“I’m simply seeking to inspire mankind to all that is intended.” – Constantine
See the lengths I will go to in order to deliver top-quality humor three times a week?
Sometimes you find treasures in odd places. Back in 2007, I was working a nightmare job. The days were hectic, filled with emergency after emergency, wailing, and general disarray. And then I had to commute to work. Okay, home life was generally pretty good, but work really was a nightmare. One positive thing I did, though, was clip and print things that I found to be inspiring. No, not a lot of clippings like I’d finally found the missing connection between the Rothschild family and why there are no purple M&M’s®. No, when I found these quotes there were just a few – maybe less than a dozen.
Here’s one of the quotes I found in the clippings:
“If you have a guy with all the survival training in the world who has a negative attitude and a guy who doesn’t have a clue but has a positive attitude, I guarantee you that the guy with a positive attitude is coming out of the woods alive. Simple as that.” – Gordon Smith, Retired Green Beret Command Sergeant Major
Training, preparation, skill and Ruffles® are all wonderful things. I recommend them all, especially if they are cheddar-flavored. The quote above, however, exactly mirrors my own feelings and experience. Stated bluntly:
Attitude matters.
I don’t have that tie, though, and haven’t worn one regularly since ‘08.
I’m a long time reader of Scott Adams dating back into the mid-1990’s. He’s most famous for Dilbert, but he has written books and blogged for decades about everything from management to life skills to persuasion. Daily, Scott Adams writes his goals 15 times (LINK). Why 15? I don’t know. But Adams has reported that it produces amazing results for him, and he’s lived a pretty amazing life. It might also have something to do with him being a genius who works really hard and tries lots of things. Nah. He must be a beneficiary of the structural capitalist patriarchy and the reason people love Dilbert is only due to white privilege. That explains everything, if you’re in Congress.
How the goal writing produces results is probably unimportant – in my opinion the most likely idea is that if you’re focused on a goal, you’ll notice connections, clues or opportunities that would normally pass you by. The focus on the goal, the attitude that you can achieve something great changes the way you look at every aspect of your day. I know that when I believe I can succeed, I seem to keep finding ways to actually make it happen.
It might seem that it’s magic, writing down what you want 15 times a day and having coincidences show up that lead you to your goal. But, perhaps, the magic is just in you – seeing farther and deeper than you normally would is the magic. Having a goal changes you. Having the attitude that you can achieve your goal changes you so you can see the path more clearly.
As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”
I guess it wasn’t just college papers Creepy Joe plagiarized . . .
We’ve all been around negative people. I’ve had to work with them. I’ve had to manage them, and once I even had to work for one – he was my first supervisor after I graduated college. There was nothing that was good that ever happened to or around him. He’d had a leg injury and was now stuck at a desk job when he really, really hated desk jobs. Enter: happy, enthusiastic, wisecracking, young college graduate (still with hair at that time). I think he wanted to tie me up in a burlap sack weighted down with stones and toss me in the pond behind the office. Frankly, I can see why.
This clip is super short, and from the Clint Eastwood movie Kelly’s Heroes. Haven’t seen Kelly’s Heroes? You have your weekend assignment – it’s from back when movies were fun and not remakes.
Negative People:
- Exhaust me.
- Don’t accomplish much.
- Take the last cup of coffee without making more.
- Tend to make themselves a victim of whatever happened to them.
- Infect the entire team with negativity and sometimes herpes.
- Seem to get energy from talking about their pain and how the world is unfair to them.
- Shoot down bad ideas. And good ideas. Any ideas, really.
- Find a dark cloud in every silver lining.
I had a professor in college who had one piece of advice for me: “Keep smiling, John.” I took his advice. For most of my life, I’ve kept smiling. Even on bad days at work, I’ve kept a good attitude because most of the time, circumstances don’t care if you’re mad at them. The circumstances continue to exist just the same.
Not everyone agrees with me. On one particular job I actually received feedback that I was too cheerful. I guess being a mortician isn’t a job for everyone.
Okay, I’ve never worked as a mortician, but one of my bosses really did tell me I was too cheerful. But if I could be a mortician that hired Terminators®? I wouldn’t call that a dead-end job.
In most things in life I expect good outcomes, and generally I get them. That’s not unique to me. Throughout the history of humanity most times and most days have been good. Has there been war as long as we can look back into history? Yes. We’ve been fighting each other even before we were fully human. I imagine, though, we’ve been telling each other fart jokes for just as long. The human race has watched sunsets over the Arctic, the Serengeti, and the Atlantic and had pretty good days. An iPhone® isn’t required, but without an endless stream of Disney® live-action remakes, is life really worth living?
Nah, I like making them.
I won’t say that on my worst day there was a bright spot. The worst day of my life just sucked from 2pm until I finally fell asleep in bed. Honestly, it wasn’t much better the next day, but there were a few bright spots showed up. And more the next. And every day since then has been better than that day.
I mentioned magic above, and magic also happens on my worst days. Every one of my very bad days was the start of the time when my life started to get better, and it seemed the worse it was, the better it would eventually be. My best times have come from my worst times. One example was my divorce. The reality is that no matter how bad the marriage was, divorce is difficult. But as difficult as it was, it was the start of the next phase in my life, my marriage to The Mrs.
The longer, and the deeper the dark night of the soul, the bigger the positive that’s eventually come out of it for me.
If I ever were to get involved with the funeral industry, I’d tie the shoelaces of the deceased together in the coffin. That way if we ever had a zombie apocalypse, it would be hilarious. See, I even made zombies cheerful.
I spend time thinking about the future, and about dark possibilities not so much because I’m a gloomy guy sitting in the basement – but because it’s fun. However, in thinking about those possibilities I am prepared, at least a little more, for the uncertainty of the future. I’m cheerful, but I can see reality and know that there is danger ahead.
As I read the news I see a specter of a dark foe bent on creating a world that few of us want to see, one built out of fear and control. It’s even scarier because that foe wants you and I to think that it’s winning, so we will give up and it can win by default. Don’t. As long as people long for freedom, as long as we have each other and a dream of a better day where mankind keeps reaching for the stars, we have light. But in this time of seeming darkness, even a small light burns brightly.
If I were to give advice this Friday it’s this: be of good cheer. Be a spark in the darkness to help others. Understand that, until the last moment of your life, you have the ability to change the world for the better, to help create that better future for all of us.
Or, failing that, there’s always Ruffles®, Netflix©, beer and the couch.
14 million YouTube viewers can’t be wrong. Take the time to join their number.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side_of_Life
Always Look at the Bright Side of Life
by Bruce Cockburn, from the Monte Python movie “Life of Brian”
Cheer up, Brian. You know what they say.
Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,
Don’t grumble, give a whistle!
And this’ll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life!
Always look on the bright side of life
If life seems jolly rotten,
There’s something you’ve forgotten!
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing,
When you’re feeling in the dumps,
Don’t be silly chumps,
Just purse your lips and whistle — that’s the thing!
And always look on the bright side of life
Come on!
Always look on the bright side of life
For life is quite absurd,
And death’s the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin — give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it’s the last chance anyhow!
So always look on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life’s a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true,
You’ll see it’s all a show,
Keep ’em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
And always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life
Come on guys, cheer up
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life
Worse things happen at sea you know
Always look on the bright side of life
I mean, what have you got to lose?
you know, you come from nothing
you’re going back to nothing
what have you lost? Nothing!
Always look on the bright side of life
“Be a spark in the darkness to help others.”
^^^THIS^^^ A thousand times this.
I remember reading a very short story once, fictional, a sort of Aesop’s Fable actually, as it had a lesson to teach. The jist of the story was this guy dies and goes to heaven and encounters St Peter at the pearly gates. The guy knows that he has lived a completely undistinguished life. No accomplishments to point to, no life of philanthropy, no volunteering at the soup kitchen, no nothing really. Just a moribund life of working, just getting by, fighting a seemingly losing battle against the demons of self-doubt, depression, and remorse about not ever achieving success at anything. He know that he was kind of a loser in life, but he felt too exhausted and beat down most of his life to do much about it, let alone do much of anything for anyone else.
He relates this to St Peter in just a few sentences, and tells him he knows he is not worthy to enter heaven. St Pete, says on the contrary, you ARE worthy, come on in. The guy is shocked, and asks St Pete how that is possible. St Pete says, “I guess you don’t remember the woman at the bus stop”. The guy says, “Huh? A woman? The bus stop?”
St Pete says, “One day you were waiting for your bus. The woman waiting there with you mentioned how hard life seemed, and how depressing it all was. You talked to her. You told her you knew exactly what she was talking about. You told her life IS tough, and it all seems so damn depressing so much of the time. You told her to hang in there, that there is always a way forward, and that it would all be worthwhile in the end. You then hugged her and told her you would be praying for her”.
St Peter told the guy, “That woman was planning to commit suicide that day. Because of you she didn’t. You saved her life. because of you she hung in there and eventually came out of her depression. She went on to get married to a very good man, and they have several wonderful children together”.
We never know when just a kind word, a word of thanks,or a word of encouragement, a hug, or a fervent prayer might make a difference in the life of another person. And the opportunities to do so are all around us every day. Right up until the day we draw our last breath, we have countless opportunities to be that spark in the darkness, that spark of hope and help, to untold numbers of other people.
George, very well said – I really enjoyed your comment. You get it. Thank you.
As seen on Dad’s Deadpool Blog: “At my funeral take the bouquet off my coffin and trow it into the crowd to see who is next.” Kind of fits into part of your theme today. I thought it was so funny I sent it to my mom but changed it to “her”. She thought it was hysterical. Morbid humor runs in the family.
Typo! Ugh! *Throw*
Heh heh – I hate it when I do that!
Ditto, it gallops through ours. I will admit that I feel a bit of pride when I see that Dad picked up one of my memes.
Ruffles and couches might last, but Netflix should be a deserved victim of the next stock market flush ( I use them, granted, but they have a Y2K business model of losing more money than their competitors ). I used to love my last job. Cheerful all the time, through female bosses, female bosses wanting to fire me ( my hair eclipsed theirs. And I’m not kidding! ), female customers, female co-workers-my God man! It was a friggin Hen Fest. I was extra cheerful on Monday, just to have fun rubbing it in to those that hated Mondays. But slowly, surely, the negative forces of evil wore me down, to a frazzle. I finally had to stop working there. Not to say I don’t agree with everything in the article. I do. Just realize sometimes it is a losing battle. Evil CAN overcome your best sustained actions. The boss was so bad, worse than officers in the military even, I started a new List for her. The Lamp Post List where the lawyers, politicians, etc. resided was too good for her. She is on the Bayonet List. Come the apocalypse, she isn’t even worth a bullet, or a quick strangulation. But I’m not bitter, two years later. 🙂
There is a time to give up and try something else, but generally, people are a lot closer to success when they quit than they realize. At least that’s what the stalkers say.
“Appreciate what you have and why is a long road to realizing a better life. Forgo comparisons to what others have except to celebrate their achievement.”
“Praise not the wealthy man till one ascertains what he does with it.”
Bravo. Very well said – how much of our strife depends on our selves?
Whatever the worst thing is that’s happening to you, you can be glad that it’s not happening to your child.
Yet.
Yup. Our job to make ’em strong for when it does happen.
My father had colon cancer surgery this past Monday. Today he found out the biopsy was clear – no more cancer! As a family, we are so relieved and happy to know that we have more years with our patriarch.
Life is damn good! Every day above ground with those you love is great! So quit dwelling on $#!7 that isn’t important and make memories with your loved ones, damn it!
My fathers saying God bless him — “Any day you rise on the green side of the grass is a good day indeed.”
Here, here! And congratulations!!!!!!!!!
“Be a spark in the darkness to help others.”
Only if there is enough methane to set off a decent explosion.
That’s what the lighter is for.
God loves life and God loves that human beings are conscience of God’s existence. God loves that you know that God knows that you know of God. Thank God everyday for the miracles of life and for God’s gift of the knowledge of God.
Indeed. I’m far better than I deserve, every day.
Although I’m not much for church-going == including home-churching == occasionally, nuggets fall off the shelf into my cart.
On his book list for home-schooling, Kim Du Toit mentions The Bible. The little attention I divert that way had me glancing through a series of quotes from Ecclesiastes attributed to old king Solly (or his scribes…). I think it went something like:
*** ‘Eat, drink, and be merry.’
The theme seems to be:
*** ‘You might as well try to catch the wind.’
But, like I often say, the dogs are on the porch, bouncing on one foot then the other next to the bucket of tennis-balls, waiting for me to chuck a few for immediate slathering and retrieval.
And that, my friends is as good as it gets.
Yes, it’s not just the big moments like when I won the Olympics or the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s also a beautiful sunset after a day of fishing when the fish didn’t bite. It’s around us every day if we look.