Words of wisdom can be found in the unlikeliest of places.

Prior to getting poked with holes number 2 (Tetanus) and 3 (H1N1 Vaccine), I sat on top of the exam room table wearing a blue paper gown.

If you’re not sick, waiting in an exam room is pretty boring. If you’re wearing a paper gown, it goes from boring to tedious.

A magazine lay nearby so I reached over to pick it up.  I ignored the wandering thought of how many other near-naked and possible sick people touched it before me.

It was a magazine by WebMD and what caught my eye was the tagline, “The magazine designed specifically for the waiting room.”

Talk about a target audience!

A starlet was on the cover. So far, nothing different than most waiting room fare.

I flip through the table of contents and come across an article about happiness.

I read about how people seem to have a “happiness set point.”  I’d come across the concept before.  The theory is that each person is born with a built in level of happiness.  For any given event, a person will return to their happiness point.

Let’s say the event is winning millions of dollars.

For a person who tends to be upbeat and happy – they’ll experience a spike in happiness or happy feelings but after a while, return to their baseline.

For a person who tends to be morose, they too will experience a happy spike but after some time, the usual dark thoughts will bring them down.

Now let’s take those same two people and have them experience something awful like becoming paralyzed. The tend-to-be-happy person will go through a very low period in their life but at some point, they will rebound. If the glass-is-always empty person became paralyzed, they would also  sink to an emotional low point but at some point, they would recover.

How many of you know someone who you suspect will never be happy? I’ve met a few – something great happens and they feel great.  Some time goes by and back they are complaining. I’ve also known people who have a talent for happiness.

So here I am wearing a paper gown sitting atop an exam table reading the words, “Happiness is not a destination.”

It’s true. I’ve thought I’d be happier if I made more money, lost weight, went to the prom, and had a boyfriend. Was I any happier after I had or did any of those things? Momentarily.

It wasn’t until I realized that most of what made me happy was how I thought about things. That’s when I decided that I’d rather focus on what was good in my life than what was bad; I’d rather be happy with what I had in my life than be unhappy with what I lacked.

I realized that if I continued to believe that happiness was a destination, I wasn’t going to get “there.”

Lately I’ve been feeling like I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. I’ve started to fall into the trap that happiness was later, that my happiness was deferred.

I needed to be reminded that happiness is not a destination, it’s a decision.

If we decide to, we can find happiness right here and even while wearing a blue paper gown.

Especially while wearing a blue paper gown!

If you’re interested in reading the article, I found the online version here.
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Throughout my life I’ve heard reports on my mom’s aging process.

One thing that has remained constant is her belief that that the younger you are, the juicier you are. Therefore, you dry up as you get older.

She has this idea that we start life as grapes and end up as raisins.

She would point out various parts of her body to illustrate her point. One favorite form of “proof” is comparing her hands to mine: the bones on the back of her hand protrude more,  therefore she is more “dried up” than I.

She says, “Look! All the meat is shriveling, that’s why my bones are showing.”

I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.

She says, “You know why older woman have a fuzzy face?”

I say, “I think it’s due to some kind of hormonal change.”

She says, “They are drying up! What happens is that their skin is shrinking so the hairs look longer!”

I say, “Hmmm.”

There is a strange appeal to her juicy/young, dry/old, grape/raisin logic.

The logical side of me is thinking about the aging process: cellular breakdown, loss of collagen, and sun damage.

The creative and emotional side of me thinks that drying up is a good enough explanation of aging as I’ve seen.

You start out as a grape and you slowly dry out until you’re a raisin. Any attempts to make to retain your youthfulness are really attempts to add “juice.”

Mom points out how celebrities add fillers like collagen injections to look juicy. They are trying to plump out the raisin.

Appealing as mom’s logic is, it also drives me a bit nuts.

I don’t want to view aging as a process of drying out. We’re not supposed to be grapes forever.

Besides, how many people do you know who look young but are all dried up inside? And what about all those “old folks” who are full o’ juice?

What makes a person juicy?

• A positive attitude.
• Creativity.
• Curiosity.
• A sense of humor, an appreciation of the absurd.
• Self-acceptance

Dorothy Parker said, “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

There is truth to that statement.

Most people worry about the skin and not so much about what is within.

Anne Lamott said, “Joy is the best makeup.”

I know I’ll become a raisin.  But I hope to remain juicy.
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For anything we hope to do or become, we have to start somewhere.

And we start…at the beginning.

At some point in my life I became afraid of starting anything new.

I became afraid. I was afraid of making mistakes. Of being hurt. Of looking ridiculous.

Being afraid is not a way to live. Life is about living and living is about learning and learning…

They say that if you stop learning, your brain atrophies. Or something like that. Anyway, I’ve read that you should never stop learning as learning keeps you young – or at least, mentally agile as you age.

All my life I’ve worked on letting go of various fears I’ve had.

I’ve been afraid of:

• Public speaking
• Driving
• Math
• Physics
• Blood tests
• Asking a boy out (rejection!)
• Getting lost
• Sounding stupid

I can’t say I’m all that enthused about getting lost or sounding stupid. I’m not exactly happy about any sharp pointy objects aiming for my delicate veins but I’m glad that these fears haven’t stopped me from living.

A few of these fears were paralyzing.

If I’d never learned how to drive…I can’t even imagine what my life would have been like.

I’m still working on a big one – the fear of making mistakes. The fear of making mistakes made me very uncomfortable with trying anything new. But you’re bound to make mistakes when you try something new.

I’ve become more comfortable as well as more forgiving of myself these days.

I’ve had an interesting side effect of letting go of my fear of making mistakes.

I have more fun.

Yup. Who wudda thunk it. Making mistakes and looking stupid can actually be fun in certain circumstances.

I’ve also started to become excited about trying new things.

Life is about living and we all have to start somewhere.

So let’s start at the beginning, with the heart and mind of a curious child.

It’ll be fun.

Shoshin, is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning Beginner’s Mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts

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Many wish it were otherwise, probably deny it. I suspect that denying this need is a denial of self.

What?

We all have a need to love and be loved.

Yet.

You can really like yourself.
You can know that you are worthy.
You can feel that you are wonderful.
You can even love yourself.

And.

You may know yourself to be beautiful.
You may look in the mirror and love what you see.

But.

You long to look into another’s eyes and see love’s reflection.

Why…

Is loving yourself not enough?

Because…

No matter how much we love ourselves,
Loving someone and having that loved returned.
It’s more than a reflection.
It’s a celebration.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

What I don’t like are compliments at the expense of others.

I was told, “You’re not boring like everyone else.”

It made me take another look at the person giving me the compliment.

So…I’m not boring. Unlike everyone else.

Boring.

Uninteresting.

Not worth paying attention to.

Boring.

Things that have been called boring:

• History
• Math
• Paint drying
• Geography
• Assorted places
• Assorted celebrities
• Dirt
• Cement

For any one thing that is deemed boring, someone else out there finds it fascinating.

I’m not so sure about paint drying but there is probably some chemist out there who studies the drying times of paint to make better or faster drying paint and maybe knows which colors dry faster than others.

So what is boring, exactly?

Boring is in the eyes of the bored.

I’m lucky – I don’t bore easily. Waiting in line, stuck in traffic, not bored. OK, so I do find repetitive tasks like data entry boring. But people? I usually don’t find people boring.

What kind of compliment gives to you and takes away from others?

It’s the kind of compliment that makes we wince.

“You’re not boring like everyone else.”

I’ve probably made the same type of compliment myself. In fact, I’m sure I have.

But I hope I’ve outgrown that habit.

I feel that when you give someone a compliment and add “like/unlike everyone else” what you’re really saying is that you don’t like everyone else.

For anyone who’s ever called someone “boring as rocks” hasn’t met my friends Spot and Rusty.

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