Look what happened to basketball pants — they are now approaching capri-length.  My question is what is so horrible about men’s legs?  Men’s shorts get longer and longer, while women’s shorts seem to get shorter and shorter. 

My closet contains only out-of-fashion shorts, and my style sense has been described by fashionistas as “tragic.” 

Originally, I shunned the out-of-fashion styles lest someone, somewhere, behind my back or around the corner might be secretly pointing at me with a look of disdain and moving me from their “invite” or “include” list to their “do not…” list. 

Fashion paranoia set in.  I would not go out unless I checked the latest ads to see if my wardrobe was current, until one day I had had enough. 

I decided to do a little research into shorts.  Wikipedia was very helpful. 

The definition: In general, pants, trousers and shorts are clothing items worn by both genders on the lower part of the body, circling the waist and covering both legs separately.  Pants extend down to the ankles, shorts are shortened pants covering only the upper part of the leg. 

In the United Kingdom, there is a term “short trousers” that is the American equivalent of “dress shorts,” used in tropical climates (Bermuda shorts) and school uniforms.   Even so, in most countries, they are considered casual wear, so don’t wear them to work (except in Bermuda with long socks, blazer and tie).

Up to the early 20^th century, shorts were worn only by young boys until they reached puberty.  As a result, men shunned shorts to avoid looking immature.  Modesty standards and society mores at the time prevented most women from wearing shorts. 

In the 21^st century, male shorts leg length crept down to below the knee and sometimes down to the calf, as exampled by basketball players in the last three decades.  It is arguable whether they should be called “long shorts” or “short pants.” 

Many males still wear longer shorts but male leg length has started to reverse up and now sits just above the knee.  

Thank goodness.  I thought I was behind the styles.  Now I find myself in the lead. 

I looked through my closet and found I had an adequate supply of jean shorts, all just above the knee, with waists that sit above (not on) my hips.  I have no jean shorts bought with holes in the leg or raggy bottoms.  The few ones I have earned their look and will soon hit the trash. 

I have two pair of cargo shorts, bought for me to look “stylish.”    I have no baggies or vintage short shorts or plaid shorts (I was never a “preppy”).  I ride my bike but do not have any spandex cycling shorts.  I do have some nylon running shorts that are thigh-length, but I bought them years ago, and they are staying. 

My swim suits are about the same length as my running shorts, mid-thigh.  When I go to the beach, the young studs are all wearing board shorts popularized by surfboard riders. To point out how far back they go, in the 1980s, board shorts were called “jams.” 

So what did I learn after all that research?  I learned that I am indeed out of fashion, and unless I replace my entire wardrobe, I will remain “fashion-challenged.” 

The big question is, do I care enough to replace my entire wardrobe with the current fashion of the season?  Probably not.  And do I care that much about those “secret finger pointers somewhere” who will not invite me because of my fashion confusion? 

Who are these people anyway?  I don’t know them.  Will I live my life for people who have outlooks different than me?  My answer is no.    

I’ll stay happily out of fashion, but in the lead.  

And I have learned that if we wait long enough, every style comes back into fashion.

The ideal body type today for men has become more muscular and bulked up.  The perfect man is seen with narrow waist, six-pack or washboard abs, muscular shoulders and bulging biceps.  This attention has been good for gym memberships and manufacturers of bodybuilding machines.  It has also been good for those of us who endure a generous waistline.

It has not been good for those who have dedicated themselves not only to develop muscles, but also obsess to obtain a perfect body, perhaps going on to unhealthy and dangerous behaviors including steroid and substance abuse. 

Low self-esteem has been found to be a more likely cause of bulk building than the pursuit of health.  The perceived reaction to the future perfect body drives that person to continuously work out, and the social isolation that results is a situation they are used to. 

The problem starts with being dissatisfied with their body image, and they see bulking up as a means of social acceptance.

What they do not see is that people relate to them through their confidence and personality.  What they do not see is there is no one ideal shape or size for all.

Getting in shape is a great goal.  Exercise and diet are still the only healthy way to fitness.

The world is filled with people of all shapes and sizes.  Relationships are built on compatibility between people.  How much time would we spend with a person who had a perfect body and no personality?

While confidence is a major aspect of personality, and toning our body through normal exercise and diet may increase our self-confidence, getting to the point of a healthy body should be the goal. 

Moderation is key.  We should learn when to stop as well as when to start. 

Live a vital life. 

“Happy anniversary,” she said with a chuckle. 

Oops.  I had completely forgotten our anniversary.  The thing that saved me was so did she. 

We made our wedding date the day after Income tax many years ago when I had a business printing out tax returns for accounting and tax services at a computer center.  With last-minute tax preparations, the day after income tax was the first day I could schedule for anything.

Luckily, April 16 was a Saturday and my bride-to-be made all the preparations.  She ordered the cake, invited relatives and friends and even picked out my suit.  When I got up Saturday morning all I had to do was to get dressed. 

That was a small bump in the road we have traveled together for 32 years. 

But life happens and occasionally, normally important things get temporarily lost behind the smoke screen of the immediate problems that we must deal with. 

In the previous weeks, our life has been bumpy.  My middle-thirties daughter suffers from an insidious, incurable disease that has been acting up pretty severely recently.  She has a normal job, but has been sick so often recently, she went on Family Medical Leave (FMLA), a great federal program that allows her time off to go to the doctor and to the hospital to have her disease treated without getting her fired. 

On top of all the visits to local doctors, the Emergency Room and going through an endless array of drugs to try to make her disease manageable she has finally been referred to a surgical facility.  There is no other choice. 

The best hospital for the job is 90 miles away and there are more than several visits before the surgery. 

While my wife drives her down and back, I take care of our ‘almost’ seven-year-old grandson and relieve her of that stress.  We generally wind up together for dinner, and at least we can spend some pleasant time together. 

On another note, as the IRS deadline approached, our son, who made more than a fair amount selling items on Amazon last year, was a nearly nightly visitor to ask for the help of my accountant wife.  He also stayed many times for dinner as well. 

We love having our kids visit, although under these circumstances, it made for a rather hectic lifestyle.  So, April 15 came and went, and it didn’t even occur to me that the following day was our wedding anniversary day. 

I am grateful that my wife has a sense of humor and I rewarded her with an anniversary card and flowers, and we rewarded ourselves by going out to dinner (alone) at a nice restaurant. 

These are some examples of riding the bumps in the road.  We have no say in how life goes.  We can only try to react to circumstances thrust upon us.  And we have lived and been married long enough to ride the little bumps without breaking pace.  We have learned that life has enough of the big bumps. 

All in all, life happens and includes lots of bumps.

Live a vital life.

Now if you work for an employer, frequent any number of retail businesses, you will have to adjust to their hours.

To many of us who have employers, we arrive the first thing in the am, work until noon, have lunch and return to the battle when our minds are telling us to rest.  We struggle to stay awake, let alone produce.  Later in the afternoon, our brains partially return to a production state, but it is compromised, because there are still many of those little synapses left unsorted and uncategorized. 

Now this is OK for most employers, since they don’t require a great deal of brainpower to perform the job we’ve been hired for, and there are always those databases that protect any loss of information and are sorted and categorized on a regular basis. 

And we do it because we need the money.    

But what is our internal clock saying? 

I like to get up early, get a bunch of work done, have lunch, ‘veg’ out for a couple of hours watching old movies and feeling really delicious about not being a solid citizen.

In the mid-afternoon, my guilt takes over and I hurry back to the computer with my fresh cup of coffee, crank up the guilt for the two hours I stole and put in some of my best work. 

I will continue this until the guilt complex subsides or I have accomplished what I set out to do.  Then I will have dinner with the family and the evening will wind down until my body tells me to shut off and go to bed. 

During the midday meal and the following rest period , and the evening meal and the daily wind-down, I handle no intense thoughts except those that might pop up and I write down for future handling.

Now if I have a deadline of course, I will try to fit it into the hours I am actually working, but if necessary, I will annoy the family by sticking to the job until it is done. 

I survived for many years working for an employer and doing my best to align my body energy tides with the employer’s work schedule.  The major detour was with the after-lunch period.  There was time to eat but not to rest. 

As I became aware of my energy tides, I tried to arrange my day with easier jobs scheduled after the lunch break.  It also helped to have a light lunch so all my blood did not flow from my brain to focus on digesting.  

 The point here is that I learned my energy peaks in the early morning with the hopes of accomplishing my game plan during the day.  Then it starts to wind down and has to be replenished with a meal and a break in the action when my mind goes in for its daily refresher, when I can imagine all those little synapses that were fired up are being sorted and categorized. 

My energy peaks again in the afternoon, when I work feverishly to finish my goals for the day.  The motivation here is the deadline.  A wise man once said something like “there is nothing like an impending tsunami to make you work faster.”

Once I learned the rhythms, I adapted my ‘have to’ schedule as closely as possible and to economize on my energy.  I listen to and work with my body using my high-energy periods to produce the most and pull back when my energy is low. 

 Live a vital life.

Next to go is exercise.  We think we can use that extra time to knock off some of those tasks on our plate.  But without the exercise keeping our bodies regulated, our metabolism slows, we tire faster, tasks take longer, and we feel like we are moving through molasses. 

Rest and activity are our bodies’ prime stress relievers.  Without time spent exercising to keep us sharp and tuned, and time spent sleeping to repair our bodies and realign our minds, stress piles up, resulting in more frustration and anger, the great killer. 

Anger a killer?  Studies show that stress and anger can cascade our bodies into life-threatening states, raising blood pressure, causing headaches and back pain, stomach and colon trouble, and perhaps even embolisms and strokes. 

The best course is to avoid the stress in the first place.  But many times, it finds us, in the form of loss of personal control over our lives or our jobs, facing financial hardship, loss of a loved one or potential loss if they are seriously ill or in the military and deployed to a danger zone.  The reasons are many. 

If we are the caregiver or just the one responsible for keeping things running, we must remember that we can’t do that job if we are sick.  It is our responsibility to deal with both the situation and the stress, so we should protect ourselves and not feel guilty about taking some personal time. 

And how do we do that?  The first two methods we can easily guess. 

Get enough sleep and rest.  We know we have enough sleep if we wake up without an alarm, even if we lay in bed for a short time planning our day.  How much sleep?  As much as it takes.  Some people can get by on six hours sleep and others need nine.  Experiment with the length and don’t cheat.  If we feel we can’t fall sleep, pretend.  Lay still with eyes closed, clear the mind, and sleep will come.  The reason counting sheep works is because it is boring. 

Exercise; work out; walk in the sun.  Fresh air and sunshine are miracles of stress relief. Find an activity to enjoy that will take the place of the worry and stress for a short time.   

Take one thing at a time.  When many things are hitting us at once, it is like a hurricane.  Anyone would just cover up under an onslaught.  Break big projects into smaller tasks, stay focused and finish one thing or reach a checkpoint before starting another.  

Learn to say “no” to requests if they interfere with the main task.  If we have no time to catch up now, it will get worse with more responsibility.  Turn the tables.  Ask for help.  There are always small chores that steal our time but can be done by anyone.  People will respond to our calls for help if they see we are buckling under the pressure. 

We should share our feelings.  Letting it out decreases the pressure level.  Two people sharing feelings halve the pressure.  We all have others in our circle of friends, family and associates who share their feelings when they are in a stressful situation.  

If you don’t have someone you can confide in, get someone.  Build a relationship of trust with another by sharing your experience and being a good listener when they share theirs.  Join a mutual support group. 

Take time during the day to calm down and take a time out.  Power naps or quiet “do not disturb” meditations of 20 minutes resets our system. 

There is no easy solution to the stress many of us deal with on a daily basis.  We do the best we can, we go as far as we can, and should be satisfied with that. 

We know we would do more if we could. 

Live a vital life.

We will experience disappointment, setback and criticism.  The setback will slow our momentum.  Disappointment and criticism will take away our will to continue.  Our eye on the goal will be replaced by our eye on the exit.  How we respond will determine whether we succeed or fail.

Some suggestions to survive a bad day:

Ease the pressure

Don’t try to fix it – at least not today.  Whatever the setback was, it is done.  A cooler head can plan a new course around the roadblock.  A decision under pressure may have been one cause of the bad news, and making more decisions now will probably make it worse.

Leave the battle

Don’t dwell on or analyze the problem, it will just become an obsessive blame game, and most likely we will blame ourselves.  Take a break, take a walk, take the rest of the day off.  Refuse to think about the cause of the problem.  We will think more clearly when we distract ourselves.  The problem will still be there when we return.

As we calm down, and we are out of the “pressure cooker”, things become clearer.  Away from the battle field, solutions begin to creep in.  We are now working on solving a remote problem, not immersed in an engulfing catastrophe. 

Don’t play the martyr

Was it really only our fault?  Was the setback the result of events outside of our control?  Were we totally responsible?  Did we make decisions based on information given us?  Was there information we did not know?  We are not magicians and don’t have ESP. 

Did we do our part and perform all the tasks we were responsible for, on time, to get to a good outcome?  Maybe others had a part in the setback. 

Don’t volunteer for undeserved blame when everyone else is looking to find victims.  We need to analyze our part and the part others played.  We could wind up heroes if we can analyze the problem so it doesn’t happen again, plan the repair and return to course.

Don’t generalize or simplify

Resist the inclination to simplify the setback as personally caused and therefore never to be tried again.  Resist the life sentence of failure.  History is filled with stories of famous people who are famous because they refused to give up. 

There is wisdom in the philosophy to remount a horse that has just thrown us.  Returning to the battle after a short period of rest and reflection shows character, determination, and refusal to surrender. 

Wear the armor

We are a world that thrives on retribution.  After a setback, people will be pointing fingers – away from themselves, and toward any likely target.  The armor of course, is symbolic but can protect us anyway. 

Our first priority is our self-esteem.  Write down why this turned out to be a bad day—all the reasons.  Be factual.  Then write down what we are grateful for.  Put it into perspective.  Adopt a positive attitude.  This is our shield. 

Write down what we were responsible for and what was to be accomplished.  If we failed on a point, this is no time to avoid it.  It will sound better coming from us than an accuser.  And believe me, they will find it.  

Write down how to fix the setback and return to course.  If someone else failed and caused the setback, describe the event, not the person.  Everyone will know who it is.  This is our sword, don’t be afraid to show it. 

Discussing and documenting a setback and solution logically restarts our motivation and our will to continue to a successful goal.

This technique works whether the setback is on a group project, or a personal one.  Sometimes personal setbacks are the worst kind.  There is no one else to blame, and the accuser can be more vicious than any other.

Live a vital life.

The glum faces of Team USA impressed me as they were receiving their silver medals.  Each of them looked like they would never play hockey again.  Later, during the closing ceremonies, they seemed in better mood, but the initial letdown of losing after trying so hard showed on their faces. 

Looking on without the emotional involvement of the practices and playing six intense games in 13 days, I could idealistically ask why they were so glum when they had proven they were the second best hockey team in the world. 

And I get stuck on the words, “second best.”

Team USA did not want second best, they wanted “best.”  In preliminary play, they actually beat Team Canada, and so they thought they could actually do it.  And they did come within an inch of achieving that goal. 

Team Canada had them down by two goals, when Team USA scored their first goal twelve minutes into the second period, and the tying goal with 25 seconds left in regulation play. 

Needless to say, that’s when emotions peaked. 

Going into overtime with four skaters and a goaltender playing “sudden death” their nerves must have been like violin strings – can’t make a mistake …

But fortune went to Team Canada, when their player found the puck almost unexpectedly near his stick, and in his own words, I just hit it in the direction of the net.  And it went in. 

Make no mistake; the win could have gone either way.  

Neither team was second best.  They were each at their personal best.  Team USA played as well as Team Canada, but opportunity came first to the Canadian team. 

And therein lies the lesson for us.  Life is like that.

We prepare to the best of our ability for an event, a job or career.  We perform our personal best, but someone else is a razor-thin line better or seizes an opportunity and they win the job, the place first in line, and we are “second best.”  We feel the disappointment intensely. 

But winners pick themselves up, improve their skills and move on to the next opportunity. 

Winners are never “second best” except in a particular circumstance or event.  They will never be “second best” in their own minds.

They are “best” somewhere, and often in many places, and they continue to practice and play the game until the world sees that they are the “best” as well. 

Let’s make it personal for ourselves.  Let’s never settle for “second best. 

Live a vital life.

It is easy to get our schedules bunched up as well as our blood pressure; and very easy to be late.  Habitually late

If we were meeting a potential romantic partner or employer, I would bet we would move everything out of our way to arrive on time, especially if it is the first time. 

Whether it is a date or meeting, over time we get comfortable and it becomes part of our routine.  We push the schedule and insert small tasks before we have to leave and they take longer than we thought.  We get more done, but are habitually late. 

Our blood pressure rises and we feel the stress squeezing us. 

So, how can we defend ourselves?  Don’t be late.  How can we do that? 

Make each time like the first time. 

This presupposes our schedule is not like an emergency room disaster.  If it is, we can do two things; try to lighten our schedule or become experts at time management or a combination of both. 

We can try to say no to some meetings and events if they make our lives too stressful.  We can try to limit activities with our young ones or involve other family members to help out. 

But at work, we might have a boss who doesn’t understand anything except his own needs, and drives us relentlessly.  We can probably discuss it with him, but he wouldn’t understand our hectic schedule.  We can ask him to prioritize the meetings he wants us to attend on time and without stress.  And he may be deaf to our suggestions. 

In that case, a decision should be made.  Do we want to die of stress on our present job, or live with another, better job? 

And if we manage to lower our activity, appointment and meeting schedule, we can then work to lower our stress by allowing ourselves a pace to get there on time or, even a little early.  How?  Apply a little project schedule planning.

Planning

Everything we do that involves interdependent activities is a project.  There are things we can control and things we cannot.  The secret is to recognize the difference, and plan each leg.  

First we need to do some calculations to know our personal numbers—adjust them for each particular case:

• Know how much sleep we need if we have a super-important appointment like a job interview the next day.  Let’s enter 8 hours.
• We are not robots, so it takes some time to fall asleep – more if we are apprehensive or nervous about the next day’s events.  Let’s enter 30 minutes. 
• We are not firemen, so leaping out of bed fully dressed and ready for action will not happen.  Most people need about 90 minutes to rise, shower, clear our morning fog, and dress.  It wouldn’t hurt to add 30 minutes for miscellaneous items like de-icing the car in winter, walking the family pet, herding our young ones and making breakfast.  Let’s enter 120 minutes to get out the door from the sound of the alarm. 
• How long will it take to get to our destination?  If we are driving, is there gas in the car?  If we take public transportation, do we know the bus or train schedule?  Would it hurt us to take an earlier bus or train in case there were delays?  Do we drop our young ones off on our way? 

This is a personal estimate of travel time, and keeping abreast of weather conditions and construction sites will help make the number more accurate.  We all like to estimate our travel time as if it was Sunday midnight, but most commuters commute at about the same time.  Vary the time with experience.  Pad on some extra minutes, just in case. 

Preparation

Next, prepare the night before.  Put gas in the car.  Organize what we will need and place it by the front door to avoid forgetting it.  Lay out clothes for our young ones and ourselves.  Prepare lunches and store them in the refrigerator. 

Check directions to our destination if it is unfamiliar.  If we are driving, it wouldn’t hurt to plan an alternate route in case of jammed traffic. 

I used to take a route to work through a large metropolitan center.  It was the most direct route, but every day, there were accidents and construction and my stress levels soared.  Then I planned an alternate route around the metropolis.  It was slightly longer, but less traveled, and the time was constant every day.  I actually enjoyed the drive. 

Distractions

The last thing I like to do before retiring is to check my e-mail for any change in plans.  I can do it in the morning, but 5 minutes usually turns into 25 and I fall behind schedule. 

This falls into the category of distractions that can put us behind schedule.  Other distractions may be an unexpected phone call.  Some of us cannot resist the sound of a ringing phone.  This is a discipline issue.  Let it go to voice mail unless it is someone with critical news.  We can call them back while enroute or when we arrive early at our meeting. 

Other distractions may include young ones out of sorts; they don’t like what they have to wear; they don’t like breakfast; they didn’t do their homework and a big report is due today.  Sorry, I can’t help you there.

If this is a regular occurrence perhaps we need to build it into the schedule.

Scheduling

Finally, we should time ourselves to be at the right point at the right time in the schedule, so we’re ready to leave on time. 

If getting up is our problem, we can set the bedside alarm ahead to compensate for hitting the snooze button too often, or we can set the alarm out of reach or out of the room to force us up to shut off the annoyance.  Most cell phones have a multiple alarm capability that can be set a few minutes later than the bedside alarm with a second alarm going off when we should be leaving the house. 

Practice

In truth, this approach requires discipline to keep to the schedule, but with practice it gets easier. 

In a recent CareerBuilder survey, 20 percent of workers admitted to getting to work late at least once per week.  12 percent confessed to at least twice per week.  Constantly arriving 15 minutes late cost our employers a week’s pay in lost productivity over the course of a year. 

And this is no economy to make our employer feel we are cheating them. 

Payoff

Arriving early gives us time; time to de-stress, to read an article, write a letter, make a phone call or work on something personal while waiting for the meeting or our work shift to start.

Arriving early gets noticed.  Over the years of my business career, the promotions and raises always went to those who arrived early, even if they did not stay one minute past quitting time.  Executives are in their jobs partially because of their timeliness, and they notice those who are like them. 

And finally, routinely arriving late for our date or meetings shows everyone we have little respect for them or ourselves. 

Live a vital life.

Many of us follow conventional wisdom and gather together with friends and others on the eve of the New Year to review all the ways in which we are deficient as successful people.  We are unsuccessful for a variety of reasons, and perhaps after a few drinks loosened our tongues, we admitted our shortcomings and resolved to bring our scores up to par. 

Whether we vocalized them to friends or simply admitted them to ourselves, we made a lot of really ambitious promises.  As the first month of the New Year played out, we realized we either have no intention or are incapable of keeping those promises. 

So why can’t we keep those promises to ourselves? 

For one, the guardian of the promises is us, an easy taskmaster; quick to inject reasons for delay and quick to forgive compliance. 

For another, the resolutions are poorly thought out and for a third reason they generally require us to be someone we are not. 

Sooner or later we will realize that we don’t do well with major changes in direction, even if it is resolved with the deepest intention. 

Habits, as someone once described, are developed in the manner of a silken thread being woven into a cord.  The thread becomes thicker and thicker with each occurrence acting as a reinforcement, until it thickens into a Gordian knot. 

Now this is a good thing for good habits, but bad for those habits not so good.

The Gordian knot of legend was made so complex, that no one could undo it.  Alexander the Great tried and could not, so he cut it in two with a single blow from his sword. 

Now cutting a Gordian knot of habit or lifestyle with a single blow is romantic but not practical for most of us unless it involves having surgery. 

In reality we need to change things on a much smaller scale.

We won’t do well and shouldn’t try to change our life in a single day or single week or single month.  What we need is a series of fresh starts and modest changes.  Small things we can change are very important. 

Instead of seeing how far away the end is on our huge projects, we need to break them into smaller projects.  These smaller projects can be constantly restarted if necessary, moving forward in small increments and needing less and less work to complete. 

Constant moving forward in small increments means constant accomplishment. 

Two examples we may resolve are quitting smoking and weight loss.  Many of us want to quit smoking for a number of reasons, but the process of leaving the addiction is doomed to failure without a plan, and maybe some help.

What if we counted our number of smokes in a day, and reduced it by one every week, and smoked only half?  It’s just an idea.  And if we slipped back to a higher level, it probably would be fewer than when we started.   

Don’t focus on failure, just restart from the new level. 

In the area of weight loss, many of us feel we must lose tons of weight.  It is overwhelming just to think about it.  But what if the number was only down to the next five-pound mark on the scale?  That wouldn’t be too bad.  The most we have to lose will be five pounds.  Once we are solid at that level we can restart and focus on the next level. 

A word of caution here.  We all know that diet and exercise in combination will bring us to our goal, but starvation denies us the fuel to burn calories.  We have no energy, we lose muscle mass, and our adaptable body becomes scrawny and learns to live on virtually nothing. 

In my early college days, I could have earned a PhD in cramming techniques.  I really believed I could learn a foreign language in three days.  But life is a great teacher, and eventually I got the “plan ahead” concept right.   

By embracing the “plan ahead” concept and focusing on small changes and adjustments to our lifestyles every day, we can conquer huge goals. 

And our “small goal” achievements will tell us when we should adjust goals up or down.

This method is great news for the next New Years party.  We will not have to make resolutions we have no plan for and no intention of keeping.  We will know that we have been resolving and accomplishing every day during the year, and we can really enjoy that party. 

It is time for us to effect solutions.  Make the list.  Make the plan.  Today. 

Live a Vital life.

Inspiration for this article comes from Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders

We are not robots, although sometimes the dullness of life can make us feel that way.  At various stages of our lives, we are overwhelmed by the boredom of daily living.  I guess that is what winter vacations are for. 

There are many diversions built into our lives to relieve boredom.  There is the latest movie or album to entertain us for a brief period, there are events and activities of all kinds to break up our days, too many to mention.  Each one offers an invitation to participate. 

Back to the scribbled note, it names a major reason for living is to have a little joy.  What dismal persons are those who have no joy. 

Joy might be discussed as internal happiness.  We all know people who run the range from being nonstop happy (sometimes very annoying) to nonstop unhappy.  We should focus on the middle ground. 

Let’s look at it from the backside. We know a lot of things that will make us unhappy (supply your own list here) and by eliminating them from our lives (where possible) our happiness index will naturally rise. 

If our lives are weighed down by responsibilities, see them through and don’t renew. 

Once we have a written list of what makes us unhappy, we can also make a list of what would make us happy, and try them out, one at a time.  Then we know if it stays or goes from the list.  We should be creative and not hold back.  We may not ever have the opportunity to “run away with the circus,” but on that list will be a lot of dreams that could become reality if we follow that path.  

Now that’s a reason for living.

We should be careful what we wish for.  Winning the lottery, as an example, should make us happy, but many people who have won wind up unhappy, plagued by relentless appeals for money. 

A major item that makes people unhappy is lack of control over their life activities.  The punishment of imprisonment is more than the lack of freedom; it is the lack of control over the person’s life.  They can make almost no choices of their own. 

Many of us are caught in a web of our own making.  As we mature, obligations seem magically to accumulate and we are driven by them.  We feel we are losing control over large portions of our lives.  We are not happy, and can’t pin the reason why. 

Feeling helpless and loss of control makes us unhappy. 

We must be careful to combat those feelings early.  Left to themselves they will get worse and may cause depression.  People give up living when they lose all control. 

We should go back to that list or make a new list of things that obligate us and things that draw us to them.  Rate them on some scale, positive for the things we want to do and would make us happy, negative for the things that make us unhappy. 

Keep in mind that an obligation like college tuition for a child will result in the happiness of seeing that person graduate with a career.   

If there are relationship issues, there are thousands of articles and mentors that can help us deal with and improve them.

Make it a hobby to work on the list, taking steps forward to raise the negative ratings and gain free time to pursue the positive items that will bring us joy. 

Now that’s another reason for living. 

Finally, feeling useless makes us unhappy. 

We are social animals, and it is built into our genes to help others.  We can volunteer for something that helps another person.  It is one thing to send money, but physically working to help others face to face makes us feel useful and gives us deeper satisfaction. 

Can we make someone’s life better by helping them in some way that would only get done with our efforts?  Try it.  You’ll feel great.  

And that’s another reason for living. 

Don’t give up living and don’t “run away with the circus.” 

Be useful; be happy. 

Live a vital life.