Expectation leads to disappointment.

We are rarely disappointed with that which we expect.

It’s what we allow our minds to expect that makes us unhappy.

And demotivated.

When we keep our expectations low and our motivation high, the outcome is rarely disappointment.

I’ve been disappointed when I have allowed myself to look forward to something good that I expected to happen.

And I’ve been refreshingly surprised and delighted to see that I attained something that I may have hoped for but never expected.

When I sent audition tapes to TV stations, I never got a single answer.

And I sent them every month – month after month for two years.

Still no answers.

Until there was.

When a TV program director called and said come in for an audition.

I made my mind up not to focus on the monthly feeling of rejection but decided instead to keep churning out new audition tapes without regard to what would happen.

Disappointment is our enemy and we have the power to neutralize it by expecting little and spending 100% of our time on staying motivated.

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We race because we want to have everything.

Even people, who are married 50 or more years and lose their loved one, understandably wish they could still have more time.

Because for all of us, it is never enough.

Folks who feel stuck in a career rut often rush to judgment about making a move before it’s too late.

But it’s never too late and we don’t have to go far to see examples.

Young people have anxiety about attaining their dreams even as the world has not been fair to them.

Needless added anxiety.

The writer Norman Cousins while battling a crippling illness called Ankylosing Spondylitis, believed that the human emotions were the successful key in fighting illness so he asked his friends to join him in his hospital room while he laughed himself to death watching The Marx Brothers old black and white comedies.

Cousins didn’t die.  All that worry for nothing that a few good laughs cured.

He died of a heart attack but not the first one.  On his way to the hospital he told EMTs, don’t worry I’m not going to die.  And so it was.

It is a human condition to fear running out of time.

And important to note that this concern has less to do with age than it does with our thirst for happiness and need for accomplishment.

The remedy is to make it about today not tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s fears rarely come true and waiting for tomorrow’s dreams are useless because once we get there we want something else.

Time is the progress of existence.

Time well spent is obsessed not with bargaining for more, but focusing on now.

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Here is a poem by Mewling Jalaluddin Rumi that is frequently used in mindfulness retreats.

This, along with the book Man’s Search For Meaning about finding meaning in tragedy such as the holocaust should be go-to sources when the going gets tough.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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In a new book by Jo Marchant entitled Cure, we hear once again about the power of the placebo effect.

In the book she writes about 75-year old former golfer Bonnie Anderson who cracked a bone in her spine and was beset by pain and suffering.

She was to have an experimental operation called vertebroplasty in which cement is injected into the spine.

She left the hospital cured.

Except for one thing.

Bonnie Anderson never had the operation.

The surgery she underwent was “fake” – a placebo.  The surgeons never injected the cement.

Her brain believed that the pain would end and it ended.

Placebo effect is also a major consequence of anti-depression medication trials where 50% of the group is given the drug and the other 50% is given no drug with high rates of relief – almost equal to the medication – for those taking the sugar pills.

This is evidence of the importance of the brain.  How powerful it really is.

And there are every day lessons for us.

If you believe it, it can happen.

If your mind commits to a goal and we pay the price, anything can be accomplished.

Our minds are the ultimate resource for overcoming life’s obstacles and for pursuing happiness.

For all the medications, counseling and education that we get in life, it turns out that the most potent weapon we have is sitting right there on our shoulders.

The brain in our head.

As Henry Ford put it:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — either way you’re right.”

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My mother was a worrier and I took after her.

She had her reasons.

My father had a heart attack at 37 and I felt like I had to step up and be a “man” while I was still a young boy.

Most children are patterned for life by their experiences at an early age in their families of origin.

Perhaps this is why I sought out Dale Carnegie’s reassuring teachings.

But fear is a useless thing.

It impacted my health for too many years until I decided to take control.

By being aware of the problems that concern us and not to accept denial.

Accepting that life comes with fears but that we can deal with them.

To talk about our fears and try to work through them.

By attempting to live more in the present which is a reliable remedy for putting worry in its place right now.

Having the courage to let go of our fears and worries.

To replace “what ifs” with positive self-talk.

In the end fear is defeated by doing as Susan Jeffer’s suggests.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

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There are several kinds of forgiveness.

Start with the most difficult – forgiving ourselves.

Only after we forgive ourselves are we ready to go on with life and forgive others and expect that they can forgive us.

Then there is forgiving others as an act of will, a choice that we make.

We need to forgive others for our own sake.

Forgiving does not mean forgetting so saying, “I forgive you but I am still angry and hurt” is understandable.

One of the reasons we don’t complete the process of forgiving is because of our own anger.  As anger is resolved, love can reappear.

Letting go can represent compassion and understanding but never denial of the problem.

Finally, reconciliation is sometimes possible but not always.  In some cases avoiding continued abuse makes it prohibitive.

These views of forgiveness can set us free.

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Of all the ills that face us, stress is the killer.

Everyone (including me) complains about it.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors worried about large animals attacking their families and the human brain was built for that kind of distress.

In the digital age, not so much.

Here are the components that relieve stress and promote happiness:

• Let go of everything, but your dreams.  Trying to maintain control kills quality of life.

• Switch the focus from you to all of you

• Bullies are everywhere.  They are really weak people who make us feel bad about ourselves.  Stand up and push back.

• Compassion is the way to release animosity that brings us down.

• Don’t be a hater – and this is a warning, almost everyone thinks they are not a hater.  Be sure.

• Suffering is transformational – adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them.

• Reduce fear and worry by remembering that only 1% of what we fear ever comes true and even then it is not the way that made us so anxious.

• Living in the present can only happen when we are also channeling ways to be grateful. 

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It only takes a minute to make someone feel special.

Famed golfer Arnold Palmer’s “Arnie’s Army” knows this all too well.

When he gives an autograph, he takes the time to make it legible.

When he had lunch at the clubhouse a few weeks ago with 35-year old pro golfer Brandt Snedeker, Palmer asked if he would like to play the back nine.

Palmer birdied the 17^th hole and took money off Snedeker who is over 50 years his junior.

Snedeker’s response: “I had the best day. I showed up fully expecting to take up five minutes of his time and he gave me a whole day.”

The secret to making someone feel special is to exceed expectations.

The thing many people don’t know is that when you take the time to make someone else feel special, it makes you feel the same way.

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I once asked a grief counselor how long does it take to grieve.

His answer:  “as long as it takes”.

My response:  “but how long is that?”

And his answer:  “as long as it takes assuming you can conduct your every day activities in life”.

I was thinking about this on the anniversary of my mother’s death recently.

Of course I was everything to her and she to me.  It still doesn’t seem the same with her not around.  In the last 8 years of her life after my father died she lived with me.

And for part of that time I was a single dad so when I met a nice girl I wanted to take back to my house, here was my line:  “want to come back to my place (pause) and meet my mother and the live in nurse?”

What a Romeo, eh?

But oddly enough the girl that said yes, turned out to become my wife and my mother loved her as she loved me.

What I have observed is that by doing the opposite of what we might otherwise do is a great way to keep the memory of loved one’s alive.

I can cook every one of her great Italian meals just as she did and I talk about her as I prepare them.

But the best advice I ever heard about keeping the spirit of a loved one alive is something – believe it or not – I said to my girlfriend in college when she lost an aunt she was very close to.

I didn’t know how to be comforting so without thinking I said, “take one of your aunt’s qualities and make it yours and she will live on through you”.

I should have been that thoughtful in philosophy class but I unwittingly spoke the truth.

The body may be dead but the spirit can be kept alive.

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We sure have an outbreak of haters stalking people publicly in social media and for that matter in politics.  Even for politics, it’s over the top this year.

Recording artists and entertainers have become so good at hating on people that it has become a sick art form almost expected now to go along with the territory of being famous.

But it also happens at schools where our children attend.

Imagine the things you were bullied for when you went to school and then try to imagine how you would feel if you could never get away from that bullying because of social media.

That’s haters in the digital world.

Haters must be called out.

If you don’t hate all Muslims, you must stand up and say so.

If you don’t like the ways the LGBT community is treated, speak up.

By accepting bullying in the public domain we are winking at our children when we say don’t hate on others – sending the wrong message instead of a strong message.

Bullies must be pushed back and they will run.

And bullying takes place at offices – I know of many cases in the broadcasting industry.  That would stop tomorrow if people would call it out.

Remember how the poet laureate of Millennials, Taylor Swift sums it up:

“If you’re horrible to me, I’m going to write a song about it, and you won’t like it. That’s how I operate.”

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