It is written

Cheering each other on

If You Think You’re Happy…

Friday, February 26th, 2010

I was going through some of my books on my shelf yesterday, like I do photo albums every now and then. I’d pick one up, flip through a few pages, stop to read a paragraph, and look for pages I’d marked, lines I’d underlined.

From Paris, with love

One was We’ll To the Woods No More by Eduard Dujardin, which was written in Paris in the 1880’s and translated into English. I bought it in a bookstore two decades ago and have held onto ever since. When I opened it, this underlined sentence caught my eye:

He thinks he is happy, therefore he is happy.

It’s something I’ve questioned over the years: What is happiness, really? Is it a state of mind? Is it something that circumstances and friends can weigh in on?

People have even asked me throughout my life, ”Are you really always this happy?” It made me wonder if I was fooling myself. Maybe I thought I was happy…but really wasn’t. Maybe if I was more realistic and faced the facts of life or the seriousness of a situation, I’d come back down to earth and realize that I wasn’t so happy after all.

Well, phooey to that. I know the answer now. Happiness is a state of mind. It’s relative. It’s all in how you look at your life and see your circumstances. Like the character in We’ll To the Woods No More, if you think you’re happy, therefore you are happy.

The same goes for dating: If you think you’re in a good place in your dating life, therefore you are in a good place. If you think you’re close to meeting the love of your life and ready to be in that relationship, therefore you are. Life isn’t a list of moments we compute and spit out our state of being. Life is what we make it, how we feel about it and how we choose to face it. So why not choose the route that makes you feel good about yourself? Like my post on Get Un-Lost: Nothing Is Irreversible, you have the power to change what you’re thinking.

It’s not always easy, I know that. Maybe you had a bad day. A bad phone call. A terribly painful loss. An breakup with someone you cared about. Will that derail your single experience? Will that affect your future relationships? Well…that’s up to you. You haven’t rolled the dice and picked up a Monopoly card that tells you what square to place your silver boot on. This is your call. If you think your life will improve on account of what’s happened to you, therefore it will.

Choose your state of mind. Today, even for an hour, decide to be happy with who you are and where you are in your life. Think you are happy and therefore you are happy.

You might also like:
Take it From a Yoga Guru
Daters: Here’s What You’re Doing “Wrong”
You’re Mad-About-Able

Big love,

Posted in Being yourself, In the big wild world, It is written | No Comments »

4 Reasons To Read Meeting Your Half-Orange!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Today’s the day! Yippee ki yay, MYHO-ers!

It’s the official launch of my book Meeting Your Half-Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Find Your Perfect Match!

The book is on shelves TODAY!

And I wanted to make sure you knew the true extent of how much the book can help your love and dating life—and that of your single friends, coworkers and cousins. Because it’s not merely a re-printing of the positive thoughts I find in life, in books, in music, and in reality television like High School Reunion. (Oh, the quality I pass on…)

The book is an actual step-by-step guide to using your optimism to draw the right person straight to you. If you really want to rocket yourself to the relationship of your dreams, the book will do it. Here’s why:

1. You’ll learn the science behind the optimism. Thinking positively feels great, but every once in a while, you can get to the place I once reached: “What the hell’s the point? I’ve been cheery about this whole dating thing and it’s gotten me nothing. I give up!” Well, thanks to the recent scientific discovery of neuroplasticity, we now know that our thoughts have a mind-changing effect on the neural activity and structure of our emotional brains. And once you understand how this works, you won’t think “What’s the point?” again. Instead, you’ll be driven to change your thoughts to change your dating life forever.

2. You’ll learn to fight your “I’m still single!” panic. You know that fear you have that you’re the only one who’s going to end up alone? You can kick that fear’s butt out the door for good and take charge of your hope and determination for love again. The book will tell you why and how.

3. You’ll get specific instructions on how to “choose your orange seed.” You want an awesomely wonderful relationship. But are you asking for it in the right way? In the book, I’ll tell you how you might be asking for your right relationship in the wrong way, and exactly how to ask for what you truly want and feel empowered to get it.

4. You’ll learn how to create the “orange buzz.” Feeling positive is one thing. But working up an emotionally charged orange buzz to “feed your seed”—that’s what’s going to turn you into a knock-‘em-dead relationship magnet. The orange buzz is the magic behind attracting your other half. When you learn how to create your orange buzz, you’ll literally become the relaxed, happy, glowing, confident person now that you want to feel in your dream relationship later. In fact, you’ll be so buzzing, your friends will ask, “What’s different about you?” Well, what’s different is that you’ll feel more amazing about yourself and your future relationship than you ever have before—and that’s exactly what’s going to naturally draw the right person straight to you.

Ready for your big relationship? Then pick up a copy from your local bookstore, or order the book from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com or Borders.com or Powells.com today.

You can even read some excerpts from Meeting Your Half-Orange on the book’s website to get you even more pumped.

Big love and here’s to your half-orange!

Tags: Meeting Your Half-Orange
Posted in It is written, Optimisms | 2 Comments »

Are You Indentured to the Future?

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I was cleaning out my office yesterday, which meant clearing out my bookshelves and all of that—cough, sneeze, gag—dust I didn’t seem to mind living with when I didn’t know it was there.

HughPrather And in trying to decide which books I’d have to part with to make room for some new ones, I started flipping through them, including one by a writer/poet named Hugh Prather, who wrote the bestselling Notes to Myself and the one I just came across, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me from, get this, 1972. Inside, I found this note in the book, which I had put a square around with a pencil marked a star next to it. It was just as good all this time later:

“Not opening a can of tuna because last night’s roast will spoil if I don’t eat it; not changing the thermostat because later it might get too hot; not pulling over the coffee table to eat on because I will have to put it back—I am surprised at how much I indenture myself to the future.”

It reminded me how much I indentured myself to the future when I was single, so I wanted to ask: Are you doing the same? Not traveling to New Orleans for a cheap weekend fare because you’ve wanted to go there with a boyfriend or girlfriend? Not buying a cute new bed frame from IKEA because you want to wait to re-do your bedroom until you have a mate to do it with? Not signing up for those theater season seats, because who knows who you’ll meet and run off with between now and the fall?

And what about the small moments, when there’s so much that I don’t do, for example: Not lighting a candle because I don’t want to waste it. Not opening a bottle of champagne because I’m waiting for a special occasion. Not hanging my coat on the train’s coat hook because I’m just going to have to put my coat back on later? Well, I’m working on all that and trying to live in these moments more now. Because what about our life today, this minute? What are we all doing for ourselves to be happy now?

Let’s take Hugh’s point and do the opposite: Let’s not be a slave to our future. Don’t wait to celebrate your life until you have a romantic partner to celebrate with. What do you want to do with your travel money, your bedroom budget, your passions, your taste buds and your energy now? If you’re going to be hit by a bus next week, tomorrow—or in thirty minutes, even—what might you do this minute to make your life more worth living? The future will come eventually, and so will the love of your life, but why blow all the wonderful little moments you have now waiting for it? Break the chains that tie you to the future and do what makes you happy today. I assure you: Your love life will be the better for it.

You might also like:
Walk a Mile In Your True Shoes
Gorge Yourself on Good Things

Big love,

Tags: Hugh Prather, live in the moment
Posted in Being yourself, In the big wild world, It is written, Optimisms | No Comments »

Wise Words from an Undone She

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

I read Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone about a dozen years ago, and decided to pick up my weathered little copy for a re-read this month. If you’ve never read it, please do. I mean, hey, even Oprah likes it. (It was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 1997).

undone2-1 It’s a very powerful, funny and touching story about Dolores Price, who overcame her emotional eating, obesity, abuse, difficult family issues and a bunch of bad relationships before finally coming into her own. Thiis read had me choking back tears again…well, after wiping the ones that ran down onto my neck.

And this time around, I found one subtle part in particular very inspiring, when Dolores was talking to her mother about her reluctance to attend college. As “Dolores” writes:

I’m going to college in three weeks,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Why maybe?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll probably hate it.”

“Oh, go anyway. I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love, you know?”

(more…)

Tags: dolores, Oprah, she's come undone
Posted in It is written, Optimisms | 2 Comments »

Man Advice from a 1943 Classic? You Bet.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I’m embarrassed it took me this long to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In fact, I’ll admit, after skimming the page cover one day in the bookstore years ago, I saw the “family growing up in 1939” bit and just wasn’t in a Depression-era kind of mood. I think I read Candace Bushnell’s Trading Up instead. (And, well, I loved that, too. Bushnell sure can weave a good story.)

In any case, I finally feasted on this wonderful book by Betty Smith, and it was absolutely delicious. I can’t recommend it enough, whatever “mood” you’re in. But I’d like to draw attention to the part of the book that contains some of the best man advice I’ve seen in a while…

“Francie felt sorry for Flossie. She never gave up hope no matter how many times she lost out with Frank. Flossie was always running after men and they were always running away from her. Francie’s Aunt Sissy ran after men, too. But somehow they ran to meet her halfway. The difference was that Flossie Gaddis was starved about men, and Sissy was healthily hungry about them. And what a difference that made.”

Don’t you just love that? Smith knew what she was talking about, and it’s great advice: Don’t feel starved for love. Feel healthily hungry.

Big love,