Like Ambien, but weirder

This one might be a little kooky. I don't even know if it works. But if it does, you might be able to make your sleep seem longer, no matter how long it actually is.

Everybody wants something different from sleep. I view it mostly as a chance to escape. It's a buffer between my days and nights, an opportunity to go far away from the working world before I have to come back. I've never cared much about waking up too rested, although it's certainly nice.

Thus, my biggest wish each night, whether I have five or six or seven hours until my alarm, is that my sleep feel like it lasts a long time. I want to avoid that horrible feeling where my cell phone beeps and I know that It Wasn't Enough. Because whether or not you enjoy your day, it's a long time until you get another chance to catch up on sleep.

But how to control sleep? It's the most mysterious chunk of our day. Eight hours can disappear in the blink of an eye, or three hours can seemingly take forever. Sleep is a maverick. It does what it wants.

Sometimes, though, it helps to ask for better sleep. Ask who? Ask yourself, or rather, your subconscious.

Say, "I'd like my sleep to last a looooooooooooong time tonight." Visualize it. When I get to the "loooooong", I picture myself traveling down a looooooong, endless road. Travel on and on for about fifteen seconds, or maybe even a little longer. Do it right before you go to sleep. Just ask politely. Don't demand.

Or make a deal with your subconscious. If you have a big presentation in the morning that's five hours away, ask for really deep, long-lasting sleep tonight, but say you're willing to give up great sleep on Friday night, when it doesn't even matter that much.

It's a simple concept, maybe even a little weird, but very few people ever try it. If it didn't work for me, I'd think it was silly to act like my subconscious mind is some entity that can be bargained with.

Now I see it as a part of my mind that wants the best for me - as long as I ask for it. Likely, it was thinking, "What the hell took you so long?" And I wake up almost every morning feeling like I had just the right amount of sleep, and that it lasted a looooooong time - no matter how long it actually was.

Comfort Zone

How much of my life has been dictated by the massive, lulling gravitational pull of my comfort zone?

If you're anything like me, your comfort zone has influenced too many of your decisions. It's kept you in mediocre places and situations and relationships and done its best to silence the voice that nags, "Maybe things could be better..."

In my early twenties, I wanted to build my comfort zone and stay there for the rest of my life. I wanted the job, the town, the house, the girl, and the habits that would stick with me until I moved into a retirement home. I didn't want to think anymore.

It makes sense. Living in your comfort zone is easy. You don't have to make decisions. You just have to follow routines. You don't have to learn new skills. You just do what you've always done, again and again.

I am not judging here. I still spend much of my life in my comfort zone.

Thinking new thoughts is hard. Doing new things is tiring. The idea of following a blueprint for the rest of your life is unbelievably enticing.

Plenty of people never leave their comfort zones. I don't want to completely knock this way of life, because you can still have a lot of love, fulfillment, and contribution in your zone.

I believe there's more to life, though. There is challenging yourself, making yourself uncomfortable, and seeking the rewards that are just on the other side of a scary situation.

During those early twenties, I spent three summers washing dishes at Ivey's Grill in Gainesville, Florida. Despite my Master's degree, I loved the idea of getting my hands dirty, running around, listening to classic rock, and helping make a restaurant run.

In the dish pit, every day was the same. It was more physically draining than anything I'd ever done, but there was no real challenge to it.

I always had the chance to move up to the kitchen, to do work just a little different and harder than washing dishes, and I resisted that chance for three years.

The dish pit was my comfort zone. I knew every aspect of washing dishes at Ivey's. Cooking represented something new, scary, different.

In my last week there, before I moved to New York, I started cooking. Tickets came in, and I made pancakes and omelets and stir fries and sandwiches to order.

What a revelation: it was fun, it was relatively simple, I was pretty good, and it felt great knowing that someone else was doing the dishes for once. The work felt more useful and meaningful.

Then, a week later, I left Ivey's and Gainesville and Florida for good.

I had one thought about the experience: Why didn't I try it earlier? I resisted the challenge and ignored the reward for three years. I had a good thing going, and I didn't want to leave it.

I chose the monotonous good over a lunge for greatness. What's left are three great summers that still reek of a wasted opportunity.

It's still a struggle to integrate this lesson into my life. There are so many situations where I choose the easy and familiar over the potentially wonderful unknown.

When I moved to New York, when I go on blind dates, hell, when I order something new at a restaurant, I have had to push myself kicking and screaming every single time.

The pull of the comfort zone is maddeningly strong. But you can overcome it, and one important step is simply to acknowledge how big a presence it is in your life.

Admit to yourself that you are doing some things not because you particularly like them, but because they are comfortable. Acknowledge if you are forsaking most of life's opportunities for a scant few that you latched onto early in life.

And then, bit by bit, push yourself kicking and screaming into situations that might bring you pain and pleasure that you can't even fathom right now.

Don't Burn Out!

I ran tonight, from my apartment to Central Park, around the reservoir, and back.

The scenery was pretty: the distant spires of midtown, the setting sun shimmering on the water, trees overhead, joggers taking it all in.

My running was not pretty. It was awkward, tense, and not especially fast. I no longer care if people think I look weird, but I do wish my form had been better.

I could have gone faster. I could have run with big strides and passed everyone. I also could have hunched over in pain after about five minutes.

Instead, I finished my ugly run after a half-hour, right in front of my apartment building. I was sweating, and my heart was pounding, but I was never in so much pain that I had to stop.

Thus, my advice: if you want to do something consistently, never traumatize yourself. Push yourself a little more each day, but never do something so painful that you will be too scared to do it tomorrow.

I have had exercising experiences that kept me away from the gym for weeks. I have had dates that drove me into my single shell for a month, and I have had healthy-eating streaks that pushed me into the waiting arms of a large extra-cheese pizza.

In all of these cases, making the short-term challenge overly painful just made things worse in the long run. The over-reaching goal wasn't worth it.

More successful people than me might dismiss this advice, and maybe rightfully so. Navy Seal trainees are probably traumatized every day, and they have to keep coming back. They'd laugh at this.

For most of us though, this advice makes sense. The idea of improvement doesn't involve reaching your goals on the first day. It involves learning to do things consistently, when you are tired or not in the mood, because you know you need to do them.

Burning out doesn't do anything except give you one more excuse for avoiding the routines you know are necessary. It should be avoided on your journey, and in all aspects of life.

Don't be so easy on yourself that you never face your challenges. But don't make those challenges so daunting that you are likely to skip them tomorrow out of sheer terror. Increase your challenges gradually, and you will eventually get to where you want to be.

Full Circle

I heard a song today that I haven't heard in six years. When the first few notes drifted out of my speakers, I experienced such a happy, nostalgic feeling.

For just a moment, I was back in college, working at the AV Center at the business school. The 2007 listening experience and the 2001 listening experience met, like the sides of a quilt being folded.

And what of the time in the middle? For the moment, it was pushed off to the side. It never happened.

I never graduated college. I never taught. I never moved to New York City. My experience of 2001-2007 was: 1) Hear and love the song. 2) Hear and love the song again. And it was always going to happen again.

This seems like too much for a novelty Latin song about mayonnaise. But it comes up a lot.

I just went to Washington, D.C. for the first time in 16 years. I laid my eyes on landmarks I hadn't seen since I was 11 years old.

When I saw the Lincoln Memorial or John F. Kennedy's grave - both unchanged in the ensuing years - the two viewings again joined together in my mind. It felt like I was always going to come back, no matter where else life took me, so I could complete the experience.

On the same trip, my Mom met up with a cousin she hadn't seen in 35 years. This had to happen, right? They're cousins. At some point, they were going to reconnect.

It seemed like these events were destined to happen. The original experiences had finally been validated. Everything came full circle.

I don't buy it.

I used to say about certain people or places that "our story will never end". That I am destined to encounter these people or places at regular intervals throughout my life, whether I want to or not.

This seems less and less realistic as time goes on.

Anything can happen in the time between meetings. People move. People die. People lose interest in each other. They fight and stay fighting at a distance.

To believe that an experience isn't complete until some meeting way off in the future is to do a disservice to that experience. It says that the experience, or the relationship, wasn't real or full enough by itself. It says that if fate intervenes and prevents things from "coming full circle", then things will forever be unresolved.

When I was a kid, I spent two Thanksgivings playing a bowling game in my backyard with some older cousins. The next year, they didn't want to play anymore, and I was devastated. The "tradition" was dead.

In situations like this, my new attitude comforts me. Every time I am able to continue a tradition, I am lucky. But the next time is never guaranteed, and it can never detract from the experiences I have already had.

I've always wished I could find closure with ex-girlfriends. Or run into old friends. Or hear novelty Latin songs one more time.

If I do, that's great. All of these things have happened before. But they didn't have to happen.

Each experience was done, finished, in the past. It didn't leap Evel Knievel-style over years of my life and continue where it left off. It stopped, and nobody knew if it would ever start again.

If elements of my past come back - if my favorite traditions continue - that is great. I welcome them.

But my life is complete up to this point. My past doesn't need help from my future. What happens from here on out - whether familiar or completely new - is a gift, but it is not guaranteed.

Deconstruction

I've had the annoying tendency lately to deconstruct everything in my world. I pick it apart and figure out if it is really necessary, if it is real, if it is primal, if it is a worthwhile way to spend my life.

Deconstruction can be useful. We do so many things because they are mindless habits, or because society dictates that we should do them, or because our parents did them. Or because we are scared or obsessed or have nothing better to do.

I spent much of middle school and early high school reading comic books. Those are now frustrating memories for me. I'll always dig comics to some extent, and I still think Superman is a badass. But it's scary how much time I spent obsessing over comic books for reasons I was unaware of.

I wish I'd deconstructed more back then. I wish I'd said to myself, "Ben, it's one thing to dive into a particularly fun comic book. It's another thing to mindlessly buy new comics each week when you stopped liking most of them years ago. You worry about maintaining and cataloguing your collection, which is slightly obsessive-compulsive. You're also avoiding the challenges and rewards of the outside world by keeping your nose buried in comics - good strategy!"

I never once thought about why I was doing what I was doing.

It is important to like things for reasons you are concsious of, and to be aware of the impact your habits have on your life. I could have spent my early teenage years doing more interesting, social activities with tangible long-term benefits. I could have been in control of my interests, instead of the other way around.

Still, it's possible to go too far with deconstruction.

I spent last weekend at a family reunion, and I immediately began deconstructing: Family is an arbitrary concept. I don't even know most of these people. Our blood is the same - so what? Am I supposed to be loyal to people - to love them - simply because we're related? How close are we if I see them once every few years? We're all just wasting our time. Everyone here is brainwashed except me.

You can make a coherent argument in most of these directions. I used to blindly believe in loving one's mother, until my college roommate made a convincing case that his mother was heinous and not worthy of his love.

I'm a lot more comfortable now loving my mother because she is a wonderful person who raised me well. That puts me in charge of my actions and decisions - not some archaic tradition or cultural assumption.

If you want to suck the joy out of living, though, you don't have to stop at habits and family. You can deconstruct religion, work, laws, pasttimes, friendships, birthdays, funerals, small talk, and all forms of entertainment. If you delve deeply enough, you can make anything in the world seem stupid and meaningless, done for reasons that make no sense at all.

A lot of times, though, life is simple. It doesn't demand deconstruction. A family reunion can be worthwhile if everyone there believes it is worthwhile. Family members love each other because it makes them feel good. Whether they do it consciously, or because they were indoctrinated at birth, the end result can be a wonderful thing.

The weekend was a lot more fun when I shut up my brain and appreciated the happiness in front of me. Sometimes things just are, for reasons that might or might not make logical sense.

It's important to deconstruct parts of your life. Chances are that you have a bunch of habits and routines that, upon closer scrutiny, you might be doing for reasons that make no sense to you. Clear them out and find better ways to fill your time. Act consciously, for reasons that are relevant to your life.

But deconstructing can also whittle life's possibilities down to a tiny list of things that pass all of your rational, logical tests. There's a level where nothing seems worthwhile or makes sense if you are too strict.

That's a scary level. Life should be about taking advantage of opportunities and enjoying the world's gifts. Dismissing those opportunities and gifts seems like a limiting, unfulfilling way to live.

Sometimes our traditions and assumptions are stupid and limiting. Often, though, they are the source of much of the world's happiness. You have the choice to stand back and mock people for following them, or to jump in and enjoy what everybody else is already enjoying.

I'm still alive, and I appreciate everyone who has checked here in the last week.

Right now, I'm not feeling like much of a teacher or a talker. I'm living and experiencing and figuring things out - which is always the case.

But lately, I haven't felt like I have any answers. And in that context, lecturing to anybody about anything would feel disingenuous.

This will pass, probably in a few days. Keep checking back.

What Just Happened?

A big theme in my life is noticing the moment. This counts for double when it is a moment I've worked towards, an achievement that's taken weeks or months of hard work.

That said, I like an achievement even more when I don't notice it at first.

For instance, I ran on the treadmill tonight at a speed I rarely hit. I flew, and I sweated, and the time passed without much problem.

It seemed natural, as if I'd always done it that way.

That's a wash. For most of my life, I couldn't run. I huffed and puffed and got side-aches after about two minutes. When I exercised, I walked. Period.

That was my life until a year ago, and now it seems like a distant memory. I take for granted how far I've come.

Hell, running is nothing if I don't leave my apartment, my comfortable bed and my air conditioning and my refrigerator, to go to the gym.

How many nights have I said "fuck it" and avoided the gym, avoided the world? Tonight, though, I was acting on a habit, one I've drilled into myself day after day.

I barely noticed I'd left my apartment until I was halfway down the street.

Last example. I was at lunch with friends this afternoon, and I saw a pretty girl sit down to eat. Without thinking much, I excused myself from my friends, walked over to the girl, and asked if I could join her for a minute.

The conversation was terrible, which I'll take full credit for. I ran away after a minute. But I did it.

For as much as I plan for and stress about moments like that, I'd only done it twice in my life before today. But even that miniscule experience brought me to a point where the approach didn't seem like a big deal.

It wasn't as significant as it used to be. That's huge. That means it's become normal, even if just a little.

This is a double-edged sword. You want to give yourself credit for your victories. You want to revel in them, enjoy them, celebrate.

But it is damn cool when you don't even notice them. And when you notice that, you'll have the momentum to plan and achieve other things that, if you're good enough, will also fly by undetected.

Introversion

I have been an introvert my whole life. I have preferred, for the most part, to exist in my own head than to interact with the world.

I am quiet. I like reading. I tend to be much more comfortable in an empty room than out in a crowd.

Most people are either introverts or extroverts. Each has its ups and downs, for sure. But most people seem to share two beliefs concerning introversion and extroversion:

1) Both are equal. Equally good, equally bad, or equally just there, but one is not better than the other.

2) You are stuck with your particular designation for your whole life.

I will not conclude in this article that either of those are false. They certainly seem constraining, but I haven't yet been able to prove them wrong.

I disagree with them, though.

Introversion has a lot going for it. A well-meaning psychiatrist, an introvert himself, once tried to reassure me: "Introverts think more deeply. We are more intuitive. We notice the little details, and we can use that to our advantage in social situations."

Fine, great. I want more. This article is not designed to give introversion the credit it deserves, because I have my eyes on something better.

Extroverts seem to have all the fun in life. They choose their friends. They get the attention. They are the life of the party. They are brash and funny and seem more alive.

They connect with people. That's huge. If connection is as important as I've come to believe, then I want the ability to connect deeply with as many people as I can.

If I am an extrovert, that will be a lot easier. I will be able to choose the people I connect with. And once I've chosen somebody I want to talk with, I will have something to say and the energy and courage to say it. No more running into the prison bars of introversion, even if the prison I fall back into is safe and comfortable.

Plenty of people see these examples of extroversion as negative, and they certainly can be. One of my hyper-outgoing students once confessed to me that his outgoing nature wore him down. He wasn't in control of it.

For the most part, though, I see extroversion as a very free way to live. And I see introversion as a prison.

It can be a useful, comfortable prison, one that allows us the downtime and reflection necessary to succeed in our chosen fields. But I think that at the heart of it, there is a lack of choice involved.

Most people, given the choice, would at least like the ability to talk to anyone, which they would then temper and use wisely. I know I would.

So, can you jump ship and change your affiliation? I'm certainly trying. It is damn hard to change anything about seemingly fundamental and ingrained about yourself. But I do believe that almost all habits can be un-learned and replaced if you work hard enough.

I want the rewards of extroversion. An outgoing life seems more fun, more electric. But more importantly, I want the choice that most extroverts have - not just of people and situations, but of being able to say what I want to say, when I want to say it, loud enough so that people will hear me.

Failure

"Thomas Edison failed 9,999 times before he finally invented the light bulb."

"Even the best baseball players fail 7 out of 10 times."

If you have read any success literature, then you've read dozens of these platitudes.

They're true, absolutely true. They're also incredibly hard to connect to one's own life and experiences. In our weakest moments, they seem completely worthless.

I was not raised to fail, and I never embraced failure. I found the things I did well, and I did them. I stayed on that narrow path and never ran into the brick wall of defeat.

Now, suddenly, failure is not some distant concept that I know is a stepping-stone to some other distant concept called success.

Failure is real. Failure hurts every time. Failure numbs me. It makes me doubt who I am. It tests every bit of my resolve. It makes me wonder if something called success even exists.

My real-life example is dating and trying to succeed with women. I am diving into it, and my successes have been few and far between. My failures have been plenty.

Each time hurts. Each time, I want to give up. Sometimes I do, for weeks. Sometimes it only takes a day. Then I throw myself back at the wall, get bruised all over, and run away again.

Every failed date, every girl who doesn't like me or who would have liked me if my skills were better - every one kills me. Every one makes me feel like I am nothing.

Each time, I swear this will be the success on the other side of failure, that I am finally there. And then the game slams the door in my face again.

And even when I can walk away and know I am okay and immediately think about my next chance to succeed, there is an unshakeable feeling below all that.

It says that I suck, that I failed this time because that's who I am, that I will always fail and that there is no point in continuing.

And all I have to counter that are my few successes, and platitudes about inventors and baseball players, and the examples of successful men and women I've never met before.

Those examples are all I have, and at the same time, they are worthless. I am running on blind faith, and it is hard.

I am sick of Lou Gehrig and Thomas Edison and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and all the other people who perservered and succeeded and weren't me.

If my best friend succeeded at the same game, right before my eyes, I would still only have this blind faith that hard work and determination would lead to my own success.

This is the first great test of my life, so I have no uplifting advice at the moment. I am running on shaky faith, with only some overused historical figures to inspire me.

I guess this confirms, for me and maybe you, that the road is hard and soul-killing and seemingly endless.

I wish I could confirm that the reward will be worth it. I've certainly heard hundreds of people swear it is true. But right now, I don't know.

Notice The Moment

A lot of personal development literature focuses on goal-setting and achieving. That's huge. It's the first step in living a great life.

But there's a flipside to goal-setting and achieving that is equally as important.

There is no point in getting something if you don't notice and appreciate it once it's there.

Gratitude is just on the other side of noticing what you have, and I will probably write about it at some point. However, it is pretty well-covered in rah-rah literature.

That leaves the middle step: noticing what you have.

It's scary how often I have wanted something, gotten it, and then complained that I never get what I want.

For instance, I am currently on a quest to connect with people as often as I can. And I still have the experience of spending all day with people I care about, then coming home and thinking, "How come I never get to connect with anybody?"

One of the scariest things for me is the idea of going from Point A to Point B and not noticing at all how I got there. This can be the achievement of a goal or the simple process of walking down the street.

Most of life is spent between those points. I don't want to spend that time in a fog, or lost in my own head. I want to see what is around me, really see it.

One of my earliest techniques was to "see the trees". It's not the key to happiness, but you do see the world in a different way.

When you are walking down the street, just focus on a tree (or a pillar of cement, or a person standing still). Put everything else in the background.

Learn to focus on the world as a series of individual pieces rather than a big Jackson Pollack painting. Then switch back and forth. At the very least, you will exist in the moment and see what is in front of you.

My next technique is to STOP myself on the street, look up, look around, and ask myself, "Am I alive?" It sounds obvious, but it never hurts to remind myself of that.

The world honestly looks different in that moment. It's a world I wish I saw more often.

Then, I ask myself, "What is beautiful about this moment?" If you want to be less of a sap, just change the adjective: What is cool? What is inspiring? What is funny?

After doing this, I notice how little I have been noticing the world around me. I realize how much I have been wasting my life and ignoring the gifts flying past my face. And I start to notice until the next time my brain shuts off.

Finally, I use my own variation on a trick that Barbara DeAngelis calls "Real Moments". Her formula is "Conscious, Connect, Surrender."

I never really figured out what that means, but I've gotten it to work for me.

Conscious: Blink. Look around. Look at your arms, your shoes, the tip of your nose. Look at the world around you.

Connect: Focus on the people you are with, or just the strangers immediately around you. Really look at them and notice who they are and why it's great that they are there.

Surrender: Now embrace the Jackson Pollack painting. Take all of the individual elements you've identified, and let them flow at you, attack you, wash over you. Blur your eyes and pretend you are in one of those 2001 space-warps.

When this is done, you will notice the world around you. You will notice how little you had been noticing before. And hopefully you will want to notice your world more often.

Without this, I don't see much point in accomplishing anything, or even existing from moment to moment.

It's great for walking down the street, but it's better during the moments when you are achieving something you've waited forever to achieve.

It's cheesy, but when I am kissing a beautiful girl - certainly a moment I strive towards in life - I take one second to open my eyes, think "fucking awesome - I'm here", and then lose myself again. Sometimes that one moment is enough.

Put yourself absolutely in the moment, because it is the moment you've worked towards. Or maybe it is just one of many fleeting moments in your life. Don't let any of them slip by in a haze.

Online Dating

I've used online dating for years, to varying degrees of success. Plenty of smart people I know, though, see online dating as an abomination of a sacred process.

Yeah, well, maybe it's okay to fuck with dating. Dating is an abomination of normal human interaction. I don't see how it can get weirder.

Still, these friends of mine probably picture a robot or a Martian meeting them at the coffee shop. Hey, she didn't have a third eye in her picture!

I believe that online dating is only slightly different from normal dating. In both cases, you barely know the person before the first date.

If you asked the person out in a coffee shop, you know what they look like but not much about their personality. If you asked them out online, you've likely had some promising correspondence, just as you've likely seen one grainy and ultimately useless picture of them.

Thus, the first date will be full of surprises, no matter how you initially met.

Sometimes people fall in love online before they meet in person. Once in a while, this holds up upon meeting, but often it doesn't.

Sometimes people fall in love "at first sight". The sex will probably be great for a few months, but it's not really something I'd want to base a relationship on.

I'd say, then, that no matter how you meet someone initially, you still have a lot of relating to do before you can figure out if you are soulmates. In that sense, it doesn't matter whether you initially connected on Match.com or at Starbucks.

Attaching a stigma to online dating cuts out a whole world of potential experiences and people that might have otherwise enriched your life.

Online, I've met long-term girlfriends, short-term girlfriends, girls who became lifelong friends, girls who were married with children, girls I was disappointed upon meeting, and girls who were disappointed upon meeting me.

These were all real girls, real people, in the flesh. There were no robots. Each of them had two eyes. Each offered at least a few hours of connecting with a new person, with the possibility of more if we clicked.

That said, online dating can also be a crutch if you are afraid of approaching people in real life. There's little incentive to ask someone out at Barnes and Noble if you can go home and get dates while hiding behind your computer screen.

The result, as I've said, will be the same - but if you are afraid to approach, you are cutting out a world of possibility, the same as my anti-online friends. Real-life approach is unbelievably hard at first, but it's also cheaper than online dating, with fewer steps involved before the first date.

If you are serious about dating, then, my advice is to become comfortable approaching people in both worlds. Don't use either realm as an excuse to hide from the other. And if you do end up on a date with a Martian, you can at least make a cool new friend out of the deal.

Running From Depression

I wonder if I will always be running from depression.

Depression was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and I didn't even have it that bad.

I was able to get out of bed. I could work and hold friendships and generally exist in the world. What I couldn't do was enjoy any of it.

It was an empty, destructive time in my life. The memory of it still scares me so much. It jabs into my side like a cowboy's spurs and keeps me running away from that feeling.

I tried everything to get over depression. I exercised. I dieted. I expanded my interests. I saw several doctors.

After endless soul-searching, I went on anti-depressants and found out they worked amazingly. But that wasn't good enough. Sporadically, I'd go off them and see if I was still depressed. Usually I was.

The last time seems to have worked. I've been off anti-depressants for ten months, and I have been happier than at any time in my life.

I'm still running, though. I'm still scared. I am so sure depression is lurking just around the corner, waiting to envelope my life, and I will be helpless to stop it. None of my tricks will work.

If that happens, I will go back on anti-depressants and eventually feel fine. But - for as much as I know there is NO stigma to taking pills, that they are a Godsend - I will know that depression has beaten me again. Just because it could.

Because of this, I am relentless in how fast, how passionately, how energetically I run from depression.

I stay in shape. I eat well. I wake up and think good thoughts. I get on the subway and think good thoughts. I look for the good in everything, especially myself. I search for the good side of 15-degree days and 95-degree days in the city. And I go to sleep thinking good thoughts.

This is exhausting. It makes me genuinely happy, but it drains me. It is the only way I want to live, but so much of it is motivated by fear. I do not ever want to begin the slippery slide back to where I was.

I'm scared that if I stop thinking positively all the time, that if I just do it once in a while, I will become like most people seem to be: bitter, bored, unappreciative, just generally underwhelmed with being alive.

And I'm scared that if I am not relentless about thinking positive and being happy, I will fall back into my own Hell, which is ten times worse than the common affliction I just described.

So I turn happiness into a full-time job. There are certainly worse things than being happy all the time. But I wish I could relax just an inch without the fear that depression will take a mile, and then keep taking until I have disappeared.

Spend Your Knowledge

One way to affect the world is to share your knowledge and gifts with other people.

Our society places tons of value on learning. We are encouraged to read books, to learn languages, to travel and experience new things. Failing that, we are at least supposed to watch the Discovery Channel instead of MTV.

I recently finished six lengthy books on Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. I certainly learned a lot about those men, and about American history in general.

Still, I often wonder what it all adds up to.

For all of our capitalistic tendencies, we tend to be suspicious of people who stockpile money just to see how much they can earn. Even if they spend all their money on lavish houses and cars, at least they spent it on creating something. They aren't just sleeping on a pile of money.

At the same time, we tend to applaud people who hoard knowledge. People who read hundreds of books or amass multiple college degrees are better looked upon than those who collect money for fun.

What good is knowledge that isn't shared or applied to make the world a better place? How is unused knowledge any different from unspent money?

I am not saying there's anything wrong with learning and experiencing. I hope to do a lot more of it in the time I have left.

But I used to think that learning was not just a means to an end, but an end in itself. I was making the world a better place by making myself a smarter person.

Now I see that learning is like money. It has to be spent on ends like contribution, teaching, and connecting if it is to have any value.

Likely, there is some value in me learning everything there is to know about Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. But right now, that value is miniscule. One person among billions has been educated.

To truly make good on that learning experience, I need to share what I've learned. I can teach a class on those Presidents. I can write another book synthesizing what I know. At the very least, I can bore people to death by dropping my knowledge into conversations.

If I've learned carpentry, I need to use that skill to actually build things. If I've studied French, I need to use it to connect with French people, or to teach others to connect, or to ease diplomatic relations between our two countries.

If I travel to the Ukraine and gain a new perspective on the world, the value gained is only potential value - until I use that new perspective to educate and better the lives of myself and others. Unless I do that, my trip was only a flight of fancy, a stamp on a passport.

Finally, if I spend countless hours reading blogs and journals on the internet - to use a purely hypothetical example - I need to invest just as much time in writing my own. Even if it sucks, I need to put my own knowledge and value out into the world. That's karma and fair play, but it's also making good on all of the things I've learned.

Don't be Scrooge McDuck, keeping your knowledge hermetically sealed and swimming around in it. It goes when you go. Use it while you're here to live more effectively and to enrich the lives of other people.

Don't Be Invisible

I'm trying to hold myself to a different standard when I go out into the world, and when I am hiding inside my apartment.

"How much did it matter that I was here?"

You can make the touchy-feely assertion that you always matter, and that simply by sitting in front of your computer or scratching yourself, you are appreciating the gift of life.

I won't argue there. In my touchier-feelier moments, I probably agree with you. Being alive matters, whatever you might be doing in the moment.

On a less cosmic level, though, there is the question of how much, in any given moment, your actions are affecting the world around you.

I often ask myself, "How much would this situation be different if I wasn't here?" It's scary how often the answer is, "Not by much."

I go to the store, lost in my own world. I pick out my groceries, pay for them, and come home. I barely talk to anybody outside of some forced pleasantries.

What did I do? I floated through the world, past hundreds of people, and I never left my own tiny bubble. I didn't change anything around me.

If I hadn't been there, it's likely that things would have gone exactly as they had, or pretty close to it.

I sit in my room, reading online, listening to music, watching a movie. The world swirls around my apartment. I do nothing to alter the swirl.

I used to fancy myself an observer of social situations. I swore that those situations needed someone who didn't contribute anything to them.

That now seems wrong-headed to me. I wish I had jumped in and changed things a little.

You're not a bad person if you don't affect the world. But I believe you are selling yourself short . You are wasting chances to flaunt your human-ness, to assert the fact that you exist.

A lot of people seem downright apologetic about the fact that they are alive. They never say, or even think, as much, but that's how they carry themselves.

That manifests itself in being overly quiet, in being unwilling to jump into social situations or give their opinion about anything. In being unwilling to affect the world in any way.

Most people want to leave their mark on the world before they die. That's selfish on one level, but it's also the right of every living thing. I'm wondering if it's also a responsibility.

If you don't leave your mark, you are making a beeline for the grave with your eyes staring at the ground. When you do that, you lived, you breathed, you mattered in a cosmic sense - but you wasted your opportunity to matter in other, equally important ways.

Dig A Moat

I'm not taking my own advice today. There's always the temptation to ignore the tricks I know, to go with life's flow, even if I'm flowing into dangerous waters. Tonight I succumb to it.

My advice, which I am ignoring just this once, is to dig a moat between your bad days and your nights.

A moat, like kings and queens used to dig around their castles. Dig it deep. Fill it with hungry alligators. Make it so wide that your demons won't try to cross.

If you don't dig a moat, the demons from your day will follow you into your evening. If your day was painful, your evening will be the same. If you had problems when it was light, you will stress over them in the dark.

I used to let my demons cross over every night.

I'd come home from teaching, wracked from the stresses of the day. I angrily called parents and got even angrier when their numbers were disconnected. In my head, I had vivid arguments with my students. And when I'd wrung every last negative thought from my day, I turned to the stresses of tomorrow.

I had no moat, and there was no difference between my days and my nights. My weekdays became endless cycles of stress and despondency.

You might not be unhappy like I was. It's possible that your demons manifest themselves as physical fatigue. That's something I still struggle with.

There is a simple way around this, and I'm convinced that most people don't know about it or aren't willing to do it. It took me forever to come to this easy, easy solution.

It's simple. Do something that jolts you out of your old mood and clears your mind of the day's thoughts.

Get home and exercise right away. Better yet, stop at the gym before you even get home. Leave your demons somewhere else.

Meditate for fifteen minutes. Blank your mind for as long as you can. You won't solve your problems, but they will shrink away for hours.

There are likely other ways to dig a moat, but those are my two methods.

They are a challenge every day.

Exercising takes energy. Meditation is worse. They both offer a full evening of happiness in exchange for a few minutes of discomfort.

Most days, that won't seem like a deal worth taking. Tonight, I don't have that 15-30 minutes in me. Later, I will regret my decision, but later isn't now.

That said, you should try to dig a moat every day.

Don't take the easy way out, because it won't work. In my experience, watching TV doesn't dig a moat between your day and your evening.

Neither does staring at the wall, or collapsing into your chair, or falling asleep. Snacking is worse. All you are doing is distracting yourself, and while you are distracted, your demons will sneak into the evening.

Digging a moat will give you your nights back. Instead of being ugly xeroxes of your day, your nights become canvases upon which you can paint anything.

You will have energy and drive. You will feel peaceful and happy. Not every night, but enough to convince you that digging a moat is a habit you should adopt.

If you are smart or lucky, you won't need this trick. If you enjoy your days, and if there is nothing waiting to pounce on your evenings, then ignore my advice. With my new job, I don't need moats nearly as much as I did.

I'm convinced, though, that I didn't just describe the state of most people. And I've been unhappy enough to know that I wasn't the only one feeling that way.

Give yourself the gift of evenings that aren't just extensions of a lousy day. Take the time, grin and bear the dig, even enjoy it if you can. Turn your back on the day and embrace a free and clear evening.

Wake up!

I'm not a morning person.

Actually, I'm convinced there are no morning people.

Most folks, whatever their job, whatever their attitude, would rather sleep just a little bit longer. Even if they'll accomplish more by being awake. Even if it means losing their job.

It's the rare go-getter who bounces out of bed at 6:58 a.m., tells his alarm, "Don't worry, I'll take it from here!" and turns it off pre-ring.

Most of us are not that guy. Good, because he's kind of creepy.

If you can't get out of bed at all, Steve Pavlina offers excellent advice on forcing yourself to do that. I'm more c0ncerned with your attitude after your feet hit the ground.

It's been said that "the first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day." Likely, this pearl comes from some overachieving freak like Benjamin Franklin or God, but there's a lot of truth to it.

If you wake up in a lousy mood, you will likely stay that way throughout the day. Conversely, if you wake up in a good mood - or rather, if you put yourself in a good mood right away - your day will be infinitely better.

So it's not just the first hour - I'll argue that the first minute of your day has far-reaching effects. How can you spend it ideally?

If you're like me, it's your natural state to wake up and think, "I hate my job, the weather stinks, and nobody likes me." At the very least, you're mad at the world for making you leave the comfort of your bed.

Resist it. These lousy thoughts will follow you the rest of the day. Attempts to change them will be less and less effective the longer you wait to think positively.

Train yourself to think good thoughts as soon as you wake up. Get high on the weather, even if it's pouring rain - on your job, even if you hate it - on yourself, even if you suck.

Think good thoughts. Lie if you have to.

Make this a habit. Do it a minute after you wake up. Then 45 seconds the next day. Then 15 seconds. Finally, do it the moment your eyes open. It's a habit. It can be learned.

When I do this, my day feels lighter. I'm happier. I don't go to work and grumble all day. I don't spend my weekends in an emotionless stupor.

This especially helped when I had to wake up at 5 a.m. every day to teach. At 5 a.m., there's nothing around me to improve my mood. It's dark. It's cold. The world is still asleep, and I should be too.

The solution is to look beyond your immediate situation and think about the good things in your life. Tony Robbins supplies these questions, which have always worked for me:

What are you happy about? What are you excited about? What are you proud of? What are you grateful for? What do you enjoy? What are you committed to? Who do you love, and who loves you?

Come up with a few good answers for each one. Switch them up a bit each day as appropriate.

Immerse yourself in those thoughts as you stumble to the bathroom and brush your teeth. It takes effort, but it beats hating the world while you brush.

I can be a real maniac about this. I wake up at 3 a.m. to use the bathroom, and even though my eyes are barely open, I smile and mumble, "I'm awsm......lifes grt.....back t slp now."

You don't have to be a maniac. Feel free to give your mind a rest in the middle of the night.

Still, make the effort to think positively the moment you wake up. You might never love the morning, but you'll make peace with it, and your outlook on the day will be much better.

Living In Never-Never Land

"You name it, I haven't done it!" - Ned Flanders

Is your goal in life is to be like Ned Flanders? Mine used to be.

I'm not talking about Ned's stable family life, impeccable health, and devotion to doing good works. Bo-ring.

I mean the nasty stuff: the absolute lack of vices, the asleep by 8 p.m., the mustache.

I especially hate the mustache. When I picture a future where I've lived the straight and narrow, where I've been shackled by my fears, I am ALWAYS sporting a Flanders mustache. It's horrifically ugly. It's my mark of shame.

And yet, I spent so much of my life being proud of the things I hadn't done. Like I had a perfect record. Like I'd one day be rewarded for wasting my time on earth.

Elementary school: "I've never gotten my name on the board." Sounds fun!

Middle school: "I'd never have an earring/tattoo/long hair. That's weird." I was naive and intolerant.

High school: "I don't go out clubbing. I don't drink. I don't hook up with girls unless I love them." Actually, I didn't go clubbing or drink because I was scared, and I didn't hook up with girls because they wouldn't hook up with me.

I was proud of this!

I am still struggling to live my more open-minded values. There are plenty of things I haven't done, but I'm not particularly proud of them anymore.

Expand your comfort zone. Don't believe it every time society tells you something is wrong. Society says that about everything. Blindly following it leads to a dull existence.

Live your values, not your fears and prejudices. Before you decide you will NEVER, EVER do something, really examine it and make sure it is YOUR decision.

For instance, I will NEVER, EVER eat meat again. That's based on my own personal ethics.

I will also NEVER, EVER smoke a cigarette. That used to be the result of societal brainwashing, but now it's because I find them disgusting. I don't want to spend my 60s and 70s hunched over and coughing.

There are others. But fewer than before.

If something is too scary to do, that's fine. Accept it. Don't construct a fantasy world where you are morally superior for never doing it.

I will probably never base jump from the top of the Grand Canyon or get a giant dragon tattoo across my back. But I don't falsely assume that the people who do those things are crazy or immoral.

They're no better or worse than me. But they might be more adventurous. They're less constrained by society's rules.

I've found that the less I judge people for their decisions (as long as they are not harmful to others), and the more I admire their courage and creativity, the happier I am.

And the more I do things I would previously NEVER have done, the fuller my life is and the more stories I have to tell.

Help A Brother Out

I have a lot of fears: anarchy, cockroaches, driving in New York City, a big bowl of spaghetti and me without a fork. Actually, that last one wouldn't be a problem at all.

My biggest fear, though, has stuck with me since childhood. I'm scared that one day I will be faced with the opportunity to help someone, to be a hero, and I will shrink away from it.

I won't shrink away because I am afraid or unready. I will be paralyzed with fear because I might end up doing the wrong thing. Because I might flub the situation and make it worse than it was.

The most common scenario in my head is someone teetering on the edge of a cliff. My mind races and my willingness to act drops. Is this person really about to fall? If I reach out, will I save him - or will I accidentally push him off when he would have otherwise been okay?

So I do nothing.

This shouldn't be a big deal. There are no cliffs in Manhattan. I haven't even been to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, lest Tom Hanks run up and declare his love for me.

Forget that. Cliffs are a fantasy. So is Tom Hanks.

There are endless opportunities during the day to do the right thing, and I still avoid most of them because I am afraid of making things worse.

People on the subway are clearly lost. I could give them directions. But what if I send them in the wrong direction? I stay silent.

A woman needs help carrying her baby's stroller up the stairs. I could easily pick up one end and help her. But what if she yanks it away and shrieks, "STAY AWAY FROM MY BABY"? I keep walking.

This is no way to live. For one thing, it's always best to be proactive. Take a chance and do some good.

Secondly, the fears are stupid. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don't shriek. They don't look at you funny. They admire you for stepping out of your shell and doing the right thing.

This is my new mission, and maybe you can do it with me. Seek out opportunities to help people. If you look around,the opportunities are there.

Someone stumbles. Ask if he's okay. In your mind, he might bark at you that he doesn't need help. In real life, he will probably appreciate that you care.

Someone sneezes. Say "bless you". In your mind, people might look at you funny. In your mind, she is an atheist, and you will be forcing your religious views on her. In real life, she'll at least smile at the fact that you noticed her.

Don't hide behind your fears. Look for little opportunities to improve peoples' lives. Then act before you think. I'll do the same.

Love and Baseball

One summer at baseball camp, I only got one hit. I plunked the ball into the infield, and the shortstop accidentally beaned it at my arm instead of the first baseman's glove. It hurt, but I'll take what works.

I could have had another hit, though. There was one time when I hit the ball and took off for first base. I saw the shortstop pick it up and get ready to throw me out.

Dispirited, I ran off the basepath and headed back for the dugout. No harm done, I thought. I wasn't going to make it anyway.

The coaches, who had appluaded me through so much lousy playing, were mad this time. They told me that if I had run it out, if I had made it all the way to the base, I would have reached it safely.

That lesson has stuck with me, and now I'm sticking it with you.

And yes, there is a point to the baseball metaphors.

I've moved on from sports to dating, and I've gotten a lot more nihlistic about my failures. It's true that if I feel rejected, I can move on emotionally - I can feel happy a few minutes later - I can jump into the next date feeling hopeful.

One thing I have a hard time doing, though, is believing I might get a second chance after a first rejection. If I perceive that a girl doesn't like me, or even like me enough, that's it - fuck you, and goodnight.

I don't want to persist. I don't want to be the creepy guy who doesn't get the hint. I give up rather than take the chance of bothering somebody who might not want to be around me.

I'm halfway to the base, and if I think I won't get there, I still turn around and head back for my next opportunity.

Well, what about the opportunity I just had? What was the point of starting something if I wasn't going to see it through to the end?

The truth is that when I persist just once - ask for a second date after I was sure the first date was a disaster - I bat around .500. Half the time, the girl is totally up for hanging out again.

Those are hall-of-fame numbers. Ted Williams ain't got shit on me. But I still struggle with the idea.

My advice, then, which has nothing to do with baseball and very little to do with dating, is to always give things one more chance.

I'm not saying to keep plugging away at something that is an obvious failure. But give each of your initial failures one more try.

Remember that if the reward was worth your initial effort, then it's worth a few extra steps. You'll be surprised at how many opportunities stay open for you after you were certain that they were closed forever.

Sir, Where Is My Car?

Personally, I think the words "dude" and "bro" are kind of stupid. For one thing, they're usually the beginning of a story about how trashed someone got last night. Dude!

Maybe my negative attitude comes from movies and TV. I remember a commercial from the 80's where a father was trying to impress his sons with how cool he was. He walked up to them in a Hawaiian shirt, holding a surfboard, sunblock under his eyes, and asked, "Ready, duuuudes?"

Way uncool, bro.

On the other hand - and there is always an other hand with me - maybe I am not the best person to judge the use of such language.

True, I am one of the more easygoing and nonjudgemental people you'll ever meet. Very little can ruin my cool, even when there is drama raging all around me.

In other ways, though, specifically physically, and in trying new, crazy things, I am a real tightass.

That's harsh but true. One reason I could never be gay is that no guy could look at the giant stick up my butt without feeling totally inadequate.

I know how to have a good time, but I have a real problem cutting loose and having a crazy fun experience. I can't really relax or simply vibe with people.

Like with everything else, I am trying to change that. Could it be that words like "bro" and "dude" are the key?

The more I study people who are good with people, the more I see them using words like "dude" and "bro".

These aren't frat guys or surfers or baby boomers trying to act cool. They are normal guys who have learned to relax around others. They've learned to integrate the language of cool into their intelligent daily lives.

We all know the value of addressing someone with their name. It makes them feel unique and important.

Generic nicknames fall on both sides of that. Obviously, nobody likes it when some anonymous bouncer says, "Let's see that ID, champ!" It's absurdly impersonal and downright condescending.

On the other side of that, though, is a place where you are so comfortable with someone that you drop even the pretense of using their name. It's more natural with close friends, but I've seen people get there with total strangers, too.

In that context, these nicknames can be terms of affection and respect. Even better, they are terms of closeness, of collapsing the walls that exist between people.

These names can also be signs of a more relaxed worldview. They send out the sign that you don't have a gigantic stick up your ass. This might not be a good idea in prison, but it can probably only help in normal social circumstances.

Remember the wacked-out surfer turtles in Finding Nemo? It's probably true that the Eastern Australian Current had washed away some of their brain cells. But they were relaxed. They were comfortable in their own shells. They treated strange fish like old friends.

Simply put, people who use "dude" or "bro" or any other term like that seem to have more fun just existing. They relate to anyone like it's no big deal. Brain cells aside, that seems like a totally tubular place to be.

Accruing Life Experience Interest

When I went to football games as an undergrad, the area outside the stadium was littered with credit card booths. Representatives offered a free Florida Gators tee-shirt to anyone who signed up for a new Visa or MasterCard.

I didn't like the Florida Gators then, and I still don't like credit cards. I hate the idea of spending money I don't have yet.

And that's just if you pay your bills on time. Those companies were targeting students who they knew would only pay the minimum each month, accruing interest with each bill. Thus, what could have been a simple purchase ends up costing several times the original price.

Why would anyone pay so much? That's easy: to avoid the initial pain of shelling out the money (or earning it to begin with). Nothing is as painful when it's done little by little. If there will be pain in realizing that you spent far more than you originally intended, that's in the future. It's not now.

It's the same as peeling off a band-aid millimeter by millimeter or wading into a freezing pool one toe at a time.

Or talking to women.

Yeah, I was going somewhere with this.

One of my biggest goals lately has been to talk to as many pretty girls as I can. I want to get more dates, yes, but I also want to become a more social creature.

The best way to accomplish this is to just go out and do it. Talk to as many girls as I can in a given day, then do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

If that's too hard, I can at least go out and talk to one girl each day. New York is full of them. It can be done.

But I don't. I don't want the stress. I don't want to face my fears. I know the rewards will be amazing, but I am paralyzed right now.

Right now, I approach one girl every few days, if that. It's not structured. I do it in the most comfortable situations possible.

I am avoiding the initial payment of a few days, weeks, or months of stress and facing my fears. I am paying a little bit at a time, and accruing the interest I hate so much.

When I look back, that interest will reveal itself as years of sustained loneliness and knowing that I let my fears keep me from living up to my potential.

That is so much more painful than the initial expenditure of putting myself in uncomfortable social situations. But since it's in the future, I continue to pay a little bit at a time and rack up a horrible debt.

If you are also stuck in this mindset, I don't have any words of motivation to break you out. If I did, I'd use them myself.

Sometimes, though, just seeing the terms laid out is enough to wake people up and get them to change their approach. If that is all it takes for you to break out of the mindset of accruing life experience interest, of putting off that initial payment, then I hope these words help.

And if you have any words of motivation that might help me break out of my own pattern, I'd certainly appreciate them.

Looking for Superman

One of the best ways to improve your mood is to look up. It seems so simple that it's almost trite, but it works for me more often than not.

If you're like me, you spend a lot of your life looking at the floor, or the pavement, or, if you're a hippie, your dirty feet and the hackey-sack you just missed.

To an extent, that's fine. There are a lot of cool bugs down there. You also want to avoid stepping on a crack and giving your mom a spinal injury.

There are a few drawbacks to this, though. For one, other people tend to be at eye-level. Try looking them in the eye. You'll feel more connected, and since they're all staring at the pavement, they won't even know you're doing it.

Worse, looking down tends to be a cauldron where all your negative emotions brew and simmer. I don't know about you, but when I catch myself slipping into bitterness, anger, or self-pity, I am almost always staring hard at the ground.

The best thing is that this can often be changed by looking up. Tilt your head up, strain your neck, and raise your eyes like someone just told a corny joke. Take in whatever is above you. Force a smile too, although I'm betting you won't have to.

Imagine your deity of choice is looking down at you and smiling. If you don't swing that way, just look up at the sky. It's scary how easy it is to go hours without even doing that. If you're indoors, close your eyes and imagine the office light has sunny qualities.

When I do this, I almost always feel more happy. I feel hopeful and at peace. My mind clears. It doesn't always last, but I don't always need it to. Sometimes I just need to put my problems in perspective for a minute.

I don't know the science behind this. It doesn't always work. Looking up won't raise your mood at a loved one's funeral. But most of our problems aren't that serious - we just dwell in them until they seem that way. Looking up, even for a minute, helps us break that seductive, destructive pattern.

Ruining your bad mood

Notice: I did not invent this technique. As far as I can tell, Dr. Robert Anthony did. I'm just publicizing his very useful trick.


The idea here is throttling a bad mood before it has the chance to affect you. It's filling your mind with positive thoughts at the very moment it is dying to wallow in negative thoughts. This doesn't kill your bad mood with kindness - but it does knock it over the head and ensure that it comes back a little less powerful.

If you're a member of the human race, you are likely confronted with endless opportunities for lapsing into horrible moods. Traffic sucks. Your boss said something mean. You got a bad grade.

Maybe somebody looked at you cock-eyed, and you're dying to serve them up a knuckle sandwich. Actually, if that last one is bothering you, you can also add to the list: the disastrous effects of Hoover-nomics; the Great Depression; the rise of Hitler.

Luckily, this technique works for people stuck in the 1930's and living today. It's simple: the second you start to get mad, sad, depressed, indignant, whatever - STOP. Your mind will try to tell you that you can't stop, shouldn't stop, that it's natural - that somehow, wallowing in these negative feelings will make your life better. Don't believe it. STOP.

Recognize your bad mood, STOP it cold, and then spent the next 15-20 seconds immersing yourself in happy thoughts. Take yourself a million miles away from the bad situation. Ignore it, even if you could swear it's REALITY and to walk away would mean ignoring REALITY. The only true reality is what you are thinking, and for 15-20 seconds, you need to change what you are thinking.

Think about someone you love. Think about eating a big slice of pizza. SMILE against your will. Have a mental script ready, and even if you mentally recite it in your dullest voice, it will take you away from your involuntary negative emotions.

Force these thoughts for less than half a minute. Ignore the temptation to focus on your negative circumstances. It will seem unnatural, it will be tough, but do it. It does get easier each time.

When you come back, the traffic will still suck, your bad grade will still be there, and Franklin Roosevelt still won't be President for another year or so. This I admit.

The difference, the huge difference, is that things won't seem nearly as bad. At best, they will no longer have the power to cause a Pavlovian negative response in you.

Getting mad or feeling self-pity or focusing on the worst things in your life - these are easy patterns to fall into. It's likely that we've been falling into them since birth.

However, if you learn to break the pattern, you will convince your mind that you are in charge of your reactions. Eventually, it will stop trying to lead you down these momentarily comforting, but ultimately destructive emotional paths.

At first, it might take a while to recognize that you're slipping into a bad mood. The more you do this, the more conscious you will become. The goal of all this is to recognize the mood as soon as it comes and absolutely refuse to sink into it.

It's important to me to stay in a good mood for most of my waking hours. Running from depression will do that for you. Therefore, I do this EVERY time I start to feel something negative.

You honestly might not want to do this as often as I do. A lot of great thoughts and art have come from negative emotions. I'm still not convinced that they should be banished from the face of the earth, although I'll settle for banishing them from my own mind.

The important thing is that you don't allow these negative emotions to CONTROL you. Allow them once in a while if you must, but do it on your own terms.

So many people I know swim in their bad moods - they revel in their negative circumstances - they wear their hurt and anger and sadness on their sleeves. You can be better than that.

Just change your focus for a few seconds in the heat of the moment. Smile and think positive thoughts. It won't change your circumstances, but you'll probably realize the heat wasn't worth ruining your mood over.

Let me know if this helps.

The beginning...

I don't know everything. In fact, if you knew how little I know, you'd know to run screaming from here.

On the other hand, I've come a long way since I started on the path of self-improvement a few years ago. Rather than waiting until I'm perfect, I've decided to share some tips that have helped make my life better.

I hope they help you, too.