Buck Up

I worked really hard today ...

My boss is such a jerk ...

My kids are driving me nuts ...

I am so completely stressed out ...

I deserve a treat! A cookie. A box of candy-covered popcorn. A mocha-frappuccino hazelnut vanilla bean latte with whipped-cream and caramel butterscotch sauce on it.
People, we all deserve treats, but that doesn’t mean we should have them.

But my day was so hard. I’ll feel deprived if I don’t indulge!

Oh, you’ll feel deprived like all those people who don’t live in the top 1% of wealth in the world? Like those people “over there” who don’t have clean drinking water, let alone butterscotch? You’ll feel deprived like they do, and that would be bad, right?

People, we don’t fill ourselves up with treats to keep ourselves happy. We fill ourselves up with treats to help us maintain distance from reality.

Walk down any Main Street into super-mall America and you’re walking into one of the most mass-marketed soul pacifying factories in existence. Banners and signs waving in Red White and Blue that read, “Make today special, try a new super-big cookie with sprinkles.”

Make today truly special, folks. Don’t buy yourself that treat for a change and see where that takes your imagination. Stop pacifying your spirit, set it on fire.

It's Got Nothing To Do With You

Here’s something you hear in New York frequently, “It’s got nothing to do with you.” You hear it on the street all the time, especially from people screaming on their cell phones.

But there is terrific truth to the phrase, “It’s got nothing to do with you.” It just means you shouldn’t take everything so darn personally. Nothing anyone in the world does has anything to do with you. Even if someone is doing something really terrific or even something really crappy to you, it has nothing to do with you. What someone else is doing, saying, thinking or feeling has everything to do with them, and nothing to do with you.

The one thing we all have in common is that we’re always thinking of ourselves. Our actions, viewpoints and words have everything in the world to do with us and what we want and how we want others to see us.

It has nothing to do with you. And that’s a good thing.

I look forward to hearing your stories of immense personal struggle, and will continue to inspire you .