Modern-day feminists would have been horrified by Mom’s lifestyle.  Her day-to-day world consisted primarily of cooking, shopping, keeping her home running smoothly, and, above all, taking care of her children.  I think she just assumed that these were the most important things in every woman’s life.

During her most vibrant years, one of my mother’s greatest joys was her regular canasta and mahjong games with her girlfriends.  I remember her once telling me that her friends were always amazed whenever I came home from school during one of their hotly contested hands and bent over to kiss her on the cheek.  I always felt good that that made her so happy.

Like Ayn Rand, my mother lived through the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.  Her father came to the United States first, then brought the rest of the family to America about five years later.

My mom never forgot the long, queasy trip across the Atlantic Ocean and the harrowing experience of being processed, like cattle, through Ellis Island.  Throughout her lifetime, she never boarded another ship and, for the most part, refused to talk about her childhood experiences in Russia.  For my mom, America was the promised land, and, thanks to my hard-working father, she was able to live the American Dream.

Probably as a result of her frightening experience as a child in Russia, Mom never showed any interest in politics.  It was simply outside the realm of her sheltered little world.

Interestingly, in 1996, after she had been living in a nursing home for some time, I asked her who she had voted for in the presidential election.  When she told me it was Bill Clinton, I grimaced and asked her why.  “He seems like a nice man,” she said matter-of-factly.  So when the Democratic vote-gathering troops showed up at her nursing home, she dutifully accommodated them.

Perhaps the one thing that helps offset some of the remorse I’ve experienced for not visiting my mother as much as I would have liked to during the last years of her life is the knowledge that I never once got mad at her, never raised my voice to her, and never showed any disrespect toward her.  Why would I?  She was my mother.

I still have vivid recollections of picking debris up off the floor when I was only six or seven years old because I didn’t want her to have to bend over.  She never asked me to do it.  It was instinctual.

After I moved away in 1970, I made it a ritual to call her every Sunday from wherever I was, even when I lived in New Zealand and Australia.  It wasn’t as good as being there with her in person, but it was my way of letting her know that she was always on my mind.

When it came to health, my mom drew an inside straight.  She never contracted cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or any other serious illness or medical condition.  Though less than five feet tall, she seemed indestructible.  She outlived her husband, one of her children, two of her grandchildren, and all of her friends.  As one birthday after another passed, the standard family line was, “She’ll probably outlive all of us.”

But when Mom was about ninety, she developed a bad case of shingles, and, like a great quarterback who suffers an arm injury in his older years, she never quite recovered.  Then came the fall and the broken hip.

One by one, her cherished girlfriends answered God’s call.  But with a zest for life, she replaced her departed friends with new canasta partners in the nursing home.  Sadly, the Grim Reaper relentlessly took each of them as well, until, finally, she was the only one left.  Even so, she never complained and never tried to make anyone feel sorry for her.

She still had her family and her one great passion in life, reading.  Not politics or philosophy, but fiction.  She was a reading machine, having read thousands of books in her lifetime.

But as her new friends in the nursing home died off, life became increasingly somber and boring for Mom.  She stayed in her room most of the time, because she didn’t want to be in the open area with “those old people.”

Over the past couple of months, my mother became increasingly disoriented and agitated.  She kept trying to get up out of her wheelchair, which resulted in her falling three times.  I believe she felt imprisoned and wanted to escape the nursing home.  Finally, she stopped eating, and that’s when her organs began to shut down.

When the phone rang at 7:30 a.m. last Tuesday, I knew before I answered it what it meant.  After more than a century without a life-threatening medical condition, I believe my mom, who never once talked about dying, finally decided it was time to go.

At her advanced age, I never thought it would be difficult for me to accept her departure.  How wrong I was.  It’s hard for me to process the fact that I will never see her or hear her voice again.  An integral part of my life is now gone forever.  This past Sunday, the reality hit me that it was the first time in more than forty-one years that I had no mother to call.

About a year ago, I asked Mom something that I had never seriously discussed with her before.  “Mom,” I said, “you believe in God, don’t you?”  Without hesitation, she answered, “Of course I do.”  It was very comforting to hear her say that.

Perhaps Paul Johnson explained my feelings best when he wrote, in The Quest for God:

It is because sensible men the world over, at all times, recognised and accepted the inevitability of mighty death, that they have turned to God to explain its significance.  Without God, death is horrific.  With God, death is still fearsome, but it can be seen to have a meaning and purpose and a hope.

Meaning, purpose, and hope.  Mom would have liked those words.

The thought that I could have lost such a dear friend was unsettling to me, and I was relieved that he ultimately recovered and continued to share his unique insights into life and economics with so many of his friends and subscribers to his various publications.

Every year on August 11, the anniversary date of his accident, I emailed Jack to congratulate him for his triumph over the Grim Reaper. My most recent e-mail exchange with him on that subject was on August 11, 2010:

Jack answered, in part:

Typical Jack … dry humor, intellectual, philosophical to the core.

Jack and I had been toying with the idea of updating and marketing an old audio course of his based on his New York Times bestseller The Alpha Strategy, which I had published for him in 1981, but due to our overloaded schedules we hadn’t moved the ball forward much in nearly a year.

In early February of this year, I e-mailed him to see if he was making any progress on editing the program. When I didn’t hear back from him, I was concerned, so I sent a follow-up e-mail on February 19 that said:

In less than two hours, he answered:

Good old Jack. You could always count on him to stay alive and keep sharing his great humor and razor-sharp mind with you. I don’t know why, but after I received Jack’s e-mail, I mentioned to my wife that I thought Jack would live well into his nineties because he always took such good care of himself.

Alas, I was wrong. About three weeks later, on March 14, Jack suffered a heart attack, caused apparently by a torn aorta. After a ten-hour emergency surgery, he was unconscious for much of the next several weeks.

Then, on April 8, at 6:43 am, Jack passed away. Other than family members, it was the first time I ever cried openly on hearing that someone had died. I will never get over his death.

I’m sorry if you didn’t know Jack, because you missed out on one of those rare individuals whose words and actions made you believe that perhaps there is still hope for humankind. There is so much I would like to tell you about Jack that it could literally fill a book.

Yielding to space constraints, however, perhaps the best way I can acquaint you with him, if you were not fortunate enough to have known him, is to reprint just one paragraph from his famous “Open Letter to Harry Browne.” It was written in response to Harry’s announcement that he planned to seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.

What he said here is exactly the way Jack lived his life. Click here to view entire letter.

One last item I feel obliged to mention, because it was such an integral part of Jack’s life, was his insistence that he was a hard-core atheist. I always found this interesting, because many of us who were close to him saw him as one of the most spiritual people we had ever known.

He may not have believed in organized religion, but I know of no one whose actions were more aligned with Judeo-Christian principles than Jack Pugsley. Ironically, a mutual atheist friend of ours once said to me, “Jack is almost Christ-like.”

I have always said that there are two kinds of atheists. First, there are the angry atheists (such as Bill Maher) who not only are angry at God for allowing evil to exist (even while insisting that He doesn’t exist), but are also angry at everyone who believes in His existence. Second are the live-and-let-live atheists who go about their business of non-believing with no desire to lash out at either a non-existent God or those who believe in Him.

Jack was most decidedly in the latter group. He was kind, respectful, and gracious to an extreme. But when I think of Jack, the one word that comes to mind is ethical. In a world filled with frauds and charlatans, Jack was an ethical giant. When push came to shove, he always chose ethics over money.

Jack and I joked a lot about the issue of atheism versus a belief in God, but on one occasion I said to him, “I’d like to have a serious discussion with you about the possibility that there is a Higher Being guiding the universe, but I can’t do it if you have a closed mind.”

I have often quoted Jack’s response: “To even consider the possibility of a Higher Being would destroy the very foundation upon which I have built my entire life.”

When Jack said this, Viktor Frankl, who spent three years in Nazi concentration camps, immediately came to mind. Frankl opined that he did not believe God would punish someone just because he mistakenly believed He did not exist. Now, with Jack Pugsley’s passing, Frankl’s words seem more credible to me than ever.

That said, I thought I’d give you a little relief from the Muammar Gaddafi saga and share some personal memories with you.

HOW WELL I REMEMBER WHEN I FIRST FELL IN LOVE. I was but a boy; she was a woman…  the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.  Her name was Liz.  I first met her in A Place in the Sun, where my competition was Montgomery Clift.  When it came to daydreaming, Elizabeth Taylor was the person you wanted in your dream.  The romance lasted several years, until I met …

Natalie, in Rebel Without a Cause, where my competition was James Dean.  Natalie Wood was wholesomely beautiful, but she was very different from Liz.  She was the girl next door, maybe the one in Neil Sedaka’s “Next Door to an Angel.”  I was sure there would never be anyone to take her place, until I met…

Ina, in From the Terrace, where my competition got much steeper – Paul Newman!  Ina Balin had a soft, sweet beauty about her that words could not describe.  The closing scene in From the Terrace, where she and Newman walk toward each other on stepping stones across a small creek, then clasp hands at the last second to keep from falling in the water, is one of the great endings in movie history.  In case you’re a hopeless romantic, here’s a short clip that includes that final scene:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmfudclFtfY

Liz, Natalie, and Ina … what a threesome.  My puppy loves gave me the right mind-set, because I ended up marrying someone even more beautiful than all three of them – and, to boot, she’s the kindest, warmest, most giving person in the world.  So, thanks Liz, Natalie, and Ina for embellishing my good taste in women.

It was another time, another world.  But all that’s changed now.  Natalie Wood died in a tragic drowning accident in 1981 at age forty-three.  Ina Balin died in 1990 at age fifty-two.  Two cinema beauties whose lives were snuffed out much too soon.  Which left only Liz on the list of all the girls I’ve loved before.

But last week, as the whole world now knows, Elizabeth Taylor made her final exit at age seventy-nine.  A bit ironic, because one would have guessed that she would have been the first on the list to go, given her tragic life – eight marriages, drug abuse and alcohol addiction, and numerous major illnesses.  And also a strange life – from her unlikely friendship with Michael Jackson to her 1991 marriage to construction worker Larry Fortensky, who was twenty-one years her junior.

Elizabeth Taylor’s death took me down memory lane, reminding me that all of my competitors are also long gone.  James Dean died in a car accident at the tender age of twenty-five, before Rebel Without a Cause or Giant (the last two of his three films) were even released.  Montgomery Clift died in 1966, at age forty-six, of a suspected drug overdose.

But Paul Newman, an old-line liberal whom I respected for actually putting his money where his mouth was by giving millions of dollars to charity, made it to eighty-three.  Interestingly, in addition to his heart-thumping film with Ina Balin, Newman also played Elizabeth Taylor’s husband in the steamy screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

All this got me to thinking about how sad it is that over the past few decades the United States has been fundamentally transformed in virtually all aspects of life.  In case you’re too young to have been there, let me tell you:  Yesterday was better.  There was no political correctness, no rap “music,” no sanctuary cities.  Life was delightfully predictable.  Love them or hate them, there were certitudes, and everyone knew exactly what they were.

What’s so interesting about films is that they depict the evolution (or devolution) of a country.  In the good old days, movies were all about storyline and acting.  It was the most natural thing in the world for a kid to surrender his heart to Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, or Ina Balin, because brilliantly written scripts and equally brilliant acting had a way of grabbing you.

I don’t watch many new films, because most of them are nothing more than excuses for putting shock product in theaters, kind of like stocking supermarket shelves with canned goods.  No plot – just a lot of cars crashing, explosions and fire, violence, obscene language, and explicit sex scenes that don’t give you the opportunity to use your imagination.  And even classics like The Titanic and Avatar come with built-in liberal messages that soil their plots.

So who are the Liz Taylors, Natalie Woods, and Ina Balins of today?  Angelina Jolie?  Julia Roberts?  Halle Berry?  Trust me, they’re not in the same class with all the girls I’ve loved before.  If these are the heartthrobs of today’s young boys, it’s no wonder they die their hair orange, wear earrings, listen to rap, and play violent video games hours on end.

So here’s to the Golden Age of Film and the Golden Age of America.  Sorry if you weren’t around to catch it all.  You would have had to have been there to appreciate it.

And here’s to my first childhood sweetheart.  It was a long and painful road that you took to get home, but you finally made it.  May you rest in peace, Liz … and, by the way, thanks for the memories.

You have permission to reprint this article so long as you place the following wording at the end of the article:

Copyright © 2011 Robert Ringer

ROBERT RINGER is the author of three #1 bestsellers and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times.

To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit: www.robertringer.com

When you’re in a seemingly impossible situation, one of the most important but least understood tools you can employ to turn things around is detachment. There are many things from which you can detach yourself, and one of the most important is the habit of judging people, actions, and circumstances as being right or wrong, good or bad.

As Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when you are constantly classifying, labeling, and evaluating, you “create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue.” The more internal bickering that takes place, the less time and room (in your mind) you have for constructive thinking.

Worry, irrelevant thoughts, and fears only add to this internal bickering. All of these are abstracts from which you should make a conscious effort to detach yourself. Even more important is the necessity to detach yourself from needing the approval of others. When you are attached to peer approval, you tend to make bad decisions.

Then there is the pain and discomfort of your present situation. The more you struggle against the unpleasant circumstances of the moment, the more time and energy you waste. It’s okay to want things to get better down the road, but don’t waste time and energy wishing things were different than they are right now.

Accepting your present situation means detaching yourself from the pain it is causing you. Philosophically, you should learn to accept pain as a normal part of life. Which means, paradoxically, that the best way to eliminate pain is to not try to eliminate it. The more you fight pain, the more it is likely to persist.

Above all, learn to detach yourself from specific results. Practice the art of being flexible. Understand that circumstances constantly change and that things rarely work out precisely as planned. The results you end up with may be much different from the results you were after, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be less satisfying. If you are too attached to a specific result, it shuts down your creativity.

Your mind-set should be: “I won’t die if things don’t work out as planned, so I’ll just step back and let the Cosmic Ether work things out.” As with peer approval, when you are too attached to a specific result, you have a tendency to force decisions, and forced decisions are most often bad decisions.

All this doesn’t mean you should permanently resign yourself to the circumstances of your currently bad situation. Nor does it mean that you should give up your desire or intention for a specific result. What you should give up is your attachment to that result. Or, as Chopra puts it, you should “accept the present and intend the future.”

When you become adept at detachment – from pain, from evaluating and classifying everything that crosses your path, from precise results – it gives you the time, energy, and mental clarity to focus on the single most important activity for overcoming an impossibly bad situation: exploiting opportunities.

What opportunities? The opportunities that are part and parcel of every “impossible” situation. Based on personal experience, I am convinced that the greatest opportunities lie in the eye of the storm – at the very center of your worst problems.

Use your will to detach yourself from your impossible situation and, instead, spend your time cultivating the opportunities it has brought into your life – keeping in mind that such opportunities may be heavily camouflaged.

Thus, achieving sainthood is not the motivation for becoming detached. The only sound motivation for becoming detached is rational self-interest – the realization that if you keep your mind as clear as possible, you will have more time and clarity to concentrate on exploiting new opportunities.

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Amidst all the insanity and meaningless chatter that overwhelms us each day, every so often the Conscious Universal Power Source cuts us a break and hooks us up to nature’s Sanity-Support System. We have little control over when the blessed intervention will take place, how often it will occur, or what its components may be.

In my book Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves, I describe one such experience I had on a beautiful sunny day in November, when I was still in my mid-twenties. I was driving on the Grand Central Parkway on my way to JFK International Airport, and my mind was exploding with a thousand and one thoughts about all aspects of my life.

Then, just as I began steering my car south onto the Van Wyke Expressway, my entire life seemed to freeze into sharp focus. It was as though I were being given the means to solve all my business and personal problems simultaneously. It was an impossible-to-describe feeling of total control.

Instead of having to exert the normal intense mental effort to sort out my thoughts, every item that was of importance to me at the time — perhaps forty or fifty in number — instantly became clearly fixed in my mind in such an orderly fashion that I felt almost omniscient.

It seemed as though a bright light had suddenly brought my thoughts out of the dark recesses of my subconscious mind and allowed me to consciously focus on all of them at one time. It was a feeling of immense power, joy, and inner ecstasy.

I live for Sanity-Support moments such as the one I just described, and only wish that I had the metaphysical powers (as in, high state of awareness) to bring them into my life more frequently. Still, I’ll take what’s given to me — and this past Sunday evening a lot was given.

My wife and I had been out for several hours in the humid 95-degree summer heat. When we finally arrived back home, I turned down the air conditioning, kicked back, and cooled off for an hour or so. As time passed, ominous storm clouds began moving into view.

For reasons I cannot explain, and contrary to my Felix Unger personality, we decided to go outside and stroll around on our veranda. There was a deliciously strong breeze blowing, which swept away all thoughts of such secular issues as politics, money, crime, and, above all, petty and banal matters.

And to top it off, coming from our outdoor speakers was a soothing voice from another time — Neil Sedaka. We’re talking Solitaire, King of Clowns, Love Will Keep Us Together … and more. Surely, Heaven has Neil Sedaka piped in.

But Neil Sedaka’s wasn’t the only music we could hear. He was just one part of a massive symphony that nature was presenting. There is a huge conglomeration of tall trees to the left and somewhat distant from our veranda, which creates a tranquil shield from the outside world. For what seemed like an eternity, the wind whipped those trees into a choreographed frenzy that brought with it a windy, rustling melody — a melody that seemed as though it were being guided by a master Conductor.

It immediately brought to mind the “melody of life” that the late Guy Murchie wrote so eloquently about. According to Murchie, as well as others whose understanding of such scientific issues is far beyond what my brain is capable of absorbing, the earth and every other “sphere” in the universe oscillate much like musical instruments. Supposedly, the two fundamental “notes” to which the earth’s body oscillates are one vibration every 53.1 minutes and the other every 54.7 minutes — but I’m not the guy to ask about it.

I do, however, know this: There was music and choreography going on in those trees, and it was happening all around us — as far as the eye could see. If my description is inadequate, it’s because the scene is impossible for me to accurately describe. Moments like this have to be experienced firsthand.

On and off, light raindrops fell, but my wife and I chose to remain outside and enjoy the moment. Like the other times in my life that nature hooked me up to her Sanity-Support System, I was immersed in metaphysical magic that I did not want to come to an end. I tell you, a man could solve all the world’s problems if he could exist in such a state of high awareness throughout his life. (Buddha? Confucius? Jesus? Baha’u’llah?)

Finally, the rain started coming down more heavily, and, reluctantly, we were forced to retreat inside — but we talked about those otherworldly moments we experienced on the veranda for quite some time. As with my “conscious of consciousness” experience in New York decades earlier, I will never forget that evening.

Undoubtedly, you’ve experienced similar moments in your own life … times when you felt only peace and tranquility … and, perhaps for a brief moment, a connection to all the knowledge of the universe. I hope so … but, if not, your time will come.

One bit of advice: When nature’s Sanity-Support System makes its appearance, seize the moment. Whatever else you may be doing at the time is not nearly as important. The secular nonsense can wait. Nature, on the other hand, will not. Nature is impatient when she is ready to connect you.

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The recent string of celebrity deaths reminds us of the fragility of life and makes us feel grateful to be alive. But don’t we always feel grateful to be alive? Or is that merely a platitude? Do we really need to keep reminding ourselves to appreciate what we have? Dr. Robert A. Emmons thinks so.

In his book Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, he discusses his study of what he calls the “gratitude condition.” He found that people who counted their blessings on a daily basis were 25 percent happier than those who did not, and they were more optimistic about the future.

Dr. Emmons’s research is evidence that we benefit when we recognize that there are things in our lives for which we can be thankful, regardless of the state of the economy, the state of the world, or our personal challenges. The problem is that we get so involved in our everyday routine that we take for granted the miracles around us.

Often, it takes a dire situation to wake us up. Twenty years ago, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My neurologist, who expected me to end up in a wheelchair, calls me a walking miracle and says that my most powerful weapon has been my attitude. I didn’t realize it, but what I’ve been doing is practicing a form of gratitude.

I believe in the mind-body connection, but am not so arrogant as to believe that my success to date with my multiple sclerosis has been accomplished by me alone. Call it a Higher Power, call it the Universe, call it Dumb Luck — I’ve had a partner, for sure.

One of the things that worked for me was visualization. I would picture myself walking through a wooded area and approaching a tree … touching the bark and having the sensation of hugging the tree and feeling its life force penetrating my body. My feet felt as if they had roots growing deep into the ground, absorbing the life-giving energy of the soil.

I replaced the errant condition of my body with the healing force of Mother Earth. I know it sounds melodramatic, but I am convinced that focusing on images like these had a healing effect not only on my body, but on my soul.

As time passed, I became conscious of being in a “gratitude condition.” Now, I am able to hike seven miles at a stretch. And being able to walk and climb is much more than a physical workout for me; it’s a spiritual awareness.

I feel the life force of the earth coming up through my legs as my muscles work the trail. I feel “a cosmic tunnel to the Universe” in the expanse of sky above me, and I sometimes find myself audibly chanting, “You’re doing it, you’re doing it, you’re doing it.” The chant is an affirmation of my gratitude that my body is working.

Some of my favorite ways to practice gratitude include:

Praying
No matter your religious belief — Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist — some form of prayer helps increase gratitude on a multitude of levels, from being thankful for the miracle of life to feeling like part of a greater community.

Focusing on your senses
Dedicate some time each day to consciously use the gift of your senses — your sense of touch, sight, taste, sound, and smell — to experience the world.

Having visual reminders
Just as you might write a note to remind yourself to buy milk at the grocery store, post visual expressions of gratitude on your computer desktop — whether they be inspirational quotations, photographs, or single words.

Having grateful thoughts
Like taking daily vitamins and brushing your teeth, make gratitude a habit — even a mantra.

Demonstrating gratefulness to others
Take the time to say “Thank you” — and really mean it. And always make it a point to compliment people — on their shoes, their smile, or any one of an endless number of small things you may appreciate about them. It’s amazing how this simple, genuine act affects people.

And there’s a big bonus in doing this: Their response will make you feel terrific as well. Saying or doing something that makes someone else’s day is remarkably self-gratifying.

Don’t get me wrong. I have bad days like everyone else — but my “gratitude condition” never fails to enrich my life.

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As the 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee and a frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, many of you already know that I believe in the libertarian ideals of dramatically lower spending and taxes, radically cutting the size, scope, and power of government, and increasing economic and personal freedoms for all citizens.

It is important to note that long-term studies now prove that this philosophy is not just good for your bank account, it’s good for your spirit, too. Amazingly, these studies prove that simply believing in the power of the individual versus that of government power makes all the difference in whether you are successful and satisfied with your life. What a bonus — a political philosophy that hands you the keys to a happier and more fulfilling life in addition to being morally sound.

Back in October 2008, newspapers across the country trumpeted the news that being a Republican automatically makes you happier than being a Democrat. However, happiness is not about one’s political party affiliation. It is a mindset.

What leads to happiness is freedom for the individual — free markets, the freedom to make choices, the freedom to keep your own money and decide what to do with it, and freedom from government interference in your life. None of us is guaranteed happiness the day we are born. As great as the United States is, no government can guarantee happiness. But what our Founding Fathers did guarantee was the freedom topursue our own happiness.

The study, released by the Pew Research Center, is called the “Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project.” The dramatic partisan “happiness gap” that Pew found in favor of Republicans has held steady for nearly four decades — since 1972, when surveys funded by the National Science Foundation first began to ask the happiness question.

Remarkably, it has remained consistent during both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. Republicans weren’t just happier under Reagan or Bush, they were also happier under Carter and Clinton. And no doubt they’ll be happier under Obama as well.

Republicans have been happier even when Democrats have dominated Congress, as well as during the darkest days of Watergate. The happiness gap actually widened in the Fall of 2008 – Republicans were far happier even as the economy tanked, the stock market collapsed, the credit markets froze, and it became obvious that Democrats would win the White House.

Is happiness really in the DNA of Republicans? Of course not, but it might be something that comes from their attitude toward life (and success). Happiness has nothing to do with party identification. It is about a belief system – a positive, conscious mindset that helps create health, wealth, success, and happiness.

The proof is that the same results hold true in places across the globe where the words “Republican” and “Democrat” don’t exist. In countries all over the world, those who identify themselves as conservatives are far happier than those who identify themselves as liberals. Again, it is a long-term pattern proven by scientific research.

Being a card-carrying Republican is certainly not what makes a person happy. Remember, I’m not a Republican. I’m a Libertarian. But Republicans, libertarians, and conservatives all share a common trait - belief in the individual. They believe in the principle that you, not the government, are in control of your own destiny.

The Pew study found that a key factor for happiness is whether you believe that success is determined by outside forces or by personal initiative. It is this core belief that changes lives. As the Washington Post put it, “The hypothesis: Those who think they can control their destinies are happier.” That’s a belief that fiscal conservatives and free market libertarians share the world over.

To me, the answer is simple and straightforward. If you believe that government can make your life better, and you are waiting around for the government to save you, you are destined to fail. If you are waiting for handouts, entitlements, bailouts, and stimulus checks to save you, you are destined to fail. Most important, if you are waiting for government to make your life better, you are destined to be disappointed, thereby creating own unhappiness — and even depression.

I have also found that fiscal conservatives don’t believe in luck playing a part in success. As a CEO and entrepreneur, I’ve experienced luck many times in the business world - and all of it has been bad! Yet I’ve remained an incredibly positive and happy person. Why? Because I believe that a talented, tenacious, and relentless entrepreneur can overcome even the longest odds and the toughest breaks.

Some people experience bad luck and choose to become bitter, negative, and blame others. They give up in the face of adversity. Then they turn to government to “save” them. They ask government to “level the playing field”

But individuals who believe they control their destiny react differently to bad luck. They become more committed, more tenacious, and more determined to succeed. Individuals with this kind of mindset don’t wait for opportunity.

They create opportunity. There is one more piece to this equation: Fiscal conservatives don’t resent the success of others. We don’t see prosperity as limited or finite. We see one person’s success as a sign that success is possible for all of us. We see the wealthy as role models to be emulated, not greedy or lucky people to be torn down, denigrated, or punished (with high tax rates).

We don’t want to redistribute the wealth of others. We just want to make more money ourselves by working harder and smarter. That kind of positive attitude makes us more hopeful about our own prospects for success (and, therefore, happier as well). We always see the glass as half full. One individual’s financial success doesn’t make us mad or jealous or resentful. It inspires us to change our circumstances and turn lemons into lemonade.

This all leads to one conclusion: Each individual’s success is determined by his or her attitude. The best way to guarantee happiness is to depend on yourself. No one else believes in you more than you believe in yourself. No one else can or will fight harder for you than you can or will fight for yourself.

Always think to yourself: If it is to be, it is up to me. No one will ever buy you a Mercedes or BMW but you. Those who sit around waiting for the government to improve their lives by creating equality and fairness will be waiting for a lifetime.

Without faith in your own talents to change your situation, life can be depressing. Successful and happy people the world over wait for nothing and no one. They take control and they take action.

Our greatness as a nation comes from the laws that our Founding Fathers bequeathed to the citizens in the form of the Constitution, which limits the power of government. It is this remarkable document that has unleashed such incredible creativity, productivity, prosperity, and achievement for 222 years.

Only our Founding Fathers, among all the other nations of the world, had the wisdom and foresight to include the words “the inalienable right to pursue happiness” in the founding documents. Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Washington, Adams – perhaps the most brilliant thinkers ever assembled – all recognized that free individuals had the inalienable right to pursue happiness, not the inalienable right to achieve it.

No government can guarantee you happiness. Nor can government provide it for you. Government can only guarantee you the freedom to pursue it.

Wayne Allyn Root is the author of the new book, The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts! which debuts in July at bookstores everywhere. It is now available for pre-sale at www.Amazon.com. For more information on Wayne, please visit www.ROOTforAmerica.com or www.ROOTofSuccess.com.

Comment on The Mindset Of Success below:

Finally, the trees are back —my trees. The trees have once again shut off the outside world from my veranda. Almost makes me feel a modern-day Thoreau. Of course, he couldn’t see a golf course in the distance.

The global cooling of winter seems to have treated my trees well. They appear prepared for the global warming of summer. As far as I can tell, only a few branches have failed to resuscitate their leaves, so I’m happy to report that I lost very few friends over the winter.

It was early evening, and the trees were in one of their talkative moods. You are aware that trees talk to you, are you not? Trust me, they do … and sometimes they do so in a whisper.

Trees tease and tantalize. They call out to you. And when a soft breeze blows, they can be downright sensuous. When my trees return every spring, it’s like reigniting an old love affair.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone can look at a tree and believe that the universe is nothing more than one big cosmological “accident.” I believe that such a thought reflects cognitive dissonance — i.e., a conflict between what we want to believe (that we are not subject to a Higher Power) and what we know, or at least suspect, to be the truth.

I think it’s more than just a bit interesting that trees have played such an important role in human spiritual history — the Persian Tree of Immortality … the Bodhi Tree (or Tree of Awakening) that shaded Buddha for forty-nine days as he achieved enlightenment … the Hebrew Tree of Knowledge that proved to be the downfall of Adam and Eve (and mankind?).

German poet, novelist, and Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse, who died in 1962, said:

[Trees] are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. …

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. …

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. …

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them.

But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

Would that I could have written that.

When I first wrote about my trees last July (see “The Melody of Life”), I described the wind whipping them into “a choreographed frenzy that brought with it a windy, rustling melody.” But the other night, the melody was produced by a gentle, cool breeze — soft and soothing instead of boisterous and exciting.

I thought about The History Channel’s series Life After People, and smiled. After all the wars have been fought, after all the governments have managed to enslave the human race, after all the technological progress has failed to solve the world’s problems or prove that there is no God, nature will have its way. As foreseen by Life After People, over time, the trees and their leafy relatives around the globe will swallow up every building, every bridge, every work of art … every trace of mankind.

And after a series of global warmings and global coolings, the earth will, like all other matter in the universe, end its life as a lonely ball of ice, spinning around a dying star. Then what? Perhaps, as some scientists have suggested, a quantum fluctuation will tear every atom in the universe apart, and everything — including the atoms of our own dusty remains — will reunite with the Conscious Universal Power Source.

But that’s another discussion for another time. Right now, there’s a tree not far from you. Take a good look at it — and be sure to listen carefully. Because if you listen, Hesse said, you will not want to be a tree. You will want only to be what you are.

_______________________________________

Liberty Education Interview Series

We’re happy to announce that Robert Ringer’s Liberty Education Interview Series has been officially launched. To listen to Robert’s recent interviews with Judge Andrew Napolitano, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, Stephen Moore, and other prominent pro-liberty advocates, please go to www.robertringer.com and click on the appropriate icon in the left navigation bar.

You can also go directly to http://www.robertringer.com/liberty-education-interview-series.html. In either event, please encourage your family, friends, and coworkers to listen to these interviews as well. Liberty needs all the support it can get right now.

And be sure to let us know what you think about the Liberty Education Interview Series thus far.

As you can imagine, I receive an incredible amount of e-mail from people who share their woes with me — particularly during these bad economic times. And while I can’t answer all of them, I do try to read each and every one.

I not only do it because I feel a moral obligation, but for selfish reasons as well. You would be amazed at the continuing education I receive by reading subscribers’ e-mails.

The following (partial) e-mail is a good example of what I am referring to. It is from West Indies subscriber “G.H.”

I am an avid fan. I am committed to change since I believe that, in spite of my talents, it is the shoot-from-the-hip, BS from the mouth that has me where I am today — over forty, no savings, and re-starting my business every Monday morning.

I have had far too many peaks and troughs since I started my business back in 1994. Sometimes the troughs were very deep and excruciatingly painful, only because I never stuck with anything long enough.

I was always leaving for a trip here, another opportunity there, getting sidetracked and sometimes opting to be like Bill [the NFL player in your Voice of Sanity article] and party instead of attending to what needed to be done.

Thank you for your thorough explanation of this thing called persistence. I am encouraged.

What struck me about G.H.’s e-mail was his willingness to bare his soul and be totally honest — not so much with me, but with himself. By doing so, I believe he has already taken the first step toward rising above his past mistakes and achieving the kind of success he clearly aspires to.

Admitting your mistakes may sound like a small thing, but it is not. On the contrary, you cannot navigate in the direction of success until you have gone through the catharsis of being honest with yourself about the real reasons for your failure.

I thought about G.H.’s e-mail the other day when I was strolling on the Mall in D.C., reflecting and contemplating. What caused his e-mail to come to mind was something I happened to read on the south wall of the World War II Memorial:

The Battle of Midway — June 4-7, 1942

They had no right to win. Yet they did, and in doing so they changed the course of a war … even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit — a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor — that lifts man from certain defeat to incredible victory.
— Walter Lord, Author

The moment I read these words, it became one of my favorite quotes. Walter Lord was a gifted author who wrote extensively about World War II and other historic events, such as the sinking of the Titanic. He had a long and productive career, passing away only recently (2002) at the age of eight-five.

What immediately struck me about this quote was Lord’s gift for sculpting words. As I have repeatedly stated, it is not a writer’s duty to come up with new thoughts. It is his duty is to craft ageless wisdom in ways that bring about epiphanies in the minds of his readers.

What a poetic and accurate way to describe the uniqueness of our species: “Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit — a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor — that lifts man from certain defeat to incredible victory.”

Is this not the story of virtually all great successes? G.H.’s tale of woe describes the predicament that much of the human race finds itself in today. Between the brutal realities of socialism combined with our own flaws, it is often difficult to pick ourselves up and trudge forward.

But the fact is that just about anyone with reasonable intelligence can do it, because the human spirit is comprised of skill, faith, and valor.

Skill. You are born with one or more unique skills, and it is your job to discover what those skills are.

Faith. Faith is belief, and belief is a choice. In Star Wars, when Yoda effortlessly frees the X-Wing from the bog, Luke Skywalker says, “I don’t believe it.” To which Yoda responds, “That is why you fail.” Jealous as I may be, I cannot improve on that strange little guy’s explanation of why faith is so crucial to success. Who am I to question a Jedi Master?

Valor. Valor is courage. Because you have free will, you can choose to be courageous. In other words, valor is a state of mind.

The bottom line is that the magical blend of skill, faith, and valor is always available to us. Unfortunately, we do not always utilize these powerful tools. But when we do, we indeed have the capacity to lift ourselves from certain defeat to incredible victory. We see this happening and read about it virtually every day of our lives.

So, if G.H.’s e-mail seems to describe your own situation to one extent or another, take heart. You can begin moving in the right direction today simply by utilizing those three remarkable human traits — skill, faith, and valor — that are already available to you.

_______________________________________

Liberty Education Interview Series

We’re happy to announce that Robert Ringer’s Liberty Education Interview Series has been officially launched. To listen to Robert’s recent interviews with Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, Stephen Moore, and other prominent pro-liberty advocates, please go to www.robertringer.com and click on the appropriate icon in the left navigation bar.

You can also go directly to http://www.robertringer.com/liberty-education-interview-series.html. In either event, please encourage your family, friends, and coworkers to listen to these interviews as well. Liberty needs all the support it can get right now.

And be sure to let us know what you think about the Liberty Education Interview Series thus far.

One of the many things I regret not having enough time for is watching good movies. I emphasize the word good to differentiate from most of the celluloid sewage that comes off the Hollywood production line — the 90+ percent of films whose only purpose seem to be to dull viewers’ minds with over-the-top violence, sex, profanity, and anti-Western propaganda.

Some movies are so good that you feel compelled to watch them again every ten years or so. The Graduate, one of the greatest “cult” films of all time, is one that falls into the once-every-ten-years category for me. And last weekend, I’m happy to say that I took the time to watch it. Once again, it did not disappoint.

True, the film centers around a perverse sexual relationship, but I’m not exactly a prude. I have no problem with looking past a bit of risqué activity if a movie has a good theme, good acting, and is well produced. And, above all, if it’s based on a great script. To be sure, The Graduate has all of these components.

I’ve written about the main idea of this film (the hypocrisy of “suburban life”) in two previous articles, “Here’s to You, Mrs. Robinson” and “Winking at Hypocrisy”, so I won’t dwell on it here. But there are other aspects of The Graduate that hit home with me on this particular viewing.

One is how intemperance, a lack of self-discipline, or simply bad judgment not only can destroy a person’s life, but the lives of those around him as well. In The Graduate, the infamous Mrs. Robinson (played by the late and beautiful Anne Bancroft) is the human equivalent of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, leading Dustin Hoffman’s character, Ben Braddock, into temptation.

Though trying hard not to succumb to her not-at-all-subtle overtures, Ben ultimately “bites the apple” and becomes embroiled in an affair. Unfortunately, not only are Mrs. Robinson and her husband best friends with Ben’s parents, her husband is also Mr. Braddock’s business partner.

It soon gets worse, as Ben falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine (played by another legendary beauty, Katharine Ross). When the truth finally comes out (Doesn’t it always?), the fallout is catastrophic for all concerned.

Mrs. Robinson’s marriage ends in divorce, and she is presumably left with her alcoholism, her chain-smoking, and her rather disturbed mind. And Elaine, with whom Ben had fallen madly in love, strikes him out of her life.

That brings to the fore what for me is the most important thing to take away from the movie: the remarkable tenacity of the antihero. When I use the word antihero, I am referring to people who tend to fumble and stumble their way through life, yet somehow manage to come out ahead … people who are bullied and taunted during their school years, yet somehow manage to come out ahead … people who are ignored or waved aside by others, yet somehow manage to come out ahead.

In The Graduate, Ben is the classic antihero — a true master of the art of fumbling and stumbling — a lost young man who seems perpetually at a loss for words. Still, against seemingly impossible odds, he finds a way to transform certain defeat into victory — and, in the process, uplift the hearts of three generations of viewers.

After Elaine finds out about Ben’s affair with her mother and shuts him out of her life, she, on the rebound, accepts the marriage proposal of a prim and proper suitor. A wedding date is set, and when Ben discovers that the marriage is about to take place, he puts aside his fumbling and stumbling and goes into a full-court press in an effort to find out when and where.

In one of the frantic calls he makes to find out where the wedding is to take place, he is told that the ceremony is probably already over. And to me, his reaction to hearing this dreaded news is one of the key lessons to take away from this film classic.

Instead of hanging his head in sorrow and driving back home, he jumps in his car and speeds toward the church where the wedding is in progress. But as he nears the church, in predictable antihero fashion, he runs out of gas!

So, what does our antihero do when he runs out of gas? He jumps out of his uncooperative vehicle and runs the remainder of the way. And when he finally arrives — you guessed it — the doors are locked!

Again, instead of walking away in despair, our antihero dashes up an outside stairway and, through a large glass window, looks down on the wedding ceremony — which is about to end with the traditional bride-bridegroom kiss.

Without a trace of fumbling or stumbling, he bangs on the glass, desperately shouting, “Elaine! Elaine!” And, as could happen in only in a Hollywood movie, Elaine looks up and cries out, “Ben!”

After a wild struggle with Elaine’s parents and other attendees, Ben and Elaine, hand in hand, run from the church (barricading the angry mob inside by jamming a large cross through the handles of the front doors), jump on a bus that just happens to be making a Hollywood stop at the corner, and the bus pulls away with another “lives happily ever after” ending in the can.

Even though it would be hard to imagine such an ending in real life, there is a message in all this that is certainly applicable to our hard world of reality — and in Part II of this article, we’ll take a close look at what that message is.

_______________________________________

Liberty Education Interview Series

We’re happy to announce that Robert Ringer’s Liberty Education Interview Series has been officially launched. To listen to Robert’s recent interviews with Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, Stephen Moore, and other prominent pro-liberty advocates, please go to www.robertringer.com and click on the appropriate icon in the left navigation bar.

You can also go directly to http://www.robertringer.com/liberty-education-interview-series.html. In either event, please encourage your family, friends, and coworkers to listen to these interviews as well. Liberty needs all the support it can get right now.

And be sure to let us know what you think about the Liberty Education Interview Series thus far.

At least once or twice a week, I meet someone, or see someone on television, who really inspires me. A few weeks ago, my inspiration came from a remarkable, upbeat young woman by the name of Cara Fortunato.

I met Cara at a high school where my son was playing in a tournament. After his game, he and I happened to pass the open door to her office and saw that she was watching a college game on television. We asked if she would mind if we joined her.

As the game progressed, we struck up a conversation with Cara about her life and career. She told us that she coached the girls’ basketball team for the middle school. At one point, she said, “I get so mad at the girls when they don’t follow my instructions, it drives me crazy.”

She went on to say, “So I get out on the floor with them and try to show them how I want them to move. But it gets frustrating, sometimes, because I have to drag this darn thing around with me.” At that point, she pulled up her right pant leg slightly and slapped a leg that was all metal.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much of this kind of thing I see, it always gets my attention. I asked her how she lost her leg, and she explained that it happened in a freak accident in California about five years ago.

I didn’t quite catch all the details, but the bottom line was that she was standing in the wrong place when a huge truck started rolling down a hill. She got caught between that truck and another one behind her, and the next thing she knew she was, as she described it, “rolling end over end downhill.”

When she got to the bottom of the hill, she thought she had escaped a near-fatal accident by the skin of her teeth, because she didn’t feel any pain. But when she checked herself out, she found that her right leg was missing. She later discovered that her leg was still lodged between the two trucks at the top of the hill.

Today, Cara displays an incredibly enthusiastic, high-energy personality, and clearly has a zest for life. As she put it, “Hey, sh– happens in life. When I wake up every morning, the first thing I think of is how lucky I am to be alive.”

We all hear and see these kinds of stories every day — which is good, because we need to continually be reminded of how lucky we are. With few exceptions, no matter how heavy your burdens, you can always find people who have much heavier crosses to bear. Socrates summed it up so well when he said, “If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own.”

Remember, a handicap is anything that makes achievement more difficult. Which means that everyone has handicaps — physical or otherwise. But just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Put another way, you don’t necessarily overcome your handicaps. That’s usually not possible. The object is to succeed in spite of your handicaps. And that is possible.

As just one example, a fellow by the name of Pete Grey played Major League Baseball back in the forties, albeit briefly, with one arm. In the minor leagues, he hit .333 one year, had five homeruns, tied a league record by stealing 68 bases, and was named the Southern Association’s most valuable player. Grey never got his arm back, but he succeeded in spite of it.

What are your handicaps? Lower-than-average IQ? Lack of education? A poverty stricken childhood? Do yourself a favor and make an honest list of your handicaps. Then, factor them into your planning … and make a commitment to succeed in spite of them.

As I said at the end of Part I of this article, Dr. Richard Restak, author of
The New Brain, maintains that a transformation of the brain can be achieved through sheer determination. Which begs the question: What if your brain isn’t wired to be determined?

This is where one’s experiences and environment come into play. For example, notwithstanding imbecilic arguments to the contrary, what you see and hear around you (such as in movies and on television) has a huge impact on how and what you think about all day long. When people – and children, in particular – see violence, “alternative lifestyles,” and explicit sex on the screen, or hear it by listening to rap-crap, the power of suggestion is planted with each repetition.

So-called intelligence is plastic, because scientific research has shown that experiences cause neuronal circuits to form and become more dense. Therefore, no matter what your age, the more you exercise your brain, the higher the density of the neurons in your frontal cortex – which makes you more “intelligent.” (“General intelligence” is believed to be directly related to the amount of gray matter in the frontal lobes of the brain.)

You and I have heard this repeatedly phrased in laymen’s terms as “Use it or lose it.” The less I write, the more difficult writing becomes. The more I write, the more easily the words fly off the keyboard. From whence comes the definition of a writer as: “A writer is someone who writes. Not now and then, but every day.” The substance of this philosophy is true whatever your profession may be.

The corollary to the “C” Student/”A” Student Theory might well be stated as:
In a majority of cases, a student with “A” intelligence who is unwilling to put forth a reasonable amount of effort is likely to achieve “C” results. To me, then, intelligence has more to do with how close you come to performing at your maximum capacity than it does with IQ.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that native intelligence is not nearly as important as such traits as social skills, the ability to persuade, and the willingness to take action. Our universities are overflowing with top-heavy frontal-cortex types who would surely be lost in the real world (i.e., the world beyond the ivy-covered gates guarding a weird mixture of academic pinheads and illiterate semi-pro athletes).

There’s no question that whoever came up with the term “personal best” definitely was on to something. It’s not what you have, but what you do with what you have. No matter how old you are, no matter what your financial condition may be, and no matter how many bad experiences you may have had in your past, it’s never too late to become “smarter.”

You should make a conscious and continuous effort to push your plastic brain to the limit – and beyond – until the day you breathe your last breath. The human brain is the most powerful collection of atoms on earth, but it requires constant exercise.

And what if you’re not motivated to exercise your brain? Good news: You possess an all-powerful trait known as “free will.” Because of free will, you can force yourself to take action, and that action will get the atoms in your plastic brain vibrating at ever-higher rates of speed. And that, in turn, will produce motivation. I guarantee it.

Cognitive science is the study of the brain mechanisms responsible for an individual’s thoughts, moods, decisions, and actions. Cognition refers to everything that takes place in an individual’s brain that helps him understand the world around him. To accomplish such an understanding involves such mental processes as concentration, memory, conceptualization, creativity, and emotions.

In his book The New Brain, Dr. Richard Restak uses the term “plasticity of the new brain” to refer to the capacity of the brain to transform itself. This is an incredibly exciting notion, and one that has endless positive ramifications.

Until recently, it was generally believed that the brain’s plasticity peaked out at young adulthood, if not earlier. But researchers now believe the brain is subject to transformation throughout life, which is why Restak appropriately refers to it as a “lifetime work in progress.”

Now that I’ve become a born-again behavioral modificationist, this makes perfect sense to me. When I was a Freudian laymanologist, I assumed that genetics and childhood experiences set everything in stone. It wasn’t until the headmaster at my son’s school told me that he had based his entire career on his belief in behavioral modification that I allowed myself to consider its merits.

That, in turn, led to my reading Reality Therapy, which I wrote about in a previous two-part article. The essence of that book is that no matter what happened to you in your childhood, no amount of rehashing the past can ever change it. On the other hand, by focusing on being a responsible adult today, you can change the way you feel about yourself, and about life, in the present.

Thus, whether you want to learn a foreign language, how to play tennis, or the techniques for writing good ad copy, you first have to make changes in your brain. And the key to making such changes is repetition, which I have written about many times in the past.

Repetition makes repeated impressions on your brain, but there’s a catch: If the repetitions are wrong (e.g., swinging a golf club incorrectly), you are not going to excel at the skill you have targeted. From whence comes the worn-out but true observation that only an insane person would continue to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect to achieve different results.

Which brings yet another question to the fore: If you continue to get negative results, should you invoke persistence … or is it more sane just to give up and move on to something else? The answer is that you definitely should be persistent, but, based on what you have learned through your experiences, you should try a different methodology.

Restak’s main point is that regardless of how much of success is due to genetics and how much is due to practice, the level of success one achieves is based on the plasticity of the brain. My take on this can be summed up in what I call the “C” Student/”A” Student Theory, which something that seems self-evident to me: In a majority of cases, a student with “C” intelligence who is willing to put forth the required effort can achieve “A” results.

I know this from firsthand experience, because I went from a 0.8 average in college to a 4.0 after a stint in the army. My military experience was so unpleasant that it made an indelible impression on my brain, which in turn caused me to become highly motivated to get good grades.

In other words, my brain’s plasticity made it possible for me to transform my view of the world. It was a cerebral transformation that opened my eyes to the reality that there is more to life than girls, booze, and playing poker. Once I redirected my energy from such trivial pursuits to studying every waking moment that I wasn’t in class, I was able to achieve “A’s” – even in such difficult subjects as physics and organic chemistry.

The plasticity of the brain is why you can accomplish great things without being born with superior intelligence or natural talent. And Dr. Restak maintains that a transformation of the brain can be achieved by sheer determination.

Fair enough, but that begs the question: What if your brain isn’t wired to be determined? We’ll take a look at the answer to that question in Part II of this article.

Worry, irrelevant thoughts, and fears only add to this internal bickering. All of these are abstracts from which you should make a conscious effort to detach yourself. Even more important is the necessity to detach yourself from needing the approval of others. When you are attached to peer approval, you tend to make bad decisions.

Then there is the pain and discomfort of your present situation. The more you struggle against the unpleasant circumstances of the moment, the more time and energy you waste. It’s okay to want things to get better down the road, but don’t waste time and energy wishing things were different than they are right now.

Accepting your present situation means detaching yourself from the pain it is causing you. Philosophically, you should learn to accept pain as a normal part of life. Which means, paradoxically, that the best way to eliminate pain is to not try to eliminate it. The more you fight pain, the more it is likely to persist.

Above all, learn to detach yourself from specific results. Practice the art of being flexible. Understand that circumstances constantly change and that things rarely work out precisely as planned. The results you end up with may be much different from the results you were after, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be less satisfying. If you are too attached to a specific result, it shuts down your creativity.

Your mind-set should be: “I won’t die if things don’t work out as planned, so I’ll just step back and let the Cosmic Ether work things out.” As with peer approval, when you are too attached to a specific result, you have a tendency to force decisions, and forced decisions are most often bad decisions.

All this doesn’t mean you should permanently resign yourself to the circumstances of your currently bad situation. Nor does it mean that you should give up your desire or intention for a specific result. What you should give up is your attachment to that result. Or, as Chopra puts it, you should “accept the present and intend the future.”

When you become adept at detachment — from pain, from evaluating and classifying everything that crosses your path, from precise results — it gives you the time, energy, and mental clarity to focus on the single most important activity for overcoming an impossibly bad situation: exploiting opportunities.

What opportunities? The opportunities that are part and parcel of every “impossible” situation. Based on personal experience, I am convinced that the greatest opportunities lie in the eye of the storm — at the very center of your worst problems.

Use your will to detach yourself from your impossible situation and, instead, spend your time cultivating the opportunities it has brought into your life — keeping in mind that such opportunities may be heavily camouflaged.

Thus, achieving sainthood is not the motivation for becoming detached. The only sound motivation for becoming detached is rational self-interest — the realization that if you keep your mind as clear as possible, you will have more time and clarity to concentrate on exploiting new opportunities.

Option No. 1: If you had a great attitude concerning the dire straits you were in, you still may not have survived without a good deal of luck.

Option No. 2: If you harbored an attitude of total despair, you surely would have been doomed, even if you had been fairly lucky.

Option No. 3: But if you had a positive attitude coupled with good luck, you would have had a shot at surviving. This, I believe, is what Frankl was getting at when he said that choosing one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances is the last of the human freedoms.

In all likelihood, then, the impossible dream is, at least theoretically, not impossible at all. In my lifetime, I have experienced far too many impossible situations that mysteriously became possible.

Meeting my wife was impossible. (Too long of a story to go into here.) My son coming into this world — rather than dying at birth, as he almost certainly should have — was impossible.

For that matter, when I get up every morning and behold my little speck of the universe, it occurs to me that both the universe and my consciousness are complete impossibilities. Surely I am the most improbable collection of atoms in existence. If I am a product of “evolution,” what was the cause behind such an impossible consequence? Because, after all, I am nothing more than a consequence, am I not?

Whatever it is that arranged my atoms in such a way that I can reflect on my own existence, does it not seem reasonable that the same Whatever can make a brain tumor disappear? Or bring the perfect spouse into the loneliest of lives? Or cure a person with financial leprosy and guide him to great wealth?

I believe that the answer is yes. Luck, coincidence, and fate are interesting abstracts, but a more meaningful abstract is human will — the will to power, the will to money, the will to live … and so on.

And when it comes to transforming the impossible into the possible, I believe the fundamental human will is the will to connect. That’s because connecting with the Eternal Energy of the universe allows you to transcend secular rules.

When you are connected to Eternal Energy, your life is not at the mercy of luck or coincidences. Eternal Energy allows you to go beyond dreaming the impossible dream — and actually live it. Though we may never completely understand it, it appears to give the atoms of which you are comprised the magnetic ability to attract the things you need in order to transform the impossible dream into reality.

Which begs the question: How does one connect with Eternal Energy? Not an easy question to answer. In fact, it’s a question that has been around since time immemorial.

With the caveat that I do not possess any inside information on the subject, in one or more future articles I’ll share some of my thoughts with you on this all-important question. In the meantime, what are your thoughts?

So what, exactly, is an “impossible situation?” More specifically, what does “impossible” really mean? Is it impossible to make a mountain move simply by having faith? That’s quite a challenge. If anyone could do it, it would probably be that Star Wars guy, Yoda. But I don’t know of anyone outside of Hollywood who’s mastered such extraordinary mind power.

Is it impossible to get the man or woman of your dreams to love you if he/she is already in love with — and maybe married to — someone else? (Shades of Dudley Moore in the classic 1979 movie 10.) Not quite like moving a mountain, but perhaps a close second.

Terminal cancer? Miraculous healing is a surefire invitation to a heated debate. Many of us have known people who were told they had terminal cancer, yet survived and lived to enjoy many more healthy years. Have all of those cases been flukes?

All of which begs the question: When the seemingly impossible happens, is it God, luck, coincidence, or something else that is responsible? God can presumably do anything, but God also helps those who “help themselves” — meaning those who take action. So, the human ability to take conscious action is very much intertwined with God.

Sometimes we witness the impossible and refer to it as a coincidence. But I’m not sure there is such a thing as a coincidence. Coincidences might just be the attraction of one group of atoms to another. Suppose I haven’t spoken to you in a year, and I suddenly decide to call you. But before I can dial your number, the phone rings — and it’s you! That’s happened to me far too many times for it to be classified as a “coincidence.”

Which leads me to that great metaphysical abstraction we refer to as human will. The will to accomplish something — be it winning a sporting event or moving a mountain — manifests itself in something we call attitude. If I have the “right” attitude, I can will something to happen … i.e., I can literally think it into being.

Viktor Frankl, developer of logotherapy, was perhaps the most famous of all Holocaust survivors. He lost his mother, father, brother, and wife in Nazi concentration camps. Years later, as a world-famous psychiatrist, he wrote: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Okay, so Frankl had an amazing attitude under seemingly impossible circumstances. But wasn’t he lucky as well? Absolutely. I’m sure that Frankl would have been the first to admit that he was a very lucky man, but he also was convinced that he could not have survived Auschwitz and Dachau had he not focused on finding a meaning to life.

In Part II of this article, we’ll examine three options you would have had if you had found yourself in the same circumstances as Viktor Frankl in the 1940s.

Death is but an illusion. And not just for trees in the winter. When a human being dies, he, too, is recycled. Not one atom of his body is lost. The atoms are simply rearranged when the soul moves on. How are they rearranged? It’s not our job to figure that out. The Conscious Universal Power Source has it covered. As Deepak Chopra put it in his book Life After Death:

“A drop of water becomes vapor, which is invisible, yet vapor materializes into billowing clouds, and from clouds rain falls back to earth, forming river torrents and eventually merging into the sea. Has the drop of water died along the way? No, it undergoes a new expression at each stage. Likewise, the idea that I have a fixed body locked in space and time is a mirage. Any drop of water inside my body could have been ocean, cloud, river, or spring the day before. I remind myself of this fact when the bonds of daily life squeeze too tight.”

When Chopra says “the bonds of daily life squeeze too tight,” it sounds very much like he’s talking about the tiger that used to roam outside my gates. Perspective is a magic tool for easing the pressure of the bonds of daily life … and chasing that tiger away.

Which brings me back to my Ravel’s “Bolero” evening a few weeks ago. My thoughts drifted away from the movie 10, and I began thinking about the recently deceased Paul Newman and a scene from one of his most memorable films, Cool Hand Luke.

Newman’s character, Luke, had escaped from a prison chain gang earlier in the day, and a posse was closing in on him. He takes refuge in an old abandoned church and begins talking to God about what a hard case he has been all his life.

Finally, he gets down on his knees and asks God what he should do. Just then, his fellow escapee, Dragline (George Kennedy), bursts in the side door and frantically warns him that the police are outside. Whereupon Luke, displaying that classic Newman grin, looks up at the ceiling and says, “Is that your answer, Old Man? You’re a hard case too, ain’t you?”

I’ve thought about that scene many times over the years, because the truth is that none of us has a clue about what the “Old Man” has in store for us, and it seems to me that it takes a great deal of arrogance to claim otherwise.

I often think that the world we are so bogged down in is nothing more than a gigantic hoax that nature has played on us. I’m talking about the world we spend most of our time focusing on — the world of television pundits who spew the same old clichés at us day after day … politicians who offer to give us more of our neighbor’s wealth if we will just agree to give them power over our lives … multi-millionaire athletes who lead us to believe that their triumphs will somehow make our own lives more worthy and fulfilling … nonsense and illusions that must surely cause nature to smile at us condescendingly.

In my heart of hearts, I believe that what we normally think of as the real world isn’t real at all. It’s as though we’re all children acting out a play on a spherical stage spinning around in space.

But the trees … and everything else that we call “nature” … perhaps they know the answers to all the questions whirling around in our heads: How did we get here? Why are we here? Where are we going? The fact is that we just don’t know. Walt Whitman may have come up with an answer that transcends all others when he wrote, in his poem Miracles, “To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”

And speaking of miracles, the miracle of spring isn’t as far away as you might think. I love spring, because it invigorates the soul by reminding me of the great circle of life — that nothing ever really dies. If you, too, sometimes have a tiger outside your gate and you’d like to ease the bonds of daily life, I highly recommend that you start taking a closer look at the real world — the world that’s all around you – and spend less time thinking about the shallow, insane world that most of the human race only believes is real.

Throughout much of my life, I paid little attention to the miracles that surrounded me. I was too busy thinking about business and money … too busy being annoyed by annoying people. Nature and I were perfect strangers. The tiger was always there … relentlessly pacing back and forth outside my gate. I concentrated on him so much that I had no time to think about the real world – the world that matters.

Funny how life plays out. Who would have thought that some of my best friends would turn out to be trees? I know that people often say a dog is man’s best friend — and I like dogs … so long as someone else feeds them, walks them, and, well, does all the rest of the stuff that goes along with having a dog as your best friend. But what I like best about trees is that they take care of themselves … and, unlike dogs, they usually outlive you.

My favorite trees are the seventy-five or so that jut out from the back-left corner of my house at a 45-degree angle, like a perfectly drilled platoon. I visit my leafy pals — who shield me from the outside world — just about every day. In the slightest breeze, they whisper their secrets to me.

A few weeks ago, my trees were having a special evening. Their leaves were turning multi-shades of gold, brown, and reddish-purple. There was a bit of a chill in the air, and it was as though they were letting me know they were about to pack it in for the winter.

On this fine evening, Ravel’s “Bolero” felt right. I hadn’t played that CD for more than a year, but for some reason my hand pulled it off the shelf. As I watched my trees and listened to the music, I thought about the man who had always had a tiger outside his gate. Then I thought about my new best friends … whispering to me through their fluttering leaves … with Ravel’s “Bolero” capturing their message symphonically.

The magical music also brought to mind Dudley Moore in the classic film 10. Remember Dudley Moore, that funny little English guy with the club foot … obsessed with Bo Derek … and, his ultimate fantasy, ending up in bed with her in the posh Las Hadas Hotel in Manzanillo, Mexico … with Ravel’s “Bolero” playing triumphantly on the soundtrack? How in the world could I have possibly known that less than ten years later I would live in a villa right next door to that very hotel, and that my son would be born in Manzanillo?

Dudley Moore has been dead for more than six years. And Bo Derek, the twenty-three-year-old “10″ in the film is now fifty-two years old, a grown woman fending for herself … her outrageously handsome svengali of a husband, John Derek, having passed on a full decade ago. These wandering thoughts brought a nostalgic smile to my lips, yet, at the same time, made me feel sad about how relentlessly life goes on.

My eyes and thoughts shifted back to the trees. They say that when the days grow shorter, the change of color is nature’s way of telling them to begin preparing for their long winter’s sleep. With less and less water and sunlight for photosynthesis to occur, the fall colors, previously hidden by the leaves’ green chlorophyll, come to the fore and have the opportunity to show off their beauty.

Soon, I thought to myself, most of the trees will be bare and their appearance will once again be somber. Happily they are reborn every spring, live life to the fullest in the summer, enter the twilight of their lives in the fall … then, finally, they seemingly die. But not really. In truth, they merely hibernate. It’s more like recycling than death. Though the trees are dormant, life goes on.

In Part II of this article, I’ll explain why I believe this to be so.

Amidst all the insanity and meaningless chatter that overwhelms us each day, every so often the Conscious Universal Power Source cuts us a break and hooks us up to nature’s Sanity-Support System. We have little control over when the blessed intervention will take place, how often it will occur, or what its components may be.

In my bookAction! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves, I describe one such experience I had on a beautiful sunny day in November, when I was still in my mid-twenties. I was driving on the Grand Central Parkway on my way to JFK International Airport, and my mind was exploding with a thousand and one thoughts about all aspects of my life.

Then, just as I began steering my car south onto the Van Wyke Expressway, my entire life seemed to freeze into sharp focus. It was as though I were being given the means to solve all my business and personal problems simultaneously. It was an impossible-to-describe feeling of total control.

Instead of having to exert the normal intense mental effort to sort out my thoughts, every item that was of importance to me at the time — perhaps forty or fifty in number — instantly became clearly fixed in my mind in such an orderly fashion that I felt almost omniscient.

It seemed as though a bright light had suddenly brought my thoughts out of the dark recesses of my subconscious mind and allowed me to consciously focus on all of them at one time. It was a feeling of immense power, joy, and inner ecstasy.

I live for Sanity-Support moments such as the one I just described, and only wish that I had the metaphysical powers (as in, high state of awareness) to bring them into my life more frequently. Still, I’ll take what’s given to me — and this past Sunday evening a lot was given.

My wife and I had been out for several hours in the humid 95-degree summer heat. When we finally arrived back home, I turned down the air conditioning, kicked back, and cooled off for an hour or so. As time passed, ominous storm clouds began moving into view.

For reasons I cannot explain, and contrary to my Felix Unger personality, we decided to go outside and stroll around on our veranda. There was a deliciously strong breeze blowing, which swept away all thoughts of such secular issues as politics, money, crime, and, above all, petty and banal matters.

And to top it off, coming from our outdoor speakers was a soothing voice from another time — Neil Sedaka. We’re talking Solitaire, King of Clowns, Love Will Keep Us Together … and more. Surely, Heaven has Neil Sedaka piped in.

But Neil Sedaka’s wasn’t the only music we could hear. He was just one part of a massive symphony that nature was presenting. There is a huge conglomeration of tall trees to the left and somewhat distant from our veranda, which creates a tranquil shield from the outside world. For what seemed like an eternity, the wind whipped those trees into a choreographed frenzy that brought with it a windy, rustling melody — a melody that seemed as though it were being guided by a master Conductor.

It immediately brought to mind the “melody of life” that the late Guy Murchie wrote so eloquently about. According to Murchie, as well as others whose understanding of such scientific issues is far beyond what my brain is capable of absorbing, the earth and every other “sphere” in the universe oscillate much like musical instruments. Supposedly, the two fundamental “notes” to which the earth’s body oscillates are one vibration every 53.1 minutes and the other every 54.7 minutes — but I’m not the guy to ask about it.

I do, however, know this: There was music and choreography going on in those trees, and it was happening all around us — as far as the eye could see. If my description is inadequate, it’s because the scene is impossible for me to accurately describe. Moments like this have to be experienced firsthand.

On and off, light raindrops fell, but my wife and I chose to remain outside and enjoy the moment. Like the other times in my life that nature hooked me up to her Sanity-Support System, I was immersed in metaphysical magic that I did not want to come to an end. I tell you, a man could solve all the world’s problems if he could exist in such a state of high awareness throughout his life. (Buddha? Confucius? Jesus? Baha’u’llah?)

Finally, the rain started coming down more heavily, and, reluctantly, we were forced to retreat inside — but we talked about those otherworldly moments we experienced on the veranda for quite some time. As with my “conscious of consciousness” experience in New York decades earlier, I will never forget the evening of July 20, 2008.

Undoubtedly, you’ve experienced similar moments in your own life … times when you felt only peace and tranquility … and, perhaps for a brief moment, a connection to all the knowledge of the universe. I hope so … but, if not, your time will come.

One bit of advice: When nature’s Sanity-Support System makes its appearance, seize the moment. Whatever else you may be doing at the time is not nearly as important. The secular nonsense can wait. Nature, on the other hand, will not. Nature is impatient when she is ready to connect you.

If you don’t make major strides toward achieving your goals from January through May, you’re going to be playing catch-up the remainder of the year.  Once June arrives and the kids are out of school, most people go into their summer swoon.  That’s when it seems as though everyone you need to talk to has left for Europe, Disneyworld, or a Caribbean cruise for two or three weeks.  It can be maddening for those who choose to work year round.

Much of my experience with this problem has been in the book-publishing world.  I’ve long said that if I’m reincarnated, I would like to come back as a high-level publishing executive.  These guys have lunch and dinner at the finest restaurants — five days a week — with agents, authors, and fellow publishers.  Many of the tabs for these “business” lunches and dinners are picked up by their companies.

Then there are the sales conferences two to four times a year in such work-conducive environments as Las Vegas, Hawaii, Fort Lauderdale, and Puerto Rico.  Throw in the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, and the package of travel perks is pretty appealing.

But summer is the biggest perk of all.  Beginning in early June, higher-ups at the major publishing houses like to work from their “weekend homes” in The Hamptons … between trips to Europe, of course.  Even rank-and-file book-publishing personnel often head for their Westchester County and Long Island homes at noon on Friday.

If you call someone at 12:01 p.m. on a Friday in June, July, or August, you’re probably too late.  Forget about it until Monday.  Unless, of course, the person you need to speak with decides to take another one of those long weekends that publishing executives are so addicted to — in which case he/she may not be back in the office until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Given all this, if you’re planning on doing business with a publisher, particularly one located in Manhattan, you’d be wise to make certain that it happens before the temperature hits 75 degrees in New York City.  Otherwise, get in line with everyone else and wait patiently for the return of The Hamptonians in the Fall.

But it’s not just the publishing business.  Regardless of what industry you’re in, if you don’t participate in the Window-of-Opportunity Sprint from the first workday in January 1 through May 31, for goodness sakes don’t make the mistake of joining others in a long summer’s nap.  Instead, use the period of June through August to plant seeds for the Fall.  It’s a great time to strategize, plan, and create new products.

Fall is the second-best time to do business, but it’s a window of opportunity that closes much more quickly than January-May.  It begins the day after Labor Day and comes to a gradual halt a few days before Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, when most people return to work the Monday after Thanksgiving, their colons are so bloated with overdoses of mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, and pumpkin pie that they aren’t in much of a mood to make decisions.

Instead, they focus on clever methods for stalling their way to the mid-December slowdown for Christmas shopping.  And once they reach that point, they can easily bluff their way through Christmas without having to do any meaningful work.  After that, of course, everything comes to a halt again until the first workday in January, so you can forget about doing serious business with anyone until then.  It’s amazing to me how many people live for the slowdown periods and fail to take advantage of the January-to-May and Labor Day-to-Thanksgiving windows of opportunity.

It’s worth repeating:  If you’re serious about making major strides in the face of a doomsday economy this year, I strongly advise that you get out of the starting gate fast on January 2.  Then, other than a slight pause for Easter, maintain your forward progress at a relentless pace and be prepared to turn on the afterburners around the first of May.

I’ve been operating this way for years, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that it pays huge dividends.  Having said this, it’s just about time to get down in the starting blocks and get ready for the big sprint.  First thing Monday morning:  on your mark … get set … go!

In the National Football League, the teams are so evenly matched that the main determinant in separating the winners from the losers is how well players and coaches handle adversity.  Responding positively to adversity is a sign of character, a term talked about incessantly by coaches, players, sportscasters, and fans alike.

The flip side of dealing effectively with adversity is how well players and coaches take advantage of opportunities.  The great teams throughout history have had a knack for converting opponents’ mistakes into scores, usually touchdowns.

But, most important of all, great teams play to win, while also-rans generally play not to lose.  You can almost feel the fear of a team that doesn’t really believe it can win in the clutch — when it has the lead and the clock is winding down.

The great coaches and quarterbacks throughout history have defied conventional wisdom, just as the most successful businesspeople defy conventional wisdom in the business world.  Those who go against the grain of conventional wisdom demonstrate that they are playing to win rather than not to lose.

The legendary Johnny Unitas, thought by many to be the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL, once said that he didn’t believe in the conventional wisdom that you have to establish the run in order to open up the passing game.  He believed you should establish the passing game first, which, in turn, opens up the running game.  Such a bold, aggressive approach to football is enough to cause a conservative coach to develop shingles.

As I said, football is a microcosm of life.  If you approach the game of business — or the bigger game of life — with the mind-set of just trying not to lose, you probably are going to lose.  But if you play to win, the odds of your winning are greatly improved.  You may not win every time out, but your track record will be much better than if you simply play not to lose.

What happens if you take a bold approach to life and still end up losing?  You get hurt, of course.  But, hey … that’s life.  If there were no risk involved, everyone would be bold.  When you think big and bold, you’re telling the world that you believe in yourself so much that you’re not afraid to take risks.

Fortunately, when you lose, there’s a marvelous antidote that’s been around for thousands of years:  Simply pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and start over again.  It’s true in sports; it’s true in business; and it’s true in every aspect of life.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, put it well when he said, “Winners are not afraid of losing.  But losers are.  Failure is part of the process of success.  People who avoid failure also avoid success.”

The irony is that the more you play not to lose, the better your chances of losing.  That’s because playing not to lose — timidity — puts you on the defensive.  Playing not to lose is not much different than playing to lose.

I recall seeing film producer David Brown on a talk show many years ago, after he had produced some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters with partner Richard Zanuck.  These included such films as The Sting, Jaws, Cocoon, The Verdict, Driving Miss Daisy, and The Sugarland Express.

But life wasn’t always so good for Brown.  He explained to the audience that he had been fired from his job at one of the studios when he was in his fifties, which left him at the bottom financially.

So what did he do?  The day he was fired, he went home and put on his finest suit, neatly placed an expensive silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, then dined at one of Hollywood’s power restaurants — with a beautiful woman, of course.

Brown’s point was to emphasize how important it is to be bold and take the offensive when you’re down.  At the time of this particular television interview, he was 75 years old and had already begun three new careers — including producing his first Broadway play.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that playing to win is the path to greatness, not love.  On the contrary, being proactive and taking risks is guaranteed to make a lot of people dislike you.  But, as the saying goes, if you want to be loved, get a dog.     

Yet, notwithstanding the disparity in numbers, Christians and Jews are forever joined at the spiritual hip as a result of their commonality.  Jesus Christ was born a Jew, practiced and preached Orthodox Judaism throughout his life, and died a Jew.  Further, Christians throughout history have always believed in the Old Testament (i.e., the Jewish Bible).

Is it any wonder that we refer to our way of life as being founded on the “Judeo-Christian ethic?”  For that matter, all atheists I have known base their lives on the Judeo-Christian ethic as well, though they may refrain from using the actual term.

Geraldo Rivera recently had two guests on his show, Rev. Monsignor Tom Hartman and Rabbi Marc Gellman.  The discussion was about the hubbub and bickering over manger scenes in public, Christmas carols, and, indeed, any references to the words “Christmas Holiday.”

Early in the show, Geraldo (who has a Catholic father and Jewish mother) made reference to the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and asked Rabbi Gellman if he saw anything wrong with such a public display of Christmas.  To my pleasant surprise, the rabbi responded, “Nothing is wrong with it.  It’s gotten crazy.”

He went on to say, “Every attempt to put a religious meaning back into the holiday — like manger scenes — should be applauded and not opposed.”  This was a Jewish cleric talking!

Later in the interview, Geraldo asked Rabbi Gellman, “What should Jewish parents tell their kids about Christmas?”  Without hesitation, Rabbi Gellman replied, “I think they should tell them that it’s a gloriously wonderful holiday of our neighbors, and that we should rejoice just as we hope they rejoice in our holidays.”

The rabbi concluded his remarks by saying, “I think the truth is that we are just separated from each other far too much, and that if we understood the pain and embarrassment that this causes to our neighbors — for no good reason — that we would, those of us who are not Christians, relent.”

But the main focus of Rabbi Gellman’s and Monsignor Hartman’s remarks was not so much on our diversity, but on what we have in common.  And when it comes to our neighbors wanting to celebrate their particular beliefs, we would all do well to follow the wisdom of the old adage “Live and let live.”

My compliments to Rabbi Gellman and Monsignor Hartman for their rational views and willingness to speak out and reach out to everyone.  There’s nothing quite as refreshing as voices of sanity and goodwill in a world saturated with insanity and malevolence.

I believe we should use this exhilarating time of the year to ignore the all-too-familiar mischief makers we see on television every night, who labor so hard to fan the flames of diversity.  Instead, we should celebrate our commonality.  Above all, regardless of one’s spiritual beliefs, it’s a time when we should focus on letting family, friends, and business acquaintances know that we care about them.

So, political correctness be damned, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and the best of Holiday Seasons.  I’m confident that all people of goodwill — whether Christian, Jew, atheist, or other — can clearly understand the intent of my good wishes without getting bogged down in semantics.

Usually when I take my son to a sporting event, I don’t care all that much who wins.  Being genetically programmed to be a social observer, I just enjoy the festive atmosphere and overall experience of the occasion.

For example, I never fail to be fascinated by such intellectually stimulating sights as boisterous, bare-chested fans with painted faces and purple hair. Or jerseys that display such highbrow prose as, “If you ain’t a Redskins fan, you ain’t sh–.”  I think Freud would have been ecstatic to have the pick of the litter at a 21st-century American sporting event.

But something happened at the OSU-Michigan game that was different. When the final gun sounded — with OSU on top — jubilant Buckeye fans rushed onto the field to celebrate.  It was a mob scene.  No violence — just pure, uninhibited joy.  After about ten minutes, it appeared that not one of the 105,000 fans in attendance had left the stadium.

Then, the unthinkable happened.  My son, who had remarked several times about how “neat” it was that thousands of fans were rushing onto the field to celebrate, asked me if we could go down and join them in their joyous antics.

I didn’t take him seriously, of course.  He knows me far too well to believe I would ever do anything so rash as storm a football field with a bunch of kids. I have a major aversion to looking like an ass in front of large crowds of people — especially if the crowd is composed mostly of college students.  So my answer was “no” … no” … and “no” again.

Unfortunately, my son has Ringer genes.  So he asked again … and again . . . and again.  Finally, he said the magic words, “C’mon, dad.  Be daring. We’ll remember it the rest of our lives.”  Such shameless, guilt-frosted words have a tendency to set off one’s Parental Guilt Button, which causes emotions to drown out logic and rational thought.

It’s all a blur to me now, but as near as I can figure, I must have gone temporarily insane.  The last words I remember saying were, “What the heck. Let’s do it.”  The next thing I knew, I was bolting over 38 rows of seats to get to the edge of the field.

Once there, I found myself staring at a seven-foot drop over a cement wall. I gasped as my son jumped over the two-foot high railing and landed at the bottom of the wall.  All I needed now was a crane and I could join him.

No crane in sight.  Instead, I had to rely on impulse.  Feeling like a Marine pursuing insurgents in Kandahar, I climbed over the railing and made the plunge.  Alert the media:  I landed in one piece and was alive!

For a half-hour or so, my son and I roamed the field.  Like a psychedelic movie, college kids were swarming in every direction.  What was surreal about the whole thing was that I felt as though I had seen every one of their faces before.

Why?  Because they were the same kids who had swarmed the field 40 years earlier after another Ohio State victory over the evil empire from the north. The only difference then was that I was the son and my dad was me.  I felt as though I were in a time warp!

As my son reached down and pulled up a clod of grass for a souvenir, my mind began to drift back to a more innocent time … hanging out at the Town House Drive-In with the guys … playing touch football in the street … slow dancing that would have today’s MTV-bred kids perplexed and snickering.

In those days, my pals and I were — to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities — masters of the universe.  Now, in this chaotic, back-to-the-future atmosphere, I could almost feel that naive sense of teenage immortality once again, that innocent self-delusion that rapidly melts away when a young person comes face to face with the scorching realities of the adult world.

My son, meanwhile, was euphoric.  I fought the urge to even consider the possibility that I might actually be enjoying the madness of the crowd, but I was overtaken by every parent’s greatest weakness:  seeing his child genuinely happy.

Now that I’m safely back in the new millennium, I’m really glad I let it all hang out and took that trip in the Ohio Stadium Time Capsule.  I do, however, feel compelled to leave you with one important piece of advice:  Be careful about allowing your child to set off your Parental Guilt Button.  I can tell you from firsthand experience that a seven-foot wall is a pretty long drop.

An extreme example of the latter would be the infamous Iran-hostage “crisis” that ended after 444 days on January 20, 1981.  With Kim Jong Il’s best friend, Jimmy Carter, spending more than a year trying to remove his thumb from his left nostril, Iran’s version of Crazy Guggenheim — Ayatollah Khomeini — had things pretty much his way.

But once Ronald Reagan was elected president, Kraze Khomeini started envisioning a nuclear cloud over Iran for the next 400 years.  Which in turn motivated him to come to his senses and release the hostages.  Like every other civilized person, I was happy for both the hostages and their families.

Nevertheless, when the media started portraying them as heroes and New York held a ticker-tape parade for them, I was baffled.  You happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you’re hailed as a hero?  I think a little perspective is called for.  Heroes are people who accomplish extraordinary feats under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, such as the firefighters who marched into the World Trade Center towers in an attempt to save lives while everyone else was scurrying to get out.

When I think about genuine heroes, two names that come quickly to mind are Mattie Stepanek, a courageous thirteen-year-old boy who succumbed after a long battle with muscular dystrophy, and Christopher Reeve, who died as a result of complications from an infection caused by a bedsore.

At the age of ten, Stepanek wrote Heartsongs, a poetry book that became a New York Times #1 bestseller.  He followed that remarkable feat with four more poetry books, two of which also became New York Times bestsellers.  Mattie was a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and Larry King Live.  His messages were always upbeat, positive, and inspiring.  Few adults have ever spoken with more wisdom and deep insight into life than Mattie.

Reeve, who became a quadriplegic after a May 1995 horse-riding accident, was beyond amazing.  While his difficulty in breathing was enough to make a strong person grimace when watching him on television, Reeve found the time, energy, and determination not only to continue acting, but also to direct a film, take an active role in fighting for stem-cell research, testify before Congress, and appear on virtually every major television talk show.

Other than recognizing them as true heroes, what else can we learn from the lives of these two giants of courage?

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. 

It seems somewhat ironic that the joint subjects of this article are a scrawny 13-year-old kid and Superman.  After a lifetime of observation, it’s become clear to me that size, physical strength, skin color, gender, and ethnicity, among other things, are of little significance compared to a will to succeed.

It’s wise to ignore vote-hungry politicians, self-anointed crusade leaders, and other social charlatans who encourage the deployment of victimization excuses.  Racism, “glass ceilings,” and a prejudice against such factors as age and physical disabilities are not so much anachronistic as irrelevant.

If people want to be racist in their attitudes, that’s their business.  You owe it to yourself to focus on doing what you have to do to succeed.  If an employer wants to shortchange himself by limiting the advancement of females, that’s his business.

Never lower yourself to fight for the right to be where you aren’t welcome.  Instead, gravitate toward people and companies who focus on results.  Think as an individualist, and don’t allow yourself to be swept up in the hysteria of group complaints.  It is your mind-set and your willingness to take action that will determine your success.

Though human beings, through the gift of free will coupled with action, are able to exercise a great deal of control over their destinies, the inevitable will always be one of man’s greatest nemeses.

The National Safety Council says that a fatal accident occurs every five minutes in the United States, and a disabling injury occurs every two seconds.  There is no question that we have the capacity to stack the odds in our favor when it comes to leading longer, healthier lives.  Yet, in a head-to-head battle, we are no match for the inevitable.  This, however, does not mean that a person should become a fatalist and stop trying.  That would be irrational on its face.

What it does mean is that you should always keep in mind that there’s an offsetting positive to every negative, and the offsetting positive to the inevitable is that it teaches the wise person humility.  Do everything possible to stack the odds in your favor, work hard at success in all areas of your life, but make certain you don’t become so enamored with yourself that you start believing you’re omnipotent, immortal, or both.

Remember, you’re always just one bad break away from becoming a quadriplegic, incurring a terminal disease, or suffering a fatal accident.

Relativity

It may sound trite, but you really should be grateful when you wake up every morning, especially if you have been blessed with good health.

Given that a handicap is defined as anything that makes achievement more difficult, each of us is burdened with many handicaps.  Not necessarily physical handicaps, but handicaps just the same.  Broken marriages, financial problems, lack of a track record — the list of factors that can make achievement more difficult is infinite.

Brooding over a handicap, whatever it may be, is a surefire way to increase its negative impact on your life.  You brood, you lose.  Whenever you feel as though the temptation to feel sorry for yourself is taking control of your emotions, refocus your thoughts on genuine heroes like Mattie Stepanek and Christopher Reeve.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  Heroes are great teachers.  They lead by example.  All that is required is that you be ready to learn.