Lucky Me

I was thinking about St. Patrict's Day and the "luck of the Irish" We associate it with shamrocks, 4 leak clovers, pots of gold and, yet, the Irish have suffered famines, war, starvation and prejudice, Pat Moynihan once said "if your Irish you learn at an early age that the world will break your heart." Their humor and story telling gifts are testaments to their ability to "suffer in style." They personify the advice of mythologist, Joseph Campbell to "participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world."
Seeing the bright side of bad luck is one of the basic psychological traits lucky people possess according to Dr. Richard Wiseman, psychology chair at the University of Herfordshire in England. He wrote a book called “The Luck Factor” and believes that luck can be learned. He claims lucky people think and behave differently and have: the ability to maximize chance opportunities, to listen to "gut feelings," and to expect good fortune.

I’m a very lucky person! Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am. Once as I was driving on the freeway to the senior center a ladder flew through my windshield. How lucky I was that I wasn’t killed!

    Some years ago my oncologist told how lucky I was that they found my cancer early and I was strong and healthy so I could win that battle ( do healthy people have oncologists?) A few months later I awoke in the middle of the night to a burglar in my bedroom. He was already in my room by the time my old deaf dog alerted me (although he did bark at every policemen who later came to investigate.) I wasn’t hurt and the only thing taken was some cash. One of the officers told me how lucky I was that I wasn’t killed. I said, “I’ve had a run of good luck lately.”

          When I was visiting my mother in Florida we were confronted in her parking lot by two robbers. The one on my side had a gun and said “we just want your purses, if you scream I’ll shoot.” No sooner had he said that than my mother began to scream and hit the one on her side with her purse. Since I was the one following orders I debated whether to point out that she was the one screaming and he should shoot her. Once again I was reminded by the Fort Lauderdale sheriffs how lucky I was.

        Recently I told my brother that the huge tree in front of my house fell down in the last rain storm (I was lucky it fell toward the street and not on the house) he asked me if I had read the book “The Secret”. I haven’t but I knew the premise - our thoughts create our reality and we attract what we expect. The implication - I created this dark cloud over me like Joe Btfsplk in L’il Abner. I won’t take on this “new age guilt” I have enough of the regular kind. There’s a lot of us out here lately with those clouds.

That is one of the main reasons I believe so strongly in the power of support groups. Listening to another’s story enables you to see that you have not been singled out for special punishment. You are not a tragic hero but rather a part of the human comedy.

There’s a story in Jewish tradition that on Judgment Day there is a Tree of Sorrows and everyone can hang their troubles on a branch. Then you can walk around and decide whose troubles you’ll take in place of yours. As we walk around we think “oh, I couldn’t handle that,” “no, that’s too painful.” Eventually, we take back ours and walk away happy with our own troubles. How lucky we are!

Some belated New Year's thoughts

As we mark the passage of another year we take stock.  More and more, I heard  “boy I’m sure glad this year is over.”  We like the idea of fresh beginnings, new starts as if the “next problem isn’t already in the mail.”  I was born on New Year’s Eve and I used to think that the world held a party in my honor. My life has been a process of finding out that not only is it “not about me,” I’m not that special.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said the secret of his success was that at an early age he discovered he was not God. This year learn that you are not God.  Resign as general manager of the universe. I would be even more afraid if I thought I was responsible for the running the world - I thought I was serving God in an advisory capacity.

The good news is we don’t have to change; we have to figure out a way to be happy the way we are, where we are. I once counseled a widow in her 60's who was so unhappy because all the men she was interested in were interested in younger women and the older men were looking for a “nurse or a purse.” She was too old to find someone and, therefore, couldn’t be happy. I encouraged her to hold out and not be happy until she got younger. Of course, it sounds silly when I say it that way, yet, how many of us are unhappy about a something that we can’t change? A common denominator in all emotional pain is the need to change current reality.

What can we change? We can change the conversation we have with ourselves. I’ve often said to my clients that they wouldn’t have a friend in the world if they talked to others they way they talk to themselves.  Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy says we’re talented at upsetting ourselves -“we’re are talented screwballs who are anxious about being anxious and depressed about being depressed.”

Another source of pain is the past.  Linus says to Charlie Brown, “it’s wrong to be worrying about tomorrow we just need to focus on today.” Charlie says, “no, that’s giving up I’m still hoping yesterday will get better.”  We laugh when we hear that ,yet, I see many people who hold on to things from the past that cause unhappiness in the present.

All we have is this moment, the now. It doesn’t matter how many years we have left - we all have the same amount of time -right now and it’s how you spend your “nows” that will determine your happiness.  Don’t save something for a special occasion, every day is a special occasion; there are no ordinary moments.  According to Jewish tradition, one of the questions  you will be asked questions when you die is  “did you partake of all of life’s allowed pleasures?”  I’m working on it. I have Simple Pleasure Cards where I list my favorite sights, smells, sounds, tastes, things to touch. Just thinking of Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a Wonderful World”,for example, can add joy, gratitude, appreciation to my life.

Become an inverse paranoid and look for all the examples of the good things the world does for you. Focus on your blessings, accomplishments and gifts.What you give your attention to grows.  The worst thing would be to be happy and not know it. You don’t want to be like Colette who said “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wished I’d realized it sooner. Begin now!