Life Lessons

You know, my blog is really stale. I haven't written in it for about a year. I wanted a new leading page. So, I decided to publish something that I sent a friend a long time ago. My life lessons, How audacious! Please write your own and share them. I can't, for the life of me, get it down to 5 as per this site.

Here they are:

1. Define success for yourself and strive to achieve what you believe to be success.
2. Make a plan based on what you want and follow it (or change it as circumstances change).
3. Live for today but plan for tomorrow,
4. Fear is THE limiting factor; learn to push pass your fears if you want to succeed.
5. Choices are faced every single minute—think about your choices.
6. Don’t look back and regret—look forward and plan.
7. Don’t dwell on shame or guilt, but pay attention to what caused it, and change what needs to be changed—let go of what doesn’t.
8. The best things in life really are free.
9. Embrace contradiction; celebrate paradox.
10. Art is a must. Music, particularly.
11. Admit your errors and apologize, promptly and sincerely, when you blow it.
12. Forgive people as fast and deeply as you can, then they will forgive you quickly and deeply, too; it is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
13. Laugh a lot, particularly at yourself.
14. Widen what is acceptable; embrace differences.
15. Be grateful.
16. Play.
17. Socialize—have friends. But, don’t just hang out with people like you (age, race, sexual orientation, religion, whatever...)—seek diversity within your friendship circles as much as possible.
18. Be generous with your time, your money, your skills. Help people.
19. Avoid (your particular) stressors.
20. Spend less than you earn, and invest the rest.
21. Exercise as it really helps anxiety and stress as well as general health.
22. Avoid jealousy, envy, resentment, and revenge whenever you can.
23. Embrace compassion, forgiveness, conciliation and reconciliation whenever you can.
24. Love way, way more than dislike or hate (if you do 22 and 23, this is inevitable.)
25. A life in balance is crucial for happiness.
26. Don’t worry if you are somewhat “crazy”—we all are to one degree or another—admit it and embrace it. (If you are more than "somewhat" crazy, seek help)
27. Do what you say you are going to do.
28. Respond promptly to everyone; be on time.
29. Thank people when they are nice to you.
30. Keep assumptions light, but use your brain—categories are necessary—be ready to be proven wrong.
31. Embrace every death as an urging to celebrate life.
32. Have empathy but not so much that you are paralyzed trying to rescue others while losing yourself.
33. Be nice to people, but—come on—some sarcasm is also necessary for mental health.
34. A fall from grace can be the best thing that happens to you. When you really screw up, the chance for real growth comes. (Good luck, Tiger)
35. No risk, no reward
36. A great partner is wonderful; it is better to be alone than with a bad partner
37. If you have a partner in life, develop a combination of independence and interdependence. Absolutely, do not be jealous, controlling, and possessive—no matter what—as it is impossible to have a successful relationship with these qualities. If your partner is not worthy of trust, then leave her or him. Otherwise, you must trust.
38. What works in this society, won’t necessarily work in another—truths are often culturally created. This is an USA “blue state” list, for the record.
39. This too shall pass. Life flows and intense pain or intense pleasure are, generally, fleeting.
40. Be persistent. That is the essence of problem-solving.

In general, I would say I really have a handle on the first 40 and they all come from my life experience, and I follow them as best as I can. The last three are still far from my grasp, but I might get there:

41. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run. (Kenny Rogers – from the song, The Gambler.) Seriously, this is really easier said than done. However, you should strive for all these things.
42. Moderation in everything. (I don’t do this one at all, but I am convinced it would be good if I did!)
43. Stop and smell the roses.

Ah, peanut butter

Leslie's wrote yesterday about her daily peanut butter sandwich habit when working. However, sometimes, one must just go directly to the jar. The French just do not know what they are missing!

I have ASPS!

I just found out (while reading a book review) that something I "have" and rather enjoy is a condition, a syndrome, a medical problem but, lucky me, can be treated. It is called Advanced Sleep-Phase Syndrome (ASPS). To wit, people who tend to go to bed around 7:30 pm and rise around 3:30 am. While I was an early riser in Santa Cruz - usually around 5:30 am or so - since I have been in Hawaii, I have fairly closely followed the ASPS model. Cool! I love having a syndrome - particularly one that I enjoy so much. (I am pretty sure that I have enough "symptoms" to also fit on the obsessive-compulsive syndrome spectrum. That, too, is quite enjoyable for me if not so much for Leslie and my friends.)

Apparently, it has a genetic link and is common in post-menopausal women (C'est moi!) and the elderly (I don't think I count yet, though certainly the evil folks at AARP keep pleading with me to join.) And, yes, there is another syndrome for night owls. It is called - you guessed it - Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome (DSPS).

I personally think the world has TMDS (Too many damn syndromes)

The oldest living person died (again)

Did you hear that Marie de Jesus of Portugal just died? She was the world's oldest person at 115. Now, she obtained that title on November 28th when Edna Parker (115; from Indiana) died. I am thinking all the stress of the title might have led to Marie's premature death. The oldest person title has been passed back to the USA. Her name is Gertrude Baines (114; from LA). Good luck to her. I hope the publicity doesn't kill her.

However they are all youngsters compared to my favorite title holder, Jeanne Calment of France. She died at 122, living longer than anyone before or since. She believed the secret to her long life was lots of olive oil, wine and chocolate. Sounds about right to me. She didn't credit cigarettes, though she didn't give them up until she was 117.

Ok, off to eat a candy bar…

Reader's recommendations

Why contributions are just pouring in from my readers!

By brother, Russ, recommended this blog from a math professor friend awhile back and wanted to share it. His particular favorites:

I highly recommend his entry "What Does Sarah Eat For Breakfast?" (on Palin), and for some insight into Ron "Cyrus Restaurant" (on food, eh), and "The Old Guard" (on baseball).

I generally enjoy Ron's fascination with Sarah Palin - something I share. I meant to blog about the Palin/turkey video but will let Ron speak for me instead.

If you are interested in legal issues from a rightist, libertarian (and intellectually honest) perspective, Ken Karst recommends this blog. But, I don’t expect this will constitute a large share of my readership. (Ken, by the way, is a liberal constitutional law professor.) Nonetheless, there it is.

My fabulous sister-in-law (and French professor) Laura says “this might not be blog worthy” mais au contraire! It is almost painful to listen to these two women baby-talk to a little hedgehog thrown into a bathtub. You may not want to view the full six and one half minutes of it. But, do catch the last minute at least….

My cyberspace portal - a real blogger

It isn't like I am a "fake" blogger. But, for now, I am just practicing here for a time that I might take this seriously. The great thing about this form is that you can just do whatever you want and if someone cares, that is great. But, that is not the main point. Unfortunately, I don't yet know what the main point is. I'm working on it. But, for sure, I never wanted to be a writer. I still say that I don't. But, here I am writing. How to reconcile this?

The initial impetus for a blog was simply efficiency. We were going to be in France for six weeks and I didn't want to write a lot of emails or postcards. But, I wanted my friends to know how we were if they wondered. Hence, the blog. The irony is that I ended up also writing a ton of very long emails, too. So much for efficiency.

One could literally get on any blog with external links (I assume that is the vast majority of them) and never, ever leave cyberspace. Until death. I find that so damn cool, but also exhausting. I use a real writer and blogger, Andrew Sullivan, as my portal into cyberspace. He likes to say he is conservative, but his conservative looks pretty damn moderate to me. But, he reads right-wing blogs and left-wing blogs and is interested in everything. So, he leads you in multiple directions. In this article from Atlantic magazine (his home base), he provides the best description of the feel of his blog:

...a blogger feels less like a writer than an online disc jockey, mixing samples of tunes and generating new melodies through mashups while also making his own music.

Yep - it is just like that. If you want a portal into cyberspace, I recommend his. (But, if you think you have a better one - please share.)

Ah, this feels better

Ok, this is now my one and only blog. I will start labeling my posts for easy searching. Thus, if you only want to read my Hawaii posts, then search under "Hawaii". I will leave my old blogs in place, of course. But, from now on, you can find me here.

So, I had a thought after yesterday's post. I want all of you to guest blog! This would take some pressure off me to continually post something, anything. What sorts of topics am I thinking about? Well, off the top of my head - I would love to read something on birdwatching, jazz singing, singing in an opera, applying to graduate school, skiing, boot camp, composting, anything about life in France, childrearing, the mortgage mess, Hawaii, classical music, growing old, marriage equity, Ruth Ginsburg, opera, bicycling, etc. Whatever is on your mind!

I hope she doesn't mind being a drafted guest blogger, but a friend wrote me an email and said in response to yesterday's post, in part (emphasis mine):

Yes, Robin you described yourself very well in the first part of your blog. As I was reading that part I was chuckling and thought that there was so much more of your personality that you were not describing. The sweet, lovable, generous, smart, fun person that I have come to know in the last 25 years. And then lo and behold in the last part of the blog you did describe all the rest of your personality. But I noticed you forgot the part about how tenacious and hardworking you are.

So, I wanted to acknowledge that her additions are true. Particularly the tenacious part. I remember a game Leslie and I once played where we had to come up with a one word definition for ourselves. You can guess my answer. When I applied to law school about 18 years ago, the essay was all about how tenacious I am. I don't have a copy of the essay here in Hawaii but I believe that this sentence was included: "Yes, I can!" I generally think of it as a positive trait but, of course, combined with being competitive, opinionated, stubborn, argumentative and quick to anger, it does have it's down side.

Hey word people - is there one word for "quick to anger"? I couldn't think of one. (Update: Lynn supplies irascible. Works for me. Now, is there a word for quick to resolution/ no anger because I do that, too.) By the way, I don't think of myself as a "word person" but it is probably hard for you all to tell this because I keep blabbering away.

(Update - in a note below, another friend mentions my compulsive honesty. That is, I don't like keeping secrets about me or anybody else. This, too, is true. So, don't tell me a secret! I personally think it is one of my better traits but I have also lost some friends because of the trait, too. My mother used to beg me: "Please, Robin, just use tact!" I would think, so you want me to lie?? No way! Seriously, I am better at keeping my mouth shut now - but only slightly....)