Comedians are often unhappy people who need to make others laugh.

And that’s what the very talented Robin Williams did.

He, like all of us, also had demons to fight – drug addiction, alcoholism, depression – but he fought the good fight until he couldn’t face his problems any longer.  Williams’ wife shared the knowledge that Robin Williams was suffering from early onset Parkinson’s disease – something that probably added to his woes.

The thought of not being able to no longer act or perhaps do standup comedy may have been too much to deal with.  Michael J. Fox did all he could and more to overcome the disadvantages of Parkinson’s.

It certainly has made me think about what life would be like if I couldn’t make speeches, write and do videos or be the husband or father I want to be.

So I have arrived at a place that helps me to understand Williams’ plight without condoning his suicide.

We are on loan to this world.

Our gifts may be shared in a finite way for a limited number of years.

There is always an ending but the focus should be on the present.

Robin Williams has given us many gifts in his career but the one we don’t want to forget about is a reminder to appreciate every day that we get to do the things that bring us fulfillment and happiness.

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Author Melody Beattie put her finger on it:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity…Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow”.

My music industry students at USC understandably wanted to graduate, get high paying jobs in the field that they loved and be happy.

But I warned them that Los Angeles (among other places) is loaded with rich, powerful, unhappy people.  Don’t become one of them.

Looking for ways to find gratitude is what I am talking about not just being thankful for a good job or a nice car.

Even the flu is a reason to be grateful because you will recover and be healthy again.

If there is one game changer for all of us, it is the power of looking for ways to be grateful.

The good stuff follows.

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This is the best definition of worry that I have ever seen.

It is so good that it prompts us to actually put a stop to it.

Think of it the way Dr. Amit Sood sees it:

“Worry is the interest you pay on a nonexistent threat – the principal.  Or, if a threat actually exists, then each time you pay an installment on this principal, worry is a proportion that is added to the original”.

We drive with the airbags already deployed according to Dr. Sood.

Think of it like that.

Before it happens, we expect the worst.

99% of the things we worry about never happen.

And for the 1% that does, what we feared wasn’t exactly what eventually happened.

In other words the negative thoughts we increasingly bring upon ourselves are worse than what we fear.

Or as Mark Twain put it: “I have suffered several terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened”.

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You are old when you outgrow the zest for enthusiasm.

Young people are naturally enthusiastic.

They haven’t been fully indoctrinated by the workaday world that often muzzles enthusiasm and discourages happiness.

Yet I know college students who are older than a 60-year old in their attitude and I have known 60-year olds who have the enthusiasm and curiosity of a teenager.

Botox erases lines but doesn’t infuse enthusiasm.

Personal trainers can get our muscles optimized in all the right places but they cannot show us how to be forever curious.

The world is youth oriented with 95 million Millennials coming of age and as old as 32, but there are a few things that belie age.

1. Smiling more is the best surgery for your face – it makes others open to relating to you.
2. The good old days were never that good, just old.  The real “good old days” are the ones we haven’t lived yet – the ones that are ripe with promise.
3. Diversity in interests, friends and passion are the true age interrupters.
4. An open mind is an eternally youthful mind
5. Humor is the great elixir that heals life’s hurts.

Or as Katy Perry sings:  “We can dance until we die, you and I…we’ll be young forever”.

We’re looking in the wrong place.

You will never find the right person for you by casting a net and hoping to snag them.  The divorce courts are filled with people who tried that trick one time too many.

Finding the right person is about finding what’s right for you or as the author Melody Beattie says, “to meet the right person you have to be the right person”.

1. Instead of checking the dating sites looking for the qualifications of others, sit down and take a look at your qualifications.  What makes you you?
2. Be able to name the five qualities that are most important to you in another person in order of importance.   Believe it or not, this isn’t easy to do. Knowing that, say, honesty, ethics, sense of humor, shared values or whatever may matter most to you is what you desire most in another.
3. Love at first sight happens because the people falling in love know exactly what they are searching for – no accident there.

Ironically, the more we look inward at ourselves, the more we attract people who possess the qualities we desire.

One more thing.

After a losing streak of bad relationships, take six months off – no dating, just hanging out with friends.  Spend the time to answer and embed the 5 qualities that you value most into your head.

Then when you start dating again, don’t be surprised if your luck changes.

I know.

It worked for me.

We all value being real and being honest.

The latest trend is young girls making YouTube videos and asking if they are pretty or not.

The New York Times recently ran an article on a 13-year old girl named Sammie who posted a video “Am I Ugly Or Pretty”.  She received 72,000 views in just a few months and 2,000 comments.

Sammie said she learned a lot about how cruel people can be.

Especially people who don’t know you.

Let’s put this one in perspective right now.

Beauty is hard to define and this is not really about beauty.  It’s about insecurity and looking to strangers to get that which many of us do not have.

1. Everyone is beautiful in their own way.  Is the second runner up in a beauty contest chopped liver?  Is a beauty contest even worth entering? If I ask you to tell me the most beautiful person you know, will you describe someone physically striking or the essence of a special person?
2. The only opinion that matters is yours – really.  Look into the mirror and see your soul. That is how to judge beauty.  Did you ever have a grandma who was ravaged by the years, hard of hearing and a mere shadow of what she used to be in her youth but you thought she was the most beautiful person ever.  She was.
3. Never, ever give control of your self-esteem to another person – not even a trusted one.  You are the guardian of all that is good about you.  This responsibility is not to be outsourced to another person.
4. Life is not a beauty pageant.  Can you name anyone more beautiful than Mother Teresa of Calcutta?
5. Don’t confuse good looks with self-esteem.  “Good looking” people are sometimes not nice.  And nice people are not always “good looking”.

If you must ask anyone to be honest with you and say whether you are beautiful, make that person you.

And the answer is yes.

I worked in television news where your likability is the most marketable asset.

TV stations and networks use what is called a Q Score to determine likeability.

Robin Roberts and Ellen DeGeneres are among the national TV figures who have high Q Scores and local TV anchors, sports and weather personalities are also tested because likeability means everything.

It also means everything to the rest of us.

Tom Brady, the New England Patriot’s star quarterback, is well liked in spite of the fact that he is good looking and has a beautiful wife.  We should hate him, right?

Here is Brady’s secret according to media consultant Randy Lane:

1. Be self-deprecating — “I’m the worst speller on the planet…”
2. Share your inner-dialogue — “I suddenly realized that I looked like a jerk…”
3. Be vulnerable — “I don’t think you ever have it all figured out.” Tom Brady

In short, be humble.

Humility allows people to get to know us and like us.

That’s what we all want – the two “A’s”.

We look for it when we do presentations.

We crave it in family and relationships.

It is the secret to being loved by others and encouraging love of self.

When we offer others unconditional acceptance and approval, we provide the glue that makes us stick close together.

Remember the power that we all have every day to offer those we care about the gift of approval and acceptance.

One of my readers tells me of a psychologist friend of his who has developed a way of shaking awake couples whose marriages are mired in arguing.

The first half hour is devoted to the litany of complaints from both the wife and her husband.

At that point, the psychologist asks the wife to leave the room while she (presumably) thinks he’s going to read the riot act to her husband.

Then he tells the husband “Buddy, you & your wife can come here once a week for a long time and do this and make my car payment for me or you can walk out of here today and never see me again if you answer this question correctly.  Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?”

It could just as easily work the other way around – the advice delivered to the wife and this is not to say that real issues should be avoided.

When arguing becomes a sport in which both spouses look to rack up points, the marriage is not going to be happy.

Choose your poison.

Be right or be happy.

14-year old Carleigh O’Connell is a Jersey Girl and thereby special to this Jersey Boy.

Unfortunately she was denigrated by bullies who made fun of her butt by spray painting “Carleigh’s Ass” on a cement abutment at the Jersey shore.

This is New Jersey – they’re going down.

Carleigh shows us the textbook way to stand up to such cowards by harnessing the power of social media.

She posted a photo in Facebook snapped with the graffiti in the picture and told her mom to post it as well.

Here’s what Carleigh’s mother wrote:

“[Carleigh] decided that she was going to be stronger than hurtful words on the concrete and that she was going to be proud of her figure … She also told me that she feels complete sympathy for the teenagers across the country who face this everyday. She understands and wants all of them to find strength inside to rise above the nastiness and be empowered by who you are, how you are made and what is in your heart”.

Many commenters said they wish they had Carleigh’s butt.

Isn’t Carleigh beautiful?

Isn’t she smart?