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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Five Tips for More Peace and Happiness!
Friday March 11, 2005

The ACLU can relax if its main fear is that the United States is in danger of becoming become a Christian nation. I don't see that happening for the simple reason that living according to the teachings of Jesus would radically change our lives, our politics and our priorities. It would require us to share our wealth with the less fortunate, to turn the other cheek, to love and forgive our enemies, to bless the peacemakers and judge not lest we be judged.

If Jesus were around today preaching charity, love, tolerance and peace, the religious right would pummel him as a dangerous liberal who wants to redistribute our wealth, raise taxes and study war no more. You can bet he wouldn't be invited to deliver the keynote address at the Republican National Convention and that Fox News' Sean Hannity would crucify him in prime time.

Over the centuries Christians have invoked God's name to justify wars, crusades, slavery, Jim Crow segregation and discrimination against women. We've come a long way, but like I said, I don't think the ACLU has to worry about us becoming a Christian nation, at least in practice.

Philip Gailey, "U.S. a Christian nation? Not exactly", St. Petersburg Times, March 6, 2005.

If the ACLU is not going to concern itself with the dangers of having the nation slide into a theocracy, I'm not going to worry about it, either. What should I concern myself about, at least today, for purposes of this essay? I know--How about "how to achieve peace and happiness?" After all, I'm often asked, "Don, how can I achieve more peace and personal happiness? It does not feel quite right to keep saying, "I'll get back to you." No, it's time to be helpful--to get back to all who have asked the question. After all, I don't think the ACLU is going to address the topic, so if not me, who? I shudder to think.

So, for what it's worth, here are five tips from a wellness enthusiast about how you MIGHT achieve at least a little more peace and personal happiness.

You could watch Oprah, drink alcohol, gorge on chocolate, avoid exercise and take dope. I don't recommend any of these things.

Here are five things I DO recommend--for starters. I'm sure you can think of many more.

Get a grip. Adopt a reasonable perspective, such as this one: You are not even close to being the center of the universe. In fact, like me, you are more akin to a meaningless blob of nothing, in the grand scheme of things, if there WERE a grand scheme of things. Do you doubt this? If so, answer this: What is greater in number--grains of sand on beaches all over the Earth, or the number of comets, planets, and stars in the universe? The answer is comets, planets, and stars in the universe. There are between 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone (the Milky Way) and there are a hundred billion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. If you are not breathing tomorrow at this time, it won't make that much difference, in the GRAND SCHEME of things. My point? Don't take yourself so seriously.
Make the most of the time you have, even though it doesn't matter that much. According to Vincent E. Parr ("The Art of Living: How To Feel Good Without Feeling Good About Yourself," Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 25, Number 2), there are "8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds in one year... In an average lifetime of 75.5 years, you will have 2,380,968,000, or approximately 2.4 billion, seconds-and that's it!" Use them well.
Save yourself a cavalcade of hardships -- read and heed Ambrose Bierce's parting advice in the final edition of his "Town Crier" column in the San Francisco Examiner, March, 1872: "Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect--and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be." (Source: Ambrose Bierce: A Biography by Richard O'Connor, Little, Brown and Company, 1967, NY, p. 83.)
Consider Walt Whitman's "Carpe Diem - Seize The Day," a line made famous in the movie "The Dead Poets Society" with Robin Williams, but forget trying to seize an entire day. Settle for be present fully in the moment, or "carpe momentum." As Dr. Parr suggests, "if you cannot enjoy the moment, right here, right now, then you probably cannot and won't enjoy life."
Find something you enjoy and, over time, try to get really good at it. Eventually, it will become one of the key aspects of your persona, if not your major passion. Hopefully, you will choose something positive that you will be proud of and it will give your life added meaning. Naturally, it will also lead to more peace and personal happiness, which is why the suggestion is included here. In Catch-22, Joseph Heller wrote: "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." I think we all are born into mediocrity, achieve plenty of it and have more of it thrust upon us. No matter--rise above it all in at least one aspect of life important to yourself.

Well, there you go. Five tips for more peace and personal happiness. Hope some of them make sense and work out for you. Be well-always look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MEANING DOMAIN under the skill area of meaning and purpose. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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