If we’re going to be honest, reopening our lives comes with its challenges.

People are not meant to be hunkered down and absent a daily routine.

When a player comes off the bench cold, he or she is telling themselves I have what it takes to succeed in this game.

So why is it any different for us?

You’ve done it before and can do it again.

You’re rested or should be.

When I got my first opportunity to be on TV, the program director said, “you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”  Of course, I said skirting the truth.

I had imagined it since I was a teenager.  I rehearsed it in my mind over and over.  Indeed, I was ready.

As complicated as life is, one thing remains simple.

If we don’t believe in ourselves deeply, how can we ask anyone else to?

That’s the phrase to repeat every time self-doubt creeps in.

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We’ve all heard of the dreaded fear of failure but most of us rarely consider the fear of succeeding.

It even has a name – achievemephobia.

It’s real.  It holds people back.  Prevents accomplishments because fear of succeeding is fear of failure’s other cousin.

If I get what I want, I might lose it. 

If I open myself up to 100% commitment and fail, I may become a bigger failure. 

At least if I expect to fail, I can prepare for it.  The fear of succeeding can be so sudden.

Fight it with thoughts like “I’m worthy of success”, “I won’t go negative on myself”, “I expect success because of I am earning the right to have it”.

It is almost impossible to stop a person who expects to succeed.

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The printing press meant faster transfer of information than writing by hand.

Radio was immediate and brought us active as well as passive listening.

TV eliminated a lot of the thinking – pictures did more of the work.

Digital is instant, totally eliminating lag time.

But lag time is necessary to make good decisions.

Just because we have the technology to communicate instantly in real time doesn’t mean it helps make better decisions.

Our first idea is often the worst idea.

Our impulse to react when we feel threatened often turns into regret.

In spite of technological advances, time is still the best asset for making decisions.

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The leading medical journal Lancet says people who are physically active have 35 days of poor mental health per year.

Those who are not physically active have 53 down days.

Income has little to no effect on happiness in the recently published study.

On average a sedentary person would have to earn an additional $25,000 a year to be as happy as an active person.

There is a limit to the happiness benefit exercise can bring – for example, exercising 30-60 minutes three to five times week is the sweet spot.

Money can’t buy you love, as The Beatles sang, nor can it buy the additional happiness more activity can bring. 

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If a worry propels us to act and solve a problem, it can be good.

Otherwise worry is a waste of time and yet most of us have become professional worriers and will not give it up.

My mother was one and I learned right by her side.

The trick is to spot the worry and then change the subject because in spite of our love for multitasking, it is not possible to have two thoughts at the same time.

It becomes a matter of retraining – spotting the worry, then changing the subject if the thing we’re worried about does not cause us to act and solve a problem.

The idea that worry can be learned and unlearned is reassuring.

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A car battery likes to be used – the longer it sits, the more it loses its potency.

It takes as little as four weeks to die if left idle.

Our personal batteries have been sitting more idle than usual as we have been sitting on the couch watching Netflix, working at home, adjusting to education by Zoom and uprooting previous routines.

Jumpstart – a jolt of energy followed by sustained periods of running at high speeds.

Resume a healthy and productive routine.

Eliminate things that exhaust your power such as negativity and fear of the future.

Be grateful for the unexpected timeout we all got as a reminder of sorting out what is truly important.

Life also needs both an ignition and an accelerator to return to power.

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Being forced to spend time with yourself in isolation or with those very few people close to you has delivered an unanticipated benefit – liking to spend time with yourself.

Pre-lockdown life was demanding and often the most important things took a backseat to whatever was next up – in digital life, never-ending work situations or the challenges of life in a distracted world.

Now that the lockdown seems to be ending, some lessons learned:

1. Mister Rogers was right all along to say he likes you just the way you are – after the past few months so many people are agreeing.
2. Best relations come from the quality of time invested not from the number of hours as lockdown forced us to automatically adjust both.
3. Less is still more as the inability to buy love with money turned out to be a blessing – the gift is not cash rewards but time spent living with ourselves and others.

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In sports when you’re down and out, you rally and comeback strong.

It’s the only way to win.

We’ve all been sitting on the bench of self-isolation waiting for our moment to be called up and contribute once again.

That moment appears to arriving.

Why is it in sports when our number is called, we can’t wait to get in and do our part.

That’s how to look at our return to a more normal life.

Eagerly anticipate success and banish all thoughts of negativity.

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“By not demanding love, but by giving it, we increase our chances of getting it”.

We become more lovable and makes it easier for us to love others.

“Hatred invites and perpetuates hatred”.

By decreasing it ourselves we lessen it on others.

These words of Harry Weinberg especially ring true today.

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Demographers are in general agreement that the generation that fought in World War II was the greatest in the last hundred years.

But why?

Because they were faced with more adversity than most other generations over the same period of time – war in two far away locations, an economy rescued by the war effort and particularly by women who stepped up to serve.

The next great generation may very well be the one coming of age now – in school, college – just starting their lives.

A pandemic, the potential of tough economic times, a disruption of the magnitude that even their parents never experienced.

Which means, they are facing adversity and will rise to meet the challenges.

Adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them so the good news is that we will all overcome these unprecedented challenges because as history has proven beyond a doubt, adversity brings the best out of us.

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