unprecedented sentiment for the plus size model.  See it to believe it here.

The best way to understand this is to pretend you are a parent and your child is automatically eliminated from the things some body types find as advantageous.

By the way, skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming and it also happens.

When we learn to see people and treat them as individuals not as pre-set expectations, we are achieving humanity.

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It’s impossible to do better than our best.

So why is it that our best is often not enough to make us happy?

Think of a sports team that goes out and plays a game with their best skills and they lose.

Could they have won by playing better than their best?

This is where we bring a lot of personal misery upon ourselves.  Our job is to bare down and do the very best we can and then give up control of the outcome.

There are some things we cannot control in life and the outcome is at the top of the list.

I find this inspiring from J.C. Penney, the founder of the department store chain that has had its troubles in recent days.

“I wouldn’t worry if I lose every dollar I have because I don’t see what is to be gained by worrying.  I do the best job I possibly can, and leave the results in the laps of the gods”.

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At times during my career I have felt the need for the affirmation of others to get me to my goals.

But even the most supportive people cannot achieve the success that comes when we rely on ourselves – not others – to affirm our path of action.

When I started a business, I so wanted everyone to tell me it would be a success – and some did. But things didn’t work out until I actually believed that what I was doing would succeed – eventually.

Affirmation works best when it starts with us.

I’m actually at a point where when I share an idea with someone else if they like it, I question whether the idea is actually the best I have to offer. Is it innovative enough? A game changer? Disruptive?

I often tell audiences that when a speaker stands before a crowd, she or he must positively affirm that they’ve earned the right to be there before they have a right to expect a rousing round of appreciative applause at the conclusion.

Get back into the business of affirming yourself.

Start this morning at work or in situations where you are called upon to come up big. Don’t look elsewhere but to yourself.

When you affirm yourself, then the recognition that later rolls in from others will be the realization of others of what you actually believed FIRST.

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Psychologists say that most of our personality and by extension future health and happiness is determined by the time we are 3 years old.

Change after that point requires great desire and hard work.

It also requires something that we actually have the ability to do whenever we want to.

The ability to choose a different course of behavior.

• If we find ourselves in dysfunctional relationships, we have the ability to decide every day that we are going to seek healthier ones – even if it is just for a day or night.

• If we hate our jobs or the people we work with, we can choose to change jobs and stop relying on excuses like – my family needs the money, it’s a bad time to make a change – you can supply your own examples, I’m sure.

• If we are unhappy, we can choose to be happy if not forever for a period of time no matter how short.  It is within our power to do so.

• If we are letting family of origin issues affect our marriages and relationships, we have the ability to put a “stop hold” on that behavior even for a short period of time.

Scientists know that our brains determine everything about us.

In people who live by fear, a simple MRI will indicate that one part of the brain is larger than another.  Not good, but it explains why we are like this.

If we ruminate about things depriving ourselves of happiness, we can decide to choose to ruminate for only a half hour a week and be happy.  Again, an MRI will show the part of the brain that controls rumination to be larger than it should be.

We can retrain the brain.

We can choose to be happy, healthy and fearless.

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People who used to send or receive Christmas cards know that the proliferation of instant digital communication and social media has not helped people say “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas” any better.

The snail mail cards are disappearing each year but they are not being replaced by and large by digital cards or even just emails or texts that say “Merry Christmas”.

The ability to communicate seamlessly does not mean that we are communicating more.

Context is lost in a text message.

Emotion is a guessing game (often an incorrect one) when reading someone’s email message.

Even young people who drive the texting revolution are beginning to rethink whether a little old school communication might not be more rewarding.

I am making a conscious attempt to take the best of email, texting and social media along with phone calls, more face-to-face situations and even letters.

When telling a person you are proud of them, there is nothing better than a written message that can be posted, saved or savored.

The reason young people are beginning to rethink their options of communication is – well, frankly, because they can’t get the attention of even their parents and friends who have also embraced convenient technology.

Text, emails and social media postings have their place.

Being there in the present for another person supersedes even the coolest technology.

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Forgiveness should be the easiest thing we ever do, but it is often the reverse.

Forgiveness is the gift we give to ourselves.

And the reason that it should be easy for us to forgive is because we are all fallible human beings.  In other words, I can safely say we all need forgiving from time to time.

It becomes difficult when hyper-emotions are involved.

Being Italian I can share horror stories (that some of you may be able to second) where decades go by without people dealing with the issues that come between them.

When I was a young boy attending my first family funeral, I can still picture one of my relatives throwing herself on the dead body in the casket of a person with whom she harbored an ongoing contentious relationship only to be restrained by several attendants.  (I’m still damaged by that virtual video in my brain).

We can forgive even when the other person is not interested in receiving it – we just do it and feel free.

We can forgive without conditions when another person seeks it because, as Dr. Amit Sood says, all of us are vulnerable to ignorant thoughts.

But most importantly, forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves and others for being human – without conditions.

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Rabbi Harold Kushner is known for his bestselling book When Bad Things Happen To Good People but the book he wrote that I value above all is titled When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough.

In it, he suggests that finding happiness is like a butterfly.

The more you pursue it, the more it eludes you.

That’s why we cannot write “be happier” on a list of things to do because happiness is a byproduct of doing something else.

Recently in Glendale, AZ two teenagers killed themselves on the campus of their high school in what was reported to be a murder/suicide pact. They had so much to live for in their young lives and they have left their friends and families devastated.

We have so much in this world and yet somehow it feels so empty to many of us. We are always searching for a life that matters.

The pursuit of happiness does not produce happiness.

It does not make problems go away.

There is no known formula to be a happier person other than this.

Gratitude, meaning to be grateful for even the aches and pains of life not just all the benefits.

Compassion, meaning trying to understand the feelings of others even when they disagree with us or hurt us.

The pursuit of gratitude and compassion gives happiness.

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When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, the news media covered the death itself, the political angle as it pertains to the presidential election and the governance aspects in a divided court.

Scalia was a staunch conservative and over decades helped transform the Supreme Court by tipping the scale to a non-liberal agenda on some issues.

The story that may have gotten lost was the very close friendship between Scalia’s opposite on the court – Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a relationship considered “the odd couple”.

But it was what they had in common including their love of opera that prompted her to call Scalia one of her “best buddies”.

The love was returned as Scalia in tribute to his fiend called her “the high court’s counterweight”.  Remember now, we live in a divisive world especially in politics and government.

Scalia made it even more real when he said, “What only her colleagues know is that her suggestions improve the opinions the rest of us write, and that she is a source of collegiality and good judgment in all our work.”

Ginsburg said, “I disagreed with most of what he said, but  I loved the way he said it”.

Years ago, Scalia named Ginsburg as the person with whom he would want to be stranded on a desert island.

Scalia once wrote a scathing dissenting opinion and then serenaded Ginsburg with his rendition of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin”.

It was Ginsburg who once said “”I love him, but sometimes I’d like to strangle him”.

It is easy to be friends when you have everything in common and no points of disagreement.

But to be loved for who you are and not whether you agree with each other is the friend we wish we all had.

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Ironically, the cure for narcissism is having a healthy love of self.

Narcissists have an unhealthy craving for improved self-esteem.

A 2010 study in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science reports that the percentage of college students exhibiting a narcissistic personality has increased by 30% since the early 1980s.

Narcissists are less honest, more aggressive. They spend a lot of time primping on social media sites like Instagram.

We cannot do much to motivate others from abandoning self-absorption but there is plenty we can do to stay far away from it.

• Develop a healthy self-love and acceptance for you as you are.

• Connect in real time with others in settings where you can also monitor their reactions (face to face, for example).

• Avoid the use of the words “I” or “me”. Isn’t it amazing how many narcissists continually use these words without a red flag popping up to indicate that they’ve indulged themselves enough.

• Separate from social media – use it cautiously because it quickly becomes a wasteland for users and sadly, most don’t even know it.

• Do not try to impress others.

I hate to say this but Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People still ranks in the top 30 books according to Kindle sales even though the stories are outdated and the writing style would turn off a Millennial.

But it can be boiled down to this — seeing things from the other persons point of view is your insurance policy against being a narcissist. 

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You can’t have it all without paying the price for all of it.

But often, having it all is not worth it.

A stay at home parent pays the price at work.

Ted Koppel stopped his ABC News career to raise his kids in a day when that was considered weird but when they grew up he returned to his broadcasting career and became famous for his “Nightline” TV series.

He paid a price and got a gain.

Not everyone has to be a parent.

Not everyone has to be a successful entrepreneur.

The solution to having it all is checking in with yourself two, three, four times a day to get accustomed to being in touch with what you really want – what matters.

Here is Amy Westervelt’s article on the myth of having it all that may hit home.

In the end, having it all is what’s right for you not anyone or everyone else.  If you know what you truly want, then you will be prepared to pay the price for being truly happy.

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